Daxton is 3!

This week my little boy turned THREE!

Well, maybe not so little. He had his doctor's appointment, and his height at weight are in the 95th and 94th percentiles. The doctor said he is as big, if not bigger, than the average 4-year-old. This is no surprise to me since he outgrew his 3T clothes long ago, and we have been buying 4T stuff for Dax for months. He weighed MORE at his 3-year-old checkup than Arden did in March when she went in for her 5-year-old appointment. The kid is big:
But oh-so handsome:

We spent the morning of Dax's birthday at Arden's preschool graduation. She is going to kindergarten in the fall! She has done great in preschool and loved her teacher, Miss Sue:

Dax didn't mind sharing his birthday celebrations with Arden, especially because the graduation ceremony was held at a park and he got to play with his friends after it was over for a while. He then got to choose where we went to lunch, and he chose "the Popcorn Place" (a.k.a. Wingers):

After a lunch of popcorn, popcorn, a hamburger (no pickles!), and a chocolate milk or two, it was naptime! Happily, Dax and Corbie still nap most days, which I am very thankful for.

After naps were over we were off to the zoo. We were excited to take Dax to the zoo because this year they have a bunch of animatronic dinosaurs scattered around this year, and if you know my boy Dax, you know he is ALL about the dinos. First we met some friendly Triceratops-looking creatures. Next we ran into the Dilophosaurus and her baby. Cora was approaching the little one when it surprisingly spit a bunch of water right at her. She FREAKED out and didn't really trust any more of the dinosaurs after that. Here she is trying to climb up Daddy to get away from the mean, water-spitting dinosaurs:

I won't bore you with all of the pictures I took, but I have to post Daxton's favorite, the Tyrannosaurus Rex. It was BIG. Dax was so excited when he first saw the T-Rex, he ran right up to him and was leaning over the fence towards him. Then the T-Rex roared at him, and Dax took a quick step or two backwards:

Here are all of us in front of our favorite dinosaur! He is even smiling for the camera!

We were able to see pretty much all of the animals. The gorilla was walking right next to the glass, and when we got in there he sat down right in front of us and looked right at me. I put my hand on the glass, trying to re-create a scene from Return to Me, but he didn't play along. The kids of course just HAD to do the carousel just once:

After the zoo it was home to eat dinner. I told Dax he could have anything he wanted for dinner. He chose Cinnamon Toast Crunch. Easy enough. Then it was CAKE TIME!
It was a pretty sad attempt at a dinosaur cake, but he was pretty excited anyway. After cake and ice cream, he opened his presents. His favorite seemed to be his new Buzz Lightyear toy. He got a small Buzz for Christmas, but this one actually has lights that light up and wings that pop up and a helmet that does that cool "woosh" thing. His favorite thing is when Buzz says "To Infinity and Beyond!" and then a little song plays while Buzz's wings flash. Dax runs around the room helping Buzz Lightyear fly.
Here are some things about Dax at three years old:

Favorite movies: Despicable Me, Megamind, Tangled and Kung Fu Panda. He is really into quoting movies lately, and does it constantly. His current fave quote is "Oh yeahh!" like Vector from Despicable Me. I hear it all day. It makes me smile.

Favorite color: Green

Favorite foods: Cinnamon Toast Crunch, Corn Dogs, Kiwis and of course pizza.

Favorite drink: Chocolate milk

Favorite thing: Dinosaurs, especially T-Rex

Favorite bedtime friend: Blue blankie(s)

Favorite songs: "Animal" by Neon Trees, Sunbeams, and "Bad" by Michael Jackson.

Other loves: doing puzzles (especially his dinosaur puzzle), taking bubble baths, playing outside, playing hide and seek or duck, duck goose (which he really doesn't quite understand the rules of) and following Arden around.

I love this little guy so much. He has so much personality and life, and there is never a dull moment with him around! Happy Birthday Dax!

RANCH!

Last Saturday I ran in my first official race! My family decided to do the marathon relay in the Ogden marathon. My dad, my two sisters and my brother-in-law have all done half marathons before, but they needed one more person to fill out their 5 person relay team and I was willing to do the last leg since it was only 3.1 miles over the 5k course. It was the perfect day for running, beautiful and sunny, and I really enjoyed my race for a number of reasons:

I got to sleep in, while the other relayers had to catch buses that left at either 5 a.m. or 6 a.m. I showed up around 10:30 a.m.

All of the people who had actually run a marathon were REALLY tired by the time they hit mile 23 (where I started), so I had a great time passing people like crazy with my nice, fresh legs.

I got to run a lot of the race along the Ogden River Parkway, which was beautiful (and also sloped a little bit downhill).

I met my goal of finishing in less than 30 minutes! My official time was 28:52, which is pretty good for me.

Preston was delayed on his business trip and had to spend an extra unexpected night in Indianapolis, but he rushed right down to the finish as soon as he landed, and was waiting dutifully at the end to take my picture as I crossed the finish line...but somehow I ran by without him seeing me. Dangit. Oh well. And then somehow we didn't get a picture of our relay team or anything. The only picture we took that whole day was this:

After the race we all went out to lunch at Chili's. Cora was sitting by me, and we ordered her some pizza, which she was eating just fine UNTIL she noticed that I had a cup of ranch dressing on my plate. This girl LOVES ranch dressing. You can see that she looks like she is dipping her fries in the ranch dressing (yuck), but really she is just dipping the same fry into the ranch dressing and then sucking the ranch dressing off of the fry and then re-dipping it (yuckier). At least she isn't using her finger (which has been done), or just drinking it out of the cup like water (which has also been done...yuckiest!). She gets a little excited when she sees the ranch dressing, which I only assume is how it got on her nose and in her hair. She smelled like a carrot stick for the rest of the day.

Here is a picture I stole off of the official photographer's page, just so I have photographic evidence that I once ran a race if I never do one again:

Happy Birthday today to my 3-year-old Daxton! I will do a birthday-boy post for him soon.

Sweet Little Linebacker

My little Daxton was the sweetest, mellowest little baby you ever saw. He was completely content to sit in his bouncy chair and kick his little baby legs and smile and giggle at everyone and everything. As long as he was fed, he was happy. Once he became mobile, a flip switched somewhere in his little boy brain and he became a CAVEMAN. For real. He just had these powerful manly urges to do manly things like HIT and STOMP and WRESTLE anything that moved. After what seems like hundreds of these:

(Sad Dax in a time-out)

Dax has learned to (partially) control these urges. He no longer tackles every kid he sees. First, he stopped tackling anyone under the age of 2 or over the age of 9. Next, he decided he would only tackle boys (other than Arden of course). Then he decided he would mostly limit his tackling to kids he knew. Now that he is approaching the ripe old age of 3, he mostly only tackles Arden. (This rule does not apply if he is really tired...the tireder Dax is, the more indiscriminate his tackling becomes....too bad his nursery class falls right during naptime).

The fact that he usually only tackles Arden is great news! Unless, of course, you are Arden. That poor girl gets tackled and wrestled to the ground about 17 times a day, whether she likes it or not. When Dax was small, Arden loved to wrestle with him and tickle him, and she was probably the person who taught him how to tackle in the first place. I remember warning her that someday she would be sorry because Dax was going to be bigger than her someday. Dax still isn't quite as tall as Arden, but he weighs almost the same. And the bigger Dax gets, the less fun Arden seems to be having during these tackling sessions. She still laughs and plays along sometimes, but others times she doesn't appreciate being pulled to the ground and sat upon. This kid needs an outlet for all of these manly tackling urges, and apparently I can't sign him up for football until he is 8 years old. Do any of you out there who have survived little boy toddlerhood have any suggestions for me?

When he isn't tackling, he is so sweet. The other day I was feeling pretty worn out and I was sitting on the floor while the kids were playing in the playroom. Dax came over and snuggled in my lap and said, "Mom, don't be sad cuz I will hug you!" and then he laid his head on my shoulder gave me a hug. Awwwww! The next moment he was chasing Cora around and making her scream, but those little moments make all of the tackling and time-outs worth it.

We FINALLY took away his binkie for good and all after we got back from our trip last week and he has been doing pretty good without it. I let him keep it for way too long...I loved that thing at least as much as he did. At least I can say I took his binkie away when he was two years old instead of three since he doesn't turn three until next week. Three....

Can my baby boy really be three? Say it isn't so! He still looks so much like a baby while he sleeps:

(yes, he is wearing flannel snowman pajamas in mid-May...it is freezing!)

Siesta Key Beach Vacation!

Last week we took our annual beach vacation! We thought it would be easier and cheaper to stay in the country this time, so after a little bit of research, we settled on Siesta Key, Florida. It is near Sarasota, and is famous for its white fine, powdery sand. We rented a condo on the beach, talked Grandma and Grandpa Haun into coming with us to help wrangle the kids, and we were off! The flights went pretty well, except a couple of our bags for some reason took a later flight than we did. But soon we were HERE: The beach directly in front of our condo

The sand was really soft and white, and didn't get hot at all. There were also quite a few seashells on the beach, and Cora and Arden had a great time collecting them. Arden even found a shark's tooth! Here is Corbie, running up and down the beach looking for "pitty see-shews!"

The waves here were pretty mild most days, but they were still big enough for Arden and Daxton to enjoy playing in:It got kind of windy in the afternoons and the waves would get bigger, and the kids loved to make Grandpa hold onto their hands and lift them up out of the water each time a wave came in. Grandpa's arms got kind of tired though. The kids slept pretty good at the condo, which Cora liked to call "Gwampa's beach house." All three kids wanted to sleep in the same room, but Daxton and Cora just could not stop talking to each other. Arden was quickly sound asleep, but Dax and Cora were talking and giggling for hours that first night. Around 11:30 p.m. I finally moved Cora's toddler air mattress into our bathroom (which was pretty big), where she slept great the rest of the time.

My dad and I went for a few runs on the beach, and I gotta say that if I had a beach to run on, I would be out there every day. The very first morning while we were running we saw a bunch of dolphins right off shore and ran along side them for a while. How cool is that???

The sand is so fine that it is easy to make sandcastles with, and while we were there they their annual sandcastle competition at the public beach which was just about half a mile from our condo. We walked the kids down and took a look around, but we were a little early and most of the sandcastles weren't quite done yet. But they were pretty impressive anyway! Here is one under construction:
This inspired us to try our own sandcastles. We quickly found out that the hardest part about building sandcastles is keeping the various toddlers from destroying your work before you can get finished. Ours isn't as impressive as some others, but for us it was pretty good:Here is another tower that I made out of the wet sand. It sticks together so nicely! I told Dax that he could knock it over after I took a picture of it, so he dutifully stood and watied until I took a picture and gleefully knocked it down one millisecond after this shot was taken: We took a couple of day trips while we were there. We spent one day at the Mote Aquarium. They had lots of cool exhibits and even a pickled giant squid. My favorites were the manatees:

Daxton's favorite was the sharks:

Cora's favorite thing was this sign:

Arden's favorite thing was the gift shop, where she talked her dad into getting all three kids a stuffed dolphin.

After the aquarium we stopped for lunch at a restaurant on the bay. There were a bunch of birds hanging around on the dock near the restaurant. There were some pelicans and some egrets. While we were waiting for our food to come, Dax wanted to get a better look at the egret. Here is what he told me as we walked up to the bird: "Dat bird's fevvers are white. Dat bird's feet are bwack. Dad bird's eyes are yewwow. I FROW HIM IN THE WATER!!" He then ran at the bird full speed and had every intention of grabbing this bird (which was taller than him) and heaving it into the sea. Luckily for everyone involved, the bird saw him coming and took off before Dax could get his chubby little hands on him.

After another couple of days at the beach:

..and a little shuffleboard:

We drove over to Disney World and visited the Animal Kingdom for a day. It was really fun, and everyone had a good time. Dax especially loved "Dinoland" and even got to ride on a flying triceratops:

He is so big, he met the height requirement to ride on the "Dinosaur!" ride, which is a dark, Indiana Jones-style ride where you are chased around by a large, animatroinc carnivore. We considered letting him ride it, but then remembered how he hid under the table for 10 minutes last month at Chuck-E-Cheese because the animatronic mouse was too scary for him. We did take Arden on it, and she actually liked it. I think she felt brave. The animals were of course the main attraction, and Cora talked about the tiger all day long. The "Nemo" musical show was really fun too. I was a little disappointed in the "Expedition Everest" ride, because the huge scary yeti inside seemed a lot less scary than I remembered from our last visit a few years ago. I was expecting this huge hairy thing roaring and lunging at the roller coaster, but my dad didn't even SEE the yeti. Apparently he is broken, but instead of fixing him they just turned out the lights and shined a strobe light on him to "simulate movement." La-ame! Fix the yeti! Anyway...back to the beach!

We collected more shells, I caught a huge hermit crab and also found a conch, and we saw the dolphins again too. The water was perfect and warm, but unfortunately too sandy for snorkeling. Dax tried his floaters out for the first time and did really great (can't figure out how to add video yet, sorry!)

And there were some really pretty sunsets:

After a lot of relaxing and running and splashing and digging and lounging and chasing and swimming, it was time to pack up and go home. UNFORTUNATELY, our plane was delayed and we missed our connection in Atlanta. We had to spend the night at an airport hotel. Everyone was pretty tired as we waited to get our vouchers and figure out a place to stay. Arden curled up on one of the benches in the terminal to wait:

I am not good at packing carry-ons. I had my carry-on jam packed with toys and books and ipods and stickers and snacks to try and keep the kids quiet on the planes, and didn't have room for stuff like pajamas and make-up. So, we used the Delta overnight packs, which to the kids' delight contained large t-shirts that they could wear as pajamas. I wish I would have taken their pictures all dressed in these huge t-shirts and ready for bed, but I was too tired! We made our flight out the next morning just fine, and arrived back home with all of our luggage.

It was a really fun trip, and the kids (and me) are going through pretty bad beach withdrawals. Cora saw an airplane today and said this to me "I wan go airplane! I go airplane to grampa's house atta beach! I GO BEACH! I GO BEACH! Pweeeese?"

Me too, please!

Spring now, please?

Yesterday morning Arden had a soccer game. There was SNOW on the field. There had already been so many games cancelled this spring that the coaches decided to play the game anyway. Everyone was already there since we had to be there for team pictures (that had already been rescheduled once due to weather), so why not, right? However, the game ended at half time because little girls were crying because their socks were soaked through and their little toes were frozen! It was April 30th. No. Fair. Spring, where ARE you??

(By the way, Arden had scored a goal in each of the last two games before this one. GO ARDEN!)

Even though winter seems reluctant to release us, our nectarine trees are trying their best to pretend it is spring:
Cora saw me taking pictures and ran over screeching "I SMILE! I SMILE!" So, here she is:

Those baby blues can brighten up any day. Even when it snowing.