Axel and Many New "Firsts"

Since our last post we have been quite busy. Paul, Keith's dad, was here for 10 days. He just left early this morning. Keith was able to take the entire week off so the three of them were non stop with games, fun and activities. We took Axel to the annual Heritage festival in Saratoga, Saturday afternoon, after picking up Paul from the airport. Axel sat on school desks and colored.

I thought he looked super cute and grown up.

Last Sunday, the four of us went to a Giants game with our buddy and his two kids.

Keith picked out stellar seats just a few rows up from right field. I have never sat so close out of all of the professional baseball games I have attended so it was a really cool experience for me too. Axel did great considering he did not get a nap because of the excitement of going. He also did not get a nap the day before because he was so excited that Grandpa Paul arrived.

Axel was fascinated by these two A fans!

We took Axel over to the mini baseball field and he got to hit a ball off a tee and run around the bases.

I was surprised at how well he did considering he had never done this before.

Axel did get tired of sitting in our designated seats after a couple of hours. He entertained himself by cleaning up other people's peanut shells and by crawling under the seats. The last hour he watched Dr. Seuss books on my phone and played his Monkey game. After 9 full innings and 4.5 hours he was ready to go. he fell asleep immediately in the car while we listened to the last two innings on the radio. Keith and Paul took Louis for a walk while I had the pleasure of getting Axel bathed, fed and to bed during his complete meltdown. Luckily, the screaming stopped once he was in bed and he slept brilliantly well for 12 hours!!!!

On Monday Axel went to daycare to help get him back into his routine. I was hoping he would go again on Tuesday and Wednesday, but daddy had too many fun activities planned.

Tuesday, Axel went miniature golfing for the first time. Apparently he got the hang of it pretty quickly, but had trouble only hitting his ball. I think Keith said it took them 2 hours to play the 18 hole course!

Wednesday, Keith and Paul, took Axel to the Discovery Museum. He had been there once before and loved it. Unfortunately, it was field trip day and Axel got pushed around quite a bit by the older kids, so all three of the boys were ready to go after just an hour or two.

Thursday, Axel got to see the Ocean and go to the beach for the first time. Keith and Paul drove over to the coast while I had the privilege of riding their for the first time. It was a beautiful ride. Axel also got to see his doggy kite really fly with the heavy winds provided by the beautiful Ocean. Axel was not afraid at all. Keith told me that he fell right in almost immediately upon their arrival. I only got to see the aftermath of the freezing, shivering two year old. He was such a trooper and asked daddy to change his clothes without any tears or complaints.

There were quite a few tears as we left because Axel was having so much fun playing in the sand. However, he did great on the drive home and ate his lunch in the car and then went right to sleep for his nap once we arrived home. Keith was able to ride home.

Friday, we mostly stayed home because of several appointments. We got a quote to re-do the back yard, we had our garage door opener fixed and a new couch delivered. Keith bought me a beautiful leather couch that has a recliner on each side to match the recliner we bought him last year, for my birthday. It is a month early, but he wanted to take advantage of his time off of work. We had Kerry over for dinner and had fun playing Blockus. We had played Blockus on Monday night with Paul, Keith and I and Tuesday night when we had Tyler over for dinner and made him play as well. We decided it is the Szolusha family game for sure, having received it from Josie, Keith's sister. Axel loves playing with it as well.


Saturday we went to another BBQ at Tyler's house and yesterday we took Axel to Vasona park. It is amazing to think that Axel went to his first baseball game, played minature golf and went to the Ocean for the first time all in one week!
It is really cool to see him having so much fun.

Axel continues to change rapidly. He is ALWAYS talking. His sentences are becoming quite complex as he is able to tell you exactly what he is doing, how he is feeling and what he does and does not want. I wish I was able to catch it on video, so you can hear how grown up Axel has become.

He continues to also be the funny man. He loves to make people laugh. On Saturday at the BBQ he stood by the screen door away from everyone and started making a really funny face while making funny sounds. He did it over and over again until everyone was laughing.

Ok, we are still having computer problems which means it is very difficult and time consuming to get pictures uploaded and transferred to the computer that has internet so I will likely not post for another couple of weeks or so, but do check back soon because I may surprise you!

Mr. Personality

I cannot stress enough how much Axel has changed over the past month or two. He is more and more a little boy than a baby. He is absolutely his father in every way. He has so much personality. No matter where we go he says, "Hi" to almost everyone. He smiles and makes funny faces at people. He sings and dances as well. And then when he thinks he is funny or he thinks you are funny he says,"Silly Axel" or "Silly Mommy". I was super shy growing up so it amazes me at how much he likes people and interacting with others. Axel is gaining confidence in his physical abilities as well as his social abilities. He climbs into and out of the bathtub, his high chair, the couch, benches, over rocks, down steep hills made of dirt. It is cool to see him do more adventurous things without asking for help. The cool thing is he is one of those kids who asks for help rather than throwing a tantrum when he does need it. I am just glad he is not asking as much :) Axel loves to walk and run. His running is actually getting pretty fast where both feet are off the ground for a split second. He ran almost an 1/8 of a mile yesterday. He regularly walks a quarter to half a mile without an difficulties. Axel is also continuing to eat more and more. The past two days have been awesome food consumption. I thought I captured a video of him downing an egg sandwich, but for some reason it did not get downloaded. (the king and queen of last night's BBQ) As far as what is going on and things we have done, it is pretty much same old. Keith and I are still racing. Axel is loving watching and cheering for us. The only difference is that we were all sick for the past week or so, but everyone is on the mend now. We have had more friend gatherings, with a great BBQ last night. Axel was an angel and fell asleep beautifully at our friends house and then went right back to sleep at 11pm after being awake for the 15 minute transition from house to house. What a champ. We will definitely be able to do more with friends knowing he is so flexible with sleep now. We continue to do the same routine of going to the park and running errands. He loves to grocery shop and help me pick out food. He still loves water and playing in it. He most often likes to strip down to his diaper or nothing :)
We are having so much fun! Sorry for the short post, but we are going to be pretty busy for the next month or so. Next up, Paul, Keith's dad arrives next Saturday. We have tour of California, Giant's baseball game and lots more planned.

Here is Axel singing

Easter, bike rides and more!

It is hard to believe three weeks has passed since my last post. I have thought each weekend I would have time to post, but the time never came. We have lots of fun excuses, like our computer dying on us.....getting an iphone so having to transfer photos from the iphone and the camera to the computer that doesn't get internet to the external hard drive to the lap top that we are now using that can get internet if hooked up to the ethernet cable (the wireless is broken on it :)) In addition to the computer fiasco our microwave sparked and smoked itself to death last week and part of the fence has officially fallen down. All of these things are in the process of getting fixed, but relying on other neighbors to pitch in the 50% cost and the home warranty company to make and appointment and to replace it takes more time than we have patience for.

Good thing is we have been having lots of fun. Axel has had the pleasure of going to bike races every weekend the past three weeks. He has been having soooo much fun! The first one was in Santa Cruz, the second in Menlo Park and yesterday in the Livermore area. He is so cute. He cheers "yahhhh", rings the cow bell, and yells "go Brianne" just like daddy. I remember the first time he said "hi Brianne" 2 weeks ago. I was trying to figure out how he knew my name. Apparently, he was absorbing it with all of the cheering at the bike races. Now when he cheers he no longer says mommy, but Brianne. He was so rev'd up after the bike race yesterday that he sang the whole way home and didn't nap all day. Instead we played in the sprinklers and washed the car for 2 hours.

Speaking of racing I just wanted to share how loved I felt yesterday as Keith and Axel were in the feedzone in my first road race in 3 years. 3 years ago I won this race and yesterday it took every ounce of mental, physical and emotional strength to fight to stay on. I was suffering/hurting the first lap. I thought I was going to get dropped the second lap. We had a breather with a slower third lap. The fourth lap the selection of top 6 riders rode away on the climb and I was left in a group of 4 that soon grew to 7. I tried with every ounce of energy to stay on, but finally "blew up" at about mile 60, which was 3 hours into the race, and exactly the length of my long ride each week. The last 6 miles were long and slow and the climb that I flew up last year to win the race I think I did twice a slow. I was so proud and honored to see Keith and Axel with their shirts off in the feedzone flashing me to victory....of finishing the hardest race I can remember. I do believe I would have given up in the second lap if they weren't there supporting me. Thanks! I love you both so much!!!!

Now lets back track to Easter. Axel had a wonderful Easter with lots of our friends to play with, church and 2 Easter egg hunts. We did an Easter egg hunt indoors

with the eggs that we colored

and a hunt out side with the plastic ones.

I filled the plastic ones with gummy bunnies and quarters and one special one with dark chocolate chips.

Unfortunately, mommy wasn't very smart and he got the chocolate chips first so every egg he opened he was a bit disappointed there was no chocolate in it.


He did like the money though. He couldn't wait to put it in his piggy bank. Mr. Piggy is almost full so Axel keeps asking when we are going to dump out the contents and count the money. Daddy told him he will get to go buy a toy and mommy told him he gets to keep it safe in the bank. Hopefully, he will get to do both :)

Axel's imagination is really blossomed over the past three weeks. A couple of weeks ago he wanted to put his sweat shirt on Louis. So we did. Louis was a good sport and Axel thought it was great. Apparently, Louis also wears 18 month clothing :)

Here Axel climbed into the laundry basket and then demanded "up mommy". So I carried him around the house and spun him in circles until we were both dizzy and laughing hysterically.

We have a little trail behind our house with a water retention stream that fills up each rain season and then dries out. Over the past few months Axel has become more and more intrigued with throwing rocks in it. We now have a daily ritual of going to throw rocks into the stream.

The biggest change I have noticed over the past month is Axel is much more confident and adventerous. I was so proud to see him figure out how to climb down this hill to get to his favorite rock area. In the past Axel would scream "mommy do it", but not anymore!

A few weeks ago Axel learned about static. We played for nearly an hour a couple days in a row inside his tent. I would let go of a piece of my hair and we would watch it "fly" to the side of the tent. Occasionally the hair would fall to the ground and we would have to find it.....or I would have to pull another hair off of my head :) Here Axel is concentrating on a single piece of hair.



Axel's speech has also really improved over the past few weeks. Keith rarely asks me what he is saying now because he articulates so well. Day care also is constantly telling me at how well and frequently Axel is talking. His sentences are also becoming longer. He regularly talks in 4 to 6 word sentences.

I could go on and on with all of the things that we have done and the changes that are taking place, but this post is already getting quite lengthy. Hopefully, I will find time to post again next week so I won't miss out on documenting these changes. Oh, I did want to mention that Axel surprised me today with his ability to recognize that his lovey, "bunny" wasn't the same. His first bunny was so dirty and in need of a few repairs that I got out the back up bunny. I have used the back up bunny before, but didn't notice the difference until Axel pointed them out today. First, he wanted to know what happened to bunny's hands. I told him I fixed bunny so now bunny has two hands (since a stitch had come out before and the hand blended with the arm). Also he kept tracing over bunny's mouth. Sure enough the original bunny has a straight mouth and the new bunny's mouth makes a "V" like he is smiling. Good thing is he decided to accept bunny's changes.
Ok, Have a great week!