Almost.....

So, each day brings something new and amazing from the Lil Dude. Michael has been shuffling around the furniture for quite a little while now, but he's been tentative to move forward...Until now!




We cannot believe that we are about to have a walker on our hands :)

I love how, when he's done...He is done! "I'm NOT your trained monkey!!!"

Ellie's 1st Birthday!

Happy Birthday to Ms. Ellie Skye!! She turned 1 on the 24th of July and Amy and Gary gave her the most precious 1st birthday party! Michael had a blast too, enjoying her company and toys, but not the cupcakes so much :)

Ellie got so many wonderful presents! From a walker/rider thingy to a learning purse, she was captivated by it all!

Michael apparently loved Ellie's bday gifts too...

Ellie's Aunt Tara made some magnificent cupcakes... little pink piggies! They were adorable and so tasty! Ellie kinda got into the cupcake but seemed to enjoy mamma and dadda licking the icing off her fingers more :)



So Michael was not all about the cupcake. We had an incident in daycare a few months back where he was given a cupcake that had blue icing. He had broke out in hives but we figured since Tara's little cakes were homemade, including the icing, lil man would be ok! Good thing we brought the Benadryl! Here are the results...


Overall, the party was a success! The little ones played together, both laughed at each other as well as cried :) They were super cute and you could tell they just had a blast!


Michael gave everyone kisses goodbye... even the sliding door :) That is our little man! He is one of a kind :)

We love and miss you all!

The countdown is on...

Little man is really 11 months old? Seriously? Michael has grown like crazy over the past month. As we continue to prep for his 1 year birthday party and deal with our crazy busy lives, we still just sit back and watch him as much as we can. It is truly amazing how quickly they grow. Here is an update on the little guy...

*We aren't sure of his exact stats right now. We took him to his PCP 2 weeks ago and he weighted in at 24 lbs 2 oz and was 28 1/4 in.

*Michael is pulling up on anything and everything. Us, his high chair, couch, ottoman, baby gate... whatever he can find.

*He is constantly walking too but is having to hold onto to something, ie furniture, toys, etc. It won't be long before he's walking without assistance. Oh boy...

*Little man has learned how to crawl... up the stairs!! Gates are now in place after a little accident :)

*Michael gives us kisses! On the forehead, nose, cheeks and lips :) He has learned to close his mouth and pucker but most of the time he gives us his nice, open-mouthed wet kisses!

*Food... where do we start! This little man decided a few weeks back that he would REFUSE all baby foods. Great... an entire cabinet of baby food... anyone in need of stage 2 and 3 foods? Anyways, we have had to alter his diet. He is all about egg yolks for bfast. He will have vienna sausages, salmon, mashed potatoes, saltine crackers and spaghetti for his other meals. We also give him the Gerber Graduate foods like puffs, biter biscuits, lil crunchies and the lil sides. As you can see, he still loves food :) Sippy... still in progress...

*Michael is able to carry on a conversation with us or the TV at length, with us having no idea what he is saying. Convo consists of entire paragraphs full of different consonant and vowel sounds as well as inflexion and emotion. When Michael decides he wants something, he says our name "mama" or "dada." When he does not get what wants, he will redirect his conversation to the other parent, saying their name over and over again... :)

*It's time for bed and... he no longer cries! We put him in the crib. We give him his puppy to snuggle with as well as his blankie and off to sleep he goes! YES! Bed time around 8:30... and up anywhere between 6:30 and 7:30 am. It's wonderful...

*Most important... he is healthy! We had do deal with that MRSA thing earlier this month but he is doing amazing.

We are currently in the process of birthday planning :) Hard to believe we have 1 month to go before he is 1!!!

Michael sends kisses to you all :)

TV anyone?

Our little man is not into TV all that much but there are 3 shows that will keep his attention... Jeopardy, Wheel of Fortune and... SHREK! Michael will watch Jeopardy and WOF every night from 7 to 8! We have learned that he also likes Shrek as it was on TV one afternoon and he was glued. Good thing we own it! It really only holds his attention for 10 minutes at a time as the little guy wants to crawl and practice walking every waking moment! Here are a few random shots we got of the little guy indulging in television!


Jeopardy...

Wheel of Fortune...

and Shrek!!!

Little Day Trips!

Michael has not been spending much time at home this summer. Between trips to Sarasota, St. Augustine and Jacksonville, he has also been able to visit me at work in Leesburg, attend Volleyball conditioning with Daddy at WPHS and spend a morning at Eckerd Academy in Brooksville(where mommy and daddy met!) Here are some snapshots from his little day trips (most taken with our cell phones).


He LOVES watching the girls practice!

Daddy and Michael after a morning of Vball conditioning.




We went down to E-How-Kee, now known as Eckerd Academy, for a morning to visit with some old friends of ours. Not many people remain but some of our favorites are still around, including Ms. Frankie and Ch. Dan! Daddy took these pictures... the famous boardwalk coming into "community" where all the groups met before meals. Lots of "huddles" took place here as well (my group one night until 2 am!)

Last but not least, Daddy as brought little man to visit me at work! YAY!!! My co-workers LOVE to visit with Michael. We went out to lunch with my supervisor and another co-worker and then spent some time around the office. He found a picture on my desk that fascinated him... Pic of him a few days old!

11 month blog to come along with Ellie's 1st birthday party!

St Augustine (and surprise trip to Jax)

Our little Rasdall family decided last summer that we needed a family vacation! We chose to rent a house on Crescent Beach, just a few miles south of St. Augustine. So off to St. Augustine we go! We checked in at 2 on July 4th, went to the house, unpacked, completed our Walmart run and then relaxed the remainder of the evening. We couldn't have asked for a better start to our vacation!

On Sunday, everyone spent some time at the beach. Mike, myself, Matt and Mandi decided to head into St. Augustine for the later part of the afternoon, enjoy some shopping and mojito's at Columbia Restaurant. The little man joined us as Mamaw, Papaw and the kids wanted to soak up more sun!
So before we left, I checked Michael's temp as he had been running low grade fevers (which we thought were due to teething). Michael also had a bite (or what we thought was a bite) on his arm that had gotten fairly infected (so we thought again). We were keeping an eye on it and had decided that if it worsened, we would take him to an urgent care on the 6th. Little man seemed to be feeling ok so we headed out. We got into town, stopped for a drink, walked around town and hit up some shops. As we decided to take our family picture (seen above), I noticed Michael is really warm... like really hot to the touch. We start to get really worried and give him more Tylenol, thinking this would help. Within an hour, he is still CRAZY hot! We get him home and took his temp... 103.7 and 103.9!!! Are you serious???? We immediately pack what we thought we would need for the evening and rush to the nearest ER.

Get to the ER... temp is now 104.3!! I'm thinking he is going to have seizure! They give him meds and antibiotics. The doctors look at the little guys arm and my waist and tell us we have MRSA. Of course, I'm crying and thinking I'm going to die. Poor Mike... he was AMAZING. He calmed me down, called my parents with updates and most of all, took such wonderful care of our little man who seemed so confused with everything going on. Michael was pretty critical so they ambulanced us to Wolfson Children's Hospital in Jacksonville where Michael would be admitted, placed on 36 hours of antibiotics and have his huge sore lanced.

While he was being taken care of, I not so happily made my way to the adult side of the hospital and got myself treated. I finished around 4:30 am, headed to Michael's room where the little man and Daddy were just settling down. We were all up until 6 am. Great start to the vacation, right?! Anyways, I won't bore you with more details. Basically, Michael was fantastic through it all! We were finally released on Tuesday night and made our way back to the beach house.

The rest of the vacation was a blast. Lots of time to spend at the beach. Unfortunately due to Michael and I having sores lanced, we weren't able to venture out until the last day of vacation but we enjoyed our little time at the beach. Mamaw, Papaw, Kaitlynn, Owen, Matt and Mandi were beach bums!!! They loved every minute! Daddy got to spend quite a bit of time outside too, using his little boogie board! Daddy also introduced the little man to the sand and salt water!

The entire family made trip into St. Augustine on Wednesday night. We enjoyed a wonderful dinner at Harry's and desert at Kilwins.

One of the highlights of the trip was getting to watch Michael interact with his cousins Kaitlynn and Owen. It is an understatement when I say he loved being around them. He was just constant smiles around those two, crawled and climbed all over them and both Kaitlynn and Owen were amazing with the little man!

We had such a great vaca that we have decided to plan another one for next summer... a week in the Colorado Mtns! Here are a few random photo's from the week! Enjoy!

Love and Miss you all!

Daddy's Day 2009

My wonderful Dada's Day actually began a couple of weeks prior to the actual day...Everyone knows how I am...If something is discussed like, say for example, possibly going to a ballgame or something...I am going to get on it, find a workable date and get tix. Kim knows me sooo well! She and Michael HAD to surprise me with an early Dada's gift to what will be Michael's first pro ballgame! Kim had already planned a great weekend in St. Pete that will encompass Dada's Day, our 2nd anniversary, and Michael's very first pro ballgame. We are heading down for 3 days the first week of August. What is really cool is that Michael's first game, just as mine was, will be a Royals game :) again, planned weeks ahead by Kim!

Dada's weekend began with all of the wonderful wedding activities for Ben and Andrea's wedding. Lot's of fun in Bradenton and Sarasota. We were childless Saturday evening and overnight as we enjoyed the reception and the official start to Father's Day on Lido Key...Yes, we were actually able to stay up past midnight. We just enjoyed a lazy Sunday as we hung out with Grandma and Grandpa and had a great brunch at one of my favorite Venice spots, The Crow's Nest, before heading on home. I loved my St Pete weekend package, "Daddy's Hugs" book to read to the Lil Dude as well as two super cute hand-decorated frames that will adorn my classroom come fall.

Pool playdate with Ellie

A few weeks ago, we met up with our neighborhood friends, The Lazdowski's, for a pool date. We have known them from when we first moved to Ocala in early 2007, as Amy got us our first apartment in Deerwood Villages! Amy and her husband had a little girl Ellie just 5 weeks before Michael was born. They live here in Fore Ranch and we have been able to get together quite a bit for dinners and afternoon playdates:) We decided to head to the pool on a Sunday to let the little ones swim!






The two got along great! Ellie loved Michael's floatie and Michael just loved watching Ellie in his floatie! He giggled non stop for several minutes, just admiring her :) It was a successful playdate! The older they get, the more they enjoy interacting with each other. We can't wait to celebrate Ellie's 1st birthday later this month!