Mellow Days

Unfortunately, the Szolusha household has been going through yet another sick spell. The kids and Keith had sore throats, coughing, running noses, diarrhea (Phoenix), vomiting (Axel), dizziness and headaches (Keith) for the past week or so. Daddy is mostly better after missing two days of work last week. Axel is also mostly better. He had red dots around his face so we are thinking he might have had hand foot mouth disease again since it was going around school. Phoenix is the only one that is still sick with lots of congestion. I am thinking about taking her to the doctor to make sure she doesn't have an infection since it has been over a week now. 

With sickness comes rest. I have been taking advantage of early bedtimes by trying to get more rest myself since I have been feeling run down. During the day we have been enjoying fun play in the house and outside at the park. Phoenix is starting to get into playing dress up. Here she is saying "cheese" because she saw me get the phone out.

 Axel loves school and has been bringing home tons of papers. Our kitchen wall is almost entirely covered. This picture was taken a couple of weeks ago. It has some of his school work.

 Axel is continuing to work on his reading. It is getting better now that we have been consistently reading again the past 2 weeks. We took quite a long hiatus from him reading. He was a bit burned out from all of the reading we did this summer with the Magic Tree House series. Luckily, he takes school very seriously and understands that we have to read for 20 minutes a day and we take turns reading to each other on alternate days.

Another funny thing that Axel has started in the past couple of weeks is sleeping in his underwear. First it was a tshirt and underwear, but a few days ago he said he likes to have the sheet and blanket on his skin with just his underwear on. He said this helps prevent him from over heating.

Here is a cute picture of daddy and Phoenix watching part of a football game. Phoenix is such a sweet and loving girl. It melts my heart when I hear her say "Daddy", "Louis" and "Axel".

 Phoenix continues to grow in every way. She has become tall enough that she can pedal Axel's old 12 inch bike. She just started this a couple of days ago. She needs some help with momentum because she is not strong enough and her feet keep slipping off, but I would think she will be independently riding the bike in a month or so.I will capture it on video as soon as I don't have to help her anymore :)

 Phoenix is also wanting to do what all of the big kids do. Since Axel has been more physically active and wanting to play outside with his friends more, Phoenix is exposed to baseball, soccer, kickball and frisbee. When we got home today from dropping Axel off at school she said "I hit", so we went in the front yard and hit some balls.

 She is still loving to be girly and now loves to have her hair done. She typically will say "hair", "pretty" or "I pretty" and points to her hair if she wants to have her hair up.

We have a mellow weekend with some fun family time planned. We are all looking forward to the change of seasons that is upon us. It is hard to believe we are approaching the last quarter of another year.

Happy Autumn to all!

Mr. Caboose

Last week Axel and his classmates were invited to say the pledge of allegiance and sing the school song in the school office over the intercom. Axel was very excited. 

Axed and his classmates patiently waiting. Axel was the line leader for the first week of school and the caboose the second week of school. He has been loving the jobs. The caboose is extra special and has the responsibility of turning off the classroom lights and shutting the door.

Here is the video of Axel and his class singing their school song.

Axel and his classmates saying the pledge of allegiance. 

 On Friday, we played and played after school. First we played with the twins and on our way home we saw Rishaan and his family in the park so we played for another hour. Phoenix entertained herself in the Reddy's wagon, while Axel and Rishaan played in the sand.

 Our sand castle!

 The boys had fun pulling the girls home after playtime.

 Axel and Phoenix can be very sweet to each other. They often give each other hugs and kisses. Here is Phoenix saying good night to Axel. So cute!!!!

I caught Axel being ultra creative again. He said "Mommy come look what I spelled my name with!" Love it!

 Here is his gingerbread man that he started at school, turned into a super hero. Cape and all!

 I forgot to mention that Axel wanted to build a fort a few weeks back and I just didn't want the pinball room to be out of commission again with the huge play fort. I decided instead that this would be a great idea and luckily he loves it! It has already been a month that he has had this up.

 On Sunday Axel, Phoenix and I had some fun park time. Axel rode his bike, Phoenix enjoyed the swing and they both enjoyed this puddle.

 I thought it was really funny that they wanted to splash in this puddle rather than play in the water structure.

 On Monday, Labor Day, the kids and I baked up a storm. I need to get through all of the gluten free flours that I use to bake with. We then gave some to the Zimmerman's and then our new neighbors the Spannagels (with the twins Cohen and Chloe and their brother Henry). They have a swing in their backyard the Phoenix had a blast on.

 She is growing up so quickly and becoming more and more coordinated.

We ended up staying for dinner and then headed home to get ready for the school week. Phoenix is talking up a storm. I really need to record her. Axel is starting to read up a storm as well. I finally took a video of him reading, but the other two videos took so long to down load I will have to wait until a future post to download. For now I need to get ready to pick up Axel and head to the park for some afternoon fun!