A visit from Tawny and Alex

We had an awesome visit from Peter's brother and his family - Alex, Tawny, and their daughter Lola.  But first, some cute pictures of Max.  He is getting so big!

Alex and Tawny came to visit on the weekend before Halloween.  They were troopers and made the yucky 18 hour drive from Utah.  They were so generous and pulled a U-Haul trailer behind their car that was filled with my mom's stuff that Brittany and I wanted from her house.  (It was hard for me to see that stuff again when it got here - I teared up quite a few times.  It was just another thing off the "to-do" list of tasks to accomplish after Mom's death.  The task list is getting shorter and shorter.  The only things left are to sell her house and her car.  After that, there's nothing left.  It's over and done.  Completely done.  That's going to be really hard.)

It was so fantastic to see them!  We were sad that Jaxton and Payton had school and couldn't come but it was fun to spend time with just Lola, too.

As soon as they got here, Lola immediately wanted to hold Max.  She will only call him Maxwell.  And it is so cute the way she says it.  :)  I should taken a video of that!  Max wasn't too happy at that point but Lola didn't mind.

I love this picture of Alex, Lola and Max.  I seriously love it.  Max looks so big!  He is doing great at holding his head up and sitting up with some help.

My sweet son sleeping

Brittany came over with her boys to visit as well.  Landen is really paying attention to Max now.  He was so cute and went over to Max sleeping and wanted to touch him.  I look over and see him doing what he's doing in the picture.  Touching Max softly, with one finger only.

Peter came home from work early so that he wouldn't miss out on the fun.  We all headed to Raising Cane's (yummy chicken fingers and texas toast - their menu is like in-n-out in its simplicity but it's chicken fingers instead of burgers) for lunch.  Then the women-folk and the kids went shopping for food and then men-folk went to unload the stuff in the U-haul at my house and Britt's house.

Lola and Hayden - instant friends.  I love how children make friends so quickly.  Why can't we do that as adults?

Alex, Peter, and Max

I LOVE the music they play in Raising Cane's.  My kind of stuff.  Here's a video of Peter helping Max get his groove on.

Joe,Britt,and Landen

That night we all hung out at my place and enjoyed snack food - veggies and dip, yummy cheese dip and chips, etc

Lola and her daddy

Tawny has a nice camera and got some really sweet pics of Maxwell.

Best buds

The next day Alex, Tawny, and Lola went to visit with some of her family that lives in the area and Peter and I hung out with Max.
Good Morning sweet Max! - movie

Max got some good tummy time in -

He's finally starting to pay attention to his hands.  He really loves to eat them.  Here's proof -

This sweet boy is sharing more and more smiles everyday.  He's becoming more of what I feel safe calling "a happy baby" with the fussing not happening as regularly.  Also, if he wakes up rested, he is so happy! (sometimes he wakes up because he has a burp he can't get up and then he wakes unhappy)

Lola really warmed up to Peter this night and had a lot of fun playing with him.  Here they are posing nicely:

Now the funny face pose:

Landen is getting so big - pulling himself up all the time and walking along the furniture.  He's forcing me to baby proof my house a little earlier than planned, but that's a good thing.

Hayden and Lola playing

I love the calm face of a sleeping baby.  

Have I mentioned how awesome Peter is at getting Max to sleep?  He's so much more successful at it than I am.  So most of the time, Dad is the one putting Max to bed.  I really appreciate it.

His eyelashes are getting more noticeable

Just wanting to touch mom while sleeping

Now I'm awake!  Hi!

I came out to my car one day, and look what I found on my window.  That's right, a Univ of Utah flag.  Alex is a fan of Utah (he has a ridiculous tattoo on his leg, proving what a "fan" he is) and we tease each other back and forth since, naturally, I am a born and raised BYU fan.  He threatened to buy Max a U of U outfit and I told him if he did, I'd just throw it away.  I had to laugh when I saw this - what a punk he is.

On Sunday we went out to the Waffle House for breakfast.  Cheap, fast, diner food.

Tawny and Alex

Lola

Peter letting Max sleep on him

Britt and company didn't come over this night so Lola played with Peter:

For dinner that night, we thought we'd introduce our guests to some real Texas, home style, southern cookin'.  Plus Lola's B-day was coming up and we needed to celebrate that too!  So, we took them to Babe's Chicken House.  The food is amazing.

Us

Alex, Lola, and Peter

There is obviously something wrong with this picture.  However, it is the perfect visual depiction of what one feels like after eating at Babe's.  :)  You sort of go into a food coma after all that food.  You can't stop yourself from overeating so you feel a little sick and certainly stuffed.  And, you wonder how you are going to get from your chair, out of the restaurant, and to your car.

 Lola got the birthday girl treatment and got to wear the chicken hat and be sung to.

Here's a video of the event - she was so cute about it.  She didn't quite understand she needed to do some chicken dancing.  She just sort of sat there, taking it in, and trying not to move her head so that the big chicken hat wouldn't fall off.

Holding her head so that the hat didnt' come off

That night Alex gave me a facial with the new NuSkin machine thingy-that-I-can't-remember-what-it's-called-but-is-supposed-to-be-awesome.  Cracked me up to have tough little Alex doing the girly facial thing.  (He did a great job by the way.)

The last full day of their visit was Halloween, which deserves its own post.  It was sooooooo great to have them here.  We enjoyed every minute of it.  It's great to have family around and have them love on Max.  Overall, we didn't do too many "things", we just enjoyed each other's company and visited.  I love visits like that.  I wish we could see our far away family more often.  It's time someone invented a form of travel that is both quicker and cheaper than flying.