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!