I don't think we can officially say Jaxon has blue eyes anymore. Over the past year they've slowly turned more green. But I'm okay with that and, frankly, kind of expected it. After all, I'm still shocked that we have a kid who doesn't have brown eyes like his mom and dad. Looks like Jaxon just likes to defy the odds. :)
Sometimes they change color (anywhere between gray-blue to hazel), depending on the lighting, or color he's wearing (today he wore a green shirt and it made his eyes look very green), or even his mood, I've noticed.
But it's fun to look back and see just how blue they used to be.
In preparation for Easter, Jaxon enjoyed a couple different Easter egg hunts with friends and family. He seemed to better understand the concept of finding the eggs this year than he did last year. Travis and I check his candy frequently to see if it tastes alright.
Yesterday, we had stake conference and Jaxon donned his new Easter outfit. What a handsome boy we have. :)
After church, Jaxon and I napped and Travis prepared our ham. This year we invited my parents and single siblings over for Easter dinner. Jaxon certainly loved all the attention and sang them the alphabet in English and Spanish.
We're so grateful for this beautiful time of year when everything is coming to life. We're especially grateful for the resurrection and what that means for our little growing family.
Jaxon has been up to all sorts of fun this winter. He recently finished a tumbling class where he learned some basic sports skills (throwing, catching, kicking, etc.) and movement. During the last class, each child got a medal and fruit snacks. He really enjoyed it.
He's also become quite the chatter box. As some of you know, he's had a bit of a language delay and we've been having regular in-home visits with a speech therapist to help him (she works with him in Spanish). He's made lots of progress since we first started these visits. We're still working on pronunciation of certain letters, but he can really talk up a storm. Here's a video of him talking to himself about the batteries in his toothbrush. I put captions on it so you can read along, but you need to click on "Watch on YouTube" and then on the CC button in order to read them (I hope you understand Spanish! ;) ). So, here it is- proof that he doesn't "babble".
In preparation for Valentines Day, I decided to check out a book about Valentines Day for Jaxon. It was a very simple book with one sentence per page, and nice photos of kids celebrating. He absolutely loved it. His favorite pages were of kids eating cupcakes and chocolate, so he'd sometimes call this book "libro de comer", or just "de comer" ("the eating book"). I was also sure to constantly remind him how many days were left until Valentines Day, hoping to build anticipation. I also promised we'd do whatever the kids in his book did on Valentines Day.
Needless to say, he was VERY excited for dia de San Valentin!
We made a card for daddy that morning before he left to work, and then we made red velvet cupcakes and heart-shaped sugar cookies all morning. Jaxon loves to help me cook. He'll often bring me random things from the pantry that he thinks we need to include in the recipe. I don't have the heart to tell him "no, we don't need that" because I recognize he's trying to be of help on his own accord. So I just say "gracias!" and pretend to add whatever he gives me and then ask him to get something I actually need. He'll even mimic what I say as I go through the steps. A favorite phrase is now, "Y ahoraaaa...." ("And now....")
We took most of the cupcakes to my visiting teachee and another family in the ward who sometimes watch Jaxon while Travis and I are in Sunday meetings. Jaxon loves them. They have fans.
That evening after Travis came home, he put some candles on the table and turned on some nice music to add to our Valentines Day dinner ambiance. The music was from "The Nutcracker", which I thought was a little odd, but whatever- it's still nice music, right?
Well, after our candlelit dinner I go to give Jaxon a bath and I see two packages of Snicker Nutcrackers just sitting against the mirror for me! I couldn't believe my eyes.
These special edition, holiday Snickers are my favorite "candy bar" in the whole world. They're unlike regular Snickers because the outside has a thicker layer of chocolate, which provides the much needed balance to the rest of the heavenly bar. But these only come out twice a year- Easter (in the shape of eggs) and Christmas (nutcrackers). Travis usually gets me some for Christmas, but this year he stashed a couple extra packages to give to me on Valentines Day. BEST VALENTINES EVER.
Here's a clip of Jaxon "reading" his Valentines book. He has it memorized.
Jaxon is very excited to have a little sister on the way. He just doesn't know it yet. :)
I was fairly certain it was going to be a girl; just had that feeling all along. And now that it's been confirmed, we're trying to process how that's going to be. Travis is a little nervous ("I don't know anything about little girls!") and although I come from a family with many girls, I'm also a tad nervous because I'm not really the "girly-frilly" type. Maybe that will change once she's here, maybe not. Either way, I'm sure she'll have us wrapped around her finger.
We're excited for the splash of pink coming our way. I told Travis that now our family would have a balance of boys and girls, and he wisely said that as long as there was one girl in the family, the girl ALWAYS tips the scale, no matter how many boys there are. I guess he should know. :)
To say Jaxon loves fans is an understatement. Along with the regular fans, he also loves anything that spins like a fan, like the washing machine and dryer. He'll even be content to take a stick, toothbrush, comb, or anything in his hand and quickly wave it back and forth it in his little wrist so it resembles a moving fan.
Lately, it's been screwdrivers. He watched Travis and I fix one of his toy fans using a screwdriver and he's loved them since. He likes how you turn it (like a fan) to get the screws out. He'll now try to unscrew everything.
This is definitely my husband's child. The only thing he does that resembles me is sleeping with his mouth wide open. Oh, well. I'll take anything.
I suppose it's time I post about Christmas; however, unfortunately, we don't have many pictures of it. We were able to spend time with both families, but were also able to have quality time as our own family. Jaxon's favorite present was probably the ceiling fan. What every little boy wants, right? We have yet to install it (winter isn't the best time), but I'm sure he'll be so in love with it this spring. As for Travis and I- I can definitely say that he outdid me this year. I don't know if my gifts to him for the next 50 Christmases could make up for this one.
The dealership even gave him a bow.
I may or may not have teared up. Fine, I did. Obviously, we had been talking about getting a second car since you can't safely fit two car seats next to each other (with the infant one in the middle) in the back seat of our trusty Saturn. We even test drove this one over Thanksgiving break, but we "decided" we'd give it more time. Yeah, right.
The best present Travis got was probably his new suit. Poor guy has been wearing the same one since he got back from his mission, almost 9 years ago! It had duct-tape on the inside holding pieces together. The first Sunday he wore it, I told him, "Oh, you look so nice! Too bad it'll be covered in spit up in a few months...". He replied, "I know, I thought the exact same thing!"
