Picture Overload!

Life has been a little nuts since school started.

I am currently teaching Honor's English at Irving Middle School everyday and LOVING it!

This week I find out where I will be student teaching. I am pretty excited!

Now....

To get to the real reason you all even bother to read this blog:

This was Dax's first time holding a ladybug. He was really excited.

And then he squished it trying to share with mama.

We pretended to let it fly away. He was still happy.

He's pretty much the only reason I write this anyway.

I could, literally, talk any person's ear off bragging about this kid.

He is, without a doubt, my proudest accomplishment. He amazes me daily.

Especially lately, he has learned/is learning so much from Mrs. Kate at the Goose.

He knows the color yellow and the sign for yellow, as well as brown.

He can say the others with help.

He is on and off with shapes, but is pretty consistent with circle, oval, and square.

He will show me oval with his mouth, which is one of the tricks that Katie has taught him.

He loves animals and making animal sounds. Cow is "MMMM," sheep is "AAAAAAA," dog is "Uff, ruff, ruff," horse is "NNAAY," pig is a "sniff, sniff," duck is "QACK, QACK," and chicken is "AWK, AWK." His favorite sound to do is the cow. But his favorite animal is definitely the dog.

In fact, his favorite book to read right now is "Harry the Dirty Dog."

He LOVES it. We read it at least three times each morning.

He even says "Arry! Uff, uff!" It makes my heart melt just thinking about it.

Dax has also become quite the little clean freak lately.

He gets really excited to help me clean. This morning he decided to take over the mopping.

He mopped every floor in the house, including the carpeted floors.

He was very proud of himself and received much applause and high-fiving for his efforts.

His biggest pet peeve is opened doors or trash can lids. He will slam them shut defiantly if they are left open. One issue with all of this cleaning is that, even at daycare, toys and other objects left strewn about the floor WILL end up in the garbage.

There is a note about it at daycare:

Teachers,

Make sure to check garbages before emptying them. Daxton likes to throw things in the garbage. Toys, socks, shoes, jackets, etc...

Oh boy. Ryan and Katie say he gets it from me.

:)

Along with learning educational bits of information, Dax is learning all types of new tricks.

He receives lots of laughs for showing off his muscles!

He gets the biggest grin on his face and shouts "Um-oms!" whenever he flexes.

He even applauds himself for doing it.

His biggest obsession lately is "CHOOO-CHOOOOS!"

A family donated a $1,000 Thomas the Train set to Mother Goose a month ago and trains have found there way into Dax's heart.

He loves to roll them around on the ground and on his mama and shrill "Choo-choo!"

One problem: he is not good about sharing his trains. He's been caught a couple of times stealing trains from other kids at the Goose. But they all like him so much they just let him take them.

Dax has officially been declared the most popular kid at Mother Goose.

The kids love him. Almost too much at times.

But who can complain about their child being over-loved? By kids and teachers alike.

I am soo grateful to have him at Mother Goose.

Who else gets daily picture updates from their daycare provider?!

Thanks, Katie!

Under the blue Hurley jacket is Dax's Thomas the Train jacket he got from Grandma Tracey.

It's his favorite, of course.

And it broke last week, of course.

But, could we get rid of it? Of course not.

The zipper broke off, but when we tried to put another jacket on him would not have it.

He even likes to just walk around the house with his Thomas jacket on.

This was yesterday, the first snowfall of the winter.

When we looked outside and I told him about how it was cold he demanded his jackets and hat.

But felt pants were unnecessary.

He trounced around the house like this for an hour.

He can say nearly fifty different things these days, including people's names.

It amazes me.

One of his favorite things to do is pick up different pictures around the house and then point to the people in the pictures and say their names. Dada is his favorite person to find.

Cousin Hallee is his favorite person, period. Well, aside from me.

Which makes me feel like a million bucks!

I live for Fridays. Those are my only early days of the week.

I always rush from class to pick him up and then we come home and literally cuddle on the couch reading and playing and eating until Ryan comes home.

It's the best.

Then I get to spend the next two days doing the same thing!

It's the only thing that's getting me through the week and the mound of homework accompanied with weekdays.

Halloween was interesting this year.

Definitely not what I was hoping it would be.

But from his birthday, Easter, Fourth of July, and now Halloween I have learned to accept that I should have the lowest expectations for holiday behavior.

We wanted to paint a beard on Dax for Halloween because we were dressing him up at Paul Bunyan and we were going to paint Helen blue.

However, the beard was a disaster.

And Helen, the poor deaf dog, was not digging being painted.

So, instead, Dax was just another lumberjack.

Ryan and I felt bad because at the daycare Halloween party/parade he looked like he hadn't even dressed up.

He did have an axe that went with his costume.

However, he only liked to play with it and hold it for a couple of minutes. And then he would get bored.

He did enjoy "CHOP, CHOP!" chopping the walls and tables.

And his mama. He still likes chopping around the house.

Next year we have decided to go all out in order to make up for it.

Halloween was still fun, nonetheless.

After visiting my mom and Ryan's parents we came home.

Dax helped pass out candy.

He was the official lid holder for the candy jar, greeter of the trick-or-treaters, and door closer once the candy was handed out.

He loved seeing the kids. From Mother Goose he is convinced that every kid alive is around to play with him. He gets really excited whenever he sees a kid coming near him.

Even though it did not go according to my plan, Dax enjoyed Halloween and that's all that matters.

He is teaching me A LOT of lessons lately.

Such as patience.

The life of a toddler is filled with fits.

And, of course, from daycare he has picked up some pretty gnarly fit throwing techniques.

We are doing our best to kick those as quickly as possible.

C'est la vie of a parent, right?!

I wouldn't trade it, or him, for ANYTHING.