two - twenty four months

happy birthday!  daxton is officially two years old!  what a wonderful two years it has been!  our precious boy is growing fast and its just amazing to watch him develop from a baby into a little boy!

at daxton's last birthday he wasn't even walking and now our boy just runs and jumps all over the place.  if we go outside he takes right off and runs as fast as he can.  he's hardly ever still.  he recently decided to become a dare devil and now he likes to spend his afternoon doing tumbles off of the couch (head first) onto the floor.  he does it slowly so he can control the fall, and then as soon as its complete he does it again - again - again!  dax loves to throw things.  he unfortunately doesn't know the difference between throwing a ball and throwing a toy truck, but we're working on that.

last year i wished that my baby would eat pho, and this year he did.  not just once (confirmed no fluke) - but on multiple occasions.  he's definitely not as adventurous as i had hoped, but he does eat more than macaroni and cheese.  right now he's still in love with spaghetti, yogurt, smoothies, clementines, popcorn, pizza, crackers, and veggies disguised as "fruit" - i still sneak pouches in with mixtures of veggies to get some nutrients in him. 

dax's favorite toys are choo choos, rockets, toy dishes, toy food, cars, trucks, along with light switches - on, off, on, off, on, off - you get the idea.  (that all goes back to the adventurous thing where he likes to climb on any chair that he can find to reach the switch.)  he likes to make noise - singing, babbling, talking, and banging anything he can find on the thing that makes the most racket.  he gets such joy out of making noise that we bought him a tambourine on his birthday.  hopefully he'll continue to make a joyful noise.  yesterday he strummed will's guitar for applause.  he would strum some notes and then peek around waiting for us to cheer and clap.  we continued on with this for about 20 minutes until mommy's throat was too sore to cheer.  he probably would have kept up the concert all night.

daxton is full of a loving spirit.  he loves all people and appreciates the interactions he gets from all people in line at the checkout.  he hams it up and makes sweet faces to get them to talk with him and then he'll give them the "sassy eyes" and lay his head across the handle of the shopping cart as if to act like he never solicited any of this attention.  he knows what he's doing.  he still gets us with his "awwwwe" as he leans in for a smooch and a hug.  he loves to greet daddy every afternoon with full on smiles and lots of hugs and attention.  he's totally a daddy's boy.

for daxton's birthday day we both took the day off.  when we heard daxton rousting on the monitor we dawned our party hats and headed into his room singing "happy birthday" while dancing.

daxton danced around his crib and bounced from one side to the other while we sang every rendition of the birthday song that we know.  after about 8 versions daxton reached for daddy to lift him into his arms.

don't mind husband's bed head - this is real life people.

we continued to dance and sing around the room until it was time to hand over the passie and get a diaper change.  daxton had a birthday breakfast with his typical yogurt and fruit along with a buttered biscuit.  (biscuits are his new found love.  he normally never likes bread, but i think this may call for a trip to the cracker barrel.)  after breakfast we opened some gifts that had been mailed.

aunt sheree and uncle arnold sent dax two thomas the train books.  he was in love with them and especially has a fondness for the one that is a tiny view finder.  he spent most of the day on saturday shining it on every surface.  today i showed him that you could even shine it on your shirt and he thought that was pretty amazing.  

after the presents were opened and the dust had settled we took him upstairs to unveil his tiny little kitchen set from mommy and daddy.  

we played with the kitchen for quite a while.  dax prepared us some food, tested out the faucet by washing some dishes, and opened and closed the stove and cabinet about a hundred times.  we think its going to be a winner.

after we all got cleaned up we headed down town for lunch and an afternoon at the marbles kids museum.  we took dax to get some pizza for lunch.  it took a little longer than he had hoped for, so he ate quite a few snacks while he waited - but he did enjoy the pizza when it finally arrived.

after the pizza we walked across the park to get to the museum.  dax loved being able to do a little running on his own without any hand holding.

daxton was getting a little fussy by the time we made it to the museum.  he's used to nap directly after lunch.  however, in order to be able to go to the museum - we had to go pre-nap.  we weren't sure what we were going to get, but it all worked out very well.

daxton checked out every exhibit in the museum.  he had particular fun at the basketball hoops, the trampoline, the kid's kitchen, the dance room, the pirate ship, and the piggy money bank.  he ran and played until he could play no more.  we enjoyed every second of watching him smile, learn, and explore.  when he was all tuckered out we carried him back to the car and he fell asleep on the way home.  

poor fella napped for four hours.  when he finally woke up he wasn't feeling so swell, but we knew he needed dinner so we'd planned to take him to a diner for a milk shake.  we thought that would make his throat feel better.

unfortunately he did not want to try the milk shake by straw or by spoon so he totally missed out.  however, he was very captivated by the dinner served in a truck.  although a dinner of french fries (he passed on the grilled cheese) is not very healthy, you only have a birthday once a year.  poor fella coughed all the way home and then got his meds and went straight back to bed.

we've got an appointment at an ENT on wednesday, so we're hoping they've got some suggestions for our poor fella who has chronic ear infections and a continual runny nose.  i suffered from similar issues (and still do somewhat) so i know its no fun to have reoccurring ear nose and throat problems.  we pray we'll figure out the cause of all of this (suspected multiple allergies) and get to work addressing the cause so he doesn't have to suffer like this any more.

we're so thankful for all that this past year has held for our little precious boy.  he's a bright light in our family and we still miss him while he naps and cannot wait until he wakes up.  he's fun, he's smart, he's kind, he's handsome - and we just thank God for every day he's in our lives.

23 months

twenty-three months.  how did we get here?  2 years old is looming and party planning is underway.  hard to believe that the time goes by so quickly, but people warned us about this.  i never imagined how right they were when they told us that these little ones grow up so fast.

me, great-granny, husband, and dax

daxton loved his recent trip to the beach.  we went with my mom's side of the family for a week to the outer banks.  while there we rested, relaxed, and got a little wild.  dax had great fun unwinding and spending a lot of time with his mommy, daddy, and relatives.  we took him to the park, walked on the beach, played in the pool, and spent lots of time playing legos.  dax loves playing in the sand and even enjoyed putting it in his hair and attempting to do some taste tests.  while there we celebrated his great-granny's 90th birthday.  we had a great party and dax had a new found appreciation for cake!  what are vacations for?

lately daxton's favorite foods have consisted of popcorn and clementines.  when we pull a clementine out of the fruit basket to give it to him he either shouts "oh yeah" or "there you go!"  - like people, you finally got it right!  other than those two items, he is pretty inconsistently liking anything else right now, so we just work with our old usual standbys and attempt to sneak veggies into every meal in some capacity.  sometimes it works and sometimes it doesn't.  he's still growing, so we assume he's fine.  this month he surprised us by tasting noodles out of my pho bowl and actually liked them, so we gave him about half of my noodles.  next time he is getting his own!

 daxton is still talking our ears off while he is awake.  lately his favorites are still "here you go", "there you go", "gotta go", and "choo choo".  after he says "gotta go" we always ask him where he's going, but he just smirks and keeps on trucking! the choo choo came up this weekend at the park where dax noticed the train that runs around the entire perimeter of the park.  he watched it for about twenty minutes while swinging.  i told him it was a choo choo and after we left the swings he exclaimed "choo choo!" so we went and got tickets to ride the choo choo.  he loved every second of the 5 minute ride and we cannot wait to take him on another train at the pumpkin patch in a few weeks.

after he just woke up from his afternoon nap.

dax is showing us all of his talents lately.  we are proudly reporting that he no longer attempts to get on the coffee table, and now he amuses us with things like putting a ball in a basket, putting cups inside one another, singing along to music in the car (just sounds not words), feeding himself with his spoon, taking bites off things instead of having them all cut up for him, building with legos, throwing everything into the sink, brushing his own teeth (after daddy fights the cavities), skipping around, jumping when asked, sitting still on the sofa if he knows a really good show is on, pointing up and saying "up" when he wants to go up stairs, when hungry goes to the pantry and opens the doors, showing us his belly and feet, counting "gold doubloons" on jake, grasping our necks with his bear hugs, and showing us his sassy eyes.  

daxton and his cousin ellie playing on the beach.

the craziest thing we both witnessed this month was while we were grocery shopping at Harris Teeter.  inside the door there is a dragon ride (that costs a rip off of fifty cents)!  however, we instated a policy that if dax was good for the entire trip he could ride the dragon - so of course he was a champ and we got him on the ride.  the dragon sings while it gently rocks back and forth and in its song you can faintly hear something about "H-A-R-R-Y" the dragon.  both of us - plain as day - heard dax repeat "H-A-R-R-Y"!  we nearly fell over.  this kid is picking up what we're putting down!

22 months

daxton turned twenty-two months old today!  like we previously noted - we just cannot explain where our summer has gone.  our boy is growing so quickly, and every moment we're scheming about what  fun we can get into next.  we've gone to several parks and dax has enjoyed playing on the playgrounds.  he really has no fear with regards to heights or treacherous ground.  he loves climbing, going  down slides, and swinging.  he's a people watcher and he gets great joy from watching other kids play and have fun.  he still loves live music and enjoyed a gospel music presentation at our local park today.

daxton's vocabulary seems to again be growing exponentially.  lately he's saying things like -  "daxy", "sweet boy", "me", "wawa" - for water, "go", "yaya" - for iliana, "peees" - for please, "more", "nani", "cup", "yee-haw", "hat", "mimmy" - for minnie mouse, "show", "bird", "nana" - for banana, "pee yew" - for his stinky feet!, and he will even string words together with and - "mommy and dada","oh wow", "here you go", "get you", "hi you".  at night time we even get a blessing.  he will repeat - "dear God, thank you, Amen."  the prayer just melts your heart.  if all he ever knows is the love of Jesus, then we've done our jobs!  he worked hard to learn some body parts and now can correctly identify and say the following:  "eye, ear, nose, mouth", and "hair".  we get him to point them out on his toys and even on the dogs and he loves doing it to daddy and especially peeling daddy's eye lid open while he says "eye".  however, if he is feeling a little goofy he will tell you wrong names on purpose.  what a ham.  he's got a sweet little voice and his friends and relatives love to hear him talk on the phone.  we learned that he does not care for the speaker phone, but he will chat away if you put him on my old school cisco work phone.

dax may be demonstrating some terrible two's type behavior.  he's certainly continuing to test the boundaries and is still pretty persistent about climbing on the coffee table, standing on the couch, turning on the faucets on the tub in the master bathroom, and playing in the dog's food and water.  he knows he is not supposed to do those things, but he (for some reason) loves them and gets into one of the four of them anytime we turn our eyes off him.  if he is the center of attention he's golden - but if you focus on anything aside from him he'll be off doing one of those things.  we know it's a test of our patience and persistence and as long as we continue to be firm and in control that over time he should stop attempting these tricks.

daxton's food battle still just seems to be a battle of will.  this is a battle we've let him win.  it's not worth the fight.  i've reverted back to pouches of baby food veggies for nutrition because i can get him to ingest those, but other than that he is in love with clementines, mango, banana, popcorn, crackers, and he still loves tomatoes.  however, he will now rarely eat a sweet potato, his pasta, or anything that used to be in my "guaranteed" list.  so, when he gets fussy we resort to lots of oatmeal, macaroni, and smoothies.  hopefully this too - shall pass.  he's eating a lot one day and then not much the next.  this worried me at first, until we noticed the pattern which seems pretty common at this age - and so now we just take his word for it when he says "nah, no - all done" and puts a piece of food back into your hand.  it's better than throwing it on the floor, so we'll take it.  he does like feeding himself and tries to work his spoon and fork to get food into his mouth.  we help him out by holding the utensil level so the food doesn't fall off on his tray before it makes it to his mouth, but he's on his way to completely self feeding.

daxy's super fun charlotte weekend had him touring down town charlotte by stroller, walking down the city streets, eating at side walk cafe's, and checking out a discovery kids museum.  he loved running around the museum and checking out all of the exhibits they had on display.  his favorites included a water table and a drum set.  he loved staying in the hotel and made good use of the pots and pans in the kitchenette.  we took quite a few toys with us, but the cookware won hands down.  he was a good boy in the car and did lots of resting.  it seems more little trips may be in his future!

we're looking forward to a family beach vacation full of fun and relaxing with lots of people who love to spend time with our boy.  he's going to be the center of attention and you know he'll just eat that right up.  we've gotten him some new clearanced beach toys including water guns, shovels, and buckets.  surely he'll just want to play with sand and seashells - but then maybe the adults will play with all of his toys instead!