Phoenix finds her thumb and Grandpa Paul comes to visit!

Those of you who have known me my entire life know that I was a HUGE thumb sucker. Family and friends tried everything to get me to stop sucking it. I sucked my thumb at night until I was 5 years old so when I saw Phoenix find her thumb this week I was a bit overwhelmed. 

This picture with her index finger sticking up straight is exactly the way I looked all those years! It has and is going to be the coolest experience raising Phoenix. I feel so blessed and am excited about the adventures that await us.

Thursday morning before Grandpa Paul arrived I decided to go on my first jog. I decided it was a great idea to try to fit both kids in the Bob Revolution jogging stroller. Luckily they both fit, well kind of, and it appeared to be safe. We all had a blast for the 15 minutes we were gone.

Thursday afternoon we picked up Grandpa Paul from the airport. On Friday we went to Half Moon Bay. We didn't manage to take any pictures, but we enjoyed the ocean and a nice lunch there.

On Saturday we went to the local park/dog park. Here is a picture of Geese and their offspring. I have never seen so many goslings in my life!

Axel rode his bike around the bike path while we walked and jogged beside him.

We all had a great time enjoying the weather. Even Phoenix was able to get in on the action while brother gave her a ride on his handle bars.

Saturday afternoon we continued to enjoy the amazing weather. Axel ran around the backyard playing with his bubbles and Grandpa Paul.

Later daddy and Axel ran through the sprinklers.

Here are a couple of cute pictures we took on Saturday afternoon.

Aren't they adorable?

Axel had so much fun he fell asleep on the couch Saturday afternoon. He hasn't taken a nap in weeks!

Axel got out some fun project material and mustaches. We all had fun impersonating Grandpa Paul with his mustache.

Axel had so much fun on Saturday night with the mustaches he begged to get another mustache out on Sunday and proceeded to wear it for the next two hours.

On Sunday evening our friends came over with their son Alex. We enjoyed a nice BBQ while the kids had fun playing in the backyard.

Grandpa Paul had to leave early this morning to catch his flight. We all had a great time and are so happy he took the time to travel across the country to see us. We will hopefully get to see him again when we travel to Massachusetts in July for a day or two.

On the sleeping and eating front, Axel had a few good nights of sleep after taking a nightly dose of Zyrtec. We have another visit with the allergist tomorrow to get him retested. Hopefully, we will get more tips on how to help his very itchy skin, which will in turn help his sleep.

Phoenix is sleeping better at night. She is back to getting up twice a night. I do hope she will manage to start sleeping the longer 6-8 hours that she use to soon and only get up once per night. I am getting a little nervous with the start of work just around the corner. We continue to struggle on the eating front. I can't seem to get her to take the Neocate mixed with breastmilk regularly. She does okay with a 40/60 mix right now during the day. She will drink 2 or 3 bottles, but at night she absolutely refuses the bottle. This morning I was able to give her a bottle with a little neocate in it, but she spit up for over an hour and then demanded to be nursed. (I think for comfort) We even tried to get Eileen to feed Phoenix the bottle last night. After 20 minutes of screaming I couldn't take it. The tears running down her eyes with the coughing and gagging noises just wrenches my heart. It is looking more and more like my restricted diet is here to stay. The good news is Phoenix has beautiful yellow stools. I am getting use to the few foods I can eat and am learning more and more how to be creative with them. I have also started taking a digestive enzyme to help break down the foods I eat so that it is more broken down by the time Phoenix nurses. I have also added cooked pears and blackberries and was told blueberries and cooked peaches should also be tolerated well with the digestive enzyme. Hopefully, the enzymes will help Phoenix tolerate a few more fruits and vegetables so we both get more nutrition. Next up we are going to try Elecare to see if she likes the taste better than the Neocate. The goal is still to get her to transition to Elecare or Neocate, but from what I have read online some kids never take to it and many infants can take over 3 months to fully transition after being nursed by their mothers. I wish I knew this at week 2. I would have introduced it then if I would have known how hard it was going to be to get her to like the taste of it just a couple of months later in life :)

To Grandmother's house we go!

Last Wednesday night we headed to Grandma Susan's house in Sacramento. We were going to shop and plan Auntie's baby shower and to have fun with Grandma. We ran several errands Thursday and Friday morning and played in the afternoons. On Friday, Axel rode his bike to the park. He is becoming a better cyclist and climber every day. Here Grandma is helping him across to the play structure because he is still a little too short to reach.

 Phoenix and I tried to stay in the shade. It was a bit warm for me. I was wondering how Phoenix was doing so I used the phone to see here. I captured this adorable picture of Phoenix sucking on the carrier.

 I love this picture of the two of them taking a bath. They both love the water as you can see from their beautiful smiles.

 Axel has been working on writing now for a few weeks. He is getting really good. Here is an example of a few words we worked on spelling while at Grandma's house.

 Grandma was such a great help and took over Axel's bedtime routine while I attended to Phoenix. You can see Axel still loves to read.

 Axel had so much fun with Grandma he drew a picture of Grandma and him holding each other. The best part of the picture I think is that he included Grandma's glasses :)

 On Saturday we went to Fairytale Town. Here Axel was able to pet a rabbit.

 And go on the crooked mile with Grandma.

 And down Farmer Ben's slide.

 I have the same picture of Axel when he was a year and a half old the last time we went to Fairytale town with Grandma.

 And this also may look familiar as I have the same picture of Axel in the cheese as well.

 And here Axel is petting the horse. All smiles of course.

We also were able to check out the forest. In the forest was this awesome play structure.

 As you can see Axel did great climbing up everything!

 We then stayed to attend a play at the theater inside Fairytale Town. We waited half an hour, paid 5 dollars, only to stay for 5 minutes. The opening drums were extremely loud and the masks were scary for Axel. The smile on his face quickly turned to a scared look and he immediately asked to leave. Oh well, it was a good idea in theory. So much for the cool puppet show that I thought we were going to see.

 We had a great time visiting Grandma and were sad to go. We are already looking forward to our next visit in June for Auntie's baby shower.

Phoenix turned 3 months yesterday, on Auntie and Uncle's one year wedding anniversary (April 21st). She is growing by leaps and bounds. She is starting to roll from her stomach to her back towards the right only. She is also starting to try to roll from her back to her left side. She loves to stand and sit with just support for balance. She loves to look at faces, especially those that make funny noises. It is amazing how many different consonants and vowels she can already say. She is already cooing two syllable coos and laughing out loud. Her laugh is the cutest thing I have ever heard, especially since it is followed by hearing Axel cracking up at her talking and laughing. I have been trying to get it on video, but the phone seems to always ruin the moment.

Phoenix is finally use to the bottle. She takes it well, especially if it is just breast milk. The hard part is trying to get her use to the neocate formula. She still has trouble at times taking a bottle with 50% neocate. Hopefully, we will have more success in the coming weeks.

Phoenix continues to be a happy well natured baby. She starting getting up every 3 hours again at night which is rough on me after having the long stretches of sleep I mentioned last time. I am hoping it is just another growth spurt or possibly the fact that she could be teething!!!! yes, I know she is young, but she is drooling up a storm and always sucking on her hand. I think I feel something on her bottom left front tooth. If I remember correctly it took Axel 1-2 months for him to actually get the tooth to cut through the gums. I am guessing Phoenix will have her first tooth sometime in the next month or two.

Phoenix continues to be a routine baby and is progressing to 2 hour wake cycles and 3 naps during the day. Her new bedtime the past week or so appears to be around 7pm and she has consistently been waking around 7am from the time she was born :) I feel very blessed that she is falling into a routine without much intervention on my part. With May around the corner, my maternity leave is almost up. Is is hard to believe I have been off for 14 weeks and only have a little over a month to go. I could easily not work for another few months, but I know it is better to go back sooner than later before I get too rusty! Besides, I don't want to lose my job :)

Grandpa Paul arrives this Thursday for a long weekend of fun. We are excited to see him so check back soon for more Szolusha fun!

On the up and up

Last Sunday Auntie and Uncle Ryan went to the warriors basketball game with daddy and Axel. 

 Axel had an absolute blast. Axel's favorite part of the game, according to daddy and Auntie was a toss up between the cheerleaders during the half time show and the yummy ice cream sandwich that daddy bought. All in all, Axel had a great evening.

 The past two weeks were a little tough on all of us. Axel was getting up multiple times a night every night and it seemed to be escalating. It was difficult for us to tell if it was his itchy skin waking him or if he was scared or just pushing his boundaries. After lots of discussion Keith and I decided it was likely a combination of not being tired and pushing his boundaries. Therefore, we asked Axel if he wanted to do school work or quiet time in his room. Of course, he decided he wanted to be up with mommy and do school work.

 I am going to miss the option of taking a quick 20 minute nap and having alone time during the day to get things done, but I know this is the best thing for Axel. Now we have quiet time in the kitchen and Axel practices writing, letter recognition, cutting and numbers, while I cook dinner and Phoenix takes her last nap of the day. Since we started this Axel has slept through the night or only woken once for a quick bathroom run and some lotion and then has gone right back to sleep without any screaming or crying. This hasn't happened in MONTHS! Yeah for mommy and daddy!

 Other exciting news; after two weeks of Phoenix waking every 3 to 4 hours she finally decided to start sleeping again the past three nights. She is back to having one stretch of 6+ hours. I believe the set back was her stomach again. She had blood and foam in her stools again. Because of that I tried to introduced a hypoallergenic formula, nutmegging, thinking it would help. Unfortunately, it has corn in it, which caused more blood in her stools. Frustrated and discouraged, we finally met with the GI specialist, who gave us a free sample of neocate, an amino acid formula. Although Phoenix hasn't consumed more than 6 oz of the formula a day, she hasn't had any foam or blood in her stools.  This is a wonderful thing because that means I have the option to stop breast feeding and to start eating all types of foods again. It has been really challenging for me to give up almost all foods and to have only a handful of foods that I can eat because of Phoenix's food sensitivities. I am hoping that as she gets more comfortable with the bottle and the taste of the neocate I can completely wean her and the stress of worrying about her stools and fussiness and my food consumption will completely disappear. Wish us luck!

Jack Fischer Park turned the water on so now the park becomes an even bigger attraction for Axel and other kids. After playing in the water, this past Friday, Axel decided he needed to eat an early lunch. He scarfed down his spinach ravioli and then changed his clothes and hoped on his bike for the rest of the time. He loves riding around the park and up and down the hill. I think it is because he likes to people/kid watch. On our way to the car Axel asked if he could climb on the rocks. He is getting more skilled every day with climbing, running and jumping. Although I found this picture awfully cute.

This past Sunday we drove up to San Francisco to a friend's engagement party. Axel had a blast playing with the other kids. We brought the game memory, which entertained the kids for about 15 minutes. After running laps around the couch and coffee table the kids settled down for over 30 minutes of book reading.

Tomorrow night, the kids and I take off for Sacramento to spend the rest of the week with Grandma Susan. Our agenda is to completely plan, organize and shop for Auntie's baby shower. There should be some good play and park time in between the hustle and bustle though, so check back soon for more pictures!

My babies are growing up!

We went to Axel's 4 year check up on Thursday. He weighs 30 pounds 1 oz, which puts him into the 6th percentile and is 37 inches tall which puts him in the 2nd percentile. We couldn't be happier. Axel also had a hearing and eye exam and had his blood pressure taken. His heart rate was 103 and his blood pressure was 96/64. I thought it was hilarious when the medical assistant said "ooooohhhhh, good." Shouldn't it be that low? Do other kids have higher blood pressures? Funny.......
He past both the hearing and eye exam and had a blast doing them. He thought it was a fun game.

Phoenix had a weight check and she now weighs 10 lbs 14 oz. She dropped to the 22nd percentile, but did gain the half ounce a day minimum. The doctor said as long as she is gaining a half ounce a day she is not worried.

Since Phoenix had turned 10 weeks on Monday and because her neck/head control has been good, Axel and I decided to get the bumbo chair out. Here she is looking at Louis.

 I thought this picture was really cute because she was laughing and smiling, although she looks uncomfortable with her head tilted back.

 Daddy gave Axel the binoculars before going to the Monster Truck show. Axel loves playing with them. We had a fun time playing with them this week.

 On Friday we had another play date with Tiffany and her two daughters Avery and Charlotte. I wasn't able to get a picture of the big kids playing together, but I did manage to get a picture of the little ones. Charlotte has grown quite a bit from when we saw her last, 3 weeks ago.

Phoenix is such a talker. Axel and I have a blast hearing her talk. Here is a short video of Phoenix cooing and Axel cracking up. Not sure if the video uploaded, but will try again tomorrow.

Happy Birthday Axel.......with Easter Fun!

Axel's birthday celebration started on Wednesday at day care. He asked me to make chocolate and vanilla cupcakes. On Tuesday I made the two dozen cupcakes and on Tuesday night Axel helped me put the frosting and decorations on.

 Phoenix and I arrived at 4pm in order to celebrate with him. He got a kick out of the trick candle that Angela included on his cupcake. It took him 5 times to keep the flame out, with each time followed by more and more laughter.

 On Thursday we decorated Easter eggs. Axel was incredibly excited and not very patient for the eggs to cool. I had no idea that it can take almost 4 hours for eggs to cool in the refrigerator after hard boiling them.

 Luckily, the eggs cooled and we had a blast making an Easter Egg family. The mom, dad, sister, brother and baby in the back. I got the idea when I couldn't help Axel fit the egg in the egg wrap. What almost was a huge fail, turned out to be a huge success. Instead of frustration that the egg didn't fit in the egg wrap, Axel thought it was cool that his eggs had hats on.

On Thursday afternoon I made Axel's cake because it has to cool for 4 hours before removing it from the cake pans. On Friday morning we decorated the cake. Axel requested Percy this year. Using Axel's Percy train as our guide we decorated the cake and had it mostly finished before the cleaners arrived at 10:30am. Axel really wanted me to make the face with frosting this year. Last year I used frosting to glue a printed face I found on the internet of Thomas. I think the cake was an improvement from last year, except the face. 

On Saturday morning the four of us went out to breakfast to get Axel's favorite breakfast entree, chocolate pancakes. He scarfed up all three without a moment's break. On the way home from breakfast we stopped by to pick up 4 balloons, one for each of the boys plus one for Sophia, Max's sister. Axel had asked me on Friday when all of the decorations and balloons were going to come out. It broke my heart to explain to him again that we weren't having a party and that breakfast, miniature golf and cake were his celebration. Daddy decided the 4 dollars to get 4 balloons wasn't that big of a deal and since we were right next door to Party City it was almost silly to not fill the request for balloons. 

In the afternoon Axel, Max, Rishaan and their dads went miniature golfing. The kids appeared to have a blast. Phoenix and I tried to play, but she required more attention and playing one handed wasn't very easy. We decided to take pictures instead, although most of them didn't turn out because the boys never really sat still long enough for me to get a good shot.

 After miniature golf the families came over for some cake. We sang Axel happy birthday and the kids played for a bit.

 Sunday morning I woke up early to hide the eggs we had colored and 58 plastic eggs filled with candy. I hid the real ones in the house and the plastic ones in the park. Axel had fun finding the real eggs, although one egg took over an hour to find :) We then ate breakfast and got ready to go outside for the big Easter egg hunt.

 I thought it would be a fun tradition to have the neighborhood kids find eggs together.

 They all did a great job of sharing and helping each other out.

 Surprisingly there were no tears. It was a big success.

 Here is a picture of the 4 kids. Sophia turned 2 on April 1st, then Axel, Max (who turns 5 in May) and Rishaan who turned 4 a couple of weeks ago.

 After the egg hunt, Grandma Susan, GG and Auntie arrived. We had fun visiting and eating some food together.

 We just wish we could see them more often. Thanks for making the long drive down!

It was an action packed week. We are tired and glad it is over. Now we are looking forward to Axel's 4 year check up on Thursday. We can't wait to see how much he has grown. We are also excited for Phoenix's weight check the same day. We are also gearing up for a Warrior's basketball game this Sunday. Auntie and Uncle are going with Daddy and Axel, while Phoenix and I get a restful night at home. Have a great rest of the week!