We have a TODDLER!!

Jaxson celebrated his 2nd birthday on Friday!!  He’s definitely become more independent and wants to do things on his own as most toddlers do.  I cherish the moments he lets me cuddle him because they are getting fewer and farther between as he is no longer a baby.  Elmo and tractors are his passions right now (as you’ll see in the pictures………)

He got to celebrate his birthday a little early this year with a couple of presents.  My mom got him the cube chairs that Amelia and her mom, Kasia, turned us on to.  (Thanks Amelia!!!)  Jaxson loves his chairs so much that he refused to get out of them to take a nap on the day they arrived!

These really are GREAT chairs.  He loves sitting in them, but now he can also have a little table to put his cereal or snack on too.

Since Peyton is such a Ravens fan and loves wearing his jersey he thought it would be a good idea to give Jaxson a jersey of his own so they could match during football games on Sundays this year.  Jason, Peyton and I also gave Jaxson a new toy to ride outside while Peyton’s riding his bike or in his jeep.  He LOVES his new Harley Davidson!!

His face just lit up when he realized he could drive it on his own.  His steering skills need a little work, but I’m sure it won’t take long since we can hardly manage to get him off the bike!

Thursday evening I needed to bake his cake.  Peyton loves helping me cook so both the boys decided to help bake the cake.  I honestly thing they had an alternative reason as here they after the cake was put into the oven……..

I usually let the boys stay home from school or daycare on their birthdays and we do something together for fun.  This year I found an Elmo Live show that I bought tickets for which is next weekend so we decided to just have a small birthday party with my family on the evening of his birthday.  Besides Jaxson was completely spoiled at his daycare with a present including an Elmo outfit and firetruck along with cupcakes for everyone that his daycare provider made.

I took off a couple of hours early from work and decided to finish the cake before the boys came home.

 

Peyton came home from school and we picked up Jaxson from daycare.  I was in the middle of changing his clothes for the party when he found his cake on the kitchen table.  I’m glad he was so excited about the cake, but here’s what happened when I told him he couldn’t eat it right away and had to wait for the party.

Needless to say, he won…………..

Well it was his birthday after all so he got the first piece of cake, even if it was 2 hours before the party started!

He did love his cake and tried really hard to blow out the candles this year.

It took a little effort to get him to open his presents this year as he was too busy playing with his cousins, but once we got him started he had a great time.

 

He got lots of great Elmo stuff and a really cool tractor hat from Mom-Mom.

What a great birthday!  Although I may miss certain moments of him being a baby, I absolutely LOVE having my little man now.  There’s nothing better than hearing him say “love you mommy” in the sweetest voice you could ever imagine!

Happy Birthday Jaxson!  I love you!!!!!!!!

1st Grade!!

Ok, so I’ve been really slack on blogging and haven’t posted anything since we got back from Nashville almost 2 months ago!  Sorry, it has been a really busy summer and I didn’t really get any pictures.  Peyton has been to a couple of different day camps this year so that his schedule kept him busy almost every other week. 

A week after we came home from Nashville Peyton went to AquaFit camp for a week.  AquaFit is a new center in town that has a large indoor pool, gym area, physical therapy unit, etc.  Peyton took swimming lessons here last summer so we thought we’d try the camp this year.  It was soooo nice.  Each day they got to do something new, for example, one day he did karate, another day was paper mache projects, another was yoga, etc.  They did also get to swim for a couple of hours every day which I think was his favorite part.  He absolutely LOVED this camp and we will definitely be signing him up again next year. 

In early August, Peyton went to day camp at the park just up the street from our house.  This was a really nice camp too where he got to play outside all day the entire week.  They played baseball, dodge ball, etc. and would play board games under the pavilion where it was shaded in the afternoon when the sun was too hot.  This week, however, also had a day or two where the temperature reached almost 100 degrees!  It’s been a little crazy here this summer in that we’ve had a LOT of days like this.  I was a little worried about him being outside in that kind of heat all day, but the camp had everything under control and organized a field trip to the brand new community center pool for the kids!

Now on to 1st grade!!!  Peyton started school on Monday and although he was not exhausted Monday night like I expected he did tell me that 1st grade is fun.  YAY!!!  I hope he keeps this attitude!

Here he is all ready for school -

Of course Jaxson was very excited to be able to play outside so early Monday morning while we waited for Peyton’s bus and he thought he needed to help with Peyton’s backpack, which of course, is on wheels because that’s what all the older kids at school have….

Finally the bus arrives……..BYE Peyton!  Have a great first day!!

Jaxson stood and waved to the bus until it turned the corner and he couldn’t see it anymore.  I thought for a moment that he was going to cry, but it only took him about 30 seconds to realize that he was “King of the House” again and didn’t have to share any toys while Peyton was in school!!

I’ll leave you with a picture of my two favorite boys from that morning:

Nashville – LPA Conference 2010

First, let me start by saying how lucky I am to be the mom of two of the greatest little boys ever!  Jaxson has introduced me to a world I never could have imagined.  When he was born almost 2 years ago I never thought that I would find such awesome people and form bonds with them that I hope will remain the rest of our lives.  I am so incredibly lucky to have been given the opportunity to raise both of my boys and now have a whole new “family” thanks to the LPA community!!

On to Nashville – this was our first LPA conference and to say that the whole event was a bit overwhelming in the beginning is definitely an understatement, but oh was it worth it!  Besides the fact that we were traveling with 2 kids, one who is 6 years old and has quite an opinion on just about everything…. and another who is almost 2 years old so we had naps and bedtimes to contend with all of the events going on all week, the conference has an enormous amount to offer! 

We started the week by going to Cowboy Town with the Wymer family.  Unfortunately I was not in camera mode at that point so I don’t have any pictures from there :(  We did have a fun day, but mostly my mom, Jax and I just relaxed while Peyton and Jason fished.  Peyton has been begging us to take him fishing for weeks so he really enjoyed the afternoon there.  It’s a shame it was so darn hot!  (You’ll see that’s a recurring theme during this week in Nashville.) 

Later Saturday evening we went to Nashville Sounds and took the boys to their first live baseball game.  We had a really good time, but unfortunately both of the boys have short attention spans so we kept having to take them out of the stadium for walks or bathroom trips.  We only sat about 6 or 7 rows up so Peyton had a great chance to get an autograph from one of the players before the game started!

  

The fireworks after the game were incredible!  Mom was nice enough to take Jaxson up to the tunnels so Jason and I got a chance to actually sit and enjoy them with Peyton.  Unfortunately for mom, Jaxson screamed the entire time.  The fireworks were loud, especially since we were in the stadium, but I was definitely jealous when I learned from Melissa Wymer that Nikki slept thru the entire show!

The next evening we joined everyone for dinner at the Old Spaghetti Factory.  Dinner was great, but it got very warm and stuffy in our dining room and Jaxson was NOT a happy guy that evening.  Jason and I spent the evening quickly scarfing down our dinner so we could take turns running Jaxson outside and trying to quiet his screaming spells.  We really missed having the opportunity to sit and talk with other parents, but we’ll be sure to take advantage of that kind of thing when he’s older!

Peyton fell asleep on my lap during dinner so we decided to skip the large fireworks show at the riverfront and just head back to the hotel.  Of course as soon as we got back Peyton woke up and was VERY disappointed that he missed his chance to slide on the large blowup slide out in the street.  Jaxson, however, was quite happy to watch a fireworks show on the other side of town from our room where he was not afraid since he couldn’t hear the large booms.

The next day we tried to take the boys to the Kids Room.  What a fabulous idea!!!  Thank you to all of the volunteers and the ladies who were running this room.  The Kids Room was a large room in the main hotel set up so you could bring you kids to play while you attended meetings or conferences.  Again this was a fabulous idea, however my kids did not really like the idea of mom and dad leaving, even if it was for only an hour.  So, I decided to stay and play with Jaxson for a little while and got some fun pictures while we were there.

Isn’t he just going to make such a great daddy some day?!!

Thanks so much to my mom!  Since Jaxson cried the entire time we left him the first day, she helped us out by staying with the boys during the other meetings we had to attend.

We also attended the POLP meeting later that evening and found some great friends!  Unfortunately with all of us crammed into one tiny room it got hot rather quickly and I ended up chasing Jaxson around the hallways so I didn’t have too much time to spend talking with everyone.  I did get a couple of good pictures during the short time though….

For some reason the boys decided it would be a good time to reenact Wrestle Mania 3!  I am always a little worried about Peyton being too rough with Jaxson until I heard one of the moms say “I’ve got $5 on the little one!”

We did a little shopping with the boys the following day and my mom bought Peyton a guitar he’d been asking for.  Jaxson wanted to get in on the fun and played us a little ditty that night!

We also spent some time at the Science Museum with our friends. Peyton seemed to really enjoy himself since he could run around and do most everything. 

Jaxson enjoyed snack time with Ian and a bag of Cheetos before we left!

Our final night in Nashville was spent at “Family Night”.  This was a pretty nice show that was put together at the Conference.  It had three acts – the first was a dance routine, the second was a juggling act and the third was a hypnotist.  The hypnotist was our favorite of the evening and Jax, of course, was a bit of a ham himself during the show!

 

Before we left Thursday morning we said goodbye to Jaime, Caitlyn, Michelle and David.  They stayed in the same hotel and actually on the same floor as we did.

We drove about half way home on Thursday and found a hotel to stay in that had a POOL!  Peyton had been begging for a pool all week so we thought we’d take a break from driving and do a little swimming Thursday evening.

 

 

 

All in all our first National Conference was a hit!   As much as I want to I’m not sure if we’ll make it all the way to California next year, but I’m looking forward to our  next conference, whenever it may be and always love spending time with our new friends.