Florida Vacation and Rubix at 9 months (1st tooth)

On Sunday the 11th we went to Eileen's House for her annual Christmas Gathering. She lives in a neighborhood that has a couple of streets that go all out with decorating their homes with lights. Here is a cute picture of Rubix as we started the walk through the lights. He quickly fell asleep and slept the entire hour we were out. 

 Here is a picture of Alex and Axel on the fake Santa and of course

 Phoenix much happier on the fake Santa then the real Santa. It was a good time and a late night which made getting up for the last week of school and Angela's difficult for the whole family.

 On Thursday the 15th we headed to Ft. Lauderdale Florida for a quick family vacation and visit with Grandpa Paul, Uncle Mark and Aunt Kathy. The 15th was also Rubix's 9 month milestone. When we arrived he officially started crawling on all 4's rather than sliding on his stomach. He had been playing around with crawling a bit before Thursday but hadn't fully committed. Thursday was also the day that Rubix finally cut his first tooth. He has had the top teeth poke out and then recede but his bottom left gums officially opened up and over the course of our vacation the full bottom of the tooth made its entrance. Rubix also decided that he wanted to master sitting down from standing and going from a crawling position to sitting as well.

The family traveled quite well on the way out and the kids slept very well the first night. 

Friday morning we were out on the beach by 8 am.  

 Grandpa Paul and Uncle Mark arrived around 11 am for a fun filled day of visiting.

 The kids swam, played on the beach and around the facilities. The pool water was nice and warm. I think it was 85 degrees.

 Axel did some laps and showed off his swim strokes to Grandpa Paul and Uncle Mark.

Afterward he played this game where you had to get a small circle hanging from a string around a hook on a board about 5 feet in the air. 

 Axel and Phoenix played hard all day. They had hours and hours of fun while we all visited and watched them enjoy themselves.

 On Saturday morning we went and road the Jungle Queen Fairy. It was a 90 minute tour on the water way. We say 10 to 30 million dollar vacation homes, yachts and luxury cruises. As you can see the kids were wearing their new Fort Lauderdale clothing we got them the night before when we went into town for dinner.

 I forgot to mention all of the Iguanas we saw. They come in all sizes and colors. They are everywhere!

 Rubix has been playing around with the monster walk/crawl as well. He is so cute getting around like this!

 Here is the beginning stage of Axel's 6 hour sand castle creation. He worked really hard

to make it perfectly the way he envisioned. As you can see Phoenix had fun playing in the sand to, but she just wanted to play and not create. 

 Rubix also enjoyed the sand. He ate a little more than we hoped and got way more in his hair and diaper than I expected, but it was fun well had.

Saturday afternoon we went to Grandpa Paul's and Uncle Mark's/Aunt Kathy's house. We had a nice visit. We had planned to go see a light show in a local park, but Rubix fell back while sitting and hit his head on the tile floor. He was in a really bad sleep deprived state so we rushed back to bathe him and get him to sleep. On Sunday we had more fun and a nice dinner with the three Szolushas. Monday we spent the day sucking up every last bit of sun and warmth that we could before we headed to the airport for our 6:40pm flight home. here is Axel in his almost finished sand castle. He ended up adding a lot more detail on Monday, but he was happy enough with it to leave it and get cleaned up for dinner :)

 Before he left the beach for the last time he decided he had to do a sand angel. he was very pleased with himself.

 The kids were exhausted. Here is a picture of Phoenix on the way to the airport. Too bad she only got  a 20 minute nap. She could have used 2 hours! We got home and the kids in bed just before midnight. I had to wake up early for work and daddy stayed home with the kiddos. He took Rubix to his 9 month check and Axel to his weigh-in appointment. Rubix weighed 19 lbs 8oz, 47th percentile and Axel weighed 42 lbs 14.4 oz, or 2.8 percentile. That is a 4.5 lb gain since this summer! Rubix was 29.5 inches tall, which put him at the 70th percentile. Axel was 3 feet 10.5 inches tall or 7.3 percentile. It has been a long short week as I worked Tuesday through Thursday and each night managed to get a little bit done around the house. For Keith and the kids it was a long, short week because everyone has been trying to catch up on sleep!

 On Wednesday afternoon/ evening the kids managed to finally decorate and build their annual gingerbread house.

 We also got an hour of park play in. Today was nice and wet. It is hard to believe Christmas Eve is tomorrow. I have lots of presents to wrap and food to make. I hope it will be a lovely weekend with family and that everyone has safe travels and a Blessed time celebrating Jesus' birth.

 I leave you with a cute picture of Louis. He did great with our babysitters Nicole and Monica watching him while we were in sunny, warm Florida.

Merry Christmas!

Santa Time!

Last weekend was action packed. Phoenix, Rubix and I went to Sola's 6th birthday party, while daddy and Axel went to Hanno's swim meet and then to Axel's first class of the Russian school of math. 

Here are a couple of photos from the birthday party at Rockin' Jump. I was extremely impressed with Phoenix. She managed to fit in with the rambunctious group of 5 and 6 year olds. Sola is one of the sister's from Axel's baseball teammates. They got along very well all of fall ball that Sola wanted her to come to her birthday party. 

 The birthday party was right during Rubix's nap time. He managed to sleep for 40 minutes or so in the carrier. Here is a cute picture of him right when he woke up.

Hanno was Axel's private swim coach and big buddy this summer when he was on the Westgate Cabana swim team. Hanno is a freshman at Santa Cruz. He was a wonderful influence on Axel and Axel enjoyed seeing him again. Axel started the Russian school of math last Sunday afternoon. He went through a testing process a couple of weeks ago and tested into the advanced 2nd grade class. The advanced class meets in Sunnyvale on Sundays. We were hoping we could take him down the street to West Valley on Wednesday evenings, but they only have the regular class. Despite the extra time commitment Axel loves it so far. He went to his second class yesterday. He is learning how to solve area of a square or rectangle and basic multiplication. He is finally being challenged and he is really enjoying himself. 

Early last week Daddy came up with the best Elf on the Shelf place since Mark the Elf came 4 years ago. I am not sure why it took one of us so long to think of this but I love it!

Last Thursday Axel's cub scouts Den went to the fire station. The boys had fun learning about fire safety. They learned how to make the home fire safe and what to do in an actual fire. It is our job now as a family to make an escape map/plan and then practice. We have been meaning to do this for years now so this is a nice kick in the butt to actual get it done :)

 Despite the fact that we have gone to several different parties and gatherings together I have been unable to get a family photo of all of us. In desperation to get our Christmas card out before we leave later this week to Florida I made an executive decision to take separate pictures of everyone and compile a card with those pictures instead of one family picture. I think we managed to get a cute picture of the kids in the pajamas that Grandma Susan gave to us last year for Christmas. Pheeny's were a little short, but Axel and Rubix's fit perfectly.

 I also got a cute picture of the three kiddos and Keith.

 Daddy was very bummed that Louis wasn't in the photos so we managed to get Louis to sit still by holding a yummy piece of ham, hence, the concentration you can see on Louis's face.

 I love this picture of Rubix and Axel. You have to zoom in to see how cute the pair are.

 I also love this picture of Phoenix.

 I took the same picture of Axel and Rubix. You can see Rubix was ready for bed. Axel's was so blurry it wasn't even worth posting.

 The past week has been about mastering standing and starting to cruise for Rubix. He pulls himself up constantly and with anything he can get his hands on. A wall, stair, chair, toy, etc. He has a great method. He puts one foot forward and then....

 pulls himself up with his arms and the back foot. You can also see he uses his mouth whenever possible. He tried sucking on the mirror. He will bite or suck on the seat of a chair too which is funny and cute!

 I absolutely love how cute Rubix is in these Pj's. Here is an adorable picture of Phoenix with Rubix on his tippy toes.

 On Saturday we visited Santa. We were all wearing our Christmas sweaters and Phoenix was wearing her Christmas dress.

 I asked for a picture of Rubix alone and then the three kiddos together. I should have asked if we could get a family photo, but I didn't want to push my luck. Rubix was fascinated with Santa's beard. If you look closely he was playing with it in his left hand.

 Phoenix refused to sit on Santa's lap so the elf held her. She wasn't very happy with that either!

 Rubix had a rough bout this weekend. We added parsnips to his diet with a bummer outcome. He threw up horribly Saturday night and refused to eat solids on Sunday. So squash and parsnips are out, but he continues to do well with bananas (cooked), carrots, sweet potatoes, pears and beets. After a couple of days of healing his stomach I plan on trying green beans. It is a little risky trying this with our travels starting on Thursday so I might wait until we get back. Rubix has slept through the night about a half a dozen times. He usually has 2 big meals of 3 cubes or 6 Tbsp and roughly 30 scoops of Neocate. He is wearing 9 to 12 month clothing. I can't believe he will be 9 months on Thursday. Hopefully I can get a few cute photos at the airport :)

 I downloaded photos from Keith's phone and came across a few photos that I thought would be nice to share. Here is a cute one of Phoenix walking Louis sometime in the past three weeks. This must have been right before the cold front that started a couple of weeks ago.

 This was from the last cub scouts den meeting where the boys made axes and fireman hats for walking in the Los Gatos Holiday parade.

 The following pictures are from Keith's first day of Sabbatical on Monday November 21st. He took the kids out to pancake breakfast at Stacks. As you can see from the picture both kids got the Mickey Mouse chocolate chip pancakes.

 Phoenix somehow finished the entire 3 pancakes. She asked to pack up this pancake that was left and then made herself eat it on the car ride to Angela's. As you can imagine she refused to eat lunch at Angela's and ate a very light dinner that day. She told me her stomach hurt. We told her that is what happens when you eat and eat and eat! Axel and daddy were apparently much more reasonable and did not finish all of their pancakes.

 During Thanksgiving break Keith took Axel, his friend Alex and Alex's sister to Sky high Sports. Here is a cute picture of Axel in the foam pit.

 On the day before Thanksgiving Keith went to the warriors game with three of his buddies. Here was a cool shot he got during warm ups. He had a lot of fun despite the crazy amount of traffic and driving it took to get him and his three buddies there.

 I have no idea when Keith took this picture, but I will leave you with cute little Rubix.

 Next post should be about our trip to Florida. We are looking forward to 80 degree weather!

It's Starting to Feel a lot like Christmas!.....

We had a hard time waiting for the day after Thanksgiving this year to decorate. I had all of the Thanksgiving decorations put away by lunch time on Thanksgiving day since we did our big feast the Saturday before. I also had all of the Christmas decorations down from the attic before we went out for Chinese food with Tyler, Cynthia and their twins. It was a different Thanksgiving, but it was nice to do something different. We enjoyed being with friends, having a relaxed low key day together, and I especially enjoyed not cooking!

On Friday we got the tree up and most of the decorations moved to the location where they would end up. Due to poor behavior we weren't able to finish decorating until Saturday. Mark the elf didn't come until Sunday night once Axel and Phoenix were in full understanding how important it is to always be loving and respectful to each other and those around them. 

Axel was my helper in getting the lights on the tree. He some how pooped out when it came to putting up the hundreds of ornaments, but this year Phoenix was a champ in helping decorate the tree.  This meant that over 70% of the ornaments were within the height that she could reach. I had to sneak afterwards and help distribute the ornaments to cover the entire tree.

Daddy and I had fun watching them. 

After Daddy's bike ride on Friday he had fun introducing this pumpkin to Rubix. Rubix tried every possible way to get it into his mouth. So cute!

On Saturday afternoon Phoenix and I went to her friend Arya's birthday party. They had a "petting zoo" set up in their backyard. All of the animals were from the animal shelter. I thought it was the coolest most progressive idea for a birthday party. Unfortunately, Phoenix was a little more scared than in years past and only pet the little bunny rabbits and not the other animals.  

Rubix continues to become more mobile. He is becoming more proficient at getting onto his knees and pulling himself up to standing. His balance still is not great, but he loves to stand regardless. He is super quick at his military crawl. It is really quite cute! We tried sleep training him for a week. He did great until day 6 where he reverted back to screaming. I couldn't handle it and broke down and had Keith feed him in the middle of the night. We have had to feed him for three nights now, but I really think he is in a major growth spurt because his day time intake is just as high as ever. He is drinking over 30 ounces. Typically 4 bottles but sometimes a 5th bottle. He is also up to two meals a day. We are doing sweet potato, carrot, pear and banana. We will add beets tomorrow and then green beans. His is having 3 cubes and then half a banana with a cube of pear. He is pooping once or twice  a day and hasn't thrown up since he had squash so things are looking pretty good. 

With the excitement of having Mark the Elf return the kids wanted to be little elves themselves. They both still fit in their pj's from last year. Axel made Elf hates and then grabbed this box to complete his Elf costume. 

Here are the kids being extra cute!

Here is a really cute of Rubix wearing Phoenix's clothes. Apparently he ran out of back up clothes at Angela's so when I picked him up he was dressed like this. I couldn't stop laughing. He was so cute. 

Daddy  has been home for his sabbatical which means park time with Daddy. We have been having so much quality family time together. Life would be awesome without work!

Here is a cute picture of Rubix and Phoenix!

Yesterday Keith and I went to his 35th and last Linear Technology Party. As of next year they will be Analog Devices. It was really fun, but sad. Before I get a head of myself I wanted to share a couple of photos of Rubix. Rubix has been trying to get into the shower for a couple of weeks now. Because I really needed to get ready for the party while the others were out for a bike ride I decided to let him go in and get wet. 

He played for over 20 minutes before he decided he didn't like being wet. He splashed and opened and closed the door a hundred times. What fun!

So back to the party. We had Foreigner perform for us. We was a good concert, but as I was saying the whole night was just sad. The CEO's made speeches about the great journey the past 35 years have been since the 4 originals guys had a dream that they managed to turn into a multi billion dollar company. 

All in all Keith feels blessed to have been a part of LT for the past 17 years. Only time will tell what the future holds for the thousands of LT employees. We hope and pray Keith's group and job stays fully intact with equal compensation. We know the next 12 months are taken care of but there could be lots of change in 2018. For now we will focus on today and enjoy each day to the fullest!