Sleep-eating

Daxton has always been a good eater. He eats sooo much better than Arden did at his age, it is amazing. He will eat just about any kind of baby food, and pretty much anything else he can get his little hands on. I still feel Dax a bottle right before I go to bed at around 11:00 because if I don't, he wakes up around 5 a.m. wanting his breakfast! As a result of all of these late-night feedings, Dax has developed a very special talent --sleep-eating.

When I go into his room to feed him his bottle, I sneak in very quietly. I pick Dax up from his crib and sit down in the rocker. I quickly plug the bottle in his mouth, and his eyes never open. He can usually drink the entire bottle without actually waking up! When he has finished eating, I gently sit him up and rub his back, and he performs another amazing feat: sleep-burping. After that, I HAVE to sit and just snuggle him for a while...he is just so warm and soft and sweet.

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It is my favorite time of the day.

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I could just hold him like that for hours. (And I would except I am usually pretty exhausted by then and I am afraid that if I feel asleep in the chair I would eventually drop him on the floor and I am pretty sure he wouldn't sleep through that). Anyway, after I get my snuggle-fix, I put him back in his crib and he is blissfully unaware that anything has happened at all.

I wonder at what age we lose the ability to drink while we are sleeping??? If someone tried to get me to drink anything while I was asleep I would certainly drown. :)

Today is Daxton's 9-month old birthday! He has started to LOVE being on his feet. He can stand up while holding on to furniture now, and he thinks it is so fun:

and his favorite thing in the world is walking around with someone holding his hands:

Obviously he doesn't quite have the balance thing down yet...his feet are usually going about twice as fast as the rest of his little body.

But, he is having a great time!

He is sooo proud of himself, and will scream for more if I try to stop before he is done. I am sure that before I know it, he won't need me to hold his hands anymore.

Twiblings!

I will start at the beginning. A few weeks ago, Arden's birthmom (who is awesome and amazing and wonderful) left me a message to call her. I thought maybe she wanted to get together for Arden's birthday coming up, but it turns out there was a little more to it than that. Last summer, she had a whirlwind romance and got married and also became pregnant. Unfortunately, they have decided to get a divorce. The baby is due at the beginning of May and she had decided to place the baby for adoption. She was calling to let us know and to see if we wanted to have the chance to adopt the baby. My first thought (after how sad I was for her) was "wow, it is too bad this is such bad timing. Oh well." I told her I would talk to Preston and we would think about it and let her know, but really I was thinking it was completely impossible.

Preston was on his way out of town (of course) so I quickly phoned him and caught him right before he got on his plane and quickly told him the story. He thought about it for the 5 or so hour flight to Philadelphia and then called me back. I had already moved on to trying to think if there was anyone I knew who was ready to adopt, but Preston said he thought that WE could adopt the baby. What!?!? No way. He was crazy! Anyway, after a LOT of thinking and a LOT of praying and a LOT of struggling (at least on my part), we decided that we would say yes. The birth father seems to be on board with the decision to place the baby for adoption, so....

It looks like WE ARE GOING TO HAVE A NEW BABY GIRL!! If she goes to her due date (which is questionable since Arden was 3 weeks early), Daxton will be 11 months old when our new baby girl is born. I have decided I am going to call them the "Twiblings."

I know this is the right decision, but I am feeling a little (okay, a LOT) overwhelmed. Especially right now, because today was not an easy day...both Arden and Daxton were a grouchier than usual and by bedtime I was DONE. But it is an AMAZING opportunity for us to have this little girl in our family, and I know I would have regretted it forever if I let that opportunity pass me by. I know that it is going to be hard to have three such little kids, especially since Daxton probably won't even be walking by the time the new baby is born. Simple things like going to the grocery store during the day are going to be difficult, if not impossible for a while, and I am going to be sleep deprived beyond belief. But, I know that it will all be worth it to have this sweet little girl in our family. I am really excited for Arden to have a little sister, and I am hoping that since all three of them will be so close in age that they will be good friends. I can hardly believe that soon I will be the mommy of three when not so long ago I wondered if I would ever get the chance to be a mom at all! I am so grateful to Arden's birthmom for giving us this opportunity (both of them!!) Also, today we found a car seat narrow enough that we can fit all three babies in the back of our SUV, so at least we don't have to buy a new car! Woo-hoo!

I am sorry to those of you who are finding this out via blog, but my mind has seriously been having trouble processing this whole situation, so please forgive me for not telling all of you in person!

Happy Valentines Day!

My Little Gymnast

Now that Arden is almost 3 I decided to enroll her in a gymnastics class. She loved watching the "somersault girls" during the Olympics and loves to somersault around our house and hang upside down from the handlebars of my exercise bike or anything else that remotely resembles a bar. After watching her hang upside down from the arm of a chair in the examination room at one of Daxton's appointments, even our pediatrician suggested that we get her enrolled in gymnastics. :) I decided we would try "Flips" in Bountiful after a friend's recommendation.

Of course I haven't brought my camera either time, and my camera phone is stinky for motion pictures and of course has no zoom. I tried to take some pictures of them while they were warming up since they were close by, so here are a couple of really blurry shots for you:

Arden is the little one closest to the camera in the white shirt and red pants.

Last week was her first week, and she LOVED it. There are about 8 other kids in her 3-year old class, and the two teachers seem pretty good. The kids get to jump up and down and run around, bounce on the trampoline, balance on a small beam, and yes, even do somersaults and hang upside down from a bar! Arden especially likes the BIG trampoline, and last week whenever the teachers were not looking she would try and sneak off to the trampoline again. They were good at catching her before she got too far away though.

Today they worked a little bit on handstands (with the teachers helping of course). Arden doesn't quite understand that she is supposed to try and hold herself up with her own arms, and just thinks the teachers are playing a fun game of holding her upside down. It was hilarious to watch! I am sure she will catch on soon :) She seems to really enjoy the class and is sad when it is over.

It is so fun for me to watch her, I just sit there grinning like an idiot the whole time, and Daxton loves to watch too (he squeals and screams LOUD and HIGH when he is excited or happy or sometimes just because he feels like it. It can be kind of embarrassing in situations like this...and at church). I was a little worried about how Arden would do at first, but it is AMAZING how obedient she is to her gymnastics teachers! Seriously, if they say jump, she jumps! If they say roll, she rolls! If they say do a somersault, she does it! If I say jump at home, she says "No, I just don't want to do dat." Oh well. There is another place in Bountiful called USA Gymnastics, but I haven't heard much about that place...has anyone been to both and if so, which one did you like more? So far I am very proud of my little gymnast.

Pedicures, Punks and Paintings

Sometimes when Daxton is taking his morning nap, us girls take the opportunity to have ourselves a nice, relaxing pedicure. Actually, there is NOTHING relaxing about a pedicure with a 2-year old. It is nerve-wracking trying to make sure that your entire house isn't coated in nail polish by the time you are done.

This time, Arden really wanted to try and paint her toes herself. She promised to be "vewwy vewwy carefoo!" and looked up at me with those big blue eyes, so I decided to let her have a try. The first thing she did was look at the brush closely and get fingernail polish in her hair. I tried to wipe it out quickly with a paper towel, but it just smeared and she looked like she had gotten bright red streaks in her hair like people used to do in the 80's (sorry no pictures). Next I tried putting a little bit of acetone on it, and the streaks turned pink, which was a little better, but I still didn't think it was the best look for her. I wasn't sure if the polish remover would damage her hair if I put too much on, so I finally decided to just put her in the bathtub (where she had just been about an hour previously). I scrubbed and scrubbed and thankfully it came out!! Phew! So, I put her hair UP in a ponytail and we tried again:


She tried really hard and was actually pretty patient. Here is our final result:

Not too bad, huh? Seriously, sometimes my toes don't look much better than that! A couple of days later Arden wanted to color. Daxton looked very interested in the whole process, so I decided to let him give it a try too. See how hard he is concentrating? (see picture below) If you look at his paper, he actually made quite a few marks on it (I drew the heart to show him how it worked, so don't get too excited)...He had a great time, and was very proud of himself!
Arden LOVES Mickey Mouse clubhouse. She asks to watch it every day, at least 10 times a day, and I have to say we watch an episode most days of the week. I am pretty sure I have seen them all now, but at least they are only 20 minutes long! She decided she wanted to draw a picture of Mickey Mouse and Minnie Mouse, and I think they are amazingly good (of course, I am just a little biased:) Minnie is the one on the pink, in case you didn't recognize the bow on her head. So, I am thinking when Arden is a famous artist, these little babies could sell for millions. However, I am willing to sell them at a considerable discount, please leave your bid amounts in the comments :)

Lest you think we are not well-rounded, Daxton has learned how to "play ball" this week. If I roll a ball at him, he will try and reach out and grab it, and can usually do it if I aim it right at his hand. He then will try to roll it back to me, which is much harder, but he can get it rolling away from him about half the time, which I think is pretty impressive for an 8-month old! He gets so excited and shrieks and kicks his feet every time I roll the ball at him.

He is getting pretty LOUD!! Any ideas on how to explain what "shhhhhh" means to a baby?

Siwwy Arden!

This is my silly girl. I know she is silly because she tells me all day. Lately, everything is silly. If Arden accidentally crashes into the wall while trying to do a somersault, she laughs and says, "Siwwy Arden!" If Daxton chooses to try to eat the puzzle piece Arden had expected him to put into the puzzle, she laughs and squeals, "Siwwy Daxton!" If pour myself a bowl of cereal, put on some socks or any other totally-mundane-and-not-silly-at-all-task, I get a "Siwwy Mommy!" I am told I am silly at least 27 times each day.

I guess Preston is really the silliest because he is the one who allowed himself to be talked into taking Arden outside to color with sidewalk chalk in January last weekend:

I bet we are the only ones in a 20-mile radius with sidewalk chalk pictures in the middle of winter.

We had a little Super Bowl get together yesterday with my brothers and sisters and parents and even my Grandma (who I am not sure enjoyed the game, but we enjoyed having her with us!) and a good time was had by all...well, all except maybe my brother-in-law Matt who was studying imaginary numbers for a test he has this week. My absolute favorite part of the entire game was during the halftime show when Bruce Springsteen did a knee slide across the stage. He totally miscalculated how fast he was going or how slippery the stage was or something and crashed into a camera guy. I think we rewinded and watched that part at least 3 or 4 times. Hilarious. It was better than any of the commercials this year!

Aaaand, its time for my annual "I HATE the Groundhog" rant.

I have to think that Groundhog Day has GOT to be the most depressing holiday ever. First, no one gets it off of work, so really, what's the point? Second...can anyone even remember the last time that stupid groundhog DIDN'T see his stupid groundhog shadow and sentence us all to the extra-long version of winter? I can't. Groundhog Day pretty much is just a day to remind me that winter is going to last forever. And ever. Aaaand ever. Stupid groundhog. If I ever meet him on the street he better run.