Dax turns 3

We had another birthday this week, Daxton turned 3!  The night before, McKenzie and Cambrie decorated the house for him, and were really proud of their streamer waterfall by the stairs and their birthday couch.   Daxton loved all of his balloons and promptly started popping the ones he could reach.  

It was a pretty chill birthday.  We went to church, came home, did cake and presents. Daxton insisted on helping me bake his birthday cake.  He's a good little helper...he just likes to lick things as we go along.

 Jeremy was in charge of the cake this year and he went all out.  The Bumblebee cake looked fabulous, since Jeremy is a fondant master by now, but he upped his game by adding sparklers.  Daxton wasn't quite sure what to make of them since they didn't blow out when he blew.  

The rest of the kids tried their best to blow them out too, but we just had to wait for them to blow themselves out.  Well done Jer.  Well done. 

Opening his gifts.

The gift he was most excited about were his dragon wings.  We made a pair of butterfly wings for Emma for Christmas, and Daxton was really upset we had to give them away.  The rest of the night the kids played dragon and knight, and ran around the house like crazy trying to slay one another.

Now Daxton is one interesting kid.  He's a handful, a cute handful, but a handful nevertheless.  Here's a quick list of things that make Daxton, Daxton:

~He licks up the syrup off his plate with his fingers.  Once he's done he waves his hands in the air until I can come rescue him from his "sticky hands."

~He doesn't like shoes.  He'll go barefoot whenever possible.  This was a problem during the summer when he dropped a large rock on his toe which split it open.  It took awhile for his "big rock toe" to stop hurting.

~He walks around with his hand stuck down his pants.

~He purposely drops food into his water cup.

~He completely disassembles DVD cases.  In fact, he destroys them and most often the DVD in there too.  I have had to hide our entire collection of disks in my closet so he can't get to them.  He has a handful of disks downstairs, but we've basically switched to digital because of this guy.

~He tears books.  I think he just is curious about what will happen and ruins a lot of things this way.

~He steps on all of our game boxes which means the corners are torn and every game box we have is falling apart.

~He walks downstairs in the morning and immediately tosses off every throw pillow we have on the couch.  If I clean them up, he'll follow right along behind me and throw them off again.

~He often sleeps on the floor because it wasn't his idea to go to bed.

~He snacks non-stop.  He is a grazer and won't eat his meals, but insteads munches ALL DAY LONG.

~He opens his peanut butter and jelly sandwiches and eats the peanut butter and jelly off of the bread.

~He loves slides, but not swings.  He's growing into those.

~He can't stand having a dirty shirt and I find him in various states of undress during the day.

~He calls Optimus Prime, "Optimus Crime," Darth Vader, "Darth Mader," and magnets, "maggots." 

~He is incredibly stubborn and his rule is, "his way or no way."  He is constantly calling out, "I do it!" 

~He is a smart kid, probably too smart for his own good, and already knows the entire alphabet and the sounds most of the letters make.

~He also has one of the cutest smiles I've ever seen, which gets him out of a lot of trouble.  And when he comes to climb in bed with me, he'll put his little hand on my cheek and suddenly I don't care that he drives me absolutely crazy most days.