Happy Easter

We had a wonderful Easter weekend celebrating our wonderful Lord and Savior and his amazing sacrifice for us. We started the weekend with decorating Easter Eggs. Axel had fun as always.....

 But Phoenix also warmed up to the fun after a little observing.

 You can see the progression of her checking things out from a distance and then

a little closer, until.....

 she was decorating the eggs herself!

 After egg decorating we took Louis for a walk and threw rocks in our non existent stream.

 On Easter morning I made some yummy pumpkin pie oatmeal in the slow cooker. I love those breakfasts that you don't have to make in the morning and are ready to eat! After breakfast, Axel found his Easter basket full of Mickey Mouse stickers, a toothbrush, super bouncy balls and a few pieces of candy.

 He loves the chocolate coin candy!

 Phoenix loved the tooth brush she received.

 Daddy and Axel trained Phoenix on how to look for eggs yesterday so she was fully prepared for today's events.

 We started with an egg hunt in the house.

 Axel and Phoenix had fun finding the eggs that we decorated, but both were looking forward to the big egg hunt outside in the park.

 Axel's friends, Rishaan and Axel, arrived right on time. The boys were great following the "rules". They were told they have 79 eggs to find, and to avoid the few eggs on the grass that were for Phoenix to "find". Phoenix went right to work.

 She found all 5 of the eggs that were left for her on the grass.

She carefully picked up each of her eggs and placed them

 into her basket with a smile.

 The boys were able to collect about 20 eggs each in the time it took Phoenix to find her 5 eggs.

 Axel really looked like flash as he flew through the park picking up the eggs he found.

  He needed guidance to look up on occasion,

but overall did a great job finding the eggs.

What a cute rabbit we have :)

 I was very impressed with how well the boys got along and how there was no arguing about who got more. It was a big improvement from last year. I am not sure if it was the fact that they were all 5 years old or if it was the combination of who participated this year from last year. 

It was really fun to watch the kids have so much fun! Here is a group photo. The two older girls are Axel's neighbors who he has played with over the last 4 years. Serene and Saline are 10 and 12 years old and were there for moral support :).

 Our not so silly faced photo!

 Afterwards we headed over to Axel's house to play some more.

 After some fun play time, some snacks and a monster making project we went home for lunch and nap time.

 Daddy grilled a delicious dinner while I enjoyed the beautiful afternoon sun on my bike for a couple of hours. The three of them enjoyed a picnic outside and were in the bath when I got home at 5pm. It was the first time I came home to a cooked meal and the kids in the bath. What an extra special day for me after I spent my ride reflecting on the incredible sacrifice Jesus did for us and how unbelievably blessed I am to have such an amazing family! Happy Easter Family and Friends!

Videos of story time and Axel Dancing

Rockin out at story time!

Axel showing his tap moves

Axel showing his ballet moves

Axel's first dance class and Easter Egg hunt at school

Yesterday after story time at the library Axel had his friend, Connor, over for a play date. I wasn't able to catch a picture of the boys, but I did snap a picture of Phoenix trying to play with the car track/ramp just like the boys. The rest of the time I was managing Phoenix from getting in the way of the two boys playing. 

 After his play date we headed over to the Dance Zone for Axel's first dance class. He wanted to try the ballet/tap combo class so that is what we did. The class if for 5-7 year old.

 He was by far the smallest kid and according to the head lady he is the only male to participate in any tap or ballet class.

 Parents were not allowed to be in the room, but we could watch through a window outside the room. The pictures are blurry because of this, but I am glad I was still able to take pictures of his first experience in any formal extra curricular activity.

 I was really impressed at how well he did and how much fun he had. He wants to continue. I am going to have him borrow tap and ballet shoes for another few weeks and also have him try the hip hop class at least once before we make a full commitment. I am excited to see what the future holds for my favorite little guy!

 When we got home yesterday from the dance class I found a package on our door step. Keith's Aunt Lois and Uncle Paul sent Axel birthday presents. I let him open it up this morning. He immediately started painting with one of his gifts. He was very excited for the late birthday present and loved everything! Thanks Aunt Lois and Uncle Paulie.

 Today Axel had an Easter celebration at school. All of the kids were Eater bunnies and apparently the Easter bunny stopped by to hide a hundred and fifty five eggs for the kids to find.

 Earlier in the week Easter baskets were made and once everyone lined up and was accounted for the kids were let loose to find 5 eggs each.

 Axel quickly got to work and was able to find his 5 eggs in a matter of minutes.

 Phoenix patiently watched.

 And Axel made sure he had 5 eggs and not any more or less.

 And then he headed back to the wall to wait for his other classmates.

 Connor and Axel compared their cool eggs.

 And then it was snack time where all of the kids feasted on hard boiled eggs and sweats. Axel enjoyed a cookie I brought him while Phoenix snacked on the carrots.

 After watching all of the kids sit and eat, Phoenix decided to find a chair so she can enjoy her carrots sitting like the other kids.

Later today we will color Easter eggs and then we will have a fun Easter egg hunt in our park like last year. I was hoping we would be able to make it to church, but we decided we are going to go help finalize Tyler and Cynthia's baby shower on Saturday night instead. We are helping with all of the games and food as they are busy trying to prepare their house and lives for their two future girls expected to arrive anywhere between 6 and 11 weeks from now.

Check back soon for more Easter fun!

More Spring Fun

On the last blog I mentioned Axel's 5 year check up. Here are Axel and Phoenix walking up the ramp to enter the building. They walked all the way from the parking lot into the Pediatric department holding hands. It was one of those proud parent moments for me.

While I was filling out a questionnaire Axel and Phoenix looked at the fish. Again, Axel was very sweet making sure Phoenix could see as well as he could.

After the appointment Axel happily grabbed Pheeny's hand and they walked all the way to the car again hand in hand. I love how much they love each other. Axel's seems to be maturing the past few weeks. He no longer seems to be competing with Phoenix for attention. Which is great for both kids!

We had a low key weekend last weekend because of the crazy birthday weekend, the week before and the fact that I took a continuing education course on Thursday and Friday of this week. Attending the course made this past week a 45 hour work week for me. It was difficult staying up late to do laundry and cleaning that I normally do on Thursdays and Fridays. I missed my extra time with Axel and Phoenix which reinforced how lucky I am to work 3 days a week!

 It has been an especially long 10 days for me because I decided to go cold turkey on the bottle 10 days ago. The first 3 days were especially rough. Phoenix was up off and on all night it seemed. She was so angry at me she decided, if I wasn't going to allow her the bottle, she was done with the sippy cup too. Luckily, she wants to learn how to drink from a big girl cup and is okay using a straw.

The positive from all of this is she is essentially sleeping through the night. She often cries in her sleep for 10-20 minutes 1-3x/night and 2 of the 10 nights the sleep crying escalated to real crying because she was hungry. Both times I offered her milk, which she refused. Both times she refused to sleep until I handed her half a slice of bread. Yes I feel like they were bad mommy moments and I pray that it doesn't become a habit, but I knew she was hungry and sometimes us mommies do anything for sleep :)

Yesterday we attended a birthday party of another child that goes to the same daycare as Axel and Phoenix. Axel and Phoenix had fun playing with Keiko's toys and other daycare kids.

Axel was able to play with Brandon who use to go to Axel's daycare, but is now in kindergarten.

Phoenix had fun we Keiko's toys as well!

Especially this bouncing horse or donkey. I included a video of her giggling away while playing on this toy!

Phoenix is also really into coloring and trying to paint. So when she saw the easel at the party it was no surprise to Keith and I that she starting coloring away. The only thing that we have to work on is getting her to not chew on them once she gets bored.

This afternoon Keith and I were able to do a nice ride together after spending all morning with the kiddos. We had a nice family weekend. I wanted to include this picture because this sums up our house on a regular basis. Here Phoenix is eating away as Axel and Daddy goof off. If you look closely Axel has a raisin in his nose and daddy is trying to get his back into his nose so I can snap a photo of the two silly Szolushas.

I think I have mentioned many times how strong willed Phoenix is and how she wants to do everything herself. Well, after a couple of months of battling off and on with her she is finally starting to master feeding herself. She mostly does well when she is really hungry. Sometimes when she is bored with what she is eating or she is done she starts to throw it or dumps it out of the bowl and on to the floor. She is always really cute about it and says "AH OH", but I am definitely looking forward to cleaning less in a few months.

Here is a cute video of Phoenix cracking up while playing with the bouncing horse.

Check back soon for Easter Fun!

Axel is 5 years old!!!!

What a great Birthday weekend Axel had. It started Friday night with daddy staying up until past midnight making and decorating Axel's Mickey Mouse Clubhouse birthday cake. We originally planned to have Axel's birthday Saturday afternoon, but a strong rain system was expected with high winds and possible thunderstorm. We made a last minute decision on Friday afternoon to move the party to Sunday so that we could still get the jump house for Axel and his friends. 

Saturday Auntie, Uncle, Braylin and Grandma still came over to celebrate with Axel since they had their entire day planned around celebrating with Axel.

We enjoyed a yummy lunch and then some play time, while Axel opened up his gifts.

He received his sphere puzzle that he has been wanting for over 6 months now! Auntie and Uncle Ryan also bought Axel a new pair of converse. They are a little big, but we are sure he will grow into them soon.

Grandma Susan and Grandpa Brian bought Axel a super cool remote control helicopter. Although Axel did not initially receive the gift well because he was extremely into solving the puzzle, he absolutely loves the remote control helicopter.

After gift opening we enjoyed some delicious birthday cake that daddy worked really hard to make. We learned that the cake was really dense and firm because we didn't leave it out for a couple of hours before serving.

Braylin was getting ready for her second nap of the day so unfortunately our guests had to go sooner than we had hoped, but we were very thankful that they made the trek to our house despite the rain.

I had so much fun seeing my beautiful niece. I am amazed at how much she has grown and how she is already doing big girl tricks like sitting and pulling herself up to standing. I have decided it must be a girl thing. Girls just want to be more independent than boys which motivates them to reach physical milestones more quickly. At any rate, it was great seeing the Jolley's and my mom.

After our guests left we enjoyed a fun family rain walk and more cake baking!!!! Luckily, on Saturday daddy started much earlier so the project of monster truck chocolate cake was done by 7:30pm.

On Sunday afternoon Axel had the biggest jump house you could rent for his birthday party.

As party favors we got the kids cape and masks so they could play super heros.

They had an absolute blast!

They kids played non stop for almost 4 hours. Axel took a break only to eat a hot dog in 5 minutes flat and to take a quick pee break on a local tree.

We were able to convince the kids to stop for some yummy birthday cake. But after about 5 minutes of singing Happy birthday and handing out cake the kids were back at it again!

But this time the adults joined the kids! Daddy had fun being silly and doing a full on belly flop jump. Half of the reason we rented this particular bounce house was so that we all could enjoy being kids for the day :)

Here is a picture of all of the kids who came. The two all the way to the right are our buddy Mike's twins. We called them up the day of and invited them to enjoy the jump house too! They were only there for a little over an hour, but it was still great seeing them!

Besides the two Axel's having the time of their lives, Phoenix was a close second enjoying the bounce house more than I would have imagined. My neighbor got a slow motion video of her jumping. Once she sends it to me I will have to post it. I have learned the tongue out for her means she is beyond happy!

And here are the three Amigos.....Axel R. Axel S. and Rishaan. As Axel said, "I am going to have both of my best friends at my party, it is going to be hard to choose which one to play with." Luckily, as we explained to him they all played together very well. The day was an absolute success!

On Monday, daddy volunteered at Axel's preschool all day and was there to celebrate his birthday with him and his classmates. I was able to get off of work a little early and we enjoyed dinner together as a family. Axel requested macaroni and cheese and that is exactly what he ate and nothing else! He also was able to open 1 gift. He opened Grammy Carol's present which was the rainbow loom. We also let him open Annika's present (his babysitters) because we knew she got him more rubber bands for his loom.

On Tuesday, he celebrated with his friends at his daycare, because more of his friends go on Tuesdays then Mondays. We then worked on a couple of bracelets on his rainbow loom.

This morning we went to the doctor for his 5 year check up. As you can imagine Axel is ecstatic about his birthday and told his Dr. today that he had 4 parties. He had a great check up. He weighed in at 33.2 lbs. This puts him in the 4th percentile!!!! He is 39 and a quarter inch which puts him in the 2nd percentile. This is fantastic. He not only stayed on the chart, but he went up a couple of percentiles!

All about Axel......
He currently loves Mickey Mouse. He can count to 100. He loves to do simply addition and subtraction word problems, especially while we are driving. He loves being a big brother and always wants to help. He loves puzzles and doing any form of art projects. He paints, draws, does sock puppets and builds structures with all forms of toys and art supplies. His favorite food is macaroni and cheese. He really isn't a fruit person, but will eat bananas, pears, apples, cantaloupe and blueberries if convinced. He enjoys veggies more. He eats green beans, asparagus, cucumbers, carrots and broccoli. He doesn't prefer meat, but he likes beef better than chicken. He likes turkey sandwiches, and almond butter and jelly sandwiches. He loves egg burritos and pasta, especially with cheese. He is a chocolate lover like his father. He loves to read and can write and say the alphabet, upper and lower case. He can read basic words and is excited about school. We play school all of the time. He can now jump, hop on one foot, climb, run, and ride a bike. He still uses training wheels and pretends to be "flash" the super hero when he puts on his cape and slippers. He sprints around the house. He likes organization and wants everything to be clean and orderly. He color coordinates his toys and is constantly reorganizing his toys. He is a happy and loving person and we feel so blessed to have the privilege of parenting such a wonderful child. We are excited for what the future hold.......