Christmas Parties

Tis the season for Christmas parties, and lots of them. This past weekend we had 2 different parties to go to. Friday night was the Cimarron Ward party in Okotoks at the church. The whole family was there including Jaxon's cousins and his aunts Amanda and Mel and his uncle J.P. Here is a picture of Tim with his sister Amanda, his mom and all three of the grandkids, Hayden, Autum and Jaxon.

There was a little room in the church where Santa was sitting and meeting with the little kids. Hayden didn't like Santa and cried as soon as she saw him sitting in the room. As a result, Jaxon got upset and didn't want to sit on Santa's lap. However, they didn't have a problem sitting in the room when Santa wasn't there. Here they are sitting in front of the Christmas Tree. Jaxon only lasted about half a minute before he tried to pull the tree down, and that is why we decided that we weren't going to put up our tree this year.

Here is the Pisko family Christmas portrait for 2007

So on the Saturday after the Okotoks Christmas party, it was the PricewaterhouseCoopers Children's Christmas party, for all the children of employees of PwC. The party was held at the Science Center in downtown Calgary and it was a great time. Jaxon enjoyed being around all the other kids and there were lots of displays and things for him to see and do. I would say he was probably a little too young to enjoy a lot of the stuff, but he really enjoyed rocking out in his guitar.

There was also a really cool section of the floor that had these pads, that when you stepped on them, they lit up and made noises. Jaxon had a good time playing with them, but I think the sounds were too loud for him, because he started to get upset after a while (although that could have just been because he was getting tired.)

Here's Jaxon sitting in one of the displays. It was a room set up to show depth perception, that's why the chair is so weird looking.

All of the children at the party got a present from Santa. Some of the older kids got some really nice gifts, like Spiderman Monopoly games, DVD Clue games, Keyboards, iPod Accessories, etc. Jaxon was sleeping when Santa called his name for his present, so we saved his present for him to open when he got home. Here he is getting some practice for Christmas morning.

At first he just wanted to play with the present while it was wrapped, not knowing that there was something inside.

We had to give him a bit of help to get him to start unwrapping it... and also to keep him from eating the paper that he tore off the present.

For some reason he wasn't as impressed with the present as he was with the paper he tore off the present. He tried to eat it. The present he got was a leaning toy that teaches cause and effect. He presses the button and the little figures pop up. He then pushes the figures back down and starts all over again. He still has some trouble getting the figures to pop up, but he is really good at closing them (that comes from playing with the tape deck on the stereo.)

Picture with Santa

The other night we took Jaxon to the mall to get his picture taken with Santa. We picked a great time to go because there was no one in line in front of us and the whole experience took less than 15 minutes. The mall Santa was great because he had a real white beard and not a fake one. Jaxon wasn't really sure how to handle the whole experience. He didn't cry on camera, but he didn't smile either.
This is what Jaxon had to say about the experience.
"x IUUUUHZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZ ghhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh f vb nm n m ,4ew5 AN aw aseZaz ,kZWSq(X;;; u9oIKO( ,m ,mmmmmmmmmmmmyKI< nmi n jkkkkkkkk
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Winter Wonderland

Today, Amanda decided to dress up Jaxon in his winter snowsuit and take him outside on the deck to get his first experience of snow. Here he is in his snowsuit. He looks pretty warm all bundled up.

Jaxon outside on the deck experiencing snow for the first time. He looks a little confused like he's not quite sure what to do.Amanda said that Jaxon enjoyed being outdoors until he lost his balance and face planted into the snow.

With a face full of cold snow, Jaxon didn't want to be outside anymore.

Hairdoo, clothes and mask (random pictures)

One night after giving Jaxon a bath and combing his hair, he rubbed his face into my chest and created this really awesome curly hairdoo. I wish I could recreate this and have him wear it everyday, but it is near to impossible to recreate.
Jaxon's present from his Grandma Charlene in Ottawa. I'm sure he will grow up to be an Ottawa Senators fan (if his mom has anything to say about it)

It's starting to get pretty cold in Calgary now, so we have to be sure to wrap Jaxon up when we take him out places. Here he is wrapping up in his blanket to keep the cold air out of his face.

Eating an Apple

Here is Jaxon's reaction to trying an apple for the first time. He really likes the sweet taste and he left little teeth marks on the bottom of the apple with his two little bottom teeth.

Yummy apple!

Jaxon's Blog

One time when I was on the computer, Jaxon came over to me and tried to type on the keyboard. I figured he wanted to add something to his Blog, so I opened up a new Word document, put him on my lap and let him whack away at the keyboard. He mostly hit the Windows key, the Alt key and the Ctrl key, but he did manage to get some letters typed. I was going to save the document as "thoughts from Jaxon" but he only had like one line, so it didn't seem like much to save.

Maybe I'll try this experiment again and include Jaxon's thoughts on this page.

Jax - in - the - Box

We bought a big box of diapers for Jaxon and he really liked playing with the box. So we emptied it out and let him play with it. Here he is, inside the box using his "imagination" (Bonus points if anyone gets the Spongebob reference)

Jaxon liked playing in the box, he would stand up and jump up and down.

Unfortunately, he doesn't have too good of balance, and the box isn't too sturdy, so here is Jaxon in mid fall as the box is tipping over.

When the box is turned over, Jaxon will stand up beside the box and use it to help himself walk.

Getting into Cupboards

Now that Jaxon is getting more mobile, he is starting to want to explore more and more things. He really likes to get into the cupboards in the kitchen.

Here he is looking under the sink. As you can see, when we took this picture we hadn't gotten any safety latches for the cupboards (we have since put a lock on the cupboards under the sink).

Jaxon look around to see if anyone is looking...

"Hey look at all the cool stuff that's under here"

We try to steer Jaxon away from the "dangerous household chemical" cupboard and into the "harmless plastic storage container" cupboard. He likes to pull out all the Tupperware from the cupboard and chew on it.

It's amazing how with all the toys he has to play with, something like a simple plastic lid can entertain him.

Did somebody mention Bears?

Speaking of Bears (see the post below) here is a picture of some pajamas that I got for Jaxon from the Delta Lodge at Kananaskis, while I was away on the Advisory retreat with PricewaterhouseCoopers (where I work). The front of it says "Bear Naked"

This is just a random picture of Jaxon on my shoulders. It was the first time I put him up there and he really seemed to enjoy it.

When Bears Attack!

I guess that title really should be "When Jaxon Attacks Bears!" Jaxon likes to grab his stuffed animals, make a growling sound and bite them. It's really quite funny to watch.

Just imagine one of those nature shows when the predator attack the weak harmless prey.

One time I provoked Jaxon to attack his monkey named Trevor by putting Jaxon's soother on the monkey's arm...

Jaxon attacked Trevor and tried to get his soother back...

... when he couldn't get the soother off of Trevor's arm, he decided to just suck on the soother, monkey and all.

Halloween

For our Halloween Party I decided to dress up as a mad scientist by wearing Amanda's old lab coat and safety goggles from when she was in school studying to be a Chem Tech (Chemical Technologist... she wanted to work as a drug recognition expert for the RCMP.) Jaxon was dressed in his Jax-O-Lantern costume and Amanda dressed up in a tropical costume.

We had a Halloween party and invited a few other married couples (with kids) over for games and food. Here is Jaxon playing with Charles on the floor. Charles was dressed up as a Hot Dog for Halloween.

Here are everyone's costumes for Halloween... The Mad scientist, the Pumpkin and the Island Princess.

Jaxon and Mommy

Jaxon and Daddy

Jaxon enjoying all the candy in the candy dish. We didn't hand any candy out, so we had a lot of candy left for ourselves.