First Smile

Is there anything sweeter than your little baby's first smile? My little Beckham started smiling last Thursday, June 19. This means he was three weeks and two days old. So far I am the only one he has smiled at, since I have him 24/7. I finally got him to smile in front of Ryan last night so he could see how adorable it is. I'll post a picture of Beckham's smile as soon as I can actually capture it on camera. When he's getting ready to smile, he starts getting really fidgety. Then he starts cooing and breathing really heavy and fast. It's so cute!
Beckham is so funny. He is the noisiest baby. He loves making noise. He is already cooing, and you should hear him sleep!!! Every time he breathes out, he grunts or makes some other random sound. He is in the pack-n-play next to my bed, and he constantly wakes Ryan and me up. I am going to get it on video and post it.

I was thinking today - is there any greater calling than motherhood?! There is no job more important than raising your children to be great adults. I feel so blessed to be given this calling and to have the children I do. I love that I wake up with my boys every day and that most of my day is planned around them. I just hope that I can be as good of a mom to my kids as my mom was to me. I thought of a few things I want to make sure I pass on to my children: I want them to know that they are loved unconditionally, and that they are always a priority. I want to build them up as much as I can and give them a strong base while they're young, since the world is such a hard place. I hope that I can instill a strong love of the gospel in them that will carry them until they can grow testimonies of their own. I want them to have a fun childhood, and to have adventures to remember. Most of all I want to be a good example of the things I am teaching them.

Lovin' My Summer Baby!!!

Can I just say how much I love having a Summer baby?! I think it is the best! I would definitely recommend it, and I am going to try to have all my babies in the Summer.
Jax was born the first part of September, and I remember that it was good weather for a few weeks but by the time I was ready to go out it was getting cold, and I was depressed. I kept thinking about how Fall was going to turn into Winter, and then I wasn't going to be able to go out again for six months (the ramblings of postpartum depression).
I was so worried to have Beckham because I was afraid the postpartum was going to set in again, and I remember how horrible it was. Ryan and I had even made a plan on how to try to avoid the depression. I told Ryan that I had to get out as much as possible, and start losing my baby weight A.S.A.P., and I thought I would be okay. I admit I was a little hormonal for the first few weeks, and I was afraid I was sinking back into postpartum depression, but it hasn't happened! I attribute the avoidance of depression to it being Summer, and me being able to take my newborn out of the house. I haven't been all couped up, going insane with just the company of a two-year-old and a newborn. I have been able to have swim days, and many days at the park with good friends (Thanks guys! Let's keep it up!). Something about days in the sun help me forget about my would-be worries and anxieties.
The only drawback of having a Summer baby is not having time to get the baby weight off. It's swimsuit season, and weight is pretty hard to hide in Summer clothes. I am just trying to stay positive. 23 lbs left. All I can do is keep working on it, and that's the plan. I just keep reminding myself: it took nine months to put it on, it will take more than four weeks to take it off.

Walk To the Park, Anyone?

This morning we decided to walk to the park...at 11:30! This has been the hottest day of the year by far, in the high 90's, and we live over a mile from the park. Did I mention that it is uphill to the park?! True, this means the way home is downhill, but getting there was ridiculous! 11:30 was way too late to walk to the park, and that meant that we were walking home at 1:00! The picture below is of my double stroller that I have affectionately named 'the School Bus' because it's so long. Pushing two kids in the School Bus uphill over a mile to the park in 90 plus weather...not the brightest idea I have ever had. I have to walk up a main road to get to the park, and 1/2 way there I was covered in sweat, getting sympathetic glances from passer-by people in their air conditioned cars. The only thing that kept me going was that Kara was already there, and I had told her I would meet her. Once we were there we had fun, and the tan and exercise from the walk are always a good thing. As you can tell from the picture Jax was having a great time at the park and on the walk, unfazed by the blistering heat. Beckham slept through our trek, waking up just long enough to make an appearance at the park.
I love that since I'm not working anymore I can do things like this with my boys. Summer days are definitely much better spent with my two little loves-of-my-life.
Also, the play park in the backyard is officially finished!!! Hooray! It looks great, as you can see, thanks to my dad and Ryan! Way to go guys! Thank you for the hard work and many, many hours spent. Now if we don't feel like walking or driving to the park we can just go out back!
Jax is way excited about his park in the back too. When we wake up in the morning he shows me out the window, "Mom, look, that's my park!" He loves it!

Father's Day Downer

Ryan has wanted to get Rock Band for sooo long. He has been begging me for months. We have a few friends who have Rock Band and every time we play it at one of their houses all I hear for the next week is, "We need that game!" He even enlisted the help of Jaxon to convince me. Jax played the Rock Band drums at Bri and Court's house and then all I heard from him (I'm sure with a coaxing hand from Ryan) is, "I want Rock Band Mom! I want to play the drums!"
I was holding the two of them off until Father's Day, thinking this would be the perfect gift. They were both so excited! We had both of our families over for a Father's Day BBQ and after it was winding down Jax and Ryan decided it was Rock Band time! They get everything out, set all of it up, and....nothing! The XBOX 360 wouldn't read the disk, saying it was unrecognizable. I knew we had the right one because initially I got the PS2 Rock Band and had to take it back when I realized my mistake. I knew I had the XBOX 360 version. Anyway, back to my story. Jax was crying because it was broken and Ryan was all depressed. We got online to see if they had any suggestions to fix the problem but none of them worked. I told Ry it was no big deal and we'd just take it back to the store the next day. If only it would have been that easy. There was a paper in the box that said to call their support and not take any part of Rock Band back to the store until we called. We called and they said we couldn't take it back, that they would send a new disk out to us and that it would be there in...2-3 weeks! Could this news be any worse?! How do I hold a two-year-old off for two to three weeks?! What a downer on a fun Father's Day present.

Hooray and Hooray!!!

We have two exciting things to report today, one for each boy.

Beckham:
We took Beckham to Primary Children's for his ultrasound on his hip today. He was so good, he just slept through the whole thing. The ultrasound tech performed the ultrasound then said she would have the radiologist come in and talk to us. Mr. Personality (the radiologist), as Ryan and I would later refer to him, walked in and took a look at the ultrasound pic's. He told us Beckham's hip is growing completely normal and then walked out, without so much as another word. He was a strange duck, but we were so excited about the news. No hip brace for Beckham. Hooray!!!

Jaxon:
He is a potty training champ! He has pretty much potty trained himself, with the help of popsicles as rewards and cars pull-ups. I have been taking care of a newborn so I haven't been vigilant in helping him potty train. I have been letting him do it at his own pace. He goes on his own and comes and gets us when he's finished. He has gone potty in his toilet for almost two weeks at our house, but now he has stepped up his game. He never has accidents at home and he has started telling us when he needs to go potty when we are in the car and he holds it until we get to a potty. Saturday he went potty at the movie theater. Today my grandma was watching Jax while we took Beckham to Primary's. He told her he had to go potty and had her help him. This is a huge milestone because he's been really afraid to go anywhere else or to ask anyone but Ryan and me for help. I am so proud of my big boy! Hooray! Now if we can master #2...

Mom and Jordyn, hope you're having fun in Greece! I'll try to keep the posts coming!

My Boys

My two little boys are my favorite things in life. I just wanted to update you on both of them.

A few posts ago I did a tag about Jax and his shirts he loves to wear. These pictures show his very favorite of his favorite shirts - his wolf shirt. He tries to pick this shirt to wear about five times a week, and every time he tells me, "Mom, I found my wolf shirt! It's perfect!" He has to find it because Ryan and I hide it from him so that he wears other clothes once in a while:). He also insists he has to dress himself all the time. He picks out random clothes and shoes together and puts them on himself. I had to take a pic of this because I have no idea how he got these shorts on backwards all by himself. His shoes were his own choice too. They are way too small for him but he loves them. Every time he takes them off the ends of his toes have smush marks on them. His cute little cousin Boston is in the pic's with him.
This is my cute little Beckham over the past week. Notice, he's always sleeping during the day. If he's not then he's nursing, and I didn't want to show a pic of that;)! I wish he was sleeping more and nursing less at night though!

Look below at the double chin he's already developed! I think it's so adorable. He's trying to pack on the weight, already gaining a pound since he left the hospital!

We took Beckham in for his two week appointment today. Here are his stats:

Length: 21 inches (50%)

Weight: 7 lbs 11 oz (25%)

Head Circ: 37 1/2 cm (55%)

That means he's grown a whole inch in the past two weeks! Wow! Dr. Rose scheduled us an appointment for Beckham's hip at Primary Children's tomorrow. While in my belly his right hip joint didn't develop all the way. When the doctor moves it he can hear a popping and grinding. We go to Primary's tomorrow to have an ultrasound done on his hip to help determine whether he needs to be put in a brace or whether it appears the hip is developing correctly on its own.

Lastly, I just wanted to say again what a great big brother Jax is being to Beckham. He is the first thing Jax asks about when he wakes up in the morning and the last thing he wants to see at night. He is constantly on binky patrol, seeing if Beckham wants to take his bink. It's so cute. He tells me Beckham is his best friend, and how much he loves Beckham. Whenever he hears Beckham cry he says, "Mom, Beckham needs me!" He's such a helper. He is always asking if Beckham can do things with him. I tell him when Beckham gets older they can play together, but that right now we have to be careful with him. When Ryan came home from work the other night Jax told him that Beckham was going to go down the slide with him when he was bigger. He can't wait to have a playmate!

Playhouse Update

Since my mom and sis are gone, my dad has had more time on his hands and he has spent it in my backyard working on Jax's never ending playhouse project. I am happy to report that he and Ryan are making some headway. They have the main structure almost done and then they can work on the swingset portion. Jaxon hasn't had a nap the past few days because he says he needs to stay outside and help "Papa Scott." He walks around with a wrench outside saying, "I'll fix it!" about everything. It's way funny. Also, yesterday he decided he needed to chain himself up with a dog chain we had in the backyard and keep telling us he was stuck so we would come rescue him. He shows me his playhouse out the window a few times a day and says, "Papa Scott building me a park!" He is SO excited! Above are some updated pic's of the playset. Don't mind the yard, we have sort of let the backyard fend for itself and have focused on the front yard, but the backyard is next!

Lagoon Trip

So I have been a little slow to post due to exhaustion:). Beckham is actually a really good baby, but newborns will be newborns at night. I just feel like I can't catch my breath yet. It's getting better though.

My posts will hopefully be coming more frequently for the next little while. My mom left to Europe on Saturday for 4 weeks and she bought Internet time to be able to check up on us, and my blog is how she plans to keep up.

Friday night after Ryan got home from work we took Jax to Lagoon. He LOVED it!!! He wanted to go on everything in kiddie land. I was worried that he would be too short for some of the rides even in kiddie land, like the mini rocket/reentry ride. It turns out you just have to be 3 feet tall for all of the kiddie rides. Ryan took Jax on all sorts of rides. I thought Jaxon would be afraid to go on the mini rocket/reentry ride [it's called Dinosaur something (I can't remember)], but he was laughing and loved every ride he went on. Beckham stayed asleep in his carrier the entire time we were at Lagoon, which was a blessing because I didn't want to have to nurse him there. Above are some pics of our night at Lagoon.