Woody's Big Adventure!

While Robbie was in Alaska catching this:

 (seriously....halibut are UGLY!!!  It's a good thing they taste delicious!)

...Dax and I spent some time at my parents' house.  PaMa bought Dax this:

 

He LOVES them.

For THREE days, he literally would not put them down.  

He slept with them, ate with them, bathed with them, and played with them during all waking hours.  Not exaggerating.

The evening we brought them home, Dax was playing on the deck with them, and I hear a blood-curdling shriek from the little boy.

Turns out Woody fell through a knot hole in the deck.  He was now somewhere in no-man's land where we could not reach him.  It looked like this:

Dax was highly traumatized.  Woody was now about 18" underneath us, and also underneath the edge of a stair about 6" or so to the side of the hole (barely large enough to fit through) he had fallen from.

I had no idea how I was going to get him out.  My only idea was a wire hanger, but there was no good place to hook the hanger on to pull him up.  Also, my parents don't have any wire hangers.

Enter PaPa.

For those of you who don't know my genius of a father....really, you ought to meet him one day.  Problem?  He'll fix it!  He's kind of like a superhero.

Civil engineer by day....superhero grandfather by night!

Anyway, when I approached PaPa about helping us out, it took him about 0.02 seconds to diagnose the issue, and another 2 seconds to come up with a brilliant plan!

Duct Tape.

Serious.

He attached a small amount of duct tape to the end of a telescoping magnetic reacher thingy (pretty sure that's the technical term.  Also...spellcheck recognizes "thingy" as a real word? WTH?)

And....VIOLA! He's rescued.

Balance was once again restored to Dax's life.

SuperPaPa saves the day again!

D-Squeezy's Birthday Numero DOS!!!

It was actually two weeks ago....but I'm ALMOST caught up on the blog.
Welcome to Dax's birthday photo hodge podge!

When we began singing "Happy Birthday" to him, he looked around the room, noticed everyone was watching him, and immediately slapped his hands over his eyes until we finished singing.

He can't see us, we can't see him, right?

He WOULD NOT put the sippy cup down.

Of course....it WAS full of Grandma's specialty:  Chocolate Milk!

He held it and tried to drink while he opened gifts from his grandparents:

Buzz bedsheets, Buzz blanket, Buzz backpack....you get the drift.

It was a "Buzz Day" for sure!

Our "big" gift to Dax was THE Buzz Lightyear.

Quite possibly, it was the most excited I've ever seen him.

He ran around the room showing it to anyone who would listen 

(grandparents were especially good for this)

and pushing button after button after button.

Over. And over. And over. And over again.

Yeah....we knew it would be that way....but his reaction was totally worth it.

Also, Buzz's buttons no longer work.

And we're ok with that!

On his actual birthday (the party was a few days before), we opened the rest of his gifts.

Turns out we were right when we figured he wouldn't care about anything except Buzz.

These particular puzzles are a current favorite toy.  He likes to take each wooden puzzle piece and yell,
"Mommy, watch!"

...and proceed to forcefully throw said wooden piece to the ground and watch it bounce.

Gotta love him.

If only he would put them back when he was done.  We're working on that.....

Aside from the Block Puzzle Book below, he also received a new addition to his My First Book of Mormon Stories collection.  We love those!!

And, just because he's so stinkin' cute.....a few more of the little 2-year-old.

Whom, I might add, is currently acting like the stereotypical 2-year-old.

Awesome.

It's a good thing we know how cute he is normally!!

The Big Boy Bed

There comes a time in every oldest child's life where he/she must give up the crib so that another sibling can inhabit it.  The time had come.  We didn't feel it fair to wait until Addie is born to move him over...we felt it may be slightly traumatizing given that so much of his old stuff (not to mention much of mommy's attention) would soon be directed toward Baby Sister instead of "Dat-son" ("Daxson"). 

Enter "Big Boy Bed". 

It had been sitting in his room now for a few months, but aside from him "Shum-peen!  Shum-peen!  Shum-peen!"  ("Jumping!  Jumping!  Jumping!") on it occasionally, it was pretty much ignored by the little man. 

The first night, we thought we had it in the bag. 

1. All toys, with the exception of L.B. (Little Buzz...not to be confused with "Liberty Bell" of Juno fame) were taken from the room.  
2. Dax still hasn't figured out how to open the door.  
3. We had installed a bed rail to prevent him from falling.  
4. We had given him a small step stool to re-enter the bed should he exit the bed and wander around. 

What more could we have done?

Turns out our manipulative little turd decided that he would scream and scream and scream until we would finally (after over an hour....SO abnormal for him) re-enter the room.  He would immediately stop crying and say, "Mommy" while patting the mattress next to him. 

So, Robbie and I would alternatively lay next to him on the bed rubbing his head, stroking his face, scratching his back....whatever we thought might lull him to sleep.

Eventually, Robbie headed to bed (4:30 am approaches quickly), and I stayed a bit longer, thinking he was "just about asleep". 

After two and a half hours, I started to scratch his back again.  This time, instead of snuggling closer, he erupted with giggles.  "Kick-ohs!  Kick-ohs!" ("Tickles!  Tickles!").

As stinkin' cute as it was (even at the time), I said to him, "Daxson, do you want to sleep in your crib one last night?"

"Peas?"

I promptly tucked him in to bed in the crib and left the room, heading to bed myself.  I never heard another sound that night.

The next morning, this was his face:

Luckily, since then, we've only had to redirect him to bed two or three times since (he kicked over the step stool and couldn't climb up, and his nightlight--on a timer--had shut off). 

A few weeks into it, and he's a little champ.  I think he even likes it better!

My New Stroller

Robbie was lucky enough to spend a week in Alaska with his Dad this year....fishing.  Also, he got to do a bit of whale-watching (which is the part the people in my family are most jealous about....including myself). 

He brought home nearly 100 lbs. of salmon and halibut.  In fact, he brought home SO much fish that he had to call and purchase a deep freezer over the phone on Friday morning so that it wouldn't spoil as soon as we got it home.

Unfortunately, we had to use the funds that I was hoping would go toward my new double stroller.  Hey, it's got wheels, right?