Off We Go!!

Finally, after a trip to California and lots of requests/ pressure, I have decided to start a family blog! Hooray!! Austin, Dax and I just returned from an amazing end of summer trip to Oceanside, CA thanks to my parents, and I thought highlighting some of the fun would be a great start.
But, first, to invite you into our little world down here in the HOT summer sun, maybe I should introduce you to my wonderful little family…that’s growing! With Dax at 22 months, there is never a dull moment, and with another little boy around the corner, we couldn’t be more excited.
To know Austin and I, is to know Dax. He is our pride and joy and the greatest blessing. He makes us laugh, and sometimes cry, and we are so proud of him and love watching him grow and learn. He is such an active little boy and keeps us on our toes, but we wouldn’t have it any other way. Here a just a few of the many reasons we love Dax, and a little glimpse at his fun personality.

-Dax loves music and dancing. Since we are fairly new in Arizona and our ward, the first Sunday that he clapped after a song in Sacrament made me want to close my eyes and hide. But after hearing some encouraging laughter and seeing smiley faces, he picked up that what he was doing was, if anything, funny and now it’s our struggle to try and get him to stop (even though I secretly don’t want to!)

-Each morning, when I go into Dax’s room to the calling of “moooommmy” he throws out everything in his crib. This includes his Tigger pillow, lion, Snoopy, and most recently, over sized Mickey Mouse and his blanket and does the highest seat drop in the middle of his crib. You know, the one you do on a trampoline when you jump straight up and land in a seated position with your legs straight. And by high, I mean he even bounces a few more little ones from the spring the mattress gives him.

-He LOVES trucks, we point them out where ever we go…diggers, dumpers, graders (I’ve even impressed with my growing knowledge of them). Luckily for Dax, twice a week our garbage gets picked up and all morning long, whenever we hear one, we get to go running all over the house to figure out what window we can see the garbage truck from Unluckily for me, this is also the reason we are up extra early on these mornings.

-I’ve always loved spare change. Kinda a weird thing, but I have. Even though I don’t have a cute or fun spot to put it in, I always like it when I find it lying around or on the street. When Dax came along, I figured what better thing to do with the change then to get him a piggy bank. He loves to add the change to the piggy bank (did I mention it's actually a hippo) by himself, and all of a sudden, out of nowhere, each time before putting the quarter in, he looks at the picture of George Washington and says, “Jesus”. What to do?!?!

- Walks!! Of course! Before we moved out here, we were cooped in during the Utah winter and now we’re cooped in because of the Arizona summers. That being the case, our walks consist of going to our mailbox about the distance of 8 driveways. My favorite thing about this though is the way Dax’s smells the flowers as we go; and by flowers, I mean trees, plants, weeds & tumbleweeds. He must not enjoy the smell, it’s tumbleweed for heaven’s sake. The trick is on me though---I think he is trying to draw out the experience as long as he can while I sweat.

-I can remember getting in trouble by my teacher when I was in second grade for holding my pencil incorrectly…but I never corrected it and still to this day I hold the pencil between my middle and ring finger. The thing I love lately about Dax is he is really into coloring, and the thing I love more, is seeing him hold his crayon the exact same way as his mom. Would I be horrible if I didn’t correct him??

-I don’t get to take Dax to nursery, because I have my own little nursery class to teach, but I have figured out when his singing time is and I sneak a peek each week. Without fail, while everyone else is sitting during singing time, he’s standing in the middle dancing and doing ALL the actions....don’t forget the clapping after the song!

-Dax, for some reason, knocks on things when he can’t open them---including bags of M&M’s…how can I resist even if it is dinner time!

-We have a little tiny piano and Dax has a little chair he loves to pull up to it and hunch over and pound away on it. I finally figured out why it looked soooo cute and so familiar. He looks exactly like the piano playing Peanut’s character on Charlie Brown…Schroeder.

-Thanks to Grandpa MacGillivray, Dax has a baseball tee and a little Easton baseball glove. He is great and catching and throwing and would blow you away if you saw him hit off the tee. The thing we can’t figure out is how he's convinced you run the “bases” after you throw the ball, but not after he hits it off the tee?!

-His favorite movie is Cars. He loves everything about it, that is until the part where Mack falls asleep on the highway and Lightening slides out of the truck on the highway and gets awaken by all the screeching and honking. I better be sure I am in the room for that part because he is basically in hysteria every time he watches.

I know I need to cherish all of these moments with Dax, because we all know, they change so fast and are on to the next thing in no time....and, like I said, off we go!!