Sunny Days!

We played outside for a little while last weekend since the sun was shining, but got chased inside because of some crazy bugs that were mad their tree had been trimmed. Dash had a good time as long as he could see where his brother was. (Though, he did NOT like the riding the dog attempt. Jax thought it was funny though!)

Jaxon's Vacation

These are just a few of the pictures Jaxon took while we were on vacation. The stroller in the one picture is not ours, but he sort of liked it. After he took the picture of the grass we got a giggle as we heard him say "Yes! I got a great picture of that grass back there!" His picture taking ability is getting better, he's been taking pictures of all sort of things.

Tooth #2!

On August 14th, Dashiel got his 2nd tooth!  He spends a good amount of time now, with his hands in his mouth or running his tongue over his new teeth and making funny faces. 

Milestones

Josh and I have many discussions about how fast time goes with kids it seems. With two, it goes even faster! I read somewhere that the average 4 year old asks 800 questions a day. I am pretty sure that Jaxon asks about 10 times that amount. He's very curious and insightful. It's entertaining and exhausting (and occasionally, embarassing). He's still quite the social butterfly and right now is very into doing "big kid" things and being a helper with everything. Jaxon spends a good part of his day entertaining and trying to teach his little brother all sorts of things. At night, he reads stories with Daddy before bed and is learning his letters. (Josh always claims he will never be able to say he taught Jaxon anything except for working on cars, but he has done a great job teaching him his ABCs, numbers, and other things without even realizing it). Dashiel cut his first tooth on July 31st! His 2nd one is working it's way through, too. He is getting pretty good at rolling from back to front and front to back. Once he's on his front, he will push himself forward with his legs. Even without actually crawling, he's getting to be mobile. You lay him down in one place and come back 2 minutes later to find him in a completely different place. We've been eating mostly just cereal as far as real foods go, but the other night, he did try some mashed potatoes off my plate. Next up: carrots and sweet potatoes! Together, they are two peas in a pod.

Vacation 2013

This year for vacation, we spent a lot of time at home, settling in, but we did sneak away for a weekend in Lakeville and a weekend in Bismarck. Both trips were a little bit whirlwind-ish, but so much fun! We started our trip with a quick stop at the Mall of America to meet the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles and got to meet Spongebob, too. Spongebob was a good warm up for the turtles, I think it helped Jaxon be a little braver. Dashiel wasn't a fan of the turtles after one got a little too close for comfort. At Grandpa Jim and Grandma Linda's, Jaxon couldn't wait to get some swimming in and Dash did a little bit of toe dipping, as well. Jaxon is getting to the point where he likes to push his limits with things(you tell him to stay in the shallow end of the pool, but he likes to see if he can maybe sneak into the deeper end a little bit). We met some friends at the Children's Museum (or the Playing Museum, as Jaxon calls it) and spent an afternoon visiting and playing. We went to the zoo, zoomed across town to see the Imagination Mover's in concert, and then went back to the zoo. Since I got a new camera for Christmas, I thought it would be fun to give Jax my old one and let him take pictures while we were vacationing. I will put those in a separate post: some of them are pretty good and really, to see how seriously he took the task and how proud he is of them makes me smile. I don't have any pictures of our trip to Bismarck (luckily, Jaxon has a few on his camera!), but we had a great time there. We were there for our 10 year anniversary (sneaky Josh made plans to take me out to dinner and then made me cry with a surprise trip), the guys did some golfing, we did lots of visiting, and watched Jaxon run through the sprinkler. We got a slip and slide to take with, thinking Jaxon may enjoy it. He was a little timid about it, and so uncle Mike showed him how it's done. I so so so so wish we had a video of it. It was probably the best laugh we had all weekend. It is now almost a month later, and Jaxon still brings it up every once in awhile.

Big Day for Dash!

Yesterday was a big day for Dash:  first cereal and first time rolling from back to front!  There are pictures for the cereal, but not for the rolling because he would wait til we gave up waiting for him to roll over and walk away, then he'd roll.  At first we thought it was an accident, but then he did it a couple more times (with no witnesses, of course). 

Cereal went ok...Josh says there was more in the bowl when we quit than when we started because of all the drool. 

 This picture and the one 2 down from here are both examples of how Dashiel looks at his big brother every single time Jaxon is playing with, singing to, or talking to him.  Huge smiles every single time. 

 Cereal and rolling over can only mean that he's getting bigger....  I don't like that. 

4th of July at the Lake & At Home

We spent the 4th at the lake ~ Dashiel's first time to the beach!  He was ok with hanging out in his little swimming pool until his diaper had reached max capacity with water, then he squawked a little.  He had a good time just laying in his pool, hanging out.  He even fell asleep in there!

Jaxon has gotten to be such a big kid since last year ~ he practiced his swimming, walked out to the end of the dock in the water by himself, and jumped off the dock.  When I said something to him about it, he said "Well yeaaaaa.  It's not like I can stay little forever!"

 Sleeping in the pool!

 Jaxon's first sand castle :)

 Writing his name in the sand ~ he's getting better! 

 On the way home from the lake, Jaxon asked if we were going to blow up anything when we got home, so he and Daddy went to get "just sparklers."  When they got back, Jaxon came in the house and says, "Mom, Dad says you'll be mad if I tell you we spent lots of bucks on stuff to blow up."  Typical boys! Jax loved watching the fireworks, but didn't even want to hang onto his sparkler until it went out.