Jaxon's birthday party, distress and a frozen river

This weekend Dylan's friend, Jaxon West turned 3. His parents went over the top in making the invitations and setting up a pirate party. Here is a shot of a pirate ship that Jason made for the kids to play in.

Jason also got to drink a bunch of beer (tough assignment) to generate bottles to stuff the invitations into, think treasure map stuffed in a bottle. Will post a photo of this later.

Dylan was quite upset this evening over really nothing. Here is one of the things that got him worked up. We give him sections of the newspaper as a placemat for eating and tonight he did not want to eat so he pretended that there was a snake in his placemat and was rolling it up. Next the snake escaped and so he got more aggressive about trying to keep it contained. He crumpled the paper up after rolling it, but being a whole section of the paper it would not stay crumpled which lead to a fit. Eventually we were able to get him to calm down by letting him put rubber bands around the paper to keep it crumpled and the snake from escaping.

Last, here is a video of Dylan playing with Aiden, the son of one of Linda's co-workers, at Upper East Fork when we were up there last weekend.

Dylan's 3rd Birthday

On Friday the 22nd Dylan turned 3. We had a little birthday party for him, inviting his class mates and some of our climbing friends that have kids. We started in the park which was great for the little ones as they got to run around but was probably a bit cold for the adults since it has cooled off in the last few days. After eating a bit we headed back to the house for cake and ice cream and to make a mess. Here is Dylan and his birthday cake.
Among the guests was JaxsonWest and his little sister Bridgette. At 9 months Bridgette is really mellow and all the kids seemed to know to give her some space, she never got knocked over or anything and Dylan was even good enough to share toys with her...and the other kids as well.
We only let Dylan open a couple of gifts on Friday night and on Saturday night he got to open the present that Linda and I got for him.
Buzz could use a "to infinity and beyond" button. As it is it is one of 6 lines he says when you press a particular button and Dylan will sit there and push that button until that line comes up and then run around making Buzz fly and repeat. Dylan even read Buzz a goodnight story that night.

Music Time

Today Dylan's school had a class brunch for the holidays. So even though it was not his day to go to school he got to see his teachers anyway. The food was pretty good, it was a pot luck, I brought milk . . . not much of a cook. The kids all had fun running around and playing with instruments. Dylan really likes most all instruments and was the one who opened the boxes that had the bells and symbol rattles. Then he got to sit and play the Ukulele.

He must have been halfway decent since he had an audience, yet he was unhappy with what he was hearing so he tried to re tune the Uke.

After the party was over we headed to the Clay's house so he could hang out with Jaxon West. Happy Birthday Jaxon, he turned 2 today. They had a blast playing in Jaxon's room and had a lunch of Mac Cheese and roast beef.

Full day for the little one.

Going to the Zoo with JaxonWest

Today was beautiful, sunny and 80 degrees, a great day to go to the Zoo and Dylan is 18 months old. After slathering on sun screen and a few failed attempts at getting the hat to stay we met up with Jason and his boy, Jaxon West. The boys had fun looking at the animals and saying names and making sounds. Dylan was particularly enthralled by the pink flamingos.

While the Rio Grande Zoo is not a petting zoo, that did not stop the boys from trying. Jaxon was almost successful at petting the duck, he's a bit faster than Dylan at this point. Here they are trying to corner the duck.

We fed the kids in the Zoo cafeteria, some fries and chicken tenders to go along with a sandwich and a banana. Jaxon might be more fleet afoot but Dylan would take him down in a chow contest, is that something I should be psyched about?
Afterwards we headed out to the Slate Street Cafe to get some real food for the dads. The place is pretty difficult to find since Slate St is discontinuous, but it is between 5th and 6th st and Lomas and Mountain. The lunch menu is mostly sandwiches and salads. So we got a couple of sandwiches, the food was quite good and the boys ate some more to supplement their lunch. Later Dylan tried on Jaxon's hat, and since we were inside and there was no sun, naturally he made no effort to take it off.

After coming home and taking a nice long nap and running some errands, mom made it home and Dylan had a blast playing with her.

After a good mommy play session he had dinner and was pooped, maybe a bit full as well. I did a weight check and got him at 29.1 lbs dressed so he is probably about 28.5 or more, not bad for 18 months.

All in all it was a fun day for all. Last but not least, here is a shot of what Dylan looks like when mommy is feeding him or he is trying to feed himself.