2 days until Axel is 2

Sorry for the delay in posts, but we have had a very busy week and weekend. I will keep this short because there are still several preparations needed for Axel's birthday party on Saturday. We are also having a little day celebration on Thursday. Daddy is taking a half day off work so we can spend time together and make sure Axel has a great 2nd Birthday. Tomorrow the festivities begin at day care as they celebrate his birthday. I just got done making pumpkin muffins for the party tomorrow. Daddy made the third dairy free pumpkin pie last night so Axel is completely wired after having a piece of pumpkin pie and a pumpkin muffin for dinner. I know!!!! but what can I say....I am a sucker.....and I really like to see him stuff his face with food. He hasn't been that great of an eater for very long so it is still such a joy to see him enjoy eating!

Ok, lets back up to last week. Axel is still super cute, super funny and super clever. He has such a huge imagination. Here are just a few of his made up games.

King of Louis blanket!

Crawling and hiding from Louis under Louis' chair!

Axel snacking with bunny while making sure Louis is behaving....."Louis get back in there", Axel said :)

Axel playing cards..or keep away from mommy :)

Axel mowing daddy's camping mat and mommy's yoga mat.

Okay, check back soon for Axel's birthday post!

Yaahhhhh!

The count down until Axel's second birthday continues. Just 10 more days to go! We are so excited. In preparation for the big day 2 dairy free pumpkin pies have already been made and consumed. Here is Axel pigging out with daddy. Of course, he had already finished a piece that was nicely put on a plate, but when daddy got home Axel wanted more and this is how daddy served him. Fun times! This past week I finally had a chance to have Axel try on his new underwear. I think they fit quite nicely after washing them. These are the ONLY 18 month diapers on the market. I got a whopping 12 pair for $45 online. I sure hope we get good use of them! We have actually stopped trying to potty train Axel. He threw too many tantrums at school so we don't even mention it anymore. Axel continues to ask to go 1-4 times per day when he is at home. He often likes to use the potty for his morning number 2 business when he wakes. We are trying to be supportive when he wants to go, but I don't really ask him if he has to go during the day. So when I put the underwear on him I told him that he had to tell me when he needed to go poopy or pee pee because we don't pee in underwear. He did great. He told me within 30 minutes that he had to go pee. He finished and then asked for his diaper to be put back on. He is sure one smart cookie.......when he wants to be. Here are two pictures that show how Axel really wants to wear his underwear! Axel has started to get the hang of basketball. He doesn't like to actually let go of the ball unless it is in the basket, but who doesn't want to make a slam dunk every time! He doesn't even need a ball to play basketball. Anything will suffice, even bunny! Axel accidentally got an early birthday present because I wasn't very smart with the opening of packages sent from Grandma and Grandpa Burgess. Axel got a glimpse of these sun glasses and immediately started saying, "Axel sunglasses", as if he knew they were meant for him and a perfect fit!
Axel has been consistently eating much more than he use to. He consumes a thousand calories nearly every day. With the huge increase in food consumption we are hoping his weight and height will reflect this at his doctor's appt in 10 days. I know he has to be taller because most of the 12 month pants are too short. I finally managed to put all of the 12 month clothing away so that he is only wearing 18 month clothing. I am hoping the 18 month clothing will get us through the summer. We may have to pull out some of the 2T stuff later in the summer, but that will only be a positive thing!

Axel also continues to sleep well at night. He slept 10 hours this morning, asked for milk at 5:30am and then slept in until 8:30am. I think this is a first. I think I mentioned him sleeping in until 8:15am about a month ago, but never until 8:30am!. The best thing about this morning is that he did this on a weekend so Keith and I got to lie in bed! I would say sleep in, but I don't think either of us were actually sleeping, since we are so use to getting up early!

Last I leave you with Axel yelling "Yahhh!". This is one of the many wonderful things that daddy teaches Axel when mommy is riding her bike. Axel put this in good use today as he got to individually cheer on mommy and daddy riding in the rain today.

Axel at Work

Axel continues to want to do everything himself and do everything that daddy and mommy does. I was checking the weather and work email, when Axel interrupted and had to do work. "Axel work mommy!"

I believe I mentioned that last week Axel missed his nap and decided to play in his crib. He did the same thing on Thursday and Friday this week. The only difference was he threw all of his toys off, took his socks off and tried to take his sweat shirt off.

It is moments like these I try not to laugh so that he doesn't think I am approving this behavior. However, I am finding more and more moments where my lack of self control is evident as I bust out into a laugh. I am sure as he gets older and the cuteness factor goes down I will be able to be more firm :)

Axel can now climb in and out of his high chair. He often likes to stand instead of sit. Here he is king of the table.

He is becoming more brave and more into independent play. I love to see him exploring the backyard, among other things :)


His imagination is also taking off by leaps and bounds. It amazes me what he thinks of. Here he is sitting on his "outside" chair on the bench on our deck eating his snack. I was quite opposed to this, but the chair ended up being more stable than I first expected.

His imagination leads to a lot more 'pretend' play. We pretend eat all of the time. Weather we are playing with play-doh, sand or his stuffed animals, we are always pretending to eat.

Axel is often funny man like his father. Here he is pretending to be daddy with his hat.

And here he is pretending he has no arms.


But most of all Axel continues to act like a "two-year old". He has fun, explores his surroundings, is always learning and absorbing his surroundings and most importantly figuring out social skills by trying to "get his way". Here is a great example. I wanted him to wear a hat to protect his face and scalp from the sun. He really didn't want to wear his summer hat. After trying and failing to get dad's winter hat over his summer hat, both hats ended up on the ground. I gave up after several attempts and decided it was almost nap time anyways!

Speaking of nap time, Axel is back on track the past two days and is taking his naps! The lack of nap taking was a huge blessing because we bumped his bedtime up one hour on Friday night because he was so tired so the transition last night was flawless. Axel has been sleeping 11 hours straight again for almost two weeks with one or two hiccups.
Have a great week!

Daddy Hug, Doggy Walk

Daddy and Axel had lots of fun the past week, so much so that Axel cries for both of us now. I absolutely love the sound of Axel saying, "Daddy hug". It is music to my ears. This morning the two of them cleaned up the garage, worked on the bikes, and "fixed" our fence that is falling down, while I got to ride my bike. It is so great to see the two of them having so much fun together. Axel loves tools. Tools of any kind, whether they are bike tools, or a regular old hammer Axel wants to fix it with you. You can imagine how crazy he was when Grandma Susan sent him a new sweatshirt with tools on the front. He didn't want to take it off, even though he had another long sleeve on and it was almost 70 degrees out. It was one of those times I didn't put up the fight. If he wants to suffer and over dress because he likes his shirt that much, go right ahead and sweat! He also loved the "race car" shirt that Grandma sent with the sweatshirt and jeans. He is really into doing everything "fast". We run fast, ride the bike fast, and race the car fast.
Daddy sets up a circuit in our living room and he pushes Axel really fast in a circle around the circuit. Sometimes he goes so fast he falls off. Hence, why Axel wears his helmet in the house :)

Axel is still totally in love with Louis. He loves to take him for walks. Here is a video that super daddy was able to take while walking Louis AND watching Axel....quite a feat.

Daddy was also able to get a few short clips of Axel going down the slide.....he is such a big boy now overcoming a lot of his fears. I had other cute videos to download, but they aren't working....blog spot is a nightmare for downloading videos. Oh, well.

We think Axel is cutting his first molar. He is constantly chewing on his fingers and he is asking for things to chew and bite on. Today he didn't nap. He played in his crib for an hour and 40 minutes. I finally gave up and took him out of the crib. The funny thing was he didn't cry. Yesterday, it took him 45 minutes to fall asleep for his nap, but he still managed. I hope the molars down take FOREVER to come in like his other teeth. Axel officially has all of his teeth except his molars. The last ones are still coming in. I think they have been working on their full appearance for 6-8 weeks already.

In the potty training department, Axel is doing great at home. He started going poopy in the potty yesterday and has gone two or three times since. He continues to pee in the potty 3 to 4 times per day. He is still going through a lot of diapers because we still haven't ordered underwear yet. All of the on line stores are out of stock of the 18 month old underwear. I am hoping it might be easier for him to understand the whole use of the potty if he isn't in diapers.

At day care he has only used the potty once. He screamed all last week "no potty" every time they tried to put him on it. My hypothesis was that he is intimated that all of the kids line up to go at once and that he has to sit on the "big potty". I am going to bring a small potty tomorrow so I hope that helps him feel comfortable there.

We are going to try for another couple of weeks and if he continues to refuse to use the potty at school then we will wait for a few months. I am not sure how we will stop him at home since he loves to go. I think it is more of a game right now to him, but hopefully he will catch on once he starts wearing underwear. Besides, I am done with the whole washing diaper thing!

Alright have a great week. I hope that second video posts!