Here's the "smile" I frequently get when taking a picture...
I caught him picking his nose while his class was in the library reading books. :) whoops
The kids love ringing the door bell to get daddy to come to the door
She LOVES these animated animals and plays with them all the time. She pushes all the buttons and keeps them going at the same time. (Even up until last year, Maxwell was afraid of some of them...not this brave little girl. She is certainly more bold than her timid brother.)
Dog piling on momma
My kids love watching Frosty the Snowman
Playing at the park
Some of the cute notes that Maxwell is demanding get put up on the fridge.
Notes with some pumpkins
Not my birthday, but still a fun note
Playing with Landen
Max's progress at swimming lessons is going well. He is doing so well at swimming.
His coach, Coach Katie, thinks wants to move him up to level 7 with the 6 and 7 year olds. In level 7 he will learn the butterfly stroke and swim the whole length of the pool and lots more! They won't move him up though so she is going to start having him swim whole length sometimes anyway.
Landen and Emmalyn
All dressed up for the holiday party at school
They did a book exchange (it went much better this year!)
The "feast"
The ladies in our neighborhood had our first annual ornament exchange. These girls can get crazy but I'm grateful to live in a neighborhood where there is a large group of friendship.
Max is having fun going to soccer skills class each week. This was my first time getting to watch him because usually Peter takes him because I'm with Emmalyn in Kindermusik. It was fun seeing him do more things and improving his skills. It was hard a little to watch though because the coach is hard on the kids. He yelled a ton, sometimes acted out of spite (like BOOTING a kid's ball across the field because they weren't doing what they should have been). He may have been an awesome coach for 17 year olds but for 3 and 4 year olds? Not so much.
At one point Maxwell came crying over to me and I had to pep talk him back into it. Peter never shared how tough the coach was. It was cause for me to ponder how I felt about the situation. I don't want people to baby my child but I also don't think I should just stand by and not say something when it appeared that someone wasn't equipped to be leading children.
Max's alphabet
Writing his numbers until he ran out of room
Maxwell and a snowman
I didn't put out all the Christmas decorations this year, just most of them. I also have started a new trend of putting holiday pictures on canvas and using those as decorations. I want to keep doing that each year rather than buy new stuff.
Playing around outside
playing puppy dog
Emmalyn loves the German Shepard Raider that lives across the street. She always wants to go over and say hello.
We were "elf'd" by one of our neighbors
Homemade popcorn with dad
Maxwell and I went out on a "date" to a Japanese restaurant and he tried using chopsticks for the first time (he didn't like it very much)
It seems like Emmalyn has jumped into the "terrible two's" a little early. She NEVER leaves her shoes and socks on in the car. As soon as we are buckled in, off they come. She cries or whines immediately when she doesn't get her way. "Stop it" is her favorite thing to say. She hits and throw things when she's mad and overall has lots of attitude right now!
