Happy Birthday Jaxon, Gavin & Jacee!

*****This is a LONG post****

Well, my babies are now 1! I can't believe it. And what could be a better day to celebrate their first birthday than Thanksgiving. We got to celebrate and show how truly thankful we are that they are actually here with us, and that they overcame all the obstacles they encountered. It was a great day. A day that a year ago we didn't know if we would be able to celebrate.

To start it off the local paper, The Standard Examiner, did a story about the babies and what miracles they are and it ended up on the FRONT page! We are famous now! ;) And then we gave the babies their presents. We got them a toy to share, and then gave them each their own little toys and a book. It's funny because they had no idea what was going on. Just another day to them with a new toy. Then we went and visited Aaron's family at their Thanksgiving dinner, and then went and ate Thanksgiving dinner with my family at Shedogs (Sheila's) house. Yummy yummy! Then of course we did our annual Turkey Bowl with my family. This is a tradition that has gone on since my mom was little. I am NO good at bowling, one turn I get a strike and the next two turns I get gutter balls-real consistent huh! The babies were pretty tired after that long day so we went home and put them to bed, no pie for us! Then I decided to be a little crazy and went with Kalee, Nicole, Derek (who was able to come visit for Thanksgiving), and Nieko to Park City for Midnight Madness where I also met up with Amanda and we hit all the awesome sales and got lots of cute clothes for my kiddos. Then we all proceeded to head towards home and stopped at Walmart in time to hit their sales too! Nicole actually ended up getting knocked flat on her back and got stepped on while trying to get a camera! My line wasn't so hectic, but it's pretty funny to see all the people dive to make sure they get what they came for. Security had to come "tend" to some of the groups because people were fighting, that's pretty sad. What people will do to save a few $$$. So I ended up getting home at 6:30 AM! But my cousins Spencer and Madeline were nice enough to come over before Aaron left for work so that I could get a couple hours of sleep. Thanks guys!

Here's some pics of their birthday...

-The "group" present...

Jaxon in his new outfit and his present...

Gavin in his new outfit and his present...

And Jacee in her new outfit with her present...

Then on the Nov. 29 we had a birthday part for them, here are some pics and a slide show from that...

Group shot...

Jaxon- a wee bit crossed eye!

Gavin...

And Jacee-she absolutely HATED the hat...

Birthday slide show-

And here's an update on what each of them are up to now.

Jaxon- Weighs 15 lbs 13 oz and is 26 3/4 in. tall. He has two little teeth on the bottom. He has got to be the fastest army crawler ever, and is starting to crawl a bit. He can pull himself up to his knees on most everything. He can sit up and go from crawling to sitting by himself. He LOVES having a bath, thinks it's hilarious to splash himself in the face. He's my busybody, doesn't sit still too long. He studies everything, when he spins a toy he just watches it, it looks like he is trying to figure out how it does that. I think he's going to be my smarty pants, especially with the glasses. He goes in for surgery on Dec. 10 to have eye muscle surgery to hopefully fix the lazy eye and while he's under anesthesia he gets to get circumcised, YAY! ;) He thinks he's downright hilarious (which is so true). He laughs at everything, and he laughs so hard. It doesn't take much to get him to laugh. He still loves to suck his thumb, I know I will regret it later, but right now it's nice that he can soothe himself. And while he sucks his thumb he has to be holding something in the same hand, usually his taggie blanket. He still spits up a lot. And we are still trying to figure out why he wheezes all the time, so we're treating him for asthma but it doesn't seem to help a ton so this is a "work in progress."

Gavin- Weighs 14 lbs 3 oz and is 26 1/4 in. long. No teeth yet, but his gums are swollen so I'm sure they're coming. He rolls wherever he wants to go. He can get up on his hands and knees but hasn't quite figured out how to move. He can sit up un-supported for a bit and is getting better at it each day. He's my little sweetheart. But since he doesn't quite get around as well as the other two he seems to get picked on by the other two (mainly Jacee) and anytime they hurt him it breaks his little heart. He seems to be a bit of a mommy's boy, but not too bad. He's loves to smile, just have to look at him and he smiles. When he laughs, he laughs so hard that he can't breath and his face turns bright red. And he's super ticklish, so all you have to do is touch him and he laughs. He loves "real" food. He gets so excited that he shakes when he thinks he's going to get some food. And to everyone's surprise he does real well eating solids, so hopefully soon he can get rid of his G-Tube. Hooray!!! And although he has the paralyzed vocal cord, his voice seems great so far, except when he gets sick he loses it completely very easily.

Jacee- Or miss Piggy as she's now known weighs 16 lbs 14 oz and is also 26 1/4 in. long. She doesn't have any teeth yet either. She has daddy wrapped around her little finger. She can sit up and can go from crawling to sitting up all on her own. She also mainly army crawls but can crawl when she feels like it, especially on hard floors like tile, wood and linoleum. She can pull herself up to standing on about anything and has even climbed about 5 stairs (it probably could have been more but as soon as we noticed she was up them we hurried and picked her up so she didn't fall)Right now she's the bully of the bunch. Her favorite thing to do is crawl over to Jaxon and sit on him and not move. For some reason it's her favorite spot, though Jaxon doesn't seem to care for it at all. She loves to steal toys from Jaxon and Gavin, but Jaxon is starting to put up a fight. I say she's just getting a head start because with 3 brothers she's doomed. But if they think of taking a toy from her or sitting on her, she screams. Such a girl. She has stranger anxiety, if she doesn't really know you, she just stares at you. She could win a staring contest easy. She also loves "real" food. Especially those fruit puff things, she starts kicking her legs whenever she see's them. She will do patty-cake sometimes, and will also wave bye sometimes. She also shakes her head NO when she doesn't want anymore food or you to do something she doesn't want you to.