Backyard, Chicago and more

Lots has happened since we posted last. Keith had his birthday, or should I say Axel had his 3rd birthday of the year (his, mine and Keith's).

The backyard was completely finished just in time for our little get together to celebrates Keith's special day.

We love our new walkway from the front to the backyard. We even have an area for our garbage, recycle and yard waste cans. It is so nice not to have to fight the fence or the old brick patio now that both are new and operating at full capacity.

The backyard is our dream with 1500 square feet or so of grass. We both grew up with a nice size backyard with grass where we were able to play sports. We wanted our children to have the same. Louis has really taken to having grass too. He loves to eat it which I think it super funny!


Before leaving for Chicago we had a baby shower we attended. Our close friends are having twins so we are really excited for them. Axel had a blast.

It is amazing how much Axel looks like Keith now.

Monday the 11th we left for Chicago, or should I say Carol Stream, to spend the week with Grandpa Bruce and Grandma Sonia and Sonia's family.

We had a great time with Grandma and the other Grandma (a.k.a Grandpa Bruce). On the first day we went to one of the only local parks with sand. Here Grandpa is showing Axel how to dig with the big shovel. Unfortunately, the sand was short lived because it was covered in bees. Maybe that is why no other parks in Carol Stream have sand :)

Axel had fun showing Grandma how he plays telephone with Daddy.

Axel had no problems convincing Grandma to go down the tunnel slide with him when mommy chickened out. I do want to mentioned that yesterday when Axel and I were at happy hollow I did managed to conquer my fear of going down a confined tunnel as it was the only logical way down after climbing the mess of ropes that was even scarier for me as I am afraid of heights as well. Good thing I managed not to disappoint the little guy.

Grandpa decided to join in on the fun by going down the narrow tunnel slide. I was quite impressed as was Axel and Keith!!!

On Wednesday, we went to visit my best friend from college who lives only 15 minutes away from my parents. Axel had so much fun playing with her kids toys and really did not want to go home.


On Thursday four of us went mini golfing while Grandma Sonia played in a golf tournament. It was a rough start to our 18 holes, but Axel decided he wanted to have fun and play after a little pep talk from me.


Throughout our stay Axel made sure to help both Grandma and Grandpa with the watering of their plants and flowers. Here is just one occasion where he was helping Grandma out.

On Friday we headed to Utica where we stayed at Dad and Sonia's "villa". It is right near Starved Rock, a national park where they had their wedding reception at 22 years ago!!!. Axel had fun playing with Grandma and Grandpa. Here they are playing airplane.



Keith and I had a great time going on long hikes together through Starved Rock, while Grandma and Grandpa took Axel to the Arcade and for rides on the "train" they had that provided transportation from the cabins to the lodge.




On Saturday we headed over to Gina's, Sonia's sister for a BBQ. Axel had so much fun playing with all of her children's toys and meeting and playing with all of her animals (2 dogs, a cat, a guinea pig and fish). The two biggest hits were Cory's old wooden train set and huge stuffed Winnie the Pooh that talks. Cory is now 23, I think, but you couldn't tell because both sets of toys were in great condition, except for a little cut that Winnie the Pooh had on his nose.

But Gianna and Grandma Sonia had Pooh fixed in no time. Of course, after Axel politely ask Great Aunt Gina to please help fix Pooh.


We ended our stay there after a dip in the pool. Axel took to Gianna, Gina's youngest, right away, especially in the pool. He also did great in his new bathing suit vest the Grandma Sonia bought after reading our last post about my fears of a 2 year old in the pool.

It was so wonderful seeing the Eicks and Elias'. The Szolusha's had such a great time we can't wait to go back, besides, Axel loved making Grandpa Sandwhiches!


This week Grandma Susan came for three days to watch Axel since Keith and I had to go back to work and daycare was closed for another week. The two of them had a great time. Grandma Susan was generous enough to start potty training Axel this week. I had promised daycare that we would start during the two week break and since we were in Chicago last week this was the only other time to start. I am super proud of Axel because he did great with Grandma and has continued to do well over the past two days with me. He even went in public yesterday at Happy Hollow. I brought our little travel potty chair and Axel peed in a bag next to the big potty in the public restroom. He is still afraid of the big potty, but I know that will come in time. Today we actually had to come home from the park because he didn't want to use his portable chair or the big potty, but atleast he didn't have an accident! I am kind of thinking the past 5 days have to be a fluke of good luck because he has been holding his urine all night and during nap time. I am afraid he is going to put up a fight next week when he goes back to school or start going during the night or nap time again. Let's keep our fingers crossed!

Happy 4th of July

This week has been action packed. Our patio is finished and our new sprinklers are already in the front and backyard. The yard won't be complete until this coming Saturday, but we are really excited it is more than 60% complete. The new patio looks really good, it is just hard for me to get use to looking at a completely different backyard.

I am sure once the grass and the new shrubs/trees/flowers are in it will be more aesthetically pleasing, but nothing fancy like it was. Just a plan, simple fully functioning backyard for games and BBQ's.

We celebrated the 4th of July yesterday with my mom's family.

We had a blast playing our annual match of croquet.

Axel had a great time for most of the day despite his crazy schedule. Besides helping with our game of croquet Axel had fun terrorizing everyone with squirts of water that were not always welcomed by all who received them.

It was still 95 degrees out when we were playing so it wasn't that bad to get cooled down a little.

Axel's crazy scheduled consisted of a 20 minute nap on the way to Sacramento and then a late nap from 440pm until nearly 7pm. We were hoping he would sleep almost until dark so that way he could hang out with the adults and watch fire works. Too bad Axel doesn't quite like fireworks yet.

I think the loud noises is what scared him. My mom and Brian always buy a bunch of fireworks that we do ourselves for about an hour until the big overhead fireworks begin. It only took 2 little fireworks going off for him to ask to go inside. The good thing about him not liking them is we were able to head home at 10pm, which meant we got home at midnight instead of 1 in the morning. It was really good that we left then because Axel was up the entire time. He had fruit snacks, pretzels, rice milk, etc. He said he was tired, but he just loves being curled up on his tummy too much to fall asleep in his car seat. On a positive note, Axel controlled his crying and he really didn't melt down until 20 minutes before we arrived home. He also did great going right to sleep as soon as we got him into his crib.

On Friday and Saturday Axel and I went to my friend's pool. Keith joined us on Saturday after his ride and Axel had so much fun. It was cool to see the transition from being afraid and not wanting to go in to full on wanting to jump in like the big high school boys he saw jumping in. I really enjoyed going to the pool, but it is really nerve racking as a parent knowing that it only takes one careless moment of not paying attention for something really bad to happen. I am definitely looking forward to Axel learning how to swim and float as he gets older.

Friday afternoon before heading to the pool Axel and I went to costco to pick up a few things. Axel was so funny. He decided to lie down in the shopping cart and sing and point to the different things he saw.

On a walk earlier this week Axel decided he needed to take his dog for walk along with Louis. When we were in the sun he would put his doggy inside the bag and say, "too bright doggy." When we would go into the shade he would say, "ok doggy, you can come out. We are in the shade now."

He continues to be Mr. funny man just like his father. I leave you with a clip from My birthday on Tuesday where it took almost the entire day (both before and after work) for Axel to wish mommy a happy birthday since he insisted that it was his birthday!

Demolition

Well, Father's day came and went in a blur. Keith and I went for a ride together that was cut short by my wheel breaking and then we spent the rest of the day together in the backyard. We started our big project of demolishing our back yard.

Now, 9 days later we no longer have any brick (-5000 or so) or our big deck. Every night Keith and I worked 1-2 hours after work and my 4 days off this past weekend I put in 4 hours of hard labor each day.

God blessed me and Axel with 3 days of nearly 3 hour naps which allowed me to get so much work done. The other hours Axel helped me by picking up the hundreds of screws I unscrewed from the deck. He would place them in his bucket or "special box". He would also tell me if I missed one or say "careful mommy" when it looked like I was struggling to get one out.

We ended the week of fun labor by making a party of it. We had a handful of friends over to help us finish the final demolition of Axel's old playhouse and the hauling of the rest of the brick Keith and I weren't able to bring to the front yard. We were so excited last night to finish. We treated our friends and awesome neighbors to huge burritos, beer, cake and ice cream and they all had the pleasure of embarrassing me by singing happy birthday. Keith and I feel so blessed to have friends and neighbors care about us enough to help us do hard work!!! The good thing about us getting done is we found out the paver guy messed up his start date and has us scheduled a day early!!! That means they are starting tomorrow and our new patio and walkways will be done by Friday!!! Our lawn and irrigation guy is also going to come by tomorrow night and work through part of the weekend so that he can finish up his work by July 10th so that we can throw Keith a 35th and 36th birthday party (since he was out of commission last year) to the friends who labored to help us with the yard! I can't wait to buy Keith's new grill and start our monthly BBQ's this summer.

So, on to Axel. Axel has been such a trooper. He has grown up so much in the sense that he deals with change very well. I have been explaining to him that we are redoing the back yard so when it came time to actually get rid of the deck, brick and playhouse not even one cry was let out. Now there were tears that mommy was too busy to play with him, but I solved that by getting our neighbor to watch and play with him when he started bugging me non stop to "come here".

Speaking of neighbor, Axel absolutely adores his new sitter. We have been using Annika for 2 or 3 months now and he has grown very fond of her. We make almost daily trips to her house (2 houses down) to see if she is home. The great thing is she loves him too, so if she is not home when we go visit she will come over and say hello to him, even when she isn't scheduled to watch him. We are soooo lucky to have her. The greatest thing is she has all 4 years of high school so Axel getting attached to her isn't a bad thing!!!! She also just went to a weekend of more babysitter training so now she feels more comfortable with infants and is infant CPR certified. Now all we have to do is make an infant for her to watch :)

Other cool new things that Axel has done/achieved the past two weeks are.....1. He has ate entire 1/2 sandwiches, both turkey and egg
2. He has consumed his first rice dream ice cream cone

3.He can count to 12
4. He can sing his abc's (minus EFG and LMNOP is a big mumble) but all of the other letters he articulates quite well :)
5. He has trained the neighbor's cat, cuddles, to lie down for him as he pets her.

6. His climbing skills continue to improve, although his height still is a limiting factor.

7. He met and played with a bird at Whole foods

8. He continues to climb through the doggy gate

and door, but now that he is getting bigger it takes him a little more thought. Here he is stuck half way as he was trying to back into the house after going half way through and realized he shoulders were too wide. "Axel stuck mommy"


9. Axel still loves Louis. He always asks, "Mommy can I play with Louis?, " or, "Can I play in Louis' room?"


10. He continues to love bubbles!

11.And finally Axel is still really itchy. He doesn't seem even close to growing out of his dairy allergy or his eczema.

Have a great week. Make sure to check back in a couple weeks for pictures of our new yard!!!!

Home

Axel loves being home. I think he is going to be a lot like his parents in that sense. We are just people who love spending time at home, whether that includes playing games, having people over, or cooking dinner. Life is good when you can lounge and do what you want to do when you want to do it. It is for similar reasons I think Axel loves being at home. "I want to play with Louis mommy." "I want to go outside, mommy." Axel go to the park and play in the sand, mommy." "I hungry mommy." The list goes on and on. He loves being at home so much, it is often difficult in the mornings to get him to day care happy.

This morning was one of those mornings he was not a happy camper. First, I rudely woke him up. Then I asked him if he wanted to wear his dinosaur pajamas or if he wanted to change. He said he wanted to change, but then threw a fit when I changed him. He wanted bunny to stay in his crib sleeping, yet he wanted bunny to go with him. He wanted to stay home and play with his toys, but that wasn't an option.....he cried the entire time getting dressed, riding the mile to day care and 5 minutes at daycare. I finally got him calmed down and Angela took over as she always does a brilliant job. I really can't blame him for loving being at home.

Speaking of home, we finally have a fully functioning computer, our fan for the kitchen came in, since our old microwave fan went on the fritz a couple of months ago. We are trying to install the fan and are looking for what to put on the wall as a back splash to the stove since the granite that is there was cut out for the old microwave and now we are left with a 2x 1.5 foot section of 20 year old wallpaper :). We are patiently waiting the death of our refrigerator since it is on its last year of life. We are also patiently awaiting the fence guy to contact us and get started in replacing our fence. And finally, we are patiently getting quotes for the demolition and remodeling of our back yard. We are about 6 quotes in and still aren't getting the numbers we hope for, or getting people we think will do quality work for the money we are asking. It is really funny because these lawn and irrigation people think we are crazy....we are surely the only Californians we want more grass and less landscaping. We want our children to be able to play baseball, volleyball, soccer, etc. The more grass the better.

Ok, back to Axel. Axel and I visited Grandma Susan this weekend. We were only there for a day and a half, but we had lots of fun. We went out for dinner and Axel did the best he has ever done. he sat in a high chair for the first time and he ate the food at the restaurant. I had a small tortilla made for him and he made it into a chip taco. He only ate half of it, but I think he really enjoyed it. I missed out on a couple of great shots with Grandma and Axel, but I did manage a couple of shots of Axel himself.

Axel has been playing more with our neighbor who is a year older than him. Max is a little more bossy and wild and Axel often gets frustrated while playing, but I think it is the start of a beautiful relationship :) Here they are along the trail that runs behind the park that is across the street from our house.


Axel loves to be the center of attention and "funny man". No matter if we are at a barbeque or at my mom's work meeting stranger's Axel knows how to make people laugh. He does this by making one of his funny faces or by sticking out his tongue, or by doing his favorite magic trick.....hiding an object in his hand and asking, "where did it go?" Here is a picture I managed to get of him being silly in his stroller.

We went to my annual work picnic on Sunday. I took several pictures, but not very many turned out. Here is one of the few that "kind of" turned out. Axel had a blast playing as usual. He tends to focus on the sand, but we managed to get him running up and down hills and playing tackle with daddy in the grass.

Just in case I don't get a chance to post on Father's day I wanted to include a great picture that I managed to take when Grandpa Paul was here. Here is to a great weekend for all of our Father's next weekend!!!