Happy Easter!

Axel and I had fun coloring Easter eggs on Thursday evening.

On Saturday, Axel and I, along with Annika (his babysitter) and her sister Marlena went to the local Easter Parade.

We colored in the street and saw the Chicago, I mean, Campbell Bears :)

On Easter morning we woke up and Axel could hardly wait to find his Easter Basket.

After he found his basket and opened up the few little goodies it contained he wanted to start the Easter egg hunt. Luckily, daddy made delicious pumpkin scones and lattes that Axel couldn't resist either. After our quick breakfast Axel started scouting out the Easter eggs he had colored on Thursday.

He had a great time finding them, but needed a little assistance on a few of them that were out of his reach.


We invited Rishaan over for our little outdoor egg hunt in the front yard. The boys did a great job of sharing the 18 eggs that were hidden and helping each other find the eggs.


After Rishaan and Axel found all of the eggs in the front yard we took Louis for a walk in the park. Axel thought there were eggs hiding in the park for him so I quickly took 4 of his eggs and hid them.

All in all we had a great weekend. We enjoyed some quality family time

and the nice weather for a change. Too bad the rain starts again tonight!

Happy 3rd Birthday Axel!

Since our last post Axel and his best bud Rishaan both turned 3 and had fun birthday parties. Rishaan's birthday was on Sunday March 18th. His party was the first well organized kid party that we have attended thus far. His parents had a clown come for the first hour of the party. He did balloons while people were arriving and then did a funny juggling act and even had some of the kids help out. Here Axel and Rishaan are getting ready to help by wearing the funny wigs.

Once the kids were properly attired they were able to help out with one of the tricks. We were so impressed that Axel volunteered and wasn't afraid. Keith and I were super proud of him. He did a great job of keeping the plate on the stick. By the end of the trick his plate stopped spinning, but it still did not drop. All in all it was a great party and we had a great time.

Now if we fast forward almost two weeks to this past Friday. Axel had his 3 year check up. He is now back on the charts at a whopping 34.25 inches tall, which puts him at .83% and 25.5 pounds which puts him at 2%. Although he didn't grow as much as I thought he did since his allergy appointment two months ago, I was very excited he was back on the charts. He is definitely, eating more, so hopefully that will equate to a big growth spurt in the near future!

Yesterday, was Axel's big day! At 5:59pm, 3 years ago, we were blessed with the most beautiful gift from God....the birth of Axel. He brings so much joy to us and those who are around him, it was great to celebrate his birthday with a fun little party for him.

Axel had 7 friends (with their families) over, in addition to his babysitter Annika and her family. Auntie and Uncle Ryan and Tyler and Cynthia, who are like an Aunt and Uncle to Axel, also made it for the festivities. I did about an hour of research on different games that we could do out of home made materials. Keith thought they were all too old for the kids. When I went to pick up the balloons I found pin the tail on the Donkey and a hot potato game that I thought ought to be just about right for 3 year olds. Well, just an FYI for mom's of young children.....it is probably better to wait until they are 4 or 5 for game playing at birthday parties. It was too hard to get the kids organized and to get them all to participate. Oh, well, I had to try :)

For his birthday I asked Axel if he would like a car cake or a Thomas the train cake, and he quickly answered Thomas. I had already purchased the entire car theme birthday decorations the month previous at the dollar store, but decided it didn't matter if his cake didn't match the car theme decorations.

The cake turned out fairly well for our first all out cake decorating. I managed to do Thomas and quickly burnt out of ideas for the cargo cakes. Luckily, Keith did a great job of rescuing me by decorating the remaining cargo cakes and fixing the caboose to look somewhat presentable after I had maxed out on my creativity for the day.

Unfortunately, I don't have very many pictures of the day. The ones I do have are blurry and Auntie's camera ran out of juice. I did get an okay shot of Axel enjoying his birthday cake.

And here is a decent picture of Axel enjoying his new favorite mode of transportation thanks to Grandpa Brian. Yes, it is even consistent with the car party theme!

We are now gearing up for Easter fun next week. We hope everyone enjoys the celebration of our salvation from our amazing Lord and Savior, Jesus! God Bless!

Axel's almost three!

It is hard to believe that 3 years has almost come and gone. Axel is noticeably growing and can now reach the top of the slide.

He isn't quite tall enough to reach with both hands in order to swing like a monkey, but I imagine this will happen any day now.

The big excitement this week was taking Axel for his 3 year pictures. He did a great job! the lady who worked with him took the best pictures yet. We are super excited to pick them up next week and be able to send them out to friends and family soon!

Last weekend we had fun playing volleyball with our neighbors. Here is Axel and daddy doing a reverse dunk.


Today, Daddy and Axel tried to practice Axel's 3D train birthday cake. It did not turn out, but Axel and daddy had a ton of fun preparing it and eating all of the yummy chocolate.


Tomorrow we are going to Rishaan's birthday party and finishing up a new project of moving 5 tons of rock into the back yard. We are replacing all of our pretty mulch with rock in order to prevent Louis from unintentionally killing our grass by kicking the mulch onto our grass. Hopefully, this project will go smoothly and be finalized in the next couple of weeks before Axel's birthday party!

I would like to leave you with a cute clip of Axel having Louis perform tricks for a piece of cheese. Louis is so good with Axel he often does the tricks without a food incentive!

new hair cute, Auntie's Bridal Shower and more!

We continue to be super busy with Auntie's wedding quickly approaching. In the past 3 weeks we have spent 5 days in Sacramento preparing and showering Auntie with love. Axel had so much fun at Grandma's house. Surprisingly Axel fits right in with the shopping that occurs when we are at Grandma's. I think he learned from the first trip that we have to run a lot of errands so this past trip Axel made sure he got to do his own shopping.

Part of the trip included going to Ikea to get Axel a new bed. Axel didn't really like the doggy bed as much as he liked it the last time he was at Grandma's so Grandma graciously purchased a couch bed that he will be able to sleep on for years to come. Here is Axel enjoying himself at Ikea.


Here we are back at the house. Auntie and I finally assembled the new couch bed. Axel was soooo excited to be in a big boy bed at Grandma's house.


Grandma Susan and I spent the day before and morning of Auntie's shower letting our creative juices flow as we put together Auntie's shower food that was strictly "from the garden". Shannon wanted to give out succulents as party favors and have a garden theme to her shower.

What came out of her great idea was a bouquet of flowers made of peppers and mushrooms, another flower made of carrots and broccoli, little baguettes filled with carrots, peppers, cucumbers and dip. Our dip was placed in peppers. We served cucumber and strawberry water and the funny "masterpiece" that didn't turn out exactly how I wanted, was loved the most by our guests......our honeydew melon penguin.

It was a lot of fun to put together and the day appeared to be a success with everyone enjoying themselves.

The Sunday before the shower I decided to cut Axel's hair. I had been wanting to cut his hair for sometime, but didn't know when the best time would be. After much contemplation I decided to go for it and do it now. That way if it didn't turn out his hair would grow back a bit before the wedding and a hair salon could possibly "fix it". Luckily, Axel's hair turned out pretty good. I admired people who cut children's hair because it is very hard with their lack of patience and inability to sit still.

Daddy also got a hair cut. He had been growing his hair out to donate to Locks of Love. Since he missed his race that morning due to a moving violation at a stop sign (going 1 mile an hour just a mile from our house) we decided to make use of the time by chopping the mop off.

First I had to braid his hair.

Then I chopped each braid off. After chopping the braids off we then buzzed daddy's entire head to make it an even #2 throughout - except for the two or three "bald spots" where I cut a little too close to the scalp. Oops!

All in all both of my boys have received good reviews for their current look.

The weather has been either been unbelievably perfect, or miserably cold and windy. Many of the local trees and plants are confused. Our Magnolia is one of them!

Although she no longer looks like this it was great to enjoy her beauty while it lasted.

Over the past few weeks Axel continues to amaze us in his growth and development. He appears to be gaining weight and height by the day. He is still a long way off from the norms, but we are just so excited to see him growing. Consuming dairy has really made a huge difference for him.

He continues to be quite the charmer and funny man. I will leave you with a cute, short video of him saying good morning to daddy!

Busy, Busy

Rishaan and Axel continue to have lots of play dates. Here they are in Axel's 'dog cage' last weekend.

Speaking of dogs, last weekend we visited Touis. Touis was just placed in a really nice home in Oakland with a retired couple who have taken rescued pugs for the past 28 years. They currently have 4 pugs with the addition of Touis. He has been there a month and absolutely loves his new home. Before he was placed with Ia, Touis was with the pug queen (Susan). Apparently, Susan fell in love with Touis and didn't want to give him up, but since Susan is good friends with Ia (Touis' new owner) and she has taken other rescued pugs from her in the past she finally gave Touis up after having him for a year and a half.

It was so nice to see Touis. He looks great and appears to be quite happy. Axel was in pug heaven and loved playing with them all. Our one hour visit turned into a three hour visit. It was hard for Axel and us to say goodbye, but Ia wants us to visit regularly, so we will likely see Touis a couple of times per year.

What about Louis? Well he is happy as ever, especially in Axel's 'heap of animals.'

After months of not wanting to go to the 'big park,' Axel finally decided this past Thursday that he wanted to go again. It was perfect timing because we were headed to Grandma Susan's house during nap time.

He had fun, not only with the sand, but also with the play structure. It was one of the longest times he has played on the play structure. He went down the slide almost 10 times, which is about 5 times more than usual!!!

I thought the park would wear him out so that he would sleep on the long ride to Grandma's house, but that is not what Axel had planned. He was out cold for the first 20 minutes snoring away and then was rudely awakened by me quickly breaking as I was cut off right before the red light at Mission. I thought for sure he would fall back to sleep, but he stoically looked out the window for the next 2 hours. Luckily, Grandma bought new toys for Axel, which provided for a happy, tired child when we arrived at Grandma's house.

He loved the chalk board and dry erase board combo along with the other outdoor toys. Thanks Grandma! More fun to look forward to when we return in two weeks for Shannon's Bridal shower.

The one thing Axel struggled with the most during our visit with Grandma is that he didn't want to sleep in the pack and play. He thought it was a crib and for babies. He managed to sleep Thursday night in the pack and play, but put up a fight for his nap on Friday. We compromised with the new bed that Grandma bought for Lucy (Grandpa Brian's dog). Lucy doesn't care for it because of her arthritis, but Axel loved it. He can't wait to go back and sleep on it again. :)

We managed to make it to the local park after Axel managed to make it through shopping for Auntie's shower. Axel's climbing skills continue to improve as he grows. I love the following picture because he looks older and independent climbing the "fake rope ladder".

We had the privilege of seeing the McFarren's on Saturday for lunch. It was so nice to have Sophie and Axel play together and Keith and I really enjoyed catching up with Kristi and Kris. We hope to see them again with their future trips up to see Kris's parents.

Jack looks wise and sophisticated with all of his hair. Sophie has such a calm demeanor for someone of her age. It was great to see them in action. I felt like I knew them well because of the blog that Kristi does about them, but children in person are nothing compared to what we get to enjoy in real life.

Sophie and Axel appeared to be instant friends. I really hope they get to have a good relationship as they grow up being that they are only several weeks apart in age.

Other news is Axel woke up with a cold on Sunday, but he appears to be feeling a bit better today. Daddy taught Axel how to color "between the lines" and he is doing a great job. I was extremely proud when I saw him coloring tonight. It is truly amazing how much he is growing up. We are gearing up for his birthday next month and are planning his first kid birthday party. Ok, that is it for now. Hope you enjoyed the long weekend!

Tough Boy Axel

I went to pick up Axel on Wednesday and saw this on his face.

It looked awful to me as it reminded me of road rash. How on earth could he get something like this? Well, Axel proceeded to tell me the story of how he fell going up the cement stairs into Angela's house. It is still hard for me to believe that he fell going up stairs and that was the result, but he was in such a great mood and continues to be a happy camper without a complaint. That is great news! I have a tough, big boy now!

Axel continues to amaze me at how smart he is. He figured out his magnetic balls and sticks, stick to his trains. He was extremely proud of the long "choo-choo train" he made. He just wasn't happy I was trying to take a picture of it :)

Speaking of smart and thoughtful, today while on our morning Burley ride Axel told me, "Mommy, be careful", "Mommy, go slowly", after I descended a small twisty roller. I thought it was really funny because in the past he has wanted Keith or I to pull him fast, in circles or in squiggly lines riding side to side.

Axel is learning to be a charmer. Daddy insists on teaching him to tell me I am pretty or that I look nice. Well, last night, as I closed the door to his room, he said, "Mommy I like your shirt." What! I am wearing a plain pajama top, I thought! "Thank you Axel, good night Axel," is what I said. I had a big smile on my face as I walked down the hallway. How on earth did he come up with that, at this time of the day?

Axel still has this fascination with pretending to be a doggy. Last night we received a box that has now become his dog cage. Here Axel is in his dog cage.

We spent all morning today playing in his dog cage. Axel also likes to play fetch. He uses a plastic top to one of his containers as his "frisbee" and asks me to throw it for him. Sometimes during snack time if he is eating pretzels I throw them for him and he picks it up with his mouth. I don't want to necessarily encourage the behavior, but at the same time I don't want to ruin his imagination.

The big news of the week is that Axel has all four of his 2nd molars coming in or in. He has really been biting on "Bunny" the past month or two. My suspicion was that he was teething. Yesterday, I finally took a look and saw the right bottom one completely in and the other three over half way in. It is hard to believe he now has all of his teeth and that in just a couple of years from now he will begin losing them and getting his permanent teeth.

Axel is absolutely a blast. I wish you could all experience him first hand. He is funny, sweet, loving, charming and incredibly smart. I will leave you with a clip of his funny/crazy side. Sorry if the clip is side ways!