Memorial Day - Westcave Cellars Winery

The vineyard was gorgeous.  We enjoyed walking around and taking in the beautiful scenery.

Proof that Peter was there too.

I tried to get Max onto my shoulders.  It was a pretty comical process.

Made it!

If you look closely, you'll see I am, unknowingly, about to be hit by my son's saliva.

That moment when your son smashes his head into your face. 

Pay back time!  Tickles!!!

We (Peter and I) did a little wine tasting and picked a bottle to take home with us.  Then we went to their patio area where they had a couple of guys playing/singing and enjoyed the music.  Max and I danced a little, too.

It was lovely way to spend the afternoon.  I am so glad that our plans changed and we went down this path!

Keep Austin Weird! Memorial Day 2013

For Memorial Day weekend, we decided to drive down to Austin and spend time with my cousin and her family.  Rather than leave after work on Friday we left on Saturday morning.  The drive went really well.

We were starving for lunch and stopped at an Italian place by Michelle's.  It was amazing and I was in heaven - it was the closest to authentic Italian I've found since our cruise to Italy!  My pasta was delicious... we got an appetizer of arrancini, the bread was yummy...and so on and so on...  I NEED to find a place like this close to home!

We topped off our meal with some gelato, of course!

Max quickly warmed up to everyone and really enjoyed the piano.

Michelle and Richard got a babysitter so we could go out on a double date that afternoon.  I think she was 15 (?).  We have never left Max with a real babysitter like that who wasn't family or a close ADULT friend.  

Obviously, this was my first time.  Michelle's (very few) notes to the babysitter are on the left.  My (letter) notes to the babysitter are on the right.  HA!

This is me freakin' out in the car about leaving Max.  Thanks, Michelle, for capturing this.  I was just nervous!  Peter had to talk me down.  :)

So we are sitting there, having a great dinner, and all of a sudden we notice there are some bears at another table.  Seriously, there were people, eating dinner, in bear costumes.  It was really funny.  I tried getting a good picture with Richard in it but it just wasn't working.

We love hanging with Michelle and Richard!  (I also love that they introduced us to "doppleganger" a soda similar to Dr. Pepper, made locally in Austin with cane sugar, that is AMAZING.)

We asked our waitress, jokingly, if she would get a picture of the bears since it wasn't working from where we were sitting.  She shocked us by totally doing it!  What a woman! (We were completely cracking up at this point.)  I think think it's so funny that the guy bothers to take off the shirt part of his costumer but they both leave their heads on.  KEEP AUSTIN WEIRD!

Richard caught a frog while we were walking back to the car.  Such a hunter.

Max was OKAY when we got home.  I was glad to hear that he had only been upset a few times for the babysitter and even went to bed okay.  I'm really proud of him considering that he was in a new house, with cousins he probably didn't remember and had only been around for a few hours before we left him, and a babysitter he's never met.  

What do you play with in a house of girls?  Strollers and baby dolls!  

Max, Natalie, and Kenna

After we made breakfast that morning, Michelle's family went to church and we went to check out a local nature preserve called Hamilton Pool.  We stopped first for lunch.  We shouldn't have even bothered.  The place we ate at had horrible service and horrible food.

Entertaining Max while we waited forever for the food.

However, when we got there the wait was forever so we decided to just explore around. We ended up going to a vineyard....  check out my next post for the awesome pictures!

Kallie turns 33

Max isn't typically the type of kid who gets into everything and makes a huge mess.  He has his moments, of course, but most of the time is just normal making a mess with his toys.

I found him checking out my lotion

I had a business trip to Denver with one of my co-workers so I had to take advantage and hit up the Cafe Rio!!  (He LOVED it - naturally)

MMMMMMMM...sweet pork salad  with chips, salsa, and queso.  He got a smothered burrito which also looks amazing to me right now.  Come on Cafe Rio!!!  Come to Texas!!!

Momma and Maxwell

Making him giggle

Brittany surprised me with a nothing bundt cake complete with a candle fork - cool, right?

Sweet little sleeper...sleeping on top of his blanket, all tucked up into the corner of the bed

My cool dude

My birthday was fantastic.  My co-workers got me my favorite oatmeal from Jamba Juice for breakfast plus flowers, a card, and a gift card.  One of my employees sent me a picture frame.  And my awesome husband sent me flowers at work.  I sure felt loved.

Video - Max not really telling me happy birthday

That night Peter and I went to a Japanese steak house for teppanyaki after Max went to bed.  It was POURING when we went to leave the restaurant.

We stopped at best buy but nothing interested me.  So instead we just took home some balloons that one of the employees was taking down.  

Peter bought me a new small digital camera since my old one stopped working in Florida - thanks babe for being so generous.

We have two walk-out attic spaces in our house and there's a ton of space up there that wasn't decked, and we wanted more storage space (especially since we are going to have some new roommates in a week...more to come on that).  So we had a guy who did our neighbor's attic come and do ours.  I forgot to take before pictures.

It's hard to tell how big this space is in the picture but it's a really good sized space that before was totally open.  This is by the bedroom upstairs.

I forgot to take a space of this before we loaded crap onto it but this is by the game room.  The space goes all the way to the back wall.  It's nice to have all this storage space since we don't have a lot of storage space in the garage.

A big update about Max now that he's 21 months old!  (It's interesting going back and writing this up since I am typing this blog nearly 4 months later.  So many of these things he doesn't do anymore.) :(

• He says "A boo boo" for peekaboo
• He loves Dora The Explorer and will do the dance at the end.  He has also started saying "Oh man!"  all the time thanks to Dora.
• He also loves to watch Barney the Dinosaur and the Disney movie Tangled
• He fake sneezes
• He knows what a burp is and will say "burp" when he burps.
• He used to make the "f" sound when blowing out, like blowing out candles.  But now he can really blow out.
• He will since the last word of most songs we sing if I stop before the last word and let him do it.
• His hair is getting long and needs to be cut.
• He has started saying 3 and 4 words sentences occasionally... like "I will hold it"
• He loves wearing his hat with his "eyeglasses" (sunglasses)
• He is ticklish on his neck, armpit, knee, feet, and bum.
• He likes to buckle things together like his seat belt.
• He comes home with random bruises... I don't like this but he's a boy, he plays hard - it's going to happen right?
• He can be rowdy
• He loves climbing
• He LOVES the iPad
• When he sees an iPhone, he says "Max" because he wants to look at pictures of himself
• He likes playing on the keyboard we have in the office and the alarm clock in our bedroom.  He has figured out how to turn on the music on both.
• He is struggling to take his first nap and rarely takes a second.
• He likes to eat bananas, yogurt, oatmeal, spaghetti, bread, pizza, chicken, and tilapia.
• He is so helpful and good at cleaning up and putting things away.
• He says "catch" when he throws a ball at you.
• He says "B Ball" for basketball, "nana" for banana, "p-pa" for Grandma
• He wants to talk on the phone but when he gets it he just sits there and doesn't talk
• He doesn't want to listen to classical music in the car, or even pop music.  He only wants to listen to his Kindermusik CDs.  However, when we are in the house, he wants to listen to pop music.
• He is amazing at going to bed when we do our bedtime routine.  It is NEVER an struggle or an issue.
• He is still a daddy's boy.
• He is turning into a little boy and looking leaner, taller, and older.