March March March March

March has been a fun month for us so far. Lots of fun things have happened and lots more will happen. Like Andrew coming home in 8 days!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! 

We started off the month with a trip to the Renaissance Festival. It was a really nice day out and no bee's this year! We ate WAY too much. Preston really enjoyed himself, and loved to look at everything. He especially enjoyed the Fire Whip show and asks daily to see the "lip" (whips). 

There was this really weird creature there. I thought Preston would be scared of it, but he wasn't. He thought it was soft. Even now he gets excited seeing this picture and calls it a dinosaur. Sure, it's a dinosaur. 

We rode an elephant, which was great. 

Oh and remember how I mentioned we ate a lot? That means Preston too. Even though he's mostly vegetarian he LOVES turkey legs. He asked for turkey all day, and I fed it to him all day. 

Also in March we got a much too short visit from our favorite Texans and got to meet some German relatives. Both my boys loved them all.
By the way Carla, Preston is sitting her while I type all this and I keep trying to have him say Carla but he keeps looking at the picture of the turkey so he gets distracted and calls you Car-Key! 

Easter is coming up, but I've made promises not to dress anyone up like a bunny this year.
So I made sure to snap these pictures really quick at Target the other day. 

 Our boys are TERRIBLE at waking up after naps. It's the worst time of the day when Preston gets up and is super whiny and crying and when Jaxton joins in it's extra fun! Doesn't help things that Preston is ULTRA sensitive when it comes to loud noises and if someone screams or cries at him/near him he cries buckets. 

Remember how I said Jaxton has super sensitive reactive skin??? This is an example of what happens when I give him a bath using Dove Sensitive skin body wash & use 0 lotion. Lucky for him the cream the doctor gave us helps a lot and we've found a body wash that works with him. 

But he has started on solids!!! He hates it. How is it possible I have a child who doesn't like to eat?!?!?! Blows my mind. Preston was a natural when it came to spoon feeding. Jaxton is not as great...but is learning! He is not a fan of plain rice cereal, but liked bananas. Tomorrow he can try a new food & i'm thinking it will be carrots, so we'll see how he does. 

Eating rice cereal is just torture for him. 

We tried potty training with Preston at the beginning of the month. Honestly it didn't go so bad! If I would put him in the bathroom every hour he would go (with little to no accidents during the day) but if I didn't remind him to go he would just pee wherever. He wasn't picking up on the "i need to pee" feeling & communicating when he needed to go, so for now we just go in the bathroom every once in awhile & we'll try it again in a few months when he's older.
He's seriously crazy right now.
I don't know how many times a day I have to say things like "No no Preston, we don't lick the ground", "Jaxton is not a chair.", "Get your hands out of your pants/nose/diaper." "We don't put corn in our nose". But that's ok.

 That is some serious redhead bedhead. 

St. Patricks day was fun this year. We didn't even mention pinching b/c I'm pretty sure Preston would then go around pinching everyone. But we wore our green! John/Rox/Noah came over that night and we had a surprisingly delicious dinner of Corned beef & cabbage w/ boiled potatoes & a seriously yummy brownie oreo cheesecake Rox made.  Sadly this is the only picture I took of us this day. We could all use a brush...

This was before church on Sunday. They were matching & I thought it would be a great photo opportunity, but Preston thought otherwise. 

 And lastly a few weeks ago when I was at the gym someone broke into my car and stole my purse. JERKS. Sad for them there really wasn't much in there except an extra toothbrush, some expired debit cards, library cards, a CC (which I canceled like 10 min after the theft happened) and a $25 Visa Gift Card. (SAD).
I know I know, I shouldn't have left my purse in the car. Don't worry, I feel terrible about it, unlike the gym who made sure to tell me about 5 times that they aren't responsible for it & there is nothing they can do. 

Before & After pictures! 

And lastly, March brought with it a new/used family car for us! Hoorah! We've been saving for awhile and finally found something that fit our needs. We needed something bigger for when we expand our family (NO, this is NOT an announcement of any kind). It's an 06 Chrysler Pacifica. It's ok if you haven't heard of it, I hadn't ether until we went to look at it.
She's a beauty. 

I LOVE the seating inside. The 2 front seats in back are bucket seats like a mini van and then the back row is 2 seats that each can fold down separately. It's got a lot of little things we love about it, like back row AC, which the boys will need this Summer. So we're pretty happy with it. Pretty sure we need to take a road trip now to break it in! 

Jaxton at 4 Months!

I know I'm a little late at posting this info, but

JAXTON IS 4 MONTHS OLD!!!
Crazy how fast time is going.
I love this stage. He's still a baby & I don't have to worry about him getting into things, but he is developing a personality.

At his 4 month appointments his stats were:

Weight: 14.5lbs (50%)
Length: 26'' (90%)
H.C 43" (75%)

He's taller then Preston was at this age, about the same weight with a smaller head

He is definitely finding his voice, which at this point sounds like a baby velocoraptor. 

He eats about 6-7oz every 4 hrs and we'll be starting him on solids in the next few days.
He has extremely sensitive skin, and breaks out with most lotions/body washes we use, so the doctor gave us some hydrocortizone cream for him & cautioned us that he could have other allergies, so we have to take the solid foods slow and wait about a week between introducing new foods. 

He rolls all the time from his stomach to back and gets about halfway from his back to stomach.
He also thinks he wants to crawl & will try to army crawl.

He sleeps from about 10pm-6:30/7am. He sometimes wakes up once a night and will need a pacifier or to be re-swaddled, but I've learned to be ok with this.
He will take a small nap from about 8:30-9:30 & then a big nap from about 11:30-2:30 and from 4:30-6ish and a small cat nap later in the evening.

He is constantly trying to fit his entire fist in his mouth. The doctor said that combined with his drooling could mean he'll start teething soon, but I think he's just a baby & thats what babies do.

He's super long, so he is in size 3-6 (mostly 6) month clothes, but they are starting to get snug when I snap them, and in 3mo pants. 

His hair color is still a mystery. It's for sure much lighter then it was at birth, but his eyebrows are darkening up. Somedays it looks blondish, some brown, some reddish, so we'll just have to wait and see. I do think his eyes will stay blue though (YAY!!). Oh and he has the cutest double dimples. I'm so in love with his cute smiley face. 

Everyone said that since Preston was such a good baby that my next one would be wild/crazy but that could not be farther from the truth. If anything Jaxton is more calm & chill then Preston was. We just have great kids! 

He's started spending some time in the Entertainer...
At first he wasn't sure... 

But then he loved it. Preston of course loves spinning him around & then will ask Jaxton is he is dizzy. 

I know this picture is blurry, but oh my cuteness!!!!

 And just for comparison, here is what Preston looked like when he was 4 months.
Definitely a brotherly resemblance!! 

My P-Rex

I love the age that Preston is at right now.
He still likes to be held by his Mama (although today he called me Mommy), but is independent.
Not to mention hilarious.

But there are a few things that he does that I find adorable.

Like:

Whenever he has something & it's cold, or he thinks its cold he'll test it out by pulling up his shirt and putting the cold thing against his belly. That's his cold tester! Of course then he wants everyone else in the room to feel on their bellies how cold it is. 

He LOVES playing with his big building blocks. He will sit and build with them a lot during the day. For some reason though he always wants to taste the blocks. I have no idea where this came from. He doesn't really taste/lick them, he just pretends like he's tasting them. Then he'll go "mmm...good" and offer some to you.

He makes a "silly face". If you say "show me your silly face you get this face: 

 It consists of eyes completely shut & squinty and a big smile. It's adorable.

He knows all his colors now & points them out everywhere. He loves sitting at a stoplight and then yelling out when its GREEN or yellow or red. Speaking of red lights, he loves playing red light/green light. He'll play by himself by running around the kitchen and living room and say red and stop then green and go. 

He very much wants everyone to be involved in everything he does. For example, if he's saying the "open shut them" song from Nursery he wants EVERYONE in the room to do the motions. Even Jaxton. Even the dog Jack. He likes to try to make Jack dance & clap.
He insists on showing Jaxton EVERYTHING. When he gets dressed in the morning he wants to show Jaxton the shirt he's wearing. If he doesn't make a mess in his room during nap time then he wants to tell Jaxton. If he goes pee in the potty he tells Jaxton. It's super cute. 

His potty training is going well! The first day was awful. The 2nd day was better, 3rd day even better. He's now at the point where he will sometimes tell me if he has to go to the bathroom & we haven't had an accident since Wed night *knock on wood*. We still put him in a diaper at bedtime & if we go out, but I'm very pleased with his progress. 

He's just such a cute boy. And so GOOD. 

Color me happy

Oh brilliant child of mine. 

Suddenly I see

Since the day Jaxton was born I've heard SO MUCH of "he looks just like you" and so on and so forth. I never really saw it. Maybe it's because I'm a girl and he's a boy so it's hard for me to see my features on a boy.
But last night when I was organizing some things I came across a baby picture of myself and then I had that
ohhhhhhhh.... He looks like me moment.
Don't ya think??

Valentines Day (Part 2)

On actual Valentines Day (Tuesday) Patrick had taken off from work as well, so we decided we'd put our new zoo membership (my Valentines day gift!) to good use.

Coldest day ever.
Seriously it hasn't rained since the beginning of December and then suddenly starts raining on our way to the zoo?!? Crazy! But we were all bundled warm & still had a great day. 

Love Preston's little accidental thumbs up in this picture.
And Jaxton's super blue eyes?! Where did those come from!?!? 

Despite the cold weather it was a good day to go to the zoo. Very few people & only a few field trip groups.
Best part of the day was at the Orangutan exhibit when one of the smaller Orangutan's was totally playing with Preston. He was right up against the glass & kept staring at Preston and then was rolling round & doing silly things with him.
Probably thought Preston was his long lost brother.
See some of it HERE.

 Then there was the camel ride.
He loved it! 

For dinner we decided to get Olive Garden to go since we had a gift card from Christmas (thanks to my favorite mother in law!) And so while Patrick went to get it I got the table ready. 

Besides my zoo membership Patrick got me flowers/a teddy bear & candy (not pictured due to being in my belly).
I couldn't find any candlesticks so I had to make due with a jar of buttons.
And then we finished out the day by watching Star Wars Episode II.
(my gift to patrick was the Star Wars collection on blu ray & my extreme love for him is shown in the fact I'm actually committed to watching all 6 movies with him).

And now Valentines day is over.
Back to normal life & everyday routines & questions of WHY does Jaxton's hair stick up in back and lay flat in front?!?!?!? 

Valentines Day (Part I)

Patrick and I do not have a good history of Valentines Days.
In the 5 years we've celebrated it together we've had one good one, and that was last year. Although I can't remember what we did....
But the years before that Valentines Day has been a day of sickness, recovering from a D&C and recovering from the Preston C-Section.

This year was AWESOME though.
While we take turns planning how to celebrate our Anniversary Patrick takes on all the Valentines Day plans.
And he done GOOOOOOOOD.

For about 2 weeks he's been telling me "if you want me to tell you what your surprise is for Valentines day just let me know", but I wanted to be surprised so I never let him tell me. Till Friday night. Then he told me.

He had planned for us to have an entire kid free day.

(PLEASE don't get me wrong, I love my kids a crazy amount. But sometimes you just need a break from each other.)

He had arranged for his sister Carly (or ka-ca as Preston calls her) to come over to the house at 8 am on Monday morning and watch the kids until around 7 that night.
11 kid free hours. 

Excellent excellent gift.

The day went a little like this:

Wake up, feed Jaxton, go back to sleep while Patrick got Preston up & ready.
Get dressed/ready without having to make sure Preston wasn't brushing the mirror with his toothbrush.
Go out to breakfast with Patrick to Wildflower Bread Co.
Eat Pancakes. I haven't had pancakes in MONTHS so when the guy taking our order commented on how excited I was about pancakes he wasn't wrong.
Go to Best Buy & browse. Browsing doesn't happen with 2 little boys in tow.
Go to Barnes & Noble & browse.
Go to Ross & browse.
Go see Sherlock Holmes: Game of Shadows. Great movie.
Go to Texas Roadhouse & actually eat my meal while it's still hot not having to make sure little mouths are fed first.
Come home & watch a few episodes of How I Met Your Mother. Great show. Legendary.
Doze on the couch without getting my eyes poked at.
Shower for as long as I wanted without having to listen to make sure everyone was ok.

And then the kids came home.
We missed them. There wasn't once during the day when we thought "i wish we could do this everyday" or "what if our life was like this?". The truth is we REALLY missed them. I thought about them constantly & couldn't wait to see them again.
But it was a great day.
Much needed.

OH. And this happened. . .

Seriously Jack, I'll never let go.