Santa visit and Christmas celebration #1

We went to visit Santa on Thursday morning. Here is Axel looking super cute. Phoenix did get on Santa's lap, but wasn't too happy about it.We happened to go during her nap time which showed. I wasn't able to get a picture with both kids on my camera. Luckily, the photographer was able to capture one shot of the two kiddos. Unfortunately, our scanner is broken so I am not able to share it.

 Outside of the mall Axel loved the huge Christmas tree!

 On Thursday night Keith lovingly made ginger bread dough. I rolled them out and baked them Friday morning and then Keith and Axel decorated them on Friday night. I would estimate it was about a 6 hour project.

 With all of the excitement Axel has not been sleeping well and missing a few hours of sleep at night. I caught him napping again. He was playing and singing Christmas carols on his keyboard and then he was silent. I was yelling his name to ask him a question about Christmas presents because I was wrapping daddy's presents in the other room. After calling him 3 times I went to investigate and this is what I found. All of his naps turn in to 2 hour naps! It is unbelievable since he really hasn't napped all year. This was the second long nap and today was the third! On Friday Axel had his school Christmas party. The kids enjoyed a book exchange and sang the parents three Christmas carols. It was absolutely priceless!

 Yesterday we headed to Grandma Susan's to celebrate Christmas early. Here Axel and Uncle Ryan are playing operation.

 Grandpa and Grandma Burgess were able to join us as well. I was so glad that they were able to come because I was bummed that we wouldn't be able to make their Christmas events this year and we only managed to see them at their Anniversary party. They are still such a young great couple and I loved catching up with the.

 Phoenix and the kids had a blast opening their gifts.

 My cousin James, his wife Denise and their two kids were there. It was fun to see the kids trying to play together.

 Phoenix got her first baby doll that comes with a bottle. It cries and snores! Phoenix actually pretended to feed the baby! It was precious.

 But then Phoenix enjoyed chewing on the bottle.

 Auntie and Braylin were matching. I am not sure if that was intentional, but Braylin is becoming more and more a cutie every time I see her. Her eyes are by far her most stunning trait.

 Before Grandma Goldstein left she managed to get a picture of all of her great grand-babies (minus one). I think I was suppose to be in this picture, but was too busy taking a picture to be in it :) My Aunt Susan and Uncle David also attended. It was really nice to visit with everyone. I hope this becomes a tradition because we haven't all been together in some time.

 Axel and Phoenix were playing "chicken" and then when I decided to kiss daddy Axel tried to kiss Phoenix. Apparently Pheeny wasn't down with this!

 Both kids "cracked" about the same time. Phoenix was because of exhaustion and Axel's was due to boredom. I think when the other kids get older he will have more fun. It is tough being the oldest kid by a couple of years at this age.

 All in all we had a wonderful visit and first Christmas celebration. We are excited for our upcoming celebrations as well!

I may or may not post soon. If I don't watch out for a mega post on our next Christmas celebrations and visit with Grandma Sonia and Grandpa Bruce. The Szolushas wish you a Merry Christmas and a Blessed New Year!

Getting into the Christmas spirit!

Axel and I love Christmas. I like to decorate the day or weekend after Thanksgiving. This year was no different. Axel and I had a blast decorating the house together again. The only difference about this year versus last year is he doesn't think we have enough decorations and he wasn't as easy to work with. He has his own ideas of how things should go, but all in all we still make a good team :)

With the travels to Florida last weekend, this four day weekend for us was the start of our holiday festivities. On Friday after school, Axel and I build his gingerbread village. We always get it half off after Christmas and every year we struggle with icing that is a bit too dry. Axel is always a good sport though. This year was the first year that Axel did most of the decorating by himself. He was even able to do the frosting and break the ginger bread pieces. He was really proud of himself. 

 Phoenix really wanted to be in the action as well. She is a sneaky little girl and grabbed one of the pieces of gingerbread and was sucking on it. I knew something was up because she suddenly got quite!

 Still decorating...............

 For some reason when my children are tired they get up exceptionally early and struggle to go to bed. I am sure it is typical for most children, but it always amazes me. Luckily, Axel and I had talked about being tired and cranky and he decided after spending some time in his room for "not being nice" that he needed a nap. He proceeded to put himself to sleep in the pinball room. At first I thought he was pretending with his loud snore.

 An hour later I hear him coughing so I went in to check on him. I then say him flip over onto his stomach. He then continued to sleep for another hour! I couldn't believe he napped so long. I was really excited because he needed to catch up on sleep and we were headed to a Christmas party that evening. It also allowed me to make 25 tortillas for him and 24 pigs in a blanket for the party :)

 Keith came home from his ride Saturday with this awesome pine cone. It is not a fluke. It is from a family of pine cones that are called "widow makers". I can't remember the real name of it but someone has a tree full of them up on the top of Bohlman road, one of our local climbs. He worked really hard to bring it down the 2400 feet and was excited to show me and the kids. We are going to make it a center piece by sprucing it up.

 Yesterday evening we headed to Eileen's house for her annual Christmas party. I decided to dress everyone up a bit more than usual. We had planned on going right on time in order to be one of the first guest there and to take a family photo.  I have wanted to take a family photo all year. I purchased a nice 11 x 14 inch frame in May, during my maternity leave. I talked with our neighbor about doing a photo swap where we each take a family picture for the other family. Unfortunately, timing never worked out and here we are at the end of the year.

 I was really excited to get a couple of pretty good photos. Not exactly what I had in mind, but at least we have something that I can put into the scrap books!

This photo was taken with our friend's iPhone. Cuter picture, not as good quality. Hopefully, with the holidays coming up we can get a cute photo that is good quality that I can blow up to an 11 x 14 and stick up on the wall!

 Phoenix amazes me and fits right in with the other kids. I have said it before, but I mean it. She really doesn't want to be a little baby. She wants to be big and do big kid stuff. She did a great job of it last night.

 She even managed to stay up until almost 8pm. It was a rough night because of it, but she was completely charming and slap happy at the party. The meltdown didn't come until 12am and 4am, but a little back rubbing and a bottle managed to get her back to sleep! She has been eating a lot more solids, but with her limited variety I believe she is still quite hungry. She appears to be growing because she is getting heavier to hold. Occasionally we get lucky and she will only get up once a night, but most of the time she is still getting up twice a night over the 12 hours she sleeps. I am still hopeful she will be sleeping through the night soon. Axel still gets up 1-2 times per night as well. Both kids get allergy testing tomorrow, along with Keith so we hope to get more answers as to where each child is at in their battle with food. Hopefully as Axel gets older he will get better about taking care of himself at night and letting mommy and daddy sleep.

 Today Keith and I got to go for a ride together. This is about 6-7 miles from our house deep in Steven's Canyon. Here and at the bottom of Highway 9 are magical places that trap in the cold and our consistently 20+ degrees colder than the rest of the area. We thought this was a beautiful sight so we stopped to take a picture in the freezing cold. We climbed out of the freezing cold into 60+ degree weather. It is amazing the different micro climates we have in the bay area. Today's ride was the longest ride I have done in 1.5 years! I rode 3.5 hours! We only rode 37 miles during that time, but we covered 5300 feet of climbing. I was excited that I am at the point that I actually wanted to ride that long. Normally I am stressed about all of the things that I need to do at home and the time I miss with the kids. It was a nice change of pace.

We have more Christmas fun and another nice ride planned for next weekend. We also hope to meet Santa this week as well!

Freezing cold to Warm Sun

Well, if you are in most of the country you have been experiencing the huge cold front, as we have here in Sunny California. It has been quite the adjustment to fight freezing temperatures of 28-32 degrees,especially after our quick trip to Florida this past weekend.

The Szolusha's headed to Ft. Lauderale, Florida last Thursday to visit Grandpa Paul and Uncle Mark and Aunt Kathy (Paul's brother and wife). It was a short trip, but we had a great time. The weather was in the 80's and more humid than California. We spent most of our time on the beach. We stayed in an apartment type place with a full kitchen.

It was perfect for us because I have to bring most of Axel's food because of his allergies. We ate out for dinner only and the rest of the meals we were able to cook and prepare at "home". This allowed for more sand and water time for the kids.

Grandpa Paul came and spent all day Friday with us.

We went out onto the pier and were able to see a Pelican up close. They were every where. We also saw a bunch of seagulls as well. 

On Saturday we spent the morning on the beach and then after lunch headed to where Grandpa Paul and Uncle Mark live.

When we weren't on the beach we were in the pool. Since Axel was a bit afraid of the ocean he spent some good quality time in the pool.

They live in a retirement community 10 miles from where we were staying. We stayed in Lauderdale by the Sea and they live in Wynmoor retirement community in Coconut Creek. It was the biggest community that I have ever seen. It was almost like a little town. While we were there we played bocce ball and swam in Grandpa's pool.

Afterwards everyone drove back to where we were staying and we all enjoyed a lovely dinner. Phoenix was cracking so the two of us left early but everyone came back over to our place to visit while Phoenix slept. It was really nice to have a small Szolusha gathering. This was only the second time I have had the privilege to visit with Mark and Kathy, however, it seems as if I have known them much longer.

We had a great time and spent all week recovering from the long travel and time change.

Check back soon for more Szolusha fun!

Happy Thanksgiving

It is hard to believe that Phoenix turned 10 months, Axel had his first school field trip and thanksgiving is already over. I had wanted to do a post for Pheeny's 10 month, but we have been extremely busy. I just finished a 3 month home study course for my PT license in 1 month and cooking for the kids along with every day errands really fills up our days.

This year for thanksgiving we went to Auntie's Shannon's sister in law, Shannon's house. That is right. They are both Shannon Jolley :) The "other Shannon", as we say in our house, lives in Tracey. Keith raced up Mt. Hamilton and then we headed over to her house for dinner. Here is my handsome husband who got 3rd place out of 150 riders!

 Lovely Auntie Shannon and Uncle Ryan.

 Our happy baby girl Phoenix who is getting over another virus. She had a fever and a really bad cough from Friday until Monday last weekend. I actually stayed home from work on Monday. I think it really helped because she seems to be 100% healthy now. This was one of her worst viruses, although it only lasted 1 week which was great.

 The two Shannon Jolley's :)

 Greg, the other Shannon's dad, her husband, Casey and son Lance, along with Axel, daddy and Uncle Ryan having a blast playing basketball.

 They live in a great neighborhood and all of the kids play outside on a regular basis. It was just like the good old times when we use to all play outside without a worry in the world.

 Phoenix and Ainsley, the other Shannon's baby girl, had a fun time playing together. Ainsley just turned 7 months.

 Here is my lovely niece Braylin. She is already 3+ months. She is quite a talker!

Grandma Susan also made it to dinner, despite getting over a cold. Grandpa Brian was too sick to join us so we made sure to eat for him too! We were all bummed to not see Grandpa since he just had his 60th birthday on the 24th! Grandma and him caught their colds while having fun in Reno. 

 A week before Thanksgiving, Axel went on his first field trip to the Planetarium. Here is a selfie of us on the school bus. He was so excited and had a great time. He did get a bit scared when the kids in the cardboard space shuttle got too close to the planets and didn't listen to the astronomy book. He had to sit in my lap and hide his head in my shoulder during the parts that he thought were scary. He was the only child to get scared out of the 20+ children who attended, but I don't mind that he doesn't want anyone to get hurt. He is just more sensitive than the other kids :)

 Here is his preschool class after watching the cardboard space shuttle.

 Last Saturday, instead of having our normal pre-thanksgiving feast we went out on our annual date to Keith's company party. This is the first year it has fallen on the Saturday before Thanksgiving, but we didn't mind. We had a great time.

 We played the money machine again and the prize we went home with this year was a $15 gift card to Starbucks. That beats the dice we brought home for Axel last year :)

 It was a team effort. together we collected the $1000 needed to "cash" in for our Starbucks gift card.

 We had such a good time and the kids did great. I was really apprehensive about leaving Phoenix because she was sick and had a fever. I gave her Tylenol, just in case and she slept 6 hours without interruption. It was great for me because I was able to sleep for almost 4 hours before having to get up and feed her. She normally gets up every 4 hours to feed at night. I am hoping she will get back to being a good sleeper once we can keep her healthy and eating. She is always hungry because she is always trying to recover from a reaction to food or from a virus. The entire family (except me) is going to get tested for allergies in the coming weeks. I am hoping we will have a better idea on what foods the kids can tolerate now.

Some fun news is that Phoenix mastered clapping and waving goodbye this week. She gets really excited when someone says clap and starts clapping. She is extremely proud of herself. She is also getting more comfortable walking hand in hand. She still loves to knee walk so we don't think she will be walking for a couple of months still.

Axel and I decorated the entire house this weekend for Christmas. He absolutely loves to decorate and make decorations. He impresses me every day with how creative he is. The Grinch came back and Axel and daddy watched it last night for the first time. Axel gets to watch it every time he sleeps through the night. I am hoping that will provide the motivation he needs to start sleeping through the night again.

We hope you all enjoyed your long weekend and had a great Thanksgiving!