Snow? At Fort Irwin? Huhmm?!!

 

WOW! This is our third winter here and we have NEVER seen anything like this! This is awesome. We have had tornado stuff, and a 5.5 earthquake, but this takes the cake!

Moose and Zeus love it too. They keep begging to go outside and play in it. Mostly eat it and chase each other in it, but they love it. I think it makes them homesick. 

I know it does me. 

Five more days...only 5 more days and I will be home!

 

He's growing up....

Truxton is officially 1 years old! His birthday was saturday the 13th. We had a little get together with some of our friends and enjoyed some soup and cake (cause I am a ding dong and forgot about the ice cream!).

Truxton's green monster cake! His will soon realize his eyes are bigger than his stomach.

He sure had fun playing with his cake. He smashed it little by little. Enjoying every second of it.

Daddy felt like he needed to help. He obviously felt like Truxton wasn't making a big enough mess! Boys!

He also had his 1 year check up this morning. Here are his stats:

Weight: 19 lbs 10 oz - 9th percentile
*He already eats like a pig....guess he needs more.

Height: 30 in - 50th percentile 

*Looks like he has finally slowed down a little in this department.

Head: 19 in - 91st percentile

*But not in this one! (Hee hee)

He is right on target and advanced in some areas on his development. The doctor thinks he is doing great and has great potential and also thinks he will be a little ahead of the curve. So good news for us. Way to go Truxton. Smart little fart. The DR was also really impressed with his personality, and overall happiness.

A Thankful Thanksgiving!

Thanksgiving was great this year. We stayed in Cali for Thanksgiving this year, but we were invited to spend it with some good friends of ours at the Booth's house. The Caristi's did the turkey (yum yummy), and the Davis' baked a ham (num yummy) and then the rest of us did side dishes and desserts. It was so delicious.

Here are just a few pictures from the day.
(Thanks Melissa!)

Us of course!

Tracey, Amy's mom, Donel, Don and Amy

Parry, Megan, Luca, Maura and Jeff

Missing pictures of:

Anthony (Megan's husband) and his cousin (and her husband), Charles and Charlie (Parry's husband and son), Jaime, Melissa, and Evan Booth.

I was filled with so much gratitude this day because I have been truly blessed with such an amazing group of friends. In a place like this, they are priceless. They make living here great! Thank you.

Alright already!

Ok - so I suck (as I have been told by some) and have had a hard time lately (ok-past several months) keeping up with my posts. So here I am, updating my blog and hoping I don't slack anymore.

So here is what we have been up to these last couple months:

This was just a goofy picture I took of Truxton one day cause we were both in need of some entertainment so I pulled out the camera.

Oh man! This was one of the sadest days of my life. Truxton's first haircut. It would have been ok if the clippers didn't malfunction and cut all of it off! 

This next series of photos are my favorite. I was making lasagna one night and decided to give him a noodle to see what he would do. Well, here's the answer.

He thought they were pretty awesome and funny!

Then we went to Oxnard and Ventura California with Ben's parents to visit Ben's little sister's in-laws. It was a nice little break. Plus, we found the best little eatery and the best fresh fruit stands ever!

Here we are on the beach. People were surfing and swimming. It was nuts! But we had fun. We are going to go to the Strawberry Festival next year. So excited. Oxnard, so I have been told, is the Strawberry Capital. How about them apples?!!!

Here is Grandpa Leigh teaching Truxton the basics of oral hygiene.

This is Joshua. He is Truxton's twin brother from another mother. They were born the same day, 12 hours apart. Truxton was born at 9 in the morning and Joshua at 9 at night. I got the chance to watch him and snuck some pictures to give to his mommy for christmas.

This is Truxton saying "See ya later," to his Grandma Suzette. She got married and decided to move to Colorado to be with her honey.

On this day, Truxton decided to sleep most of the day. We just got back from a quick trip to Utah and he decided he needed to rest. Bless his little heart.

So that is pretty much it. But I still have some more pictures to add to a later post. But I at least got ya caught up to this point. Talk to ya'all later.

Happy Halloween!

Well, we hope everyone had a spooktacular halloween and did something devilishly fun! We sure did. We started by hanging spider webs all over our front porch since we have 3 arches. Then for Family Home Evening we carved a pumpkin we picked up on our way home from Oxnard, CA.

Here is Truxton eating the pumpkins guts.

And pulling a scary face once we were done with the pumkin. It is suppose to be a spider to go with the webs we put on the arches.

Then on Halloween, Amy, Megan and I threw an awesome Halloween Party. We grilled and ate and partied until we were busting at the seams. Then we watched a movie outside. We used a projector and watched it on my neighbors house.

Here are a few pictures from our party. Unfortunately, (yes I did it again!) I was a bone head and didn't get very many. But hopefully you will enjoy what I got. There were some awesome costumes and I wish I would have gotten pictures of everyone.

My TOOTSIE ROLL! It doesn't get much cuter than this my friends! Well, ok, I am biased....but still, it is super adorable!

Argentina Soccer Dad and Tootsie Roll.

Butterfly Jamie and Tootsie Roll Truxton.

Evan the Giraffe, Luca the Monkey and Tootsie Roll Truxton.

James, our Littlest Devil.

Velma, Scooby and Shaggy.
(Amy, Donel and Don)

Judge Jaime, Evan the Giraffe and Melissa the China Doll.

Megan, the Pregnany Nun, and Luca.

Such the little helper!

Truxton has become quite the little helper these days. Here are just a few things he helps us with.

He like to help us put the groceries away in the fridge or sometimes help us decide what to eat.

He likes to help daddy make sandwiches for lunch.

He likes to help us find his clothes basket and put the clothes "in it."

He also likes to help us with our own laundry.

He enjoys helping restock his baby wipes. He makes sure they are super moist.

And he likes to help us teach Moose and Zeus manners......and sometimes share the goodies. But this wasn't one of those moments.

9 Months Old and Still Growing!

Truxton went in for his 9 month and surprise! He is still a shrimp.

He weighed in at a whopping 17 lbs. 4 oz. (18th percentile)

Measured just under 28 in. (95th percentile)

and his head came in at 18 3/4 in. (96th percentile)

BUT... he is doing well and is such a smart little fart. He is such a happy little man and so full of personality. Here is what he has been up to:

1) He is crawling everywhere and anywhere he can and as fast as he can.

2) He has mastered the stairs, well the going up part anyway.

3) He has a walking cart and will walk from one end of the house and back over and over again, and does it all by himself. He can turn it around once he has hit a dead end.

4) He can stand and balance on his own for 10 to 15 seconds.

5) He is picking things up with his fingers and can feed himself snacks.

6) He has started saying "mum mum mum," "ya ya ya," "eh" and "ba ba ba ba ba ba ba ba".

7) He does have his 2 bottom front teeth and has (we think) 1 or 2 more on the bottom and 1 or 2 on the top coming in.

8) He waves hello and good-bye to everything. Yes I said everything. It doesn't have to be alive or moving, but he likes to be friendly and be sure to wave.

9) He can shake his bootie when you tell him to dance.

10) He love to give kisses. Big, wet, juicy, open-mouthed kisses. But be careful. You might get a little something extra with those smooches. He likes to remind you that he has teeth and he knows how to use them.

11) He is really good at mimicking us and the things we do. He also knows what a few things mean or that if he does certain things he can get us to do what he wants. Maybe a little too smart.

12) I am sure there was more I was going to say about what he is doing but I can't remember right now.

He is eating well, but the doctor has suggested we stuff him until he is beyond full to try and pork him up a little more. Between his supersonic metabolism and his being an active busy bee, he is burning off the calories before any of them can stick. And that is why he wakes up once a night still for a bottle that he finishes off in record time and goes back to sleep.

He still loves to climb up and over Mount Zeus and Moose and they still don't mind. Moose likes it simply because he considers it a full body massage. Zeus is his protector (more like "mother hen") and keeps a close eye on him and let's me know when he has a poopie diaper. And they both enjoy cleaning up after snack time.

This first picture is of Truxton having a crazy hair day. We have a lot of those in this house and he isn't the only one that suffers from it.

This is the frontal view......once he realized I was taking pictures of him (which he obviously wasn't too thrilled about at first).

The New Excitement at Our House

I went to Victorville for a doctors appointment the other day, and needed to get some other errands done while I was there. I have wanted to get Truxton a ball pit for a while now because he loves to play with balls and things he can chase, but they are $50-70 easy. So I went to Target and got a little baby pool on clearance for $3.18 and found a bag of 175 balls for $14.00. My creative juices were obviously flowing that day. But it paid off and he LOVED it! Here are 2 videos I took on my cell phone of his first experiences with his very own ball pit.

It was awesome to see the pure excitement and thrill on his face and in his voice. He couldn't have been happier. He is such a cute little squirt. Now he will go over to it and lay half in it and half out of it and throw the balls around and swish them about. He is such a funny little boy. He provides us with such great entertainment.

A Week to Remember

We have had an eventful week here at the Cowley home. So let's review shall we?!!

First, we got to "Doggy Sit" for some good friends of ours, Julienne and Dawnna Benoit, while they went to the Las Vegas Temple to take their endowments our and be sealed to their three handsome boys, Tristan, Lucas and Ethan. They were 1 of 3 from our Branch to get sealed.

Then, we finally got around to chopping down our amazon jungle in our backyard. When we lost Truxton in the grass, we decided it was probably time to cut it. It was crazy.

One day, I couldn't figure out where all the baby wipes were disappearing to and then around the corner came my answer. The Truxtonator has discovered how to open the wipe dispenser and pull out all the wipes. He also thinks he is one of the dogs and carried them around in his mouth growling.

What a We got bored and decided to take glamour shots. The sunglasses only lasted long enough to take this and one other picture. Surprised? Not really. They are now in the toy bucket. Thank goodness for the clearance box at Children's Place.

Then the big event happened. Finally after months of NO GRILLING because Ben didn't refill the propane tank, we finally got to grill. I convinced Ben to buy some t-bone steaks to celebrate. So, Ben went out to preheat it and came back in to wait for it and to get the steaks ready. After a few minutes, something caught my eye......something was smoking.....so I asked Ben if it was normal for the grill to smoke that much.

Apparently it wasn't. Ben left the grill brush in the grill and POOF! Up in flames! He hurried and opened it and got the hose and watered it down until the flames were gone. This is what was left of that poor brush. What it ever did to deserve this, we will never know.

I am sure there was more that happened this week that I could mention but I don't want to put anyone to sleep. I am hoping that next week isn't as hectic, but looking at my schedule, it doesn't look like it. (Considering that Truxton has his 9 month well baby check and immunizations! Eeew!)