Merry Christmas! (Rubix's 1st Burley ride and 2nd tooth)

We had a wonderful Christmas despite the busy schedule. I have a lot of pictures here and not a lot of time so this will be brief. Here is the finished product of the gingerbread house this year. The kids were very pleased with their creation. I did not help at all this year. Axel was able to man the frosting and Phoenix and him worked very well together in deciding where all of the decorations go. 

On Friday the 23rd, Rubix went for his first Burley ride. We used the double Burley which will be good for Phoenix and him, but he is still a little small for riding in it alone. 

He was all smiles despite leaning the entire short ride. 

Phoenix still struggles to figure out if she wants to be a big girl or a baby. She chose to be a big girl and ride her bike.

The great thing I learned is that Rubix and Phoenix can safely make the 1 mile bike ride to daycare, which means that I can start riding my bike to work!

Louis continues to find places he can curl up and fall asleep in. He is doing this more and more lately.

The kids worked on a fun craft on Friday as well. They are saying Santa's workshop!

On Christmas Eve the kiddos opened one gift each. Axel wasn't surprised to see Elf pj's again. However, he was surprised to see Mommy and Daddy get into Elf pajamas.  Daddy brought them home when he went out shopping about a week or two after we purchased these for the kids.

We tried to get a family photo but without a nice camera and stand we had to do Daddy and kids and then Mommy and kid photos.

The boys!

Mommy and kiddos!

Christmas Eve Santa brought a new LED star topper since the last one he brought was a lemon and didn't really work well at all. We lucked out and had everything done just after 10 pm! I was excited to get to bed by 10:30 since Christmas was going to be a long day.

Christmas morning we had pumpkin drinks and opened stockings and then enjoyed our pumpkin oatmeal. Once breakfast was over we headed to the pinball room for the main event! Phoenix received a baby doll crib from Santa. (Grandma Sonia and Grandpa Bruce were very generous and bought the kiddos a portable baby grand piano keyboard set. It has been the biggest hit and all of the kids are excited to learn to play.)

Daddy received the hat rack he has been talking about for years and....

a poem that Axel wrote him on construction paper that he cut out as the shape of his hand.

Merry Christmas!
Christmas is a jolly time of year, when everybody is happy.
With Christmas bells ringing and everybody singing, la, la, la.
Lights on all the Christmas trees and no bees on the trees.
IT IS CHRISTMAS!

Daddy Santa bought Mommy a Window Pro Surface 4. Yeah for Mommy!

And Axel received the Millennium Falcon.

Rubix received books and toys that he loved. It is amazing that he is just like Axel and loves books from the time he was just a wee little thing!

I love this shot of the three kiddos. One because I can't believe I was able to get them all in one photo and two because they are all playing with Rubix's new baby toys!

Let's not forget Louis and his new Yoda sweater!

After opening presents we quickly got ready and headed to Sacramento. We had a couple of delays with the worst delay being Phoenix throwing up everywhere! Here are Axel, Braylin and Phoenix watching a Dora movie while Daddy washed Pheeny's outfit. We were all hoping to head to great Grandma/pa Burgesses house, but had to wait for Phoenix to get something to wear. She ended up wearing Braylin's dress because her clothes weren't drying quickly enough.

I included two pictures we took with great Grandpa/ma Burgess. One where Phoenix is walking away saying "no", and one without her.

We had a lovely time visiting the Burgess', Great Aunt Cindy and Uncle Terry and Great Uncle Barry and Aunt Cora as well.

After visiting with them we got back to Grandma Susan's house just in time to start dinner as Grandma Susan and Grandpa Brian were on their way home from the hospital. Grandpa Brian had another one of his scares and wanted to get his heart fully checked out. Luckily, his heart passed test after test and now they are still trying to figure out what is causing his chest pressure. Grandma Susan loved her calendar as usual. It is nice that all of the Grandparents enjoy receiving the calendars each year.

Rubix received $100 for his college fund. I will take it, he said!

Axel played hang-man with Auntie and Uncle and loved stumping them on his word choice (I am not sure if they were real words or not :) )

I tried to get a picture of the girls, but they didn't sit still long enough. I thought this one was a cute one of Braylin though. Grandma made the mini mouse ear headbands.

Here is a picture of Phoenix enjoying the piano. I have lots of picture of Axel and Rubix too, but still need to download them.

Yesterday we went to see SING! We had planed this since we saw A Secret Life of Pets for Daddy's birthday. It was a very cute movie and we highly recommend it.

Rubix's second tooth started popping through just after I wrote the last blog. He is almost back to his old schedule, but we are still struggling since getting back from Florida. He is finally eating solids again and drinking 4 out of the 5 bottles he use to drink. He is handling blueberries and maybe pumpkin (it looked like he was going to throw up yesterday after the second day of pumpkin, but everything stayed down). We are hopeful that we can get him sleeping through the night in the next week or two and up to 3 meals a day over the next month.

Florida Vacation and Rubix at 9 months (1st tooth)

On Sunday the 11th we went to Eileen's House for her annual Christmas Gathering. She lives in a neighborhood that has a couple of streets that go all out with decorating their homes with lights. Here is a cute picture of Rubix as we started the walk through the lights. He quickly fell asleep and slept the entire hour we were out. 

 Here is a picture of Alex and Axel on the fake Santa and of course

 Phoenix much happier on the fake Santa then the real Santa. It was a good time and a late night which made getting up for the last week of school and Angela's difficult for the whole family.

 On Thursday the 15th we headed to Ft. Lauderdale Florida for a quick family vacation and visit with Grandpa Paul, Uncle Mark and Aunt Kathy. The 15th was also Rubix's 9 month milestone. When we arrived he officially started crawling on all 4's rather than sliding on his stomach. He had been playing around with crawling a bit before Thursday but hadn't fully committed. Thursday was also the day that Rubix finally cut his first tooth. He has had the top teeth poke out and then recede but his bottom left gums officially opened up and over the course of our vacation the full bottom of the tooth made its entrance. Rubix also decided that he wanted to master sitting down from standing and going from a crawling position to sitting as well.

The family traveled quite well on the way out and the kids slept very well the first night. 

Friday morning we were out on the beach by 8 am.  

 Grandpa Paul and Uncle Mark arrived around 11 am for a fun filled day of visiting.

 The kids swam, played on the beach and around the facilities. The pool water was nice and warm. I think it was 85 degrees.

 Axel did some laps and showed off his swim strokes to Grandpa Paul and Uncle Mark.

Afterward he played this game where you had to get a small circle hanging from a string around a hook on a board about 5 feet in the air. 

 Axel and Phoenix played hard all day. They had hours and hours of fun while we all visited and watched them enjoy themselves.

 On Saturday morning we went and road the Jungle Queen Fairy. It was a 90 minute tour on the water way. We say 10 to 30 million dollar vacation homes, yachts and luxury cruises. As you can see the kids were wearing their new Fort Lauderdale clothing we got them the night before when we went into town for dinner.

 I forgot to mention all of the Iguanas we saw. They come in all sizes and colors. They are everywhere!

 Rubix has been playing around with the monster walk/crawl as well. He is so cute getting around like this!

 Here is the beginning stage of Axel's 6 hour sand castle creation. He worked really hard

to make it perfectly the way he envisioned. As you can see Phoenix had fun playing in the sand to, but she just wanted to play and not create. 

 Rubix also enjoyed the sand. He ate a little more than we hoped and got way more in his hair and diaper than I expected, but it was fun well had.

Saturday afternoon we went to Grandpa Paul's and Uncle Mark's/Aunt Kathy's house. We had a nice visit. We had planned to go see a light show in a local park, but Rubix fell back while sitting and hit his head on the tile floor. He was in a really bad sleep deprived state so we rushed back to bathe him and get him to sleep. On Sunday we had more fun and a nice dinner with the three Szolushas. Monday we spent the day sucking up every last bit of sun and warmth that we could before we headed to the airport for our 6:40pm flight home. here is Axel in his almost finished sand castle. He ended up adding a lot more detail on Monday, but he was happy enough with it to leave it and get cleaned up for dinner :)

 Before he left the beach for the last time he decided he had to do a sand angel. he was very pleased with himself.

 The kids were exhausted. Here is a picture of Phoenix on the way to the airport. Too bad she only got  a 20 minute nap. She could have used 2 hours! We got home and the kids in bed just before midnight. I had to wake up early for work and daddy stayed home with the kiddos. He took Rubix to his 9 month check and Axel to his weigh-in appointment. Rubix weighed 19 lbs 8oz, 47th percentile and Axel weighed 42 lbs 14.4 oz, or 2.8 percentile. That is a 4.5 lb gain since this summer! Rubix was 29.5 inches tall, which put him at the 70th percentile. Axel was 3 feet 10.5 inches tall or 7.3 percentile. It has been a long short week as I worked Tuesday through Thursday and each night managed to get a little bit done around the house. For Keith and the kids it was a long, short week because everyone has been trying to catch up on sleep!

 On Wednesday afternoon/ evening the kids managed to finally decorate and build their annual gingerbread house.

 We also got an hour of park play in. Today was nice and wet. It is hard to believe Christmas Eve is tomorrow. I have lots of presents to wrap and food to make. I hope it will be a lovely weekend with family and that everyone has safe travels and a Blessed time celebrating Jesus' birth.

 I leave you with a cute picture of Louis. He did great with our babysitters Nicole and Monica watching him while we were in sunny, warm Florida.

Merry Christmas!