Mother's Day 2016

My family did a great job with Mother's Day. 

I got two games that Maxwell picked out for me (they are games that he can play with me) and I got some sweet cards.

"Mom I love you so much

Thank you for being my mom just because you keep loving me so much"

Maxwell's "bouquet" he made me at school

Peter made a delicious breakfast for us all!  (I should note that I got to sleep in!!!)

Then Emmalyn took a nap and Maxwell and I played the new games he got me.  After Emmalyn woke up, I did her hair in two little french braids.  I've never done that before - go me!  It's crazy that she's got enough hair for me to braid like this!

View from the top

 (I distracted her with the ipad while I was doing it)

View from the back.  It's not perfect but I feel good about it.

Another view of the hair in better light at Costco.  Okay, I was a little obsessed with it and kept looking at my work of art.  :)  I was proud of it!  It was also fun spending the time with her while I was braiding. Hopefully we do it many more times as she is growing up.

Emmalyn got to hold the receipt.  It's always a big deal to the kids to get to hold the receipt at Costco because then you get to hand it to the person at the door who checks it and draws smiley faces on the back.

It's still staying in!

A closeup of how I finished the braid and pulled her hair up into pig tails.  A closeup is so silly but oh well - again, I'm proud of it!

After Costco we took the kids to the library where we looked at books and played on the computers a little bit.

Peter rested his eyes.

It was a nice day outside so after the library, we took a blanket outside in the backyard and played one of my new games again.  I wasn't ready to be done outside so then we went to the park, too!

Video - Emmalyn "playing" with Raider, the German Shepard across the street.  It was really cute how he followed her with his ball.  They did this for awhile.

Maxwell made a Happy Mother's Day card for Mary Ann next store and we delivered it to her and then we did takeout from Palio's Pizza for dinner.  Max said he had a gazillion hearts that he was going to blow at me because he loved me so much.  :) He was incredible sweet the whole day.

It was a great day!

The next day they did a breakfast for the mom's at Maxwell's preschool- "Muffins with Mom".  He was really excited for me to be able to go to it with him.

It was fun to sit and spend some time with Maxwell, just the two of us.

silly face!

Think the sugar from the muffins and juice has hit yet??

My big kid all loaded up with his backpack, water, and lunch...  Headed to his classroom.

Second week of December 2015

I am loving the holiday season this year.  It's fun so far!

I accidentally took Emmalyn's baby carrier car seat with me and should have left it for Peter to use to take her to Brittany's.  Luckily, we had just ordered Emmalyn a new, big-girl car seat and it was sitting in Peter's office waiting to be installed.  Because he was late he quickly put it in and took Emmalyn the 5 minutes to Brittany's . I think she was pretty excited to be looking forward!  (Hope she didn't enjoy it TOO much... It's going to be another 4 months until she gets to do it again.  Gotta be 2 years old!)

Peter sent me this pic from the photo calendar I made from him.  How stinking cute was Emmalyn a year ago?!  I don't feel like she's grown until I look back at things like this.

Enjoying her broccoli

The big girl car seat is now backwards in Brittany's car.  Peter takes her to Britt's in her infant carrier and then I bring her home from Britt's in the carrier but while in Brittany's car she gets the big-girl seat.

All dressed up at the park

I took a day off from work to get some errands done and relax a little.  I started my day off with breakfast at Einstein's - yummy.

I did other things like dropping off dry cleaning, shopping, etc.  and then picked up some Mexican food and went to the dealership and waited for more than 3 hours for my car to be worked on.  It was temping to working but I avoided it as much as possible and spent some good time blogging.  It's really nice every once in a while to have a day to myself without having to do my work job or my mom job.

The fit I got to enjoy at home

All better, the ipad does that

Video - Emmalyn reading a book and showing off the noise that an elephant makes

I made some rice krispie treats.  Haven't done that for YEARS!!!  I kept Emmalyn busy by giving her some marshmallows to play with.

Maxwell was all dressed up to go visit with Santa and after wards we decided to go out to eat.

Selfie at Mooyah

"To Dad and Mom if your reading this then you know wener (wiener) is coming".  Apparently Peter told him to write that because he was getting a hot dog.  hm.

We put up the mini tree in Maxwell's bedroom and he had fun decorating it.  My Mom helped me decorate it the first year we put it up, she would have love knowing he was using the bows she created.

The finished product

He begged me to let it stay lit after he went to bed.  So I gave in and let it stay lit and at 10 pm (way past his bedtime) I hear him singing Christmas songs.  I go in there and he tells me the tree is distracting him, and was totally awake.  So I quickly turned it off.  :)

Two cuties in Costco

Look at that hair!  Too funny.  It cracks me up but as silly as it is, I enjoy being able to do something.

Having fun working on a puzzle.  She hasn't really shown much interest in them before now.

Emmalyn's drool is finally getting better and her face is healing!  I am so happy, I feel like she had those poor red bumps around her mouth forever.  We remind her to wipe her face when she's drooling and she will mostly wipe it straight up her face.

She is putting together phrases and simple sentences such as "I'm ready", "there it is", "stop it", lots of "thank you" and "you're welcome",.

She will make us sing goodnight to each member of the family and prompts you with the one she wants next.  She always remembers to gives kisses and say goodbye to each person (this includes saying goodbyes to each person at Brittany's which we are leaving).

Maxwell is doing a great job with his glasses. I don't have to remind him much and he's good at taking care of them.  He wants to take them off before he goes to the potty so they don't get dirty, 

Max is really into Christmas and asked me about how Santa can fit down our chimney.

December is here!

Not quite a milk mustache...but a whipped-cream-on-top-of-egg nog mustache :)

Woah - - putting up the Christmas tree at the beginning of December?  I must be on the ball this year.

Emmalyn put up a few ornaments... and took down a bunch...and put up a few...and took down a bunch...

Maxwell helped out almost the whole time.  It was funny having him help this year instead of just stressful.

Maxwell calls this our "fake Christmas tree".  He's very specific.  Ha!

Putting the star on the top

Emmalyn playing at the little playground at the mall with Brittany during the day

Waiting for his flu shot

Video - (Even if you don't normally watch my videos, you should watch this one!) Max is initially happy about getting his flu shot... until he connects the dots and realizes it will be like the *4* shots he had to get during his 4 year check up.  I think he's still traumatized from that.

He did a good job, whimpered and cried just a little but got over it very quickly!

I had an end of the year meeting for work in Cincinnati.  We had our celebration at the MLB park.  It was very cool.

They welcomed us up on the jumbotron

"Oscar" the airhead came to visit us during the meeting.  This is me and Michelle.

Nana arrived to my house while I was traveling home.   The kids were very excited to see her!

Eating ice cream with nana

Another day, playing in the sun at the park

Silly kids

Nana taught a painting class in the neighborhood.  We did these really cute trees.  She's such a great teacher!

Emmalyn is talking more and more..  she now says, "Um, I don't know" and then one night this week I told her goodnight and she responded with "Goodnight, Momma".

It's funny because she LOVES the little Christmas animated musical toys (looks like a stuffed penguin, for example).  They scared Max, even up until last year.

She can find the app on the iPad that has the animals sounds (the first app we ever got Maxwell).

Emmalyn lately has not been going to sleep often during her second nap.  She will just lay there for awhile and eventually call for us without falling asleep.  She has started sleeping with the purple puppy dog that Grandpa and Nana gave to her when they were here last.  Sleeping with the puppy dog only started because she threw a fit one night when I made her stop watching videos of puppies with daddy on his phone.  And now she will grab him at night to cuddle with him.

She still has that little rash on her face around her mouth.  I have tried washing it frequently and putting lotion on it, I've tried Vaseline, lavender, etc.  So many things and nothing has cleared it up for good.  I still think it's from all her drool and I sure hope it doesn't stick around util she fully stop drooling.


When I started to say "good night, sleep tight, don't let the bedbugs bite..." as part of our routine Max told me to say it at night because it gives him a headache.

He is so sweet and so smart but still not very social.  We were at our friends Andrea and Jeff's home this week and their daughter Sadie (age 6) was so frustrated because Maxwell wouldn't play with her.  I have be trying to get him more time with kids other than just his cousins.

Maxwell can count to 100!