Trick or Treating - Part 1

I guess only half of the trick or treating photos will load, so I will have to put up the other half of our adventure tomorrow! We went to Lisbon to see Gr. Grandpa Jim, Gr. Grandma Dorothy, Uncle Dannie, Aunt Sharon, LouAnn, Jeremy, Shelby, and Rory. In Enderlin, we saw Gr. Scott, Gr. Joy, Gr. Grandma Dolores, Gr. Grandpa Myron, and uncle Tanner. In Casselton, we saw Aunt Shannon. And finally, once we made it back to Fargo we saw uncle Jameson, and Mike and Brandy. By the time we got home, he was TIIIIIRED.

Halloween Parade

There was what worked out to be the perfect length of parade for the weather yesterday. It was only about 20 minutes long, which was about how long it took before it was getting too cold to be standing outside. Jax thought it was pretty cool, but his favorite part was the pretty girls. He tried to run after a float that had a pretty girl on it that waved to him and was talking to him while waiting for the float to start going again! I guess, here's the parade in reverse ~

Post-parade, super awesome hat hair.

Until the parade started, I'm pretty sure Jax just thought we brought him out to run back and forth on a park bench. He thought that was pretty fun :)

Waiting for the parade to start

Halloween Carnival

Friday evening, there was a Halloween carnival at Luther and having such a cute costume we just HAD to go! We played some games, collected some candy, watched the big kids be crazy, and visited daddy. I discovered that as long as you have candy to hand out, you can be Jax's friend. He's not picky about what kind of candy, though I can tell you that he LOVES licorice and M&Ms.

Since we'd been at school all day, going to see daddy at 4:00, when were normally gearing up for a nap, did not make Jaxon happy. I have pictures of him screaming til he's purple in the face in the backseat of the car. Thankfully, by the time we got out of the neighborhood, he was done with that!

Some boring milestone info

So, here's a mostly words entry for a change.

Jax's vocabulary is slowly expanding. He's constantly surprising us with the things that he tries to say. These days, we hear a lot of: More, cookie, no, all gone, love you (laaa you!), and something that sounds like what is that.

Foodwise, he eats mostly whatever you give him, but LOVES oatmeal, black olives, mandarin oranges, ketchup, and pudding.

He's always loved music, but nowadays, he REALLY loves it and is always dancing around. One night, I'm pretty sure he was pretending to be a ballerina. It was pretty funny.

We're working on him learning more body parts. Right now, the only ones he knows for sure are nose and feet. Sometimes he can tell you where his eyes are or where his tummy is. He likes to count things and will count to 3 with help. Though we'd like it better if he didn't, he has figured out how to turn off and on every single toy that has a switch.

Everyday, I see a little bit more of his daddy in him. He's flipping over things and figuring out how they work. He likes to be a helper (I joke that he has daddy's White Knight Complex and is always looking for a damsel in distress). They make the same silly faces and loud cars or trucks stop both of them dead in their tracks. And just like his daddy, if it has wheels it MUST be made for driving and if it doesn't have wheels there must be a way to make it so you can drive it.

I was going to make this all words, but I had to post this picture from school yesterday. One of the girls has been wearing these glasses (nonprescription) and so Jax got to try them on. I put them on and she said they made me look silly. Jax puts them on, and she says he looks like a teacher... hmmm...

Pumpkin Carving

After dinner tonight, we finally got around to carving our pumpkin. Jax...hated it. He thought it was gross that we were touching it, but kept a close eye on what was going on and would use his spoon to stir the bowl of guts and taste what stuck to his spoon. He was the same way with Play-doh at school ~ he liked to be near it, but WOULD NOT touch it. (Guess I know what's not on his Christmas list!)

While mommy cleaned up from dinner, Jax and daddy played and counted. When counting and stacking got old, he put an old mixing bowl on his head and played peekaboo with us.

This kitchen was supposed to be part of his Christmas present, but it seemed kind of silly to hide it in the garage, fully put together for 2 months. It's not like he would know the difference anyways. He LOVES this thing ~ if we are cooking in the real kitchen, and he isn't helping us, he is cooking in his own kitchen. In the mornings, before school, he will make me breakfast after he has had breakfast :)Tasting pumpkin guts

Thinking about helping scoop out

This is how he spent most of the time ~ a safe distance away, but close enough to supervise and tell us what to do.

We tried a few times to get him to touch it, but he would turn his head, stick out his tongue, and clench his hands shut.

Once the pumpkin was cleaned out, he was content to carry around the tea light while daddy carved out its face.

This is how much he loves his pumpkin.... ha!

**18 month appointment was Thursday: He weighs exactly 26 lbs, and is 32.5 inches tall. I don't remember how big his head was, but it looks about normal sized to me? He's in the 50th percentile for everything. Our regular pediatrician says we'll probably never sort out what he's allergic to and now we don't have to go back to see her again til he's 2. I didn't realize til then that we're 6 months away from his 2 year birthday. Ick.

Allergic reaction and a half birthday

Jaxon hasn't been feeling 100% the last ...well, week now. He's been working on cutting 4 teeth (2 are finally through, putting us at 14 teeth!) and has been running a fever off an on. Tuesday night, after we went to Melvin's football game, he woke up super warm and with a red rash across his cheeks that I thought was heat rash. It stuck around for a couple days, going away and coming back and I just figured it came and went with his fever. On Thursday, it covered his whole body literally, and so I brought him into the clinic. The doctor was pretty sure it was an allergic reaction to something (he's had no new foods, no new soaps, no new nothing in the last week before this) and it's kind of come down to we think he's got some sort of outdoor/seasonal allergy. Last fall, around this time, if we took him outside to play, the next day he would break out and I had talked to his physician then about it being an allergy and she said it was possible. The doctor this time prescribed an antihistamine. That, along with no outside playtime (which equals a sad Jaxon) has helped a lot. He's nearly back to normal. Unfortunately, until we determine what kind of allergy it is, we just have to be proactive this time of year and give him the antihistamine before we take him outside for long periods.

Below are pictures of what we did to waste time before and after our doctor's appointment. Since the clinic was at the mall, we played in the dinosaurland for a little bit beforehand. And then afterwards while we waited for his prescription, we checked out the pet store and said hi to the puppies and then Jax kept wandering back to look at the Roger Maris museum stuff. He loved these chairs, mostly because there was 2 or 3 steps for him to practice going up and down.

In other news ~ I learned at Jax's doctor's appointment that he weighs 25 lbs, his favorite word this week while he's been sick has been "no" (Josh and I are both super excited about this one. :-s ), and he's been trying really hard to learn how to hop or jump after seeing the big kids at school doing it. He actually did it for the first time the other night and was pretty proud of himself :)

We have his 18 month appointment next week, so maybe we'll sort out some more with the allergy thing there. Yep, he's 1.5 years old as of last Friday! I can't believe it! Or maybe I can, because as he uses the word "no" more and more, I'm starting to dread the terrible 2s.....

Melvin's Football Game

On Tuesday, we went to see Melvin's football game ~ as you can see from the pictures below, it got a little cold after awhile!

Melvin is #38

LaNora! She took a nap after a bit, but that picture didn't turn out so well.

Pumpkin Patch

This afternoon we went to the Dakota Carriage Company Pumpkin Patch. So much fun! I was super excited to get to pick out Jax's real first pumpkin since last year he wasn't so...interactive. (And just active!) We visited their petting zoo, checked out the spooky house, played mini golf, played some games, dug in the corn pit, ran through the bale maze, fed the horses, and picked a pumpkin. Picking out a pumpkin is quite a process though, we learned. We took a horse drawn carriage ride out to the patch from their main farm and turned Jaxon loose to pick his own. He'd run through them, stop at one and perform one of his "tests." He tried lifting them, he'd sit on them, he'd roll them over and really check them out, he even smelled one. The very top picture is the one that we ended up with. After about 20 minutes of deliberation, we decided the one that he kept coming back to must be "the one." We had so much fun, we will definately be going back next year!

THE pumpkin. Now we just have to carve it!Smelling them...

Is it comfortable to sit on?

Can I lift it?

Waiting for the horse drawn carriage

Feeding the Clydesdales. He grabbed whatever he could find on the ground to feed them. And just like at the Wahpeton zoo, he'd shove his whole hand in their mouth.

Riding in the cow train! We weren't so sure he'd stay sitting if he went by himself, so I got to go with.

Milking the cow ~ after he discovered that water came out of the udders though....you can about imagine how interested he was in the bucket and not trying to milk the cow!

My handsome cowboy!

Playing in the corn pit. He loved this thing. We couldn't get him out of it!

At least he's a happy bat!

Mini golfing ~ he'd hit the ball, run after it and yell "yay!" (Yay is one of his favorite words these days. His most favorite word right now is "Cookie?" but after he does something he's proud of he says yay. He's also a big fan of "GO!" these days.)

Fearless as he is, he walked up to this bull, grabbed its horn and shook it a little, and then when it looked at him, he patted it on the nose and laughed.