Axel's Big boy Bike

How much can one do in a week? That is the question. Well, apparently quite a lot in the Szolusha household. After seeing Axel pedal his tricycle with ease we decided it was time for him to get a big boy bike. Last Sunday we went to a couple of bike shops and came home with this 12" beauty. Axel rode evey night this week. He initially needed a gentle push to get started, especially uphill, but now he can start pedaling and continue pedaling all the way up our street, which is a slight incline for a few hundred feet. One night this week, Axel, Rishaan and Max all rode their bikes together. It was extremely fun to see. We hope the three of them continue to play together and outside like we did growing up. All of us parents are thankful for the friendships that have been forming between the boys. This week Axel also ate an entire sucker for the first time! He has had a few licks before, but never had the stamina to finish one. Well, Thursday was the day this happened. It was part of his morning eating craze. For 5 days Axel consumed more food each day than he usually does in two days. He asked for seconds every day he was at school this week for lunch. At home he ate cereal, yogurt, string cheese for breakfast alone, including the sucker on Thursday. He would then eat lunch, a snack and dinner. Unfortunately, this stopped today. He skipped lunch because he wasn't feeling well, but managed to eat his first ice cream cone from Baskin Robins, after his nap, in order to beat the 100 degree weather that we were having. On Thursday we went to a special evening story time with Max at the Los Gatos library. The boys has a great time. They were both laughing hesterically which is so much fun to see. The story teller did a great job of keeping the audience engaged with his great sound effects and funny facial expressions. Above you can see the two boys checking out the electrical socket after story time was over. Our cucumbers and tomatoes are coming in. This is the first time we have grown veggies in a pot :) Thursday morning I forgot to mention that our new refrigerator arrived. It was quite a challenge to get installed, but after an hour and twenty minutes and me crawling in the crawl space to find where our water source ended and me hooking up the new water line our new refrig was up and working. The big question of the day for me was how on earth are these workers suppose to install refrigerators when they are not allowed to go in crawl spaces or basements to connect water lines? Good thing is I managed to face my fears of dirty small places and I am still alive :) Yesterday was also a busy day. In the morning we met Julia and her daughter Sadie at Deer Hollow Farm. Axel really wanted to see how big the baby goats and lamb grew. To me the lamb grew faster than the goats. Here are the two of them looking for the baby goats. After a fun filled morning, Axel decided he didn't want to nap and after trying for a bit we decided to quickly go grocery shopping. After groceries we then headed over to Kaia's house so that Axel could have another play date with Mason. The two boys had fun enjoying home made popsicles. Axel is not a fan of juice so I was quite surprised when he consumed 80% of the cherry juice popsicle. Axel decided he wanted to play in Mason's turtle pool, but didn't want to wear the swim trunks I brought. I was surprised Kaia didn't mind. After about 5 minutes of splashing Axel was done. The funny thing, not more than 10 minutes later, Mason does the exact opposite of Axel and gets in the pool fully clothed as they played with the trucks. Apparently, Thursday and Friday were so action packed that Axel decided he wanted to stay home today. I worked in the morning while Keith rode. Axel told Annika and Marlena that he just wanted to stay home today and play. Good thing because he slept over 2.5 hours for his nap today. He did have a fun evening playing with Rishaan and is now fast asleep in dream land, rather than playing the potty game where he gets up and goes 3-5 times before deciding to actually stay in bed and fall asleep. Keith is busy painting right now. I am so proud of him and all of his hard work. In just a couple of hours our garage will be a calm blue! We want to wish a Happy Father's Day to all of the father's out there! Enjoy!

Busy times

On Sunday last week we went to our friends Mike and Vanessa for a BBQ. Axel played in the "kiddy" pool for almost an hour while their 10 month old twins were napping. When they woke he was super excited to play with them. He was extremely good at helping them and understanding they were babies that don't understand about sharing. I was really proud of him because he doesn't always relate very well to younger children. Dillinger and Josie are both super cute and happy babies which made them fun to play with and be around. Grandma Susan bought Axel new PJ's and gave them to us at GG's birthday. Axel absolutely loves his new Elmo and Car Pj's. Nap time has been very interesting the past month or so. It is difficult to know when a child is ready to give up a nap. Axel has shown signs off and on that maybe he doesn't need as much sleep as other kids. Yet, at other times, it seems like he does need a lot of sleep. I think it is more difficult right now because it is light out until 9pm. To make a long story short, he misses about 2 naps a week and often when he does nap it is only for an hour or hour and a half. This Thursday, was another day he really didn't want to nap. I set him up with a couple of puzzles in his room so he could do them during his quiet time/nap time. Well at 2:45pm he came out of his room after his quiet time and laid down with me on the couch. I was reading, but had to get up to use the restroom. By the time a got back a minute or two later he was out cold. I tried to wake him after 45 minutes, but he refused to get up, he proceeded to turn on his side and snore away for another 45 minutes. It was very cute, but frustrating because I knew he was tired and needed to sleep. Thursday morning we had new carpet installed in our only room that doesn't have hard wood floors. We went with the lowest profile carpet on the market. It is thinner than the previous loop carpet that we had and now we have a nice cap between our base boards and the new carpet, which means another fun project. You can see the new carpet is a little darker than the previous carpet, but almost looks the same. On Friday I had my best girl friend from high school, Tiffany, over with her 18 month old daughter, Avery. She moved to San Francisco in September and this is only the second time I have seen her. We are hoping to make a point to get together every couple of months. I believe the next play date will be at the San Francisco Zoo. We had fun, but I didn't manage to take any pictures, because we were too busy talking and catching up:) Saturday morning Axel went to the high school agricultural farm with the neighbors while I went on a short bike ride. He had a blast seeing the animals as usual. After he came home we jumped in the car and went to his friend's Alonso's birthday party. It was at a park and the kids were running around on the field, doing projects at a table and playing on the play structure. It was so spread out that I didn't manage to get any pictures, except one of Axel holding a frisbee. It is not a very good picture and almost not worth posting. Oh well! Yesterday afternoon Axel played with Max, Annika and Marlena, while Keith worked hard at priming the garage. He took the time to properly do the taping and trim. He was finally done when I put Axel to bed so I came in and spent the next three hours priming the walls and together we did the ceiling. I was extremely proud of us for pushing through again and working until 10:40pm. It was a very long day. I am really excited to get the garage painted next week. Hopefully, we will get most of it done on Saturday so Keith doesn't have to do hard labor on father's day :) Axel is growing by leaps and bounds. We have been running about a third of a mile every night while we walk Louis. Axel loves to get his "exercise" in and is becoming quite the fast runner. This week he also mastered riding his tricycle. He is now not only tall enough, but strong enough to push the pedals. Because his tricycles are hand me downs and somewhat falling apart, we decided it was time to go get Axel a "real" big boy bike. After trying out a few bikes and going to a couple of bike shops we found Axel's perfect 12 inch bike with training wheels on it. He hopped on and started riding like he was a pro. We are super excited for him. He rode about a third of a mile tonight, rather than running. Of course, I forgot to bring my phone and hence don't have pictures, but hope to have pictures for the next blog. Axel continues to be a funny man. He makes jokes and changes words to be silly and funny. Here he is wearing daddy's shoes, saying, "Is this funny?" Besides his new physical gains, Axel's vocabulary continues to grow. He almost knows the alphabet by himself. He still gets a few mixed up. His letter recognition is improving. I think he can pick out almost half of the alphabet and give a word that starts with each letter he recognizes. It is such a joy seeing him learn and grown and have fun doing it. We have more fun planned for this week so check back soon!

Happy 80th Birthday GG

Before we jump to my Grandma's 80th Birthday and Party I will update you on our very fun and action packed Memorial Day weekend. The weekend started off by purchasing Axel a big boy, twin mattress. He was so excited to pick out his sheets at Target on Thursday. I let him pick out the color. It took over 10 minutes for him to decide. He finally decided on red. He also wanted pink and yellow, but I think he realized that his bed was red and he wanted to match it.

Once we had the sheets washed and the bed converted Axel was even more excited that he was finally a bigger boy, ready for a big boy mattress. He also figured out his little polka dotted blanket that he has been sleeping with for the past two years or more is just too small. He decided the Winnie the Pooh Blanket was okay for the first night, but he realized the big red blanket that I tried to convince him to get wasn't such a bad idea after all. So his bed currently has twin red sheets and a nice flannel red blanket on top.

All memorial day weekend Keith and I finished putting up the sheet rock, spackeled and taped the garage. We put in some long hours in order to finish Sunday night. I was really proud of Keith pushing through. It is not necessarily a trait of his to be type A like myself and stay up all night to get something done just for the sake of getting it done. We worked until 10:30pm Sunday night when we had the intention of stopping at 6pm for dinner. I actually cooked dinner and bathed Axel while Keith worked and then Keith came in and ate and put Axel to bed while I worked. When I was done at 10:00pm he went back out to find any areas I missed while I showered. It was great team work! Next phase is priming and painting. Our goal is to be done by the end of the month. It will take one weekend to prime and the following weekend we will paint. It is funny how long projects take when there is fun to be had, especially now that summer is here.

Speaking of fun, Memorial day started with Max's birthday party. We all had a blast. Axel and Max play extremely well together, despite being 10 months apart. I believe Max put his arm around Axel half a dozen time over the 3 hours that we were there. Of course, it was impossible to catch it on film. I had a hard enough time getting photos that were not blurry, let alone a cute moment.

Axel loves birthday cake. He announced to everyone at the party that he likes the frosting the best. :)

Axel has matured so much in the past few months. He is great at sharing and not being upset when others open gifts. He loves to help out and enjoys seeing others have fun.

This Thursday was my Grandma Millie's 80th birthday. She really wanted all of the Goldstein's/family to get together for her birthday. This is the first birthday party that we have every had for her that I can remember. We were all looking forward to making it a special day for her. Grandma Susan did all of the hard work. She prepared all of the food and bought the group gift of a new 1100 watt microwave. She also brought gifts for Axel. Here she is reading one of them :)

Because we hardly ever get together I wanted to include a picture of everyone that was there so that my Grandma could access them (minus two of Grandma's friends, because I didn't get a picture of them). Auntie and Uncle Ryan.

Aunt Cindy and Kaylee (Carrie's daughter) and Axel's "favorite cousin"

My cousin Carrie who we haven't seen in sometime. It was great seeing her and catching up.

Uncle David

My cousin James, his wife Denise and their little girl, Vanessa who is almost 7 months.

Grandpa Brian, tucked behind Axel eating GG's yummy birthday cake (brought by Aunt Cindy).

And the birthday girl herself!

Unfortunately, My Aunt Susan was unable to attend because she is still very ill and in the hospital. We were glad that she was doing well enough for Uncle David and James to attend though. We had such a great time and although it was a long day of driving it was well worth it.

Fun, Busy Times

Time continues to fly by in the Szolusha household. Our days and weekends are action packed. It seems like Axel's social calendar is becoming just as busy as ours. Before I get ahead of myself I will start off from where we left off. Axel and Keith surprised me with a wonderful Mother's day. It started off with the most gourmet breakfast burritos that Keith has ever made. Then they picked me a beautiful bouquet of flowers from our yard while I got to go for a ride. For dinner they took me out to eat at the Wine Cellar in Los Gatos. Axel scarfed his spaghetti, while Keith enjoyed duck and I enjoyed a very delicious seafood dish. We were a bit early for our reservations so we burned some time across the street at the Gap. Axel was absolutely fascinated with the manikins.

You can tell we don't get out much. I can see how it was foreign for him to see fake, non-moving "people".

He was even more amazed by the kid manikins.

We managed to grab a couple of photos on our way out after dinner.

Daddy and Axel being silly.

Axel has had a couple of play dates with Rishaan, but he has been hanging out with Max more because Rishaan has been out of town and busy with family gatherings. Max and Axel have been getting along great. We have been having lunch picnics in the park across the street from our house on Thursdays.

We also ventured out to Salinas to watch Monster Jam. Max and his father, along with the three of us, carpooled together. It was a complete blast. Axel and Max LOVED it.

Keith and Axel officially decided it was going to be an annual father/son date from here on out. We had perfect seats. We were nice and high up on the bleachers so it wasn't too loud and we lucked out with shade that 70% of the audience didn't have :)

We are finally replacing the carpet in our front room. We are sticking with the lowest profile carpet which is a loop carpet to prevent any allergy issues with both Keith and Axel. Keith and I are excited that he was able to handle the current carpet without any allergy problems. We thought for sure that we would have to replace it with hardwood floors like the rest of the house. However, because of the success the past two years, we will get to continue to enjoy the carpet room. Axel loves playing in there. It has become more of a play room than a living room, which we are completely okay with. We are actually glad that we use all of the rooms in our house. At any rate, both Axel and Louis had fun picking out the carpet.

Louis liked the bigger loop carpet because it was softer, but that was really not an option.

This morning Axel and I met Mason and his mom at the Palo Alto Junior Museum and Zoo. They had an absolute blast. The inside of the place, or the museum, was like a small version of the big Discovery Museum in San Jose. The science displays were all interactive and kept the children quite occupied.

The inside also had a fun tunnel and climbing rope the kids could play in and on. Axel and Mason of course, loved the bug tunnel.

The outside consisted of a small zoo. After two hours of fun the two of them enjoyed a picnic and then we headed home for nap time.

We will be attending Max's birthday party Monday morning/afternoon and then we have a neighborhood BBQ in the park that evening. Keith is going to enjoy some fun racing tomorrow and Monday. We also think we may get out to some of the sales to buy Axel a twin mattress, and possibly a new refrigerator, grill and microwave. We will see what deals we can find :) Thanks for reading. We hope you all enjoy the long weekend. We also would love prayers for my Aunt Susan. Please pray for a full recovery as she is very ill. Thanks!

Deer Hollow Farm and Bike to (not) Work Day

With the nice weather time seems to be ticking a little faster around here. Since our last post we have gone to a couple of bike races to watch daddy race. At our first bike race of the year, here is Axel lounging on my lap eating a cookie with his favorite new shirt that Grandma Susan found. It is really cool. It changes color in the sun and then goes back to black and white in the shade or indoors. It was really hot in Livermore so we laid low while we watched daddy race.

We also watched daddy race this past weekend at our local Los Gatos race, Cat's Hill. Unfortunately, I did not get any photos of the day. Keith wasn't feeling great anyways because of his allergies. After his race we went to a nice BBQ at our friend Kerry's house. Axel had a great time playing with new friends he met and Keith and I enjoyed good food, conversation and company. The day before Cat's Hill Criterium, last Friday, Axel and I went to Deer Hollow Farm with one of his daycare buddies, Mason. The farm is an old little farm in Rancho San Antonia Park. I had no idea it was there. It was a mile walk on the trails to get there from the parking lot. It was a little long for Axel as Mason was trying to walk with his mother and I and Axel was getting a nice free ride. Axel really wanted to turn around because it was taking us "so long" to get there, but luckily his tempermant changed when we finally arrived.

Apparently it was birthing season. We were able to see 7 new baby goats that were 1-2 months old and 5 lambs that were also just around a month old. Axel was even able to pet one of the mommy goats and was very excited to see how the mommy and daddy interacted with the babies.

We saw a 90 year old tractor that was from 1920. It was one of the high lights for me.

Axel and Mason's favorite aspect of the day, was not any of the animals that they saw, but the "really big, cool tree trunk that was cut in half." Here is Axel enjoying himself inside the tree trunk.

Axel actually did a run/walk the mile hike bike to the car. I was really proud of him for being such a big boy and walking on his own. He often likes to be carried or pushed, so doing a mile continuous was a big deal.

Yesterday, Thursday, was Bike to Work day in the South Bay. Different companies put up booths that are called energizer stations and give out free food and gadgets. Our group of friends along with hundreds, if not thousands of other cyclist, tried to gather as much free things as possible on their way to work. Here is Keith, myself, Axel and Denny at the Kaiser station. We had to get a picture there since I work there.

Axel and I headed home after going to 4 stations while Keith and Denny met up with a few others and stopped by several more. The coolest item was free anti-virus software, but the most unique and original was a portable potty called Brief Relief that instantly gels your urine and is safe to dispose of in the garbage. We are all still laughing about it today. Axel and I stopped by a new park on the way home. He had fun swinging Mr. Piggy and Mr. Bear in the kiddy swings.

Axel has been a little defiant lately so this week was all about making sure he knows exactly what his boundaries are. He spent a lot of time in his room thinking about his mouth and his actions. Luckily, with a little bit of tough love Axel is now eating by himself, going to the bathroom by himself and remembering to say please and thank you, rather than crying and yelling. Keith and I were thinking back and it is hard to figure out how situations manifest and grow, but Axel got to the point where he wouldn't eat unless he was on my lap and I was feeding him. He would also not go to the bathroom without someone going with him, when he goes alone at daycare. We are really proud that we nipped it in the butt and he is back on track. Having a sweet, boy who cooperates is much nicer. Now, if I can just get him to stop calling everything poopy butt life would be even better :) On a more positive note, Axel still loves trains. Here is our latest creation of his tracks. I kind of get proud when we think of some new inventive way to put his tracks together. I don't think Axel really cares, but Keith and I always complement each other's designs. Besides, Grandpa Bruce designed one of the coolest tracks and I couldn't let him out do my creativity :)

Last I leave you with another funny Axel moment. Here we are headed out for a walk. You will notice Axel only has one lens in his glasses. He didn't care. He wore them the entire walk without a complaint.

We hope everyone enjoys the beautiful weekend and wish all Moms out there a special Mother's Day!