I love Ikea!!!

Paxton and I made a trip up to Sylvan this weekend to visit Auntie Kelly and the boys.  We took our friend, Kaity, and her little girl, Lainey, with us as well.  We had lots of fun, but that's not what this post is about. 

On our way home we stopped at Ikea because we were in need of some sort of toy box for Paxton.  Before yesterday his toy box was the top of our coffee table.  But I found this fabulous item while we were shopping:

Don't you just love it?  I think the plush lock is my favorite part!  My second favorite is that step #5 on the instructions was to put the lock on.  There apparently are some challenged people out there.

I love all the cool stuff Ikea has and that it's not super expensive.  I'm pretty sure that about 80% of the decorations in our house are from Ikea.  Yes, I might have a problem.

And I also got this stuff, because I can't just buy what I go to Ikea for.

Ice cube trays.  The pink ones are flowers and the green ones sort of look like starfish ... or throwing stars.

Colored rocks for the martini glasses on our kitchen shelf.  (See this post.) I have been needing these since we went in March, so there's my justification.

Paxton is 7 months Old!

It seems like I just did Paxton's 6 month old post and now another month has gone by!  So without further ado, here's your update.

At 7 months, Paxton:

- is gaining on Brock in clothing size.  Kelly brought some hand-me-downs for Paxton last week.  I put some pj's on him that Kinsey bought for Brock at Christmas (he was 10 1/2 months old at Christmas) and they're not really that much too big!  What a big boy I have.  Hopefully a plateau is in sight.

- can sit unassisted now.  He's usually pretty happy to sit on the floor and play with some toys, but he does still lean a little too far and will fall over and bonk his head.  We're trying not to rush over, pick him up and fuss over him too much 'cuz we don't want him to cry over every little bump when he gets older.  I think this is one of those things that's a lot easier when it's someone else's kid.  Right up there with just letting them cry themselves to sleep.

- may not ever crawl.  I think he might have given upon crawling, but he may have figured something else out.  I was watching him on the floor yesterday and he fell over onto his back (on purpose I think 'cuz he didn't cry), then bent his knees and put his feet on the floor.  He then pushed himself up in the air so that he had his weight on his feet and shoulders and then pushed enough that his shoulders gave way so his back went back to the floor.  Sort of like an upside-down inchworm.  I'm not sure how practical this form of movement is, but it seems to be working out for him.  Paxton managed to worm his way over to one of the dogs' bones while we weren't looking the other day and started chewing on it.  I now make a sweep of the room for any dog stuff before putting him on the floor.  Gross.

- has 2 teeth ... sort of.  He definitely has 1.  His bottom right front tooth finally poked through on June 22nd.  And the bottom left front tooth started making an appearance right around July 1st.  It's poking through a bit, but it's definitely not the whole way out yet.

- is eating solids.  He gets cereal twice a day: once in the morning and then for supper.  We've branched out from plain rice cereal and have now tried oatmeal cereal with apples, wheat cereal with pears and next up is rice cereal with raspberries.  Paxton is pretty good with the cereal, but he's not too sure about the baby food.  He really likes sweet potatoes and squash, but was none too impressed with carrots the first time around.  I bought some more so I'm hoping he likes these ones better.  We've also tried apples, pears and bananas.  We persevered through the whole jar of bananas, but I think I'm giving up on them for a while.  He liked them even less than carrots.  We'll be trying out green vegetables like peas and beans later this month as well as some peaches.

- is not cooperative at meal times.  When we first started with solid food, he was the best baby I'd ever fed.  He would sit up straight, give me all his attention and open his mouth when I brought the spoon in.  The biggest complaint I had was that he would start "eating" his bib if I took too long between spoonfuls.  However this baby went somewhere when the teeth showed up.  Paxton has decided he wants to "help" feed himself so he constantly tries to grab the bowl.  Then, if I hold onto the bowl so he can't get it he flails his arms around so that he usually knocks the spoon out of the way and the food goes everywhere.  So I will grab his hands to avoid this occurance.  But then he refuses to open his mouth.  Arrrrgh!  And the teeth are not helping.  I used to be able to sort of "muscle" the spoon between his lips if Paxton wouldn't open up, but now the teeth are in the way so that doesn't work.  The joys of motherhood.  Hopefully once this tooth comes in completely his appetite will come back and he'll be more interested in eating instead of playing.

- is changing up his napping schedule.  I'm having a hard time adjusting because I'm used to him napping every 2 1/2 to 3 hours for ususally an hour or 2 at a time.  So far this week he seems to be stretching it out to being awake for 3 to 4 hours between naps and only napping for an hour if I'm lucky!  I really miss when he used to sleep for like 4 to 5 hours at a time during the day ...

- can hold his own bottle/sippy cup.  He hasn't quite figured out how to tilt it back so he can get the liquid, but that won't be long now.

- has been swimming and liked it.  We took him to Nicholas Sheran pool with our friend Kaity and her little girl Lainey on the 24th.  Both of the babies pretty much just sat in the floaty fish things (see picture below) and were really nonchalant about the milestone.  At least they didn't cry the whole time!

Playing with Auntie Kizzy's spoon at Grammy's birthday/Father's Day dinner.  Shortly after this picture was taken, spoon privileges were lost as Paxton tried to stab himself in the eye with the end of the spoon.

Not Paxton, but still funny.  Mom was cutting the cake and suddenly Jay says "Why are you cutting your ownbirthday cake?"  Apparently this is not allowable.  So Mom stopped cutting the cake so that I could take over.  Just funny where the knife ended up.

Snoozin' with Roseanne after a long day of visiting family for Father's Day.

Playin' with Mo (no Paxton did not play with Mo's rope toy, although it was nice of Mo to share)

All ready to go swimming!

At the pool with Lainey

Eating toes in the play pen

"Jean" Huggies that Grandma Daryl bought for Paxton.  Yes, he poos in blue, and even when it's a number 2 he looks like number 1.

Happy Canada Day!

Another July 1st has come and gone.  A day when we all celebrate this wonderful country that we live in and all of the freedoms that we have because of it.

However, July 1st is not really about celebrating Canada for me.  Don't get me wrong, I love being Canadian and I recognize that it is Canada's birthday.  But July 1st has always been and will most likely always be "Raymond Day" to me.  It just so happens that Raymond was founded on the same day that was chosen as Dominon Day (which was later changed to Canada Day).  So, being a born and raised Raymondite, July 1st is my 2nd favorite holiday (second only to Christmas, which is only like 5 1/2 months away!).  It's a holiday which has a mysterious "pull" on Raymondites, and so they return to their childhood homes much like salmon returning to spawn (minus the bears and other predators waiting to eat them on their journey).  Raymond day is filled with odd traditions that outsiders find baffling.

Ok, so I'm being slightly overdramatic.  I really just love it because it's about being with family and it's fun to see people that you haven't seen for years, to visit and find out what they're up to now. 

This year, Paxton and I went out to Raymond with Grammy on June 29th so we could spend a few days with Kinsey, Kelly and her kids.  Paxton wasn't entirely sure what to do when his cousins showed up because he's not used to all the noise and commotion that accompany my wonderful nephews.  My Mom and I agree that it's a good thing she's relaxed about how clean the house needs to be over the years because when we all come home it's like a tornado hit.  A happy tornado, but a tornado nonetheless.  We stayed up much later than we meant to and then headed off to get some sleep so we could attempt to keep up with the kidlets the next day.

Paxton in the Jolly Jumper

Hangin' in Auntie Kizzy's chair

Zane "helping" Paxton look at the camera

Tired boy and his Teddy Bear

Wednesday morning Mom headed off to Cardston while the rest of us tried to decide what to do for the day.  Shortly after Mom left, we got a phone call from her telling us that we needed to stake out our spot for the parade ASAP since our usual area was filling up fast.  Insert segway here: This is one of those odd traditions I was talking about earlier.  People start staking claims along the parade route a day or two before July 1st.  Our family always sits in front of the Community Center (which just makes sense since my parents live right beside it), so we park a vehicle there the day before the parade and then we have a place to sit and observe the parade.  However, the last few years have been slightly aggravating for us because the children of the families that usually sit beside us have been having population explosions.  Thus, even though we have staked our claim with a vehicle, they have been setting up their chairs in front of our spot.  I know this sounds a little ridiculous, but it's sort of like having a squatter on your land.  So, to combat this problem we decided that we needed to park 2 vehicles this year so that we wouldn't be "run off our land."  And now back to the story ... Mom's phone call caused a panic in the living room (not at the disco).  I grabbed Kelly's keys, quickly drove her van the half block to the parade route and then hurried back to command central (aka the kitchen) to discuss our options for the second vehicle.  Kinsey had left her Jeep in Sylvan, Jay had our Jeep, Mom had her Explorer in Cardston and Dad's truck was in Lethbridge since he was out on the road, so we were minus one vehicle to save the second spot.  Luckily Grandma Robinson was willing to let us borrow her car so we were able to park it in the second spot until we could switch it out with another vehicle and thus bring our 2 vehicle plan to fruition.  We whiled away the rest of the morning and afternoon with activities in the house because the mosquitos were RIDICULOUS and because it was too windy to go to the pool.  I was really disappointed about that as I've been looking forward to taking Paxton swimming at the new pool.  Oh well, another day I guess.  Auntie Kizzy took the older 2 boys to "How to Train Your Dragon" in the evening and then we all hit the hay relatively early so we would have lots of energy for the festivities the following day.

Brock chillin' with the XBox controller

Paxton was thrilled with Brock.  He was pretty sure that Brock's the coolest thing he's ever seen!

Poor Brock fell down the stairs and got a huge bruise on the right side of his forehead.

Thursday morning was hectic to say the least.  It's always organized chaos when all of us are home since Mom and Dad only have 1 bathroom, so that's a lot of people to coordinate showers, etc for!  Kelly bought matching shirts for all the boys and we ended up putting them all in camo shorts as well (which was not planned) so we had to get some pictures of our oh so handsome offspring.

Rhett was not impressed about having his picture taken

Once pictures were done, we sent Grandpa and the older boys over to the parade spot to further stake our claim by setting up our lawn chairs so no one would encroach on our space.  We are nothing if not thorough.  The rest of us followed and waited ever so patiently for the parade to start.

Zane is a little bit of a ham and is always willing to pose for me

Grandpa and Paxton staking a claim

Gearing up for his 1st parade

Helping Auntie Kizzy get excited for the parade

Let me clarify my excitement.  The Raymond parade is no Calgary Stampede parade, but for some reason I LOVE it!  I love seeing the horses, the old cars and trucks, the kids riding their bikes, just everything about it.  Maybe because it reminds me of watching it when I was younger.  And I love watching all the kids scramble around for candy.  At least my nephews are old enough to get their own candy so I don't have to hip check 6 year olds for them any more (it's sort of embarassing to be running for candy when you're 23).  It just makes me happy.  However, I was disappointed that more of the wards didn't put floats in this year.  I think I only saw 2, and there are 7 wards in Raymond (I think).  In the past, each ward would put a float in and then the best were awarded ribbons (we all know that everyone from Raymond is competitive so a ribbon is incentive enough!).  So it was sad to see the poor turnout there.  But there were still lots of fun things to see.

This guy was super creepy, but he was advertising Stirling's Haunted House, so what else could you expect?

I think the pool staff put this float together the morning of the parade.  Really?  C'mon.  They usually have a pretty decent float.

Wind up Smart Car

So excited about the parade with Grammy

The General Lee (even had the horn)

This is the 2nd year these guys have been in the parade.  They put candy on the conveyor belt and shoot it out to the kids.

Mini Chucks.  We joke every year that I could probably hook Mo and Maggie up to one of these wagons.

Didn't quite make it through the whole parade.  Too much excitement I guess!

Jay had to work in the morning so he missed the parade by about 10 minutes (I'm sure he was really sad about it).  After the parade we headed back to Mom and Dad's house for the bbq.  After we all stuffed ourselves with deliciousness, most of the adults had naps while Grammy entertained the grandsons.  And then it was time to head home to recoup from all the excitement.  Only 359 days until next year's July 1st!

***RANT ALERT****

My parents' house (circled in red) is right next to the Community Center which is pretty much right in the middle of town so a lot of people gather there to watch the parade because the parade runs north up Broadway (bottom to top in this picture).  As you can also see, there is an alley right beside my parents' house.  Now that you have the background info, I will rant.  Every year people park their vehicles on my parents' lawn where it meets the alley and then walk over to watch the parade.  WHY DO THEY THINK THIS IS OK?!?!?!?!?!?  I betcha that if I parked my vehicle on their lawn they wouldn't be too impressed about it.  I mean, by all means, park on the gravel in the alley and walk over, but keep your vehicle off the grass!!!  My Dad informed me that I'm in charge of making a "Keep off the Grass" sign before next year's parade.  Apparently he's fed up after living there for 17 years.