December

I managed to come up with some more space so we can maybe limp this blog through the end of 2012 at least.  I've got a new one all set up and almost ready to go for when we really do run out of space at this one. 

The easiest way to catch up seemed to be to post all of December all in one post. :)

The very first day of December, we went to see Santa at the public library.  This Santa was a bit too familiar looking for Jaxon and he came home convinced that Daddy is Santa and wasn't too happy about it.  (We decided that to dissuade that idea, we'd need to see a couple Santa's in December while Daddy was with.  I think our plan worked?)

 Santa flies into the Air Museum on weekends, so we went to see Santa fly a helicopter.  At the time, Jaxon didn't seem so impressed, but a couple weeks later told me it was "pretty super cool."

 The last couple of years (or as long as he could walk?), Jax has gone with Papa Scott and Grandma Joy to help them pick out and cut down the perfect Christmas tree.  They got a tree and he came home with the perfect size Jaxon tree.  He was pretty proud of it.

 We spent one whole weekend making Christmas goodies.  Jaxon measured and mixed the spritz cookies for me.  They ended up being his favorite cookie.  He also made turtles by himself, and was pretty proud of those.  Too bad Mommy ate them all....

 Another visit with Santa at the preschool holiday program.  This year was the first year that Jaxon actually participated in the program - we were very proud him saying his line by himself and for singing all the songs. 

 We hadn't gotten in enough Santa visits yet, so we went for visit #5 at Rheault Farms.  (Visit #1 was technically Mommy letting him say hello to the Santa at the mall.  We caught him at a slow time and so Jax visited with him for a couple minutes.)

 Waiting patiently to open presents at Uncle Dannie and Aunt Sharon's.

 Working on his new power wheels to make sure it's ready to drive.  (We thought he'd be thrilled with what Santa brought him.  He's only accidentally driven it so far.  He'll sit in it, and check things out, but has yet to purposely step on the gas pedal.  He was given a stuffed puppy from Josh's godparents that is his "driving buddy" so he must always be in the passenger seat.)

 We've been having movie nights curled up on the couch.  Santa brought Jax a hooded blanket that works perfect for movie watching.  He's got slippers to match, too! :)

25 Weeks!

This will be a words only post, we've used up our free space on this blog and can't post pictures until I either have the blog printed to a book or start a new blog at a different address, or both.  That's ok though, because I realized that I haven't really done any Casablanca updates, other than ultrasound pictures. 

As of this week, we are 25 weeks along.  I feel like it's more like 250 weeks.  I remember the first pregnancy going by quickly, although I'm sure at the time I complained it was going slow.  This time, I expected it to go quickly, having Jaxon around to chase after and keep me busy.  That is not the case.  Time is going sooooo slowly.  This pregnancy is so different from the first.  I finally (knock on wood) am past the nausea.  Occasionally, I feel gross, but not for too long.  I get pretty tired, though.  Jaxon's rest time in the afternoons is a welcome time! 

Jaxon has big plans for being a big brother.  It's fun to listen to him talk about teaching the baby to "play baseball, take baths, and eat carrots."  Especially the eat carrots part because he himself does not eat carrots.  He will try to feel the baby kick, now that people in the outside world can feel it and not just me, and then just shake his hand on my stomach and then get all excited because he "feeled it kick!"  He asks a lot of questions:  What does the baby do all day in there?  Where will my baby sleep when it comes to our house?  What kinds of things does my baby like to play?

Next week is my glucose testing, which means a blood draw.  I hate blood draws.  On the plus side, my appointment next weeks that I am that much closer to my appointment the beginning of January when I could be done with restriction.  Poor Josh though, he'll probably still have to come help me set up and tear down the preschool each week because my belly's starting to get in the way of doing some things.  (I am REALLY hoping we don't get any significant snowfall anytime soon.  We took Jax to the Holiday Lights parade and I thought I was going to die trying to put my warm snowboots on.  The baby didn't appreciate the extended period of time where its space was confined while I tried to pull on my boots, and kicked like crazy for about 20 minutes afterwards.  I had to have Josh take my boots off for me when we got home.  He says to avoid wearing those boots if I can, otherwise I have to bring them to him at work so he can help me put them on.)  Even Jaxon has offered to help me put on my socks in the mornings before school.  :-p I am lucky to have two such helpful boys :)

World Prematurity Day

Today is World Prematurity Day and so we celebrated by helping out the March of Dimes and painting some bowls for their Bowls for Babies fundraiser.  The last 2 years, I've used this day to reflect on our story and it always makes me a little sad.  Plus, I can never find the right words to say exactly what I want to say.  This year, we focused on the awesomeness that is Jaxon and had a great day together (Daddy had to work). Jaxon was excited to paint bowls "to help all the sick babies."  He was also pretty sure they'd like eating out of his.  I didn't explain the fundraiser part of it, but I'm sure he'd approve.  He also would have painted bowls all day, had I let him. 

 Inside of his bowl

 Outside

 Outside of Mommy's bowl

 Inside

There were so many cute bowls already done when we got there.  I'm excited to see all of them when we go to Bowls for Babies on December 5th (11:00-1:30 at Ramada Plaza Suites, I think tickets are $15 each.  Funds to go the March of Dimes.  Come pick a bowl, and then eat some amazing soups!).

Please, please, please remember that the March of Dimes helped us out and are definately worth your time and money. :)  Without them and the work they've done, there maybe wouldn't be a crazy, talkative, stubborn, healthy 3.5 year old in our household.  We are so blessed.

Costume Party & Art Show At School

Since Daddy left for Texas and we had gymnastics on Halloween, we didn't go trick or treating.  We went to all sorts of other fun activities and trust me, there was no shortage of Halloween treats in our house. 

This is Jaxon at the first day of our costume parties at school.  We spent over a month trying to figure out what he wanted to be for Halloween since he kept telling us "the superhero with buttons."  Translation:  Thor.

 The next pictures are from his first preschool art show :)  Daddy was out of town for this too, but we were lucky enough to talk Papa, Grandma, uncle Tanner, and uncle Jameson into stopping by to check things out so Jax had someone to share his hard work with. 

 Day 2 of costume parties:  Woody with a too small hat.  We weren't going to bring the hat, but then I was told all cowboys need a hat (sheesh!).

Gymnastics!

We've started our fall session of gymnastics and Jaxon could not be any more excited!  He (and Mom and Dad) were a little apprehensive since this is the is the first session that he gets to do it all on his own, without Mom and Dad.  Jaxon was pretty worried that we were going to bring him to class and then "sit down and not watch him."  We were worried that he'd refuse to listen and wander off to do what he really wanted to do.  Even right up to when class started, Jax kept checking to make sure we'd stay and watch him.  We made sure not to sit down and to stay where he could see us (and wave to us after every couple of minutes). 

He did SO good.  I am SO proud of him and a little bit sad that he's grown up enough to do things like this without us.  Josh and I both noticed how much longer class seems to be when you don't have to help out during the class!  When class ended, Jax ran over to give us high fives ~ or as he says, five-fives~ and then told us he probably needed to go back for more bouncing classes.  He was disappointed that it was time to go home and has already asked me twice today if we go back to bouncing tonight. 

 Finally, the rock wall!  He's been talking about how he wants to climb the wall at gymnastics since last summer.  Last session, when he'd get a chance to climb it, he would decide pretty quickly that it wasn't something that he wanted to do.  So when he actually tried to cross it on his own, Josh and I were both surpised.  :)

Pumpkin Patch

We spent a beautiful afternoon at the pumpkin patch.  The weather was awesome, by the time we left we'd all taken our coats off because we were hot.  (Though, Jax thinks if the sun is out, that it's hot.)  We met Kate, Cody, and Keegan there and also got to see Tim, Shera, and Hannah.  It's funny how even in the last year, how big Jaxon has gotten and how many big kid things he does now....

 I had to promise many suckers to get this ONE smile.  The 4 other pictures on this bench, he has his arms crossed and is scowling at me. 

 I asked Jaxon what he thought this cow's name was and he told me "Beefy."  Which made us laugh since he has no clue what beef is or where it comes from. 

 This was taken on a giant adirondack chair they have at the pumpkin patch.  We hadn't even stopped to look at it, but while Josh, Tim, Shera, and I were visiting Jaxon snuck off and climbed up into it by himself.  The seat is nearly 5 feet off the ground! 

 We said "stand up tall" and this is what he and Keegan did. :)

 Pretending to drive the stagecoach.

 (for the record, last year when we put him in one of these trains he screamed and cried like we were abandoning him there forever)  He would have ridden this all day if we had let him. 

 In past years, our pumpkin choosing process was kick it, sit on i, roll it, and smell it.  This year it was run through them and see if they were orange.  It took longer to choose since they were ALL orange.

Baby Update

So far other than the other ultrasound pictures, I haven't updated on Baby2 (or Casablanca, as my brother calls it).  Today was our 18 week ultrasound.  Not much has changed, baby's on track for the original due date, even though at the 12 week ultrasound it measured a week ahead and there was talk of moving up the due date.  We figure it was overachieving and then got lazy that now it's "just the right size." 

I am still on restriction from heavy lifting and any sort of physical activity and will be until after the new year.  This is sort of a pain, since on occasion Jaxon just wants to be picked up and because twice a week Josh has to come with me to preschool to pull everything out and put it away (this also gives Jax a chance to show off his muscles and how helpful he is).  I'm lucky to have such helpful boys.  We will have another ultrasound around 30 weeks to check to see if things have changed.

Jaxon is pretty excited to be a "big brudder."  He's excited at the prospect of teaching someone how to play baseball, someone to play with, and do things with.  He's still working on understand that we will be mommy and daddy to Casablanca, as well as him. 

Thunder Road

All summer long, Jax has been dying to go to Thunder Road ~ mostly to "get close to the water volcano."  We finally took him there to do some mini golfing and try out the go-karts.  We let him golf on his own, and was that an adventure!  One the first hole, he hit the ball in in 2.  We thought he had it sort of figured out.  Til we got to the next hole and he hit the ball.  It didn't get close enough to the hole for him so he picked it up, and dropped it about 2 inches from the hole and then hit it in.  He also did not want to wait his turn.  I think we were racing?  If Josh hit the ball close to the hole, Jax would either push it in for him or he'd kick it away from the hole so he could hit his own ball in first.  Occasionally, his golf swing looked more like a hocky swing, too.  But, in the end, it was a lot of fun and a lot of laughs.

 This was his first time in a go-kart, and we weren't so sure that he'd be ok with the whole thing.  (Especially since he isn't so ok with driving power wheels or 4 wheelers until he's spent all day warming up to the idea of going for a ride.)  Turns out, he had a lot of fun, but was not happy that Daddy got to steer and not him.  He did think it was pretty funny that when they got to race a huge group of people that they passed a girl and "she was probably mad at them for being fast."

Jaxon has been asking almost daily since we went if we can go back.  He thinks he's ready to drive a go kart on his own :)