Two?!

Axel will be TWO YEARS OLD next week!
Here he is just this morning...
Lovin' on his trains...Percy is his favorite.
I have a feeling Thomas the Train might be visiting our house in form of a cake and presents on this special day. This boy is a train addict! He plays with trains most of the day. If we get in the car, he'll carry as many as his two little hands and arms can handle. And, he must take at least three of them to bed every night.

The other day, I heard this...
"Where are you choo-choos?" "Where are you Percy?" "Oh, I love you Percy." "I love my choo-choos."

Yes, his vocabulary has exploded...
"Where are you Mommy?!" "Daddy build choo-choo track?" "What?" "Mommy, Daddy, Ducas (Lucas), Axel."

A few other things about our almost two year old...

He loves vegetables! He'll eat them raw or cooked. His favorites are carrots, celery, red peppers, cucumbers, romaine lettuce stems, broccoli, corn-on-the-cob and fennel. Who new? Axel is my salad thief and I love it. Yesterday, while Lucas and Daddy went skiing, Axel and I had a huge plate of veggies and hummus for lunch (picnic style) in our living room.

Lucas Skiing - video 1
Lucas skiing - video 2

He also loves nuts of all types...pistachios and almonds being his favorites.

He will not eat eggs, fish, sweet potato or cheese by its self. On a pizza?! That boy will eat anything, even cheese which he thinks he doesn't like. He LOVES pizza and could careless about what the toppings are. If there's pizza, he's in.

Axel is my cuddle bug for sure. He loves to be held and snuggle which we adore. However, sometimes he wants to cuddle early in the morning and he'll scream "MOMMY!" at the top of his lungs over and over until I come get him. Then, his next request are "Choo-choos?!" so we dig under his blankets to find his choo-choos so he can bring them to our bed to cuddle. It's a really fun process at 4am or whatever time he wakes up.

Luckily, before bed every night he says, "Love you Mommy, Thank You Mommy."

Lucas is his favorite person and boy does he learn quickly from him. Axel watches every move Lucas makes and does not want to miss a thing. He got sad the other night because Lucas had homework and he wanted homework too. :)

His new fun game is tackling Lucas because he gets such a wonderful respond from him. It's like a grab bag, you never know what kind of mood Lucas will be in when he springs his attack. The outcome is always exciting as you can imagine.

He loves counting and repeating the alphabet. He can basically count from 1-10 by himself with a little help at four. He gets so excited. I think his ABC's will be memorized soon too.

Jumping is a favorite thing too. He's learning that jumping off of things isn't always the best idea if no one is there to catch you. He practices on our little trampoline.

Axel is a tough kid for sure. He won't take no for an answer and is really good at ignoring us when we are telling him not to do something or trying to distract him. I know he hears us, he just chooses not to respond. Stinker! :)

We sure love you Axel with your wild and crazy ways. You make us smile everyday and bring so much joy into our house. It will be interesting to see where 2 takes us?! We are excited to be celebrating your birthday soon.

A smile maker for you day courtesy of Axel Adventure Anderson!
Big hugs and lots of love,
-Mommy, Daddy & Big Brother Lucas

The Tile Project!

Even though it's in our blood, we are not home-project-people. We would much rather spend our time outside climbing, riding or hiking. However, Ohio's long, gray, cold, winters lend to free time. Mix that in with a broken DVR and you have the perfect home-project-starting-storm!

Mike and I have been talking about redoing our floors, before our big move to Florida this summer, for months...years? Well, we ran our of years so now we are down to months. We decided last week that January would be the month to replace the floors. We are not willing to sacrifice good climbing months for in-home projects so we dived in one week ago.

Here's our journey to redo our entrance, downstairs bathroom and kitchen. We still have to put in the grout, paint and hang up the base boards and few other things but are getting done.

AMAZING!

Our goal is to be finished by February...which day in February? That is unknown but if I know my husband, he's got February 1st stuck in his brain. :)

The old linoleum.

Tearing up the old stuff.
Tearing up the old stuff.
Then tearing out the plywood under the old stuff and pulling out one million staples! Thank goodness Shaun came over to help. Chocolate chip cookies can get that guy to do anything! :) THANK YOU SHAUN!!!
Put in the new floor...backer board. They call it Wonderboard. We weren't sure why until we got started. The whole time you are wondering...WHY DID WE THINK THIS WAS A GOOD IDEA?! WHY DIDN'T WE HIRE SOMEONE TO DO THIS?! Yes, WONDERboard makes you WONDER!
Putting down the new tiles.
I bet you were wondering about the two kids? Our friend Katie helped out by taking the boys a few times and the rest of the time they "helped" us. There were lots of movies, games, snow time and playtime which equated to one big messy house. :) They've been troopers for sure and I'm pretty sure we will not win the parents of the week award!

Check out the mess! Axel loves pistachios just like his Grandpa J but hopefully Grandpa isn't as messy for Grandma's sake.
Lucas had Wii night last night. Axel has train night EVERY night.
Daddy putting in the last tile! Yahoo!
Here's a little peek. We had to do half the floor one night and the other half the next because you have to wait 24 hours before walking on them. The kids think the whole thing is crazy...we think they might be right. :)
All I can say, I'm thrilled to be to this point and I'm even more thrilled that Daddy is so awesome at math! All the tiles fit together like a big puzzle!
More photos to come as we finish up.

Disney World: Part Two

We're back for a quick post in the midst of a tile project we started last Thursday. We have been working hard tearing up our old floor and putting in new tile in our entrance way, downstairs bathroom and kitchen. It's no small project! Luckily for us, our Directv box died so it's been canceled and the cold frigid weather lends to some extra time. Photos coming soon.
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In the meantime, here are a few more Disney World photos. It's impossible to only post "high lights" because each venue, each show, each event, etc. is so unique and so special. This trip will go down in history as one of the best. Everyone just had a wonderful time!

Downtown Disney is always so much fun.
Lego Land.
Mickey's Kris-miss-ree.
The whole family at Disney Studios.
Little brother strikes again! STINKER!
Slides are a favorite.
Mommy & Grandma J...boy, we look a little tired and this was just he beginning of the day!
Honey I Shrunk the Kids play area was a huge hit.
Tough Walker from Star Wars.
Look close and you can see Indiana Jones.
Axel was a little nervous during the Indiana Jones show. Lucas was enthralled.
3-D rides!
Keeping Axel occupied before a show.
Super fun indoor roller-coaster...
Mike, Janelle & Grandpa J having a blast! (my fav photo)
We also hit the Tower of Terror which was a riot. We are in the second row back filling the left three seats.
Grandma J is a HUGE fan of Harry Potter so they had to go to Harry Potter World for a day. We decided to take the boys in the future after they read all the books themselves.
We hit Animal Kingdom too! I love the big tree and all the hidden animals carved in it's trunk.
On the animal safari, we saw some great animals but the most exciting was male lion. He didn't want to look at the camera but it was still cool to see.

Minnie & Mickey
Axel just soaking it all up...Disney and Grandma & Grandpa love.
Dinos!
Happy boys!
The Nemo show was AMAZING!
The Lion King too. We were amazed how much both boys loved all these shows. The true magic of Disney really does come out!
At one point, both boys were tired and hungry and grumpy...okay there were a few more of those points but at this one specifically was fixed by a song. This guy was good! He picked up on the fact that the grumpies had set in and within minutes had everyone laughing. He made a special song all about Lucas & Axel. It was perfect timing, I could have hugged him! :)
The ferry to Magic Kingdom.
Grandma enjoying the ferry boat ride.
Axel's most favorite part of Disney World. The castle!
Race cars.
Even Axel got to drive...hurry, hurry!
Mickey again!
Thunder Mountain roller-coaster!
We couldn't miss the electric parade.
Getting ready for fireworks.
I think everyone's favorite shop on Main Street was the BAKERY! It was delicious!
Phew! I did it, there's a view of our wonderful trip to Florida!