This Toddler...

Jaxon is quite the toddler. First, the milestone: he is now in a big boy bed. :) My sister-in-law, Kami (who has also saved us HUNDREDS of dollars by giving us all her boys' clothes...) gave us a small children's bed frame her husband built for their kids. It's so nice, and Jaxon loves the freedom of just getting up and walking out of his room every morning instead of having to call us to get him.

Question: What do you do with a toddler who loves to see how things work and take them apart? Jaxon's number one "toy" are fans. Any fan or object that moves around in a circle. Ceiling fans, boxed fans, pinwheels, wheels in general, etc. You give him a car and he'll just turn it over and run his fingers across the wheels, or push it against the table and lift it up so he can watch the wheels spin.

Mamita gave him one of those helicopter toys where you pull the string and a propeller lifts off and flies into the air, usually landing on some rooftop. He took apart the hand-held part, and whenever I'd try to put it back together he'd just take it apart again. So we just have the propeller and he loves to spin it around on the floor. Sometimes he'll spin it on the table and then lower himself to eye level so he can actually see it balance as it spins.

He loves to play with a little bedroom fan we have. He'll just turn the switch on and off and watch the propellers start, then stop, and start and stop. It will keep him entertained for at least an hour. We even got him his own hand-held fan (with foam propellers) and he ran the batteries dead within a day. This kid is crazy about fans, and it's been like this for over a year now.

Would you say we possibly have another future mechanical engineer in the family?

A Full Plate

We have been busy, to say the least! I'll take some time away from homework right now and put it towards updating our family blog instead.

Travis has now been working for a month and we are so grateful to finally get some income. :) He is loving it and is excited for all the leadership opportunities he's been given in spearheading some challenging projects.  He loves working with his team and they really appreciate him. He also stays on top of his calling as executive secretary and has been a great help to me since I received my new calling. He even took Jaxon to our ward's Father and Sons Camp-Out!

Despite looking grumpy and sleepy in this photo, he did very well!

This semester I'm taking another online class that has taken up a lot of my time. It ends in a couple of weeks, but there's no break for me, since I start a new class the day after it finishes! A couple weeks ago, I was released from my calling as R.S. teacher (after teaching twice, ha, ha...must not have been that good...) but I was instead called as Young Woman's President. I asked the bishop, "En serio?" Needless to say, that has also kept me plenty busy. I'm excited for the opportunity to get to know these "mujeres jovenes" and work with my amazing counselors. I'll also get to go to Youth Conference and a couple days of Girl's Camp this summer. It should be lots of fun! I'm also still serving as choir pianist.

Jaxon is as adorable as ever. I'm so grateful I can spend my days with him and do fun things together. We've been spending a lot of our days outside in our little inflatable pool (best $6.00 ever spent), 7-Peaks, the new splash pad, running through the sprinklers, taking long walks to the library, or tending our little garden. I put Jaxon in charge of watering the plants, he loves it.

We also make an effort to spend time as a family. We now have two kayaks, and the extra room has been much easier for both of us (Jaxon still rides with Travis most of the time). On Monday we paddled out into Utah Lake. The wind was really kicking up the waves and Jaxon loved bouncing along in the kayak. It was fun! I wish I could've taken pictures, but it's too risky to bring a camera in a kayak. I'll have to invest in a waterproof one. Our endurance is getting better, but we still need to work on our form.

Sigh...back to homework. :(