Happy Thanksgiving

It is hard to believe that Phoenix turned 10 months, Axel had his first school field trip and thanksgiving is already over. I had wanted to do a post for Pheeny's 10 month, but we have been extremely busy. I just finished a 3 month home study course for my PT license in 1 month and cooking for the kids along with every day errands really fills up our days.

This year for thanksgiving we went to Auntie's Shannon's sister in law, Shannon's house. That is right. They are both Shannon Jolley :) The "other Shannon", as we say in our house, lives in Tracey. Keith raced up Mt. Hamilton and then we headed over to her house for dinner. Here is my handsome husband who got 3rd place out of 150 riders!

 Lovely Auntie Shannon and Uncle Ryan.

 Our happy baby girl Phoenix who is getting over another virus. She had a fever and a really bad cough from Friday until Monday last weekend. I actually stayed home from work on Monday. I think it really helped because she seems to be 100% healthy now. This was one of her worst viruses, although it only lasted 1 week which was great.

 The two Shannon Jolley's :)

 Greg, the other Shannon's dad, her husband, Casey and son Lance, along with Axel, daddy and Uncle Ryan having a blast playing basketball.

 They live in a great neighborhood and all of the kids play outside on a regular basis. It was just like the good old times when we use to all play outside without a worry in the world.

 Phoenix and Ainsley, the other Shannon's baby girl, had a fun time playing together. Ainsley just turned 7 months.

 Here is my lovely niece Braylin. She is already 3+ months. She is quite a talker!

Grandma Susan also made it to dinner, despite getting over a cold. Grandpa Brian was too sick to join us so we made sure to eat for him too! We were all bummed to not see Grandpa since he just had his 60th birthday on the 24th! Grandma and him caught their colds while having fun in Reno. 

 A week before Thanksgiving, Axel went on his first field trip to the Planetarium. Here is a selfie of us on the school bus. He was so excited and had a great time. He did get a bit scared when the kids in the cardboard space shuttle got too close to the planets and didn't listen to the astronomy book. He had to sit in my lap and hide his head in my shoulder during the parts that he thought were scary. He was the only child to get scared out of the 20+ children who attended, but I don't mind that he doesn't want anyone to get hurt. He is just more sensitive than the other kids :)

 Here is his preschool class after watching the cardboard space shuttle.

 Last Saturday, instead of having our normal pre-thanksgiving feast we went out on our annual date to Keith's company party. This is the first year it has fallen on the Saturday before Thanksgiving, but we didn't mind. We had a great time.

 We played the money machine again and the prize we went home with this year was a $15 gift card to Starbucks. That beats the dice we brought home for Axel last year :)

 It was a team effort. together we collected the $1000 needed to "cash" in for our Starbucks gift card.

 We had such a good time and the kids did great. I was really apprehensive about leaving Phoenix because she was sick and had a fever. I gave her Tylenol, just in case and she slept 6 hours without interruption. It was great for me because I was able to sleep for almost 4 hours before having to get up and feed her. She normally gets up every 4 hours to feed at night. I am hoping she will get back to being a good sleeper once we can keep her healthy and eating. She is always hungry because she is always trying to recover from a reaction to food or from a virus. The entire family (except me) is going to get tested for allergies in the coming weeks. I am hoping we will have a better idea on what foods the kids can tolerate now.

Some fun news is that Phoenix mastered clapping and waving goodbye this week. She gets really excited when someone says clap and starts clapping. She is extremely proud of herself. She is also getting more comfortable walking hand in hand. She still loves to knee walk so we don't think she will be walking for a couple of months still.

Axel and I decorated the entire house this weekend for Christmas. He absolutely loves to decorate and make decorations. He impresses me every day with how creative he is. The Grinch came back and Axel and daddy watched it last night for the first time. Axel gets to watch it every time he sleeps through the night. I am hoping that will provide the motivation he needs to start sleeping through the night again.

We hope you all enjoyed your long weekend and had a great Thanksgiving!

Videos

Well, time gets away from me and instead of posting these early in the week it is now the very end of the week. Here are a few fun videos. The first is from our fun in the leaves last weekend. As you can see Axel had an absolute blast.

Here is a video of Phoenix practically running while pushing the wagon. She can now walk hand in hand with little support, but she really doesn't want to walk independently. She did take her first step by herself this week when I let go of her while she was standing next to me. She took a step and then realized I wasn't holding onto her and fell onto her knees. 

Last is a video of Phoenix dancing after pushing the chair around. I decided this video of her dancing was more entertaining then watching her push a chair around the house. 

 I hope you enjoyed. We are looking forward to Axel's first field trip to the Planetarium and Phoenix turning 10 months. Check back soon for more Szolusha fun!

Big boy Axel, Halloween, Fall Fun and more!

A few weeks ago as I was rolling the bins onto our driveway, Axel decided to move them in order to play peek a boo with sister. He and I were both so surprised that he was big enough and strong enough that he decided he wanted to start rolling the bins back onto our driveway every Monday night. You can kind of see from this picture that I roll them up over the curb and then Axel rolls them the rest of the way. He has to concentrate pretty hard for the big yard waste bin and recycle bin, 

 But the small garbage bin is a piece of cake.

 He often decides to run around the driveway with it as sister shreaks with joy while watching him.

 It is hard to believe my little guy is such a big boy now. The past three Mondays I have been beaming with joy watching him being so proud of himself. He loves these opportunities to do grown up tasks like these.

 Well, Halloween has come and gone in a flash and Thanksgiving is just around the corner. Little Phoenix and I have been sick pretty continuously. It has been about three months for Phoenix and over 6 weeks for me. I mentally prepared myself for Phoenix to be sick from 6 months to a year like Axel was. I think it is mostly from their suppressed immune systems from their food allergies.

We continue to not have much luck with the introduction of solids. Phoenix is mostly eating carrots and different types of squashes. I am hoping to try lamb and cooked apples over the next couple of weeks. She ate a few bites of lamb for me when I cooked it for Keith and I last night, but today when I tried to give it to her she refused so we will see how that goes. She has been very interested in eating what we are. I feel horrible for her that she can't experiment like other children.  If her reactions weren't consistently as bad as they have been I would be more lenient. 

 Daddy took the day off of work on Halloween so the four of us were able to spend most of the day together.

At 12 pm Axel's school had a small Halloween party. The four of us headed over there. Axel had fun playing different games, carnival style, while daddy and mommy had fun talking with other parents and trying to get a few photos of Phoenix for her scrapbook.

Instead of passing out candy or having Halloween sweets the kids were able to earn prizes with the games they participated in. This was great for Axel, since he is unable to eat any store bought candy or sweets. 

Daddy and Phoenix!

Mommy and Phoenix!

After the party we headed home. Phoenix was suppose to take a nice long nap while we carved a pumpkin and made some food. Phoenix had other plans.

So I used the opportunity to try for another photo or two.

Of course, Axel wanted to get in on the photo action as well.He threw his home made witch hat and cape on for the picture. Axel took a ton of pride in his costume. He worked hard a making his hat and didn't care that witches were suppose to be female. He didn't want to be a warlock and didn't understand why he couldn't be a boy witch with a witch hat. I was really proud of him for being creative and thinking up a costume and then going through with making it.

Daddy was finally ready to carve the second pumpkin with Axel. Axel and I had carved our other pumpkin together the previous night so it was daddy's turn to get in on the fun. 

Of course, their fun was boy style and the two of them had fun joking around with one another. 

I absolutely love this photo because you can see how much fun the two of them are having together.

After the pumpkin was carved we put them out on the front porch, took a bath, ate dinner and got dressed to go trick or treating!

We had planned to go as a family, but poor Phoenix started to melt down in the bath and ended up being put to sleep at 5:45pm.  So Axel and I headed over to his classmates house down the street. 

 Here Axel and Axel are happily trick or treating together with their glow sticks. We had a little mishap about 35 minutes in where our Axel tripped and fell and cut his lip pretty bad. We had to head home to get the bleeding to stop. It worked out well because Keith and I had intended to trade places. Once Axel was all cleaned up he set out to find the other Axel and continued to trick or treat while I passed out candy and caught up on some much needed reading.

 Sometime last week I decided to put Phoenix in the bath tub with Axel because she seemed ready for it. Oh boy, did I ever make her day. The girl is IN LOVE with the bath tub. She absolutely squeals with delight anytime I sing the bath time song. She splashes and plays as if she has always taken baths.

 I have had so much fun each night watching the two of them play together in the tub.

 Last Sunday, Axel and I were suppose to go to a concert with my friend Julia and her daughter Sadie, but circumstances came up, so instead we had a play date at her house. No matter how long these two go without seeing each other, they play extremely well together when they do see each other.

 Phoenix is such a funny little girl. She absolutely loves water bottles. She tries to drink out of them all of the time. She talks often and is determined to get what she wants. She is stubborn and a fighter. She will push back when pushed and vocally let us know when she is not happy. She continues to be more and more mobile. She walks on her knees, cruises when holding on to anything and crawls faster than I have seen most babies crawl. She is an absolute joy to be around and will make you smile from ear to ear by her spunky personality.

 This past Friday we had a play date with my friend Tiffany and her two children Avery and Charlotte. The last time we had gotten together the girls were just sitting. It was really fun to see them crawl and stand and interact together.

 Avery, who will be three next month has really blossomed vocally and played really well with Axel once she got warmed up. Typically the two of them have played separately next to each other. This was the first time that they actually played together, which was really fun to see.

 Yesterday afternoon Axel wanted to go to Jack Fischer park for the first time in months. I was excited to take him upon his request because I love to see him come out of his shell. Sister got into the swings for the second time ever. She absolutely loved it. Axel also enjoyed being pushed in the big boy swing. He actually swung for a whopping 5 minutes which is quite the record for him.

 Phoenix loved the sand.

 Brother and her played well together in the sand.

 She often seems and acts so much older than 9 months old.

 She absolutely loves to explore and do what brother does.

 She even had the opportunity to taste a leaf :)

 And Axel warmed up to playing with "strangers" after watching them play for over 10 minutes. He had a lot of fun helping the kids make the river of water.

 Phoenix enjoyed watching them and wanted to join in on the action as well. Unfortunately, I didn't want her to get wet so we played a very long game of her knee walking to them and me carrying her away.

 Today was a great low key day. The kids and I played and cooked most of the day and when daddy got home from his bike ride they played outside in the leaves and helped daddy get some much needed yard work done.

 Axel had a blast!

 Phoenix had more fun watching than participating. Here is the picture I got just before she starting crying.

 I have several super cute videos I want to post, but I am tired and need to get to bed. I hope you enjoyed all of the wonderful photos of the kids! Check back soon for a video blog for some good laughs and smiles.