Six Months!

Daxton turned 6 months old this week. As you may know, 6 months is a MAJOR milestone for us here at the Zaugg house. Now that Daxton is 6 months old, we can finally finalize (finally finalize? Is that too many "final"'s? Oh well.) his adoption! We have our court appointment tomorrow, and I am pretty stressed. My shoulders are sore from being so tense. I know that there is probably nothing to worry about, but I guess it is my nature to imagine all of the things that could possibly go wrong, especially with something sooooooooooooooo important. I am worried that someone forgot to file some paperwork somewhere along the line, I am worried that our lawyer will get in a car accident on the way there, I am worried that the judge will be in a bad mood and say "no" just to be mean, and about a zillion other things. At least I don't have very much longer to worry...we will (hopefully!) be all done by this time tomorrow!

Dax is getting HUGE! We had is 6-month old doctors appointment this week, and he is now over 19 pounds. He is 28 inches long now, which is the 91% for height! He is growing up so fast, I thought I would give you a look at a couple of his "bear" pictures so far:

Daxton at 3 days old:
Three months old:

Six months old:

As you can see from the picture above, Daxton has discovered his tongue. It is almost always sticking out how. His other favorite pastimes include blowing raspberries and slobbering all over himself. I think he is almost ready to get his first teeth in!

We had a great Thanksgiving at my mom's house (sorry, no pictures) It was pretty low-key, but I loved it. The food was amazing, and it was great to sit on the couch and be full while my dad ran around the house with Arden all day. Thanks Dad! We also decorated our Christmas tree this week. This is the first year that Arden could really help, and she was so excited. Unfortunately, she couldn't reach very many branches, and so by the end, we would up with quite a few ornaments on one branch...here is an example:
It is hard to see, but there are about 6 ornaments all hung RIGHT next to each other on that branch. So cute :) She is already really excited for Christmas to come. She LOVES to play hide and seek lately, especially with her daddy. Her favorite shows to watch now are Mickey Mouse Clubhouse and Annie (does anyone remember that movie from when they were little? Arden can't get enough of it.)

Something is wrong with you....

What is wrong with this picture?

We went to the eye doctor yesterday to get our prescriptions updated. It was Preston's turn to get his eyes dilated, but something went wrong. One of Preston's eyes was REALLY dilated, and the other one...not so much. It made Preston look more than a little crazy. I unfortunately didn't have my camera at first and by the time we got home after running some errands, the effect had worn off a little. But, you can get the idea from the picture above. Every time I looked at him it made me laugh. We went out to lunch, and I told him to just open up his eyes really big and tell the person behind the counter "ME WANT HAMBURGER!" and see what happened. Unfortunately, he didn't go for it.

I am totally excited for Thanksgiving! I LOVE Thanksgiving! I just get to be lazy and eat all day long and hang out with the fam and watch football on TV. What could be better? The problem for me is that I already have a head start on the 10 or so pounds I seem to put on between Thanksgiving and Christmas...Arden had a TON of Halloween candy, and I have been helping myself quite a bit. Also, I bought a tub of chocolate cookie dough for a fundraiser for a friend's kid about a month ago, and with Preston being gone so much, I have no one to blame but myself for its current almost-empty state. I LOVE chocolate. But, now that Preston is home hopefully I can find some time to exercise more than once a week :)

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Speaking of chocolate, I was watching TV the other night after I put the kids to bed, and I saw the dumbest commercial I think I have ever seen. There was a woman helping her kid make some cupcakes or something. They had just finished pouring out the batter, and the bowl was just dripping with yummy chocolaty gooey batter. The woman catches some batter on her finger and is just about to lick it off, and then for some inexplicable reason she stops. She remembers she can't possibly eat even a little finger full of the batter, and instead decides to have a bowl of Special K. And then she smiles and pretends that it is just as good. All I am thinking is, this woman has PROBLEMS. Is life really worth living if you can't even lick the cupcake batter off of the bowl??? I say no. And I have tried that Special K cereal with the "chocolate" chunks in it. They taste like wax. If that woman has fooled herself into thinking they are just as good as chocolate cupcake batter, than there is something wrong with her.

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Have a HAPPY THANKSGIVING EVERYONE!

Calm before the storm

Hi everyone! We are all officially back to healthy now! Hooray! It has been a good week...I know that I have really been enjoying the little things that I usually take for granted, like being able to breathe through my nose and bending over without feeling like my head is going to explode, things like that. :) I was pretty bummed when Preston had to leave town (again) on Sunday night because I was still feeling pretty sick. On Monday I felt better, and Tuesday I felt even better, especially Tuesday night when Preston called to say he would be coming home a day early!! Hooray again! We are sad that he has to leave again this week, but he has promised it will be his last trip of 2008 (I will believe it when I see it).

Arden and Daxton are both enjoying being healthy again too! Daxton's eyes were still a little goopy early in the week and the doctor gave us some eye drops that we have been putting in his eyes. Arden was very interested to watch the first time we put them in, and Daxton of course had no idea what we were doing. When the first drop hit his eye, Daxton's eyes closed tight, he took a deep breath and his arms started flailing around in all directions and his feet started kicking. I think he was worried he was drowning or something. Sweet little Arden was really concerned about the poor little guy, especially since as soon as he dared to open his eyes again, we hit him with a drop in his other eye and the same scene played out again. Daxton was fine about 15 seconds later and didn't think about it again, but Arden didn't get over it quite as fast. When I sent Preston to get the eye drops again later that night, Arden threw herself in front of Dax and started yelling "NOOOOO! NOOOO DO DAT TO DAX AGIN!!! HE CAN'T WIKE DAT!! NOOOOOO PUT STUFFS IN HIS EYES!!!!!" We had to calm her down and explain to her about 10 times that the drops were medicine to help his eyes get better before she would let us near him. It still bothered her a lot more than it bothered Dax. It is good to know she is looking out for her little brother. She really is a great big sister and loves her little brother so much.

We got out Arden's Jumperoo for Daxton this week, and he has been LOVING it. He loves to "stand up" as anyone who has tried to hold him will know, so he really likes how it helps him stand up. He is still getting the hang of the whole bouncing thing, but he is having fun!

Anyway, this week is going to be a lot busier with us starting to run around to get ready for Thanksgiving, and then our adoption finalization in court, and then Daxton's temple day and blessing day! We are planning a family vacation to Disneyland before Christmas and then of course it will be Christmas itself right after that! We have a crazy few weeks in front of us, and I am really starting to stress out about everything. I had a nightmare last week that we forgot to go to an appointment that we had scheduled the next day with our adoption case worker, and for some reason, in my dream that meant that the adoption wasn't going to go through. I woke up really panicked about it! We made it to the appointment just fine in real life, but I know I am going to be stressing over every little thing right up until the end. Even though I have only had Daxton for 5+ months, I can't imagine my life without him in it now, and I can't wait to make everything final and legal and foreverized!!

Daxton's Photo Shoot

Okay, don't get too excited by the title...Daxton hasn't been discovered or anything. I just did a little photo shoot with him this morning at home. I am trying to get some good pictures to put on the invitations we are going to send out for Daxton's blessing. I never got around to sending birth announcements out, so I am just going to send these instead. We are going to be blessing him on December 7th, assuming all goes well with the adoption finalization. Save the date! (Let me know if you want an invite and aren't related to me!). Here are some of my favorite pictures:

Do I have my "mommy-goggles" on, or is he ready for his magazine cover?

I don't have too much else to report...I have had a cold all week. It started out as just a little one but as the days go by it seems to be getting worse instead of better, and it is getting pretty old. Arden was sick (throwing up) at the beginning of the week, but Dax has mostly been fine. We are just trying to fight our way back to healthiness so we can rejoin the outside world again!

Picture Tag

I was tagged by my friend Leslie. According to the tag, I am supposed to go to my computer and open the 4th folder in my photos file, and then post the 4th picture in that file. So....here it is!

This picture was taken in July 2006...so Arden was 5 months old. Isn't she the cutest thing? We took her "swimming" at the pool at my sister's apartment, and she HATED it. She didn't mind her feet in the water, but anything more than that and she would SCREAM. I had forgotten that Arden's legs were once chubby too! And I am glad that only part of me in my swimsuit is showing.

My poor baby girl has been sick these past couple of days. She pretty much spent all day yesterday flat on her back either in her bed or on the couch...which hasn't happened since she learned how to roll over (so right around the time of this picture!) But, she was a little better today and hopefully she will be back to her usual busy self by tomorrow.

This was kind of a fun tag, so anyone who needs something to blog about, please play along!

HALLOWEEN

We had a great Halloween this year, and I am sad that it is over! The kids and I had pretty bad colds this week, but we willed ourselves to get better (well, better enough) so that we could enjoy the holiday.

On Thursday night we went "trunk-or-treating" over at the church, and Arden (and consequently me) scored a TON of candy. Right after that, we quickly came home for the 2nd annual Zaugg family Halloween party. I don't have many pictures, but I will try to steal some later from my sisters-in-law. The kids (and some parents!) all dressed up in their costumes, and it was so fun to see everyone all dressed up. We ate jack-o-lantern pizzas, broke a Frankenstein pinata, and played some games, and pretty much made a lot of noise. It was great to see everyone! We don't get together as much as we used to since Preston's parents left on their mission. Here is one picture I have of some if the kids playing Halloween bingo:

The next day was Halloween! We hadn't carved our pumpkins, so we spent part of the morning doing that. I get to draw on the faces, and then Preston gets to cut them out. Arden (of course) wanted to help with the cutting and the drawing, but when it came time to scoop out the gross insides, which was the only part that she could actually help with, she wasn't too interested. We all had fun anyway, and Daxton as usual just loved to sit in his chair and watch us.

After the kids took their naps, we put them in their costumes again! Here is Arden, she was a cute little skunk:

My favorite part of the costume was the back...on her little skunk bum it says "Lil' Stinker." So true.

Dax was a dinosaur:

I had a witches hat from a couple of years ago, so I thought I would join in the fun too:

We ran up to my parents' house to trick or treat them, and then after a short visit, we tore Arden away so Preston could take her trick or treating around our neighborhood. Preston is a firm believer in old school trick or treating. He is against the trunk or treating, he thinks that the kids should have to work harder for the candy! So, Daxton and I dropped Arden and Preston off at the top of the hill where they met up with some friends and trick-or-treated their way downhill to our house. Arden was getting pretty good at saying "trick or treat" and "thank you" and "bye bye" to everyone without having to be reminded by the end of the night. Amanda and Matt stopped by to see the kids, and Arden was excited to "play toys" with them a little before bedtime. It was a fun Halloween this year! I can't wait for next year!!