Walking!! Finally

We are happy to report that princess Ella is now walking!! Finally! Since she is 15 months now. She has been working on taking a couple of steps here and there and standing all by herself for the last couple of weeks and yesterday she just started walking across the room! She can walk across the family room, turn around and walk all the way back. All with a huge grin on her face! She still likes to crawl sometimes because she can get where she wants to go faster if she crawls, and when Ella wants something she does not want to have to wait for it. Last night she thought she was so cool because she would take a few steps then stop and look at us and start dancing then start walking again. When I got her out of bed this morning and brought her downstairs I set her on the floor and she instantly stood up and grinned and started walking, she got a little frustrated when the foot of her jammies made her fall down but she got right back up! We are so proud of you princess!!

More pictures

Here are a few more pictures that Janelle took the other day. Did I mention that she did such a good job?!?

Pictures

Yesterday my wonderful friend Janelle took our family pictures, we went to memory grove downtown, it was such a pretty day and she did such a good job! I knew they would be good because Janelle is very creative! I can definately say this is the most fun we have ever had getting our pictures taken. I guess it helps to have your best friend take them. We were way overdue for family pictures. I have taken the kids to have there pictures taken but we haven't had a family picture taken since Ella was born...15 months ago!! Thankfully Janelle was very patient with the kids when they were less than cooperative. Jaxson thought it was pretty cool to have his "Banelle" taking our pictures, she even took some of him being silly which was the highlight of the whole event for him! I haven't seen all of them yet, but the ones that I have seen are so good, they are exactly what I wanted and the kids look so cute in them. Now we will have cute christmas cards to send to everyone all thanks to Janelle!!

Janelle, is there anything you cant do??? I didn't think so.

I will post more when I get them.

So brave

Jaxson had a little bit of an accident on thursday afternoon, im sure if he knew I was writing about this right now he would roll his eyes and say "MOM im fine!" which is what he tells me everytime I talk about his accident. Apparently he is over it mommy however is NOT over it.

Jaxson was showing me how he is learning to cut shapes out of paper, and how his teacher taught him how to cut on the line. He was using "safety scissors" which in my opinion are not very "safe" I had been sitting right there with him watching him cut out the shapes, we had just had a big long talk about being very careful with the scissors and only cutting the paper. I walked away for 30 seconds (no exaggeration) when I heard a horrible scream, I came running into the room to find Jaxson's mouth full of blood. I grabbed a towel and tried to stop some of the bleeding so that I could find the source of the bleeding. It was his tongue!! He had somehow cut the left side of his tongue with the scissors. I picked up the phone to call someone to come and sit with Ella so that I could take Jaxson to the ER. I called Nick and told him what had happened and he said that he was leaving work and would meet us at the ER. While I was waiting for my dad to come over to be with Ella, I was holding Jaxson trying to comfort him, he was so upset. He looked at me with huge tears in his eyes and said "Mama is dis real? Did I really cut my tongue?" This broke my heart! Mommy's dont ever want to see their babies in pain. He kept asking me if he was going to have to get a shot and stitches. The whole way to the ER he was crying saying he didn't want to have a shot!

When the doctor looked at it he said that it would definately need some stitches and we decided that it would be better to give Jax some medicine to relax him, and so that he wouldn't really remember much. Unfortunately this medicine had to be given in his thigh. This did not please Jaxson that he was going to have a shot, and it took several of us to hold him down so the nurse could give him the shot. Within a few minutes the medicine started to work, at this point I lost it and started crying, it was so sad to watch what the medicine did to him. His eyes started darting back and forth and he started breathing weird. But fortunately he had no idea what was going on. In order for them to pull the tongue out to stitch it, they had to put a stitch through the middle of his tongue so that they could pull on the string and pull his tongue out of his mouth. As if seeing my little boy's tongue split open wasn't bad enough, I had to watch them put a string through the middle of it and pull on it like it was a puppet on a string. HORRIBLE!! I stood right next to his head while they were stitching him so that I could rub his cheek and comfort him, even though he was on a different planet at this point, it still made me feel better knowing I was there for him. Part of me wanted to look away while they were stitching his tongue and part of me wanted to watch to make sure they were being careful with my baby.

I was relieved when the stitches were done, we had to stay there until the medicine had fully worn off so that they could monitor him. When he was starting to come out of it, he looked and Nick and I and said that we looked like robots and that he wanted his real mommy and daddy. I was just holding him telling him that mommy was right there. Once the medicine wore off he decided that we did not look like robots and we were his real parents after all. His tongue is healing really well and he is doing much better! He was so brave through the whole thing, I think he was much braver than me! However I dont think he will be using scissors anytime soon. He ended up with 7 stitches in his tongue! You cant really see it that well in this picture, but Jax thought it would be cool to take a picture of it.

Silly girl

Ella has these pink crocs that her Papa George and Grandma Bonnie gave her before she was born, and they finally fit her now. As soon as she woke up yesterday she spotted them and wanted them on with her jammies, she had them on the whole time she was eating and kept lifting up her feet so that I could see her pretty shoes. After she got done with breakfast I had to take her jammies off because she had smeared them with bananas, obviously in order to take off the jammies I had to take the shoes off, needless to say this did not please the princess! She started kicking and screaming! Little did she know that as soon as the smeared jammies were off she was going to get her shoes back, but have you ever tried reasoning with a 15 month old pissed off princess?? It doesn't work! Once I finally got her pinned down long enough to take the jammies off and replace the shoes, she stopped flipping out. Imagine that!! She grinned at me and then she was off!! Here are some pictures of Ella's adventures with her new favorite shoes.

Santa's elves

The other day we were out running some errands and Jaxson started talking about Christmas and Santa's elves. He is rather fascinated with santa and his elves this year, whenever he is having a hard time minding his daddy and I we tell him that santa's elves are watching. When we were out driving he was asking as many questions about santa as he could possible think of, one of his questions was "Mom, how come we cant see Santa's elves?" As I started to explain to him why we couldn't see them he came up with his own conclusion... "Mom, can we not see Santa's elves because dey are NAKED?!" I about drove the car off the side of the road because I was laughing so hard, and because that was NOT something I expected him to say! I explained the real reason we cant see them, and that we shouldn't talk about people being naked. Fortunately at this point we had to go into a store and the subject was dropped.

Later that day Jax was having LESS than perfect behavior, and in the middle of his temper tantrum he stopped and looked at me with this serious face and said "mom I really hope santa's elves cant see me right now." I asked him why and he said "cause im not having very good behavior right now." I told him that he should just quit acting like that and then it wouldn't matter if the elves were watching. He thought about this for a minute and then said "NO! I WANT TO KEEP ACTING LIKE DIS BECAUSE I SLEEPED ON DA WRONG SIDE OF DA BED!!"

Leaves

Yesterday we decided that it was time to rake some of the endless amount of leaves in our yard, I say some because it is NOT possible to rake the entire yard in one day with kids. As soon as we would get some of them raked into a pile, this is what Jaxson would do...

Not to mention the fact that we had only been outside for about 20 minutes when Jaxson said he wanted a "crabby patty" for lunch, for those of you who have ever seen spongebob, you know what im talking about. Jaxsons crabby patty was turkey, mayo, and pickles on a hamburger bun. Of course he had to make sure that he had enough food in him to make his muscles big so that he could help rake the leaves...or run through them as fast as he could. I think he was doing whatever he could to make sure that the leaves did not stay in nice little piles. Then miss Ella decided it was funny to keep taking her hat off of her head and throw it on the ground, and then point at it and cry like she had NO idea how it had gotten there! Her hat wasn't the only thing she was throwing on the ground as fast as she could, she also thought that her lunch belonged there too. Of course everytime her hat came off either Nick or I would have to stop raking and put the hat back on her head because it was cold, did I mention that she would also take her mittens off and throw them on the ground as well? Now do you see why it is not possible to rake all of the leaves in one day??? Good thing the kids are so cute!

Yay!!!

Today Ella and Jaxson were playing in the family room, actually Jax was trying to see how much he could bug his sister, or how loud he could make her scream. Either one. I was talking to Jaxson and telling him to leave his sister alone when I looked over at Ella and she was standing up in the middle of the room all by herself. When Jaxson and I started clapping and telling her how big she was, she got a huge grin on her face, and of course instantly fell down because she was so excited. But she got herself right back up! When I held out my hands she took several steps toward me, and kept doing the same to her brother. Jax looked at me after she had taken the first few steps and started wiping his eyes and told me that he had happy tears because he was so proud of his baby sister! Apparently he had forgotten all about bugging the crap out of her! When I got out the camera Ella really started showing off, a couple of times she would stand herself up so fast that she would lose her balance and instantly fall back down, but her big brother was right there next to her telling her that she could do it!

Award!

I am so proud of Jaxson! When he came home from preschool yesterday he had something very special in his bag, it was an award from his preschool teacher. He got this award because he can now write his name all by himself! He does it very well I might add! He has been practicing so hard. He loves to practice writing his numbers and his letters. He was so proud of himself when I asked him about the award, he even got a little prize from his teacher for it too! I cant believe how fast he is growing up! Way to go Jax you are so smart and mommy and daddy are so proud of you!

Amazing!

Yesterday we went to Cabelas with our friends Keith and Janelle, this was the highlight of Jaxson and Nick's day! Jax needed some new snow clothes (thanks Papa George and Grandma Bonnie) so Nick thought this would be a perfect excuse to go there, because apparently you can't just buy snow clothes anywhere, they have to be from Cabelas according to Nick. Both Nick and Jax could hardly wait to get there. When we walked in Jax said "this place is AMAZING" of course he has been there before but THIS time he was four and a half so it was even cooler, as Jax put it. Jax said that his favorite part was the fish and the animals and all of the really cool stuff there. I think Nick's favorite part was the thermal boxers that he informed me he must have!

Of course Jax was super excited to go outside today after preschool in his new snowclothes, but since there isn't any snow right now, he just settled for wearing his new coat and hat and playing in the mud. A LOT of mud, it is a rainy day today, and that means the dirt is wet and we all know that little boys are drawn to mud! Good thing I decided not to mop my floor today (nice excuse huh!) because when Jax came in from playing he was covered! He was not very happy when I made him strip down to his underwear so that I could put his dirty clothes in the washer and get him some dry clothes, however he quickly got over this when a song he likes came on the tv and he proceeded to "rock out" in his underwear, where's the camera when you need it? Needless to say, Jax is still talking about Cabelas today...and so is Nick.

New trick

Miss Ella learned a new trick yesterday, and she was quite proud of herself when she showed her daddy and I. No, this new trick of hers is not walking, although she could walk if she wanted to, but she is a princess and she likes to do things in her own time and in her own way. This is her new trick...
She had been crawling around playing with her toys when Nick and I heard her laugh, we looked over and saw her doing this. She was so proud of herself and kept doing it over and over, and she had to make sure that mommy and daddy and brother were watching her when she did this.

Snow

Jaxson was so excited this morning when he looked outside and saw that it was snowing! He had to put on his snow boots (with his jammies still on) before preschool and go outside for a second, he just couldn't wait until after preschool to play in the snow. Of course the second he walked in the door from preschool he wanted me to find all of his snow clothes, which he has now grown out of, so that he could go outside. He was not very happy that I had failed to go out and buy him some new snow boots while he was at school, and was even more upset when I told him we didn't have the money right now, he told me to GO GET SOME MORE MONEY! Apparently our money tree has stopped growing. But he quickly forgot about the fact that his snow boots were a size (or two) too small once he got outside with his shovel in hand and busily got to work playing in the snow! When he decided that he was just too cold to play outside anymore, he came inside and snuggled on the couch with a blanket and some hot chocolate.

Me & Sis

Last night while I was cooking dinner, both of the kids were in the playroom. I heard Jaxson laugh and then he called me to come in and look at him and Ella. He was so proud of himself because he had lifted Ella up and put her onto the chair in the playroom and they were watching a movie together. Jax just couldn't wait for me to come in there and look at the two of them. He thought it was so cute that his sis was sitting right next to him, although I did have to tell him that it's probably not a good idea to try and lift Ella anymore, especially when I am not right there to help him. He had even put a few toys next to Ella so that she would want to stay on the chair with him a little longer. He just kept looking at Ella saying "your so cute sis" however he didn't think she was very cute later on when he was playing with his legos and she was trying to destroy all of the things he had made!

Daddy's job

This morning Jax was outside playing on the deck and he came in and asked if he could have a rake, I asked him why he wanted a rake and he said "because I want to rake up all of dese leaves and put dem into a pile" I got him the rake and he went to work. He came in a few minutes later and said "Mom, did you know dat I am doing Daddy's job? Mom, he shoulda done dis job a long time ago, so now im gonna do it for him and when he gets home from work tonight im gonna tell him dat I did HIS job!" I about died laughing at the expression on his face, he was dead serious when he was telling me that his daddy should have done this job already (I have no idea where he would have gotten this from, im pretty sure that I didn't already tell Nick that he should have done this) after Jax informed me that he was doing his Daddy's job, he went back outside and got to work, and I must say that he did a very good job! He even had to have on his "work jacket."
What a good little helper!