Just Singing...

Yes! Daxton is FINALLY starting to sing! I've been trying to coach him to sing for at least a year now, and he hasn't ever done it until just a week ago, all of a sudden, he just started to sing! He sure doesn't have any pitch or tone yet, but it's so cute I can't stand it! He sings, "Happy Birthday," "ABC's," and "Lady Bugs Picnic." This video has them all, if you listen really closely.

New Bike Seat

Since we have two kids now instead of one, we've been trying to figure out what to do so that we can still go on bike rides together, since we only have the one-seater Chariot, and we don't want to spend a ton of money to get the two-seater version. So, we bought this relatively cheap rear bike seat from Wal-Mart the other day, and after much frustration trying to get the dumb thing attached properly to the bike, we are happy to report that it works great and Daxton loves it! Now Dax gets the rear seat and Jacy gets the Chariot, and the best part is that Ben pulls them both! :)

Craving Brazil...

Ben has really been missing Brazilian food as of late, so he bought a pressure cooker the other day so that he could try to recreate the Brazilian beans and rice that he ate so often while he was on his mission. I'm very proud of the results! Here's a picture to document the occasion. I think it's the second time he's attempted to cook since we were married almost four years ago! They turned out pretty good, and the only thing that would have made our meal toatlly authentic would have been if there was a can of guarana instead of root beer on the table!

The New Earth

I was introduced to this book by my mother, and I just want to say that it truly is a life-altering book, and I recommend it to anyone and everyone. Oprah Winfrey chose it as a book for her book club, and she has set up a series of online classes with the author (Ekhart Tolle) every Monday evening. It's very very interesting and inspiring. You can go to Oprah's website and download the last two classes (tonight was the third) if you want to catch up. There are 10 classes (one for each chapter of the book). I recommend buying the book, reading to catch up, and then watching the classes. For those that are interested, I believe it will be worth it!

Daxton's personal hot tub

Daxton has this toy water slide thingy, and we got it out today. He likes to use it as his own personal hot tub complete with a waterfall! Don't worry, he's got a swim diaper on. I know he looks like he's naked in this picture, but he's really not.

Happy St. Patrick's Day!!

Happy St. Patrick's Day!

Inhaler tretments again

Daxton has chronic pneumonia, and he's got it again! It is really awful because even just a little tiny head cold or an allergic reaction to an animal or plant will trigger problems with his lungs. Anyway, the doc put him on inhaler treatments everday for the next month. Daxton hates them, but it's supposed to help keep him from getting asthma. Sooo, that sounds worth it to me. He is pretty resigned to the treatments once we've started giving him one, but afterwards he gets extremely hyper! His whole body will shake and he can't sit still or stop talking. Really, it's pretty funny.

Hyper-active on drugs...

It probably shouldn't be as funny to me as it is, but after Daxton finishes his inhaler treatments, he gets SO SO HYPER! He can't stop moving around or talking really fast. So, I got this shot of him after his treatment this morning just outside running around his sand pail.

Morning Sunshine

Jacy is such a delight in the mornings! She always wakes up with a huge smile on her face that just makes the whole day! I wish that I could wake up in such a good mood! You can hear Daxton in the background getting irritated with me because I'm not paying attention to him! Silly boy!

Makin' Red Cupcakes

On Sunday Daxton started to take a turn for the worse, and his little nose started running, and he started in with a fever, so we opted to skip out on church (I wasn't sad about that), and we stayed home and made cupcakes together. Daxton LOVES to help me make cupcakes, and ever since a few months ago when Ben and I ate out at a place that served red velvet cake with cream cheese frosting for dessert, I've been craving them bad. Sooo, I found a mix in the store for red velvet cupcakes, and Daxton was really excited to help me make "red cupcakes." They were yummy! I'd say his favorite part is to help me crack the eggs. Unfortunately, his way of cracking eggs is to let me crack the shell, and then before I can get it away from him, he crushes the shell in his little hand, and then drops it into the batter. I'm trying to teach him how to crack an egg the right way, but his way is just so much more fun, I don't know that he'll ever get it.

I hate you Cover Girl!

Up to this point, we've been using the blog bascially as our "brag board" to keep family and friends updated on our kids and their "cuteness." I'm going to branch out this time just to vent......for fun! I realize this could be a bad thing, because finding an outlet to vent my frustrations on could potentially be addicting to me, and annoying to everyone who subjects themselves to it by taking the time to read it. Besides, it feels like I've really "accomplished" something by throwing it out into cyberspace, as opposed to just making Ben listen to it. :)
That being said, can I just say how bothered I am that Cover Girl has now officially discontinued making the lip color and lip liner that I have been using since I was 18? Hello, that's almost 10 years of devotion to a product and then suddenly, "poof" and it's gone? What am I supposed to do now!? Try a new product? Ha! I realized how sad my dependency on these products was when I found myself doing a frantic google search to see if there was any of it left on the "black market" that I could by en mass to store up for the next 50 years of my life. No luck there. I also realize how sad it is that I haven't changed my makeup routine for the past ten years, but you know, it's something that intimidates me. It all went wrong when I went to a friend's birthday party when I was 8 and her mother gave us all Mary Kay makeovers. I came back home looking like a cheap hooker, and it took a few weeks of scrubbing to get it all off. So, since that occasion, I've never been comfortable with makeup in general. I try to avoid it as much as I can. Anyway, I guess I was just wondering if anyone has any kinds of lip color that they recommend, since it looks as though I won't be able to obtain any of the kind I was previously using. Here's the thing......it has to last all day (I don't want to put it on more than once!), it can't come off when I kiss my kids or Ben, it can't get on my teeth, and it can't have any kind of "flavor." Okay, thanks in advance for the tips! I promise not to get on my soapboxes too often. I'll stick to the kids and their cuteness for the most part!

Smiley Jacy

Here's my BIG girl! I took her into nursery with me on Sunday, and another woman had her 10 month old little boy in there with her, and Jacy was the same size, if not bigger than this 10 month old! She is quite a chunk! I just want to nibble on her all day long!

Playing with Jacy

Ben took this video this morning of Dax and Jacy "playing together." So far, Daxton has yet to do anything really malicious to Jacy other than poking her eyeballs, but you can tell from the video if you listen closely that it's definitely on his mind to see what would happen if he tries something mean. He says the words, "Daxton, hurt, Jacy, elephant, eyes." I think we can all pretty much figure out what he's getting at....."I'm going to hurt Jacy by putting the elephant in her eyeballs." Aren't older siblings the BEST?!

Helicopter Boys

Well, this year for Christmas, Ben bought himself a remote controlled helicopter. It is what he wanted most, and since he had been a relatively good boy, I let him buy it for himself! He got it out to play with it the other night, and Daxton took a turn. I thought it was funny enough to catch it on video. My favorite part is when he asks me if I'm "ready," and what he was really wanting was for ME to ask HIM if he was ready. What a silly kid! He's a lot of fun!

PART II