First Annual Cousins Sleepover!!

My sweet mom thought it would be fun to have a cousin sleepover at her house-she sent out invitations to the kids, made them all a set of matching pajamas and invited Santa too! We all had dinner first and then Santa came to surprise the kids! This was a really fun night because even though we all live within about 15 min of each other, we don't get together very often. The kids love to play together and my mom was worried that they would all be too excited to go to sleep, but all went well and she has plans to do a second annual cousin sleepover! This is all the cousins in thier matching pajamas-we had to take Paxton home with us cause my mom thought he would be too hard-can't say I blame her for that! You never know if he's going to make it through the night, although I am pleased to report that he has made a vast improvement!

Little Paxti enjoying his first candy cane!

Mom had Santa give the kids candycanes and their pajamas-he even knew all their names and something about the kids too so it was extra special!

Thanksgiving

On thangskiving morning, Paxton still had the ugly rash and I think it was looking it,s worst here in this photo! Poor kid looked awful but didn't seem to complain about it much so it must not have hurt very bad. Thank goodness for benadryl and steroids! The rash disappeared a few days later and we still don't know what it was from. We know it's not milk cause he's had lots of that since with no such reaction-weird kid!

So I got Thanksgiving off work and decided to play the host this year! We had my parents and Jayson's parents and grandparents over for lunch at 1:00. The turkey was great and so were all the other fixins! We had a very enjoyable day!

Poor little guy.

Getting ready to dig in!!

crafty

Caiden seems to do better if I spend some time with him on my days off while Paxton is sleeping. He is better for me and not so naughty. So I have been trying to play a game or do play dough or make stuff with him. This week I decided to make monsters with him. He has also been doing a lot of crafts in preschool this month. Here is a sampling....This is a turkey leg hat and it one he made at preschool. They all came out the other day wearing these and it was pretty funny especially cause you couldn't tell what they were until you got close up.This is the big monster that we madefollowed by little monsters the next day. Caiden really likes to help make stuff with me-even when I'm cooking. He'll say, "I wanna make with you!" and he'll run and get his stool from the bathroom so he can reach the stove or counter top and help me stir or dump in ingredients.

Notice the batman sweatshirt-can't keep it off of him!

Allergy?

I thought little Paxton would be able to tolerate milk since he is now 10 months old so last night I tested my theory and gave three ounces of milk mixed with formula before he went to sleep. As it turns out, Paxton is definitely allergic, which is weird cause he has eaten yogurt and ice cream with no such reaction. This morning when he woke up I got him out of bed and took off his pajamas to discover this....
Hives from head to toe! Poor little guy. He is allergic to bananas and the whole wheat cereal too, but never had a reaction like this! I will definitely not be giving him peanut butter any time soon and when I do, I'll be parked in the hospital parking lot in case he goes into anaphylaxis! (thanks for that idea Becky) It's just one thing after the next with this kid!

Sleeping

I have always been a big believer in sleep. My mom tells me I was the best little napper when I was little. I would tell her when I wanted to take a nap and just go to sleep. So it is not surprising that for the last year (or more) I have been very cranky more often than not due to lack of sleep. So sorry for Jayson and my kids! It's not like I hadn't tried to get the baby to sleep-I tried several different methods, but nothing worked!
So two weeks ago I had decided that Paxton would sleep through the night if it killed me! I took away the pacifier and I pretty much stopped breast feeding. I was going to make this baby sleep!
What I did was this: let him fall asleep at night without feeding him or giving him the pacifier to start with. When he woke up, I would let him cry for five minutes then go in and lay him back down and pat his back. I would then leave the room and if necessary let him cry for ten minutes and repeat-increasing by five minutes each time. Only one night did I give in and feed him, but that is it.
Jayson slept with Caiden in our bedroom downstairs so that they would get their rest. I am happy to report that Paxton has slept all night 4 out of 14 times now! To many of you this may not seem like much but to us it is huge considering he had previously only slept all night about 4 times his whole life. Last night I got home from work and went to sleep about midnight and was so happy that I did not wake up to my children until about 7 this morning! Seven straight hours of sleep was so very needed and appreciated!!

Halloween 2010

Caiden wanted to be the same thing as last year for Halloween, but this year (thanks to a neighbor friend) he got an awesome Batman mask instead of one drawn on by mommy. He begged me to be Batgirl last year, but I didn't want to be pregnant Batgirl so I declined. Well, this year I had no excuses so I made a sad version of a Batgirl costume and we hit the streets! Maybe next year we can convince Jayson to be the Joker! I bought Paxton a set of pajamas that doubled as a skeleton costume-he was comfortable, cute, and he glowed in the dark!Grandma and Grandpa Wadsworth and Uncle Mike got to come hang out with us that night. We got to eat soup and it gave Jayson and I the opportunity to trick-or-treat with Caiden while they stayed home with Paxton and answered the door! I love our neighborhood for trick-or-treating! There are so many kids and most of the adults dress up too-it's like a big party in the streets! The picture above is of all the spoils Caiden got and Paxton is trying to steal! Caiden still gets tired pretty quickly, but that's ok with us-he doesn't need all that junk anyways. He still has quite a bit left too. We put it in the pantry and he forgets about it.
Cute little bones and a Batman!

Pumpkin carving!

I can't remember the last time I carved a pumpkin and ever since Caiden got his pumpkin on the field trip he was asking me when he could carve it! With some hesitation I pulled out a knife so we could get the job done. Of course Caiden was a little mad that I would not give him free reign with the knife, but I knew how that would end up so I let him pick a face and I carved it for him. Previous to actually carving the pumpkin, Caiden drew all over it and drew a face on it for me to cut-that is what all the black marks are on the pumpkin if you look really close. The finished product! Another "fun" thing was to put a candle in it-Caiden wanted to be the one to light it too-not happenin!

Black Island Farm Field Trip

On October 20th we had the opportunity to go to Black Island Farms with Caiden's pre-school class. It was a beautiful day and perfect for going on a hayride! Caiden was so excited! It was good to meet some of the other parents and I was glad I could arrange my work schedule to allow me to be there with him. They had a lot of fun things for the kids to do and we spent about two hours there (we could have spent more if I wouldn't have had to go to work). This is Caiden going down the biggest slide there-he did this several times! This is a picture of the "hayride" with him and his buddy Cole. One of the first things Caiden noticed was that there was no actual hay, but he got over it quickly. He always talks about his buddy Cole so it was fun to meet him. Turns out, I went all through school with Cole's dad and to high school with his mom! I think they will go to kindergarten together too so that will be fun.

The tractor ride took us around the farm and we looked at carrot and onion plants before arriving at the pumpkin patch where the kids got to pick out their own pumpkin. He is such a poser!

I think this one is really cute of the boys together. I tried to make this a special day for just Caiden, but I couldn't resist getting a pic of them together by the pumpkins.

Where does the time go?

I can't believe a month goes by so fast! We had our last camp trip on the 18-19. We mostly did it to pick up the trailer. We had a good dinner, but a relaxing night was not what we got! Paxton had such a hard time falling asleep and he woke up several times that night. His darn three front teeth will not come in-they are still not in yet!

Jayson celebrated his 30th birthday on Saturday the 25th. He went to Applebees with his dad and sister and then on Sunday he had dinner at his mom's house. I would have joined him, but I worked that weekend-he told me not to take it off cause he wasn't excited about turning 30! He is also still doing fire school, which he mostly enjoys, but it is hard work and stresses him out!

I have started a new position at work doing paper work/billing. I am the assistant to the MDS coordinator. It is a nice change, but a lot to learn and a lot of confusion right now. I am only doing this two days a week and working the floor the other two days. I figure it will be good experience, and I get to work more closely with the management so it's pretty good.

Caiden is loving preschool and is learning new things everyday. I love to ask him what he learned-sometimes he comes up with something and sometimes he doesn't. He learned the nursery rhyme "Jack and Jill" last week and he can recite the whole thing! He is really good at riding his bike now and he loves being a big brother.

Paxton is growing bigger everyday! I tried getting some pics of him climbing up on things-he has lots of bumps and bruises on his head. I also tried to get a pic showing off his cute little teeth-two on the bottom and one fang on the top. It's a fang cause it's not the tooth in the center that came in first, it's the one right next to it. Pretty funny looking!

Growing Up!

Caiden loves to dress up as Batman! This is is costume from last year and this picture was taken last week when the weather outside was about 90 degrees! I have managed to keep the outfit off of him for most of the summer, but sometimes it is not worth the fight-if he wants to be hot that is ok with me! So he came in the other day and leaned up the wall like this trying to play all tough! Stinkin cracks me up!

So I failed to mention on my last post that Jayson started fire school. Not the best timing, but how could I tell him no after I just spent the last three years in school. Here in Utah, you have to have your EMT certification and your firefighter certifications before they let you be part time (volunteer) on a department. So the first week went something like this...I worked from 2-10 on Mon, Tues and Thursday-Jayson had school on Mon and Wed from 6-10. My mom watched the boys on Monday night while we were both gone-Thanks Mom!!-We saw each other on Friday night and Saturday night for a few hours and then I worked sun from 2-10 after going to church in the morning. Then the next week wasn't as bad, but this is going to be rough! That's ok he'll be done in June so no big deal! Doesn't he look cute with my boys hanging all over him in his EMT uniform!

Yesterday was Caiden's first day of preschool! He was so very excited to start school and have something to do in the mornings! He loves to learn and I know he'll do great. He wasn't very excited to let me take this picture, but I forced him to let me anyways. He is suppossed to be holding a bear, but refused to take one of the many he has because he "just loves this mouse so much". They are learning about bears this month I guess. He says he learned the leader song and then he played outside-that is a pretty good report coming from my child!

On top of starting school yesterday, I decided it was time to get rid of the training wheels on Caiden's bike so last night when Jayson was gone to school, I got out the tools and took them off. After only a few minutes of practice, I let go and he was sailing! Both of us were so excited! He practiced last night for about an hour and a half until it was time for bed. First thing this morning he wanted to go out and ride it some more! He got out ther about 7:30 and didn't get off his bike until almost 10:30! He can start and stop really well today-he looks like he's been riding a two-wheeler for weeks! This morning he kept saying, "I am so proud of myself!" Funny kid.