Day 8 - Caribbean Cruise 2015 - Time to go home

I wanted to capture how great the bathroom was because it's not very likely we'll be in a room with such a great bathroom any time soon.

Look - a separate space for a toilet!

The sink

Show WITH WITH WITH a bathtub!!!

Here's the curtain that separated the bed from the couch area where the kids slept each night.  It was a fantastic set up.  I guess I will have to watch the cruise deals to find another sweet deal on a suite.  (get it?)

This is how the kids slept - - with Emmalyn's bed pushed up against the couch where Maxwell slept.  When I took this pic I thought it was sweet how they were sleeping as close to each other as they could get.

The last meal on the boat before it was time to go.  It was so much fun  - fun to spend time with my husband, fun to spend time with my kids, fun to spend time with my sisters-in-law and my niece and nephews.  I love cruising!!!

He thought the little milk cartons were pretty cool

We all had breakfast together - - this is how Max and Jaxton were sitting (note Lola's hand on Max's back).  It's a perfect visual for the close bond that developed between Maxwell and his cousins.  We normally only get to see them for hours at a time over a couple days, so to be able to spend a whole week together really created some special bonds.  Wish we could do this more often!

All the kids

Silly faces

(Emmalyn's thought "what is this silly kid doing?")

(Emmalyn's thought "this silly kid is doing it too!")

My kids and Aunt Tawny, Lola, Jaxton, and Payton - - - Love you guys!

Waiting for Dad to bring the car to pick us up with all our luggage.  Notice the jackets are back.  It was just as cold in Houston as it was when we left!  (When we got home we learned we had missed another big snow storm, too.)

We took Aunt Aja to the airport in Houston and then headed home.  The drive went really well and it was certainly nice to get home relatively quickly compared to sitting at an airport for a few hours waiting for a flight, then flying home, then getting your luggage, and then driving home.

Hello, Dallas!

Decorating Gingerbread Men and Singing about Frosty

We are having a lot of fun this holiday season.  It's fun to have Maxwell old enough to really be into it.  It's fun to have Britt's family in the house and celebrating the season with us.  It's fun to have our beautiful Emmalyn around and boy is it nice to have had the decorations up from the beginning of the season!

This is what happens when 3 year olds start to accessorize...swim goggles, a glow stick necklace (because he kept his pullup dry overnight) and snow boots.  

And now he's modeling it??

The boys had fun decorating gingerbread men (that I bought last year and we never got around to doing)

Super intense on his decorating

The other great thing about 3 year olds is their "cheese" face you get when you want to take a picture.  It certainly isn't pretty or an authentic smile.

So then you, as the one behind the camera, spend lots of energy trying to get them to break out of their cheese face into their true smile so you can capture sweetness like this.  It's exhausting!

The three finished products.

That old gingerbread couldn't have been easy to take a bite of...

My little shortie who legs don't fill up her pjs so the leg end up dragging behind her

One of my sweet neighbors gave us this playhouse that she didn't need anymore.  I figured it would be fun to have when Emmalyn gets a little bit older but as soon as I brought it in the door, these two boys were all about playing with it.

Bedtime stories (it isn't always this sweet)

Landen adores Emmalyn and is her protector and care giver

Poor Britt has bad luck parking on the street in front of my house.  A few months ago, some guy scraped up the side of her old car (luckily the neighbors saw it and stopped the guy before he took off so he paid for it)...but then she comes outside and sees that someone broke off part of her side mirror (and didn't stop - we don't know who it was) on her new van.  Such a bummer. I told her she should park in the driveway after the first one but she kept parking on the street.  It's super unfortunate.  

We live off the main street in and out of the neighborhood on our side.  We didn't realize it when we bought the house because #1 so much of the neighborhood was still just a big field and we assumed of course they would have another outlet for drivers and #2 no one lived here yet so there was no traffic.  We know now to pay attention to things like this if we ever move.  I love so many things about our home but it is a big bummer to live on this main street because it's the longest street in the neighborhood and people just fly down it without paying attention to the speed limit, children playing and often not paying attention to the stop sign 2 houses away.  We will be more aware next time.

Climbing even in her dress

She likes to play with the doll house too

I love this outfit

Video - (Really it's more of an audio clip) Maxwell singing "Frosty the Snowman" while he's going potty.  His version is more like "Frosty the Snowman, was a happy jelly snow," instead of happy jolly soul.  :)  He loooooves the cartoon Frosty the Snowman.

Max finds a hiding space

It's almost Christmas!  Things are going great and we are enjoying our sweet baby.

I LOVE my bathroom in the morning.  It's full of sunlight.  When the house next to us gets built, we won't get to enjoy as much sun as we do now.  In fact, there's already less sun shining in our window with just a few of the houses that have been built on our street.

Max gave Brittany her present for being such a great babysitter. 

(A pampered chef ground beef spatula thing.)

Big boy enjoying french fries and a little bit of hamburger at In-N-Out.  He liked playing with the stickers.

After lunch we went to JC Penney to do some Christmas/Family portraits.  I tried to plan it perfectly so that we would have a happy Max.  Unfortunately that's not what we got.  Max was so upset and scared.  We didn't get any awesome pictures that I totally love.  Of course I still bought some because that's what I do.

Picture for a new years card.

Oh well, we tried...  This was the first time he freaked out and was scared.  I hope it was just a fluke!

Max sleeping with his blanket.  It's a MUST for bedtime now.  Thanks Aunt Aja for making such a nice present for Max!

Holiday indulgences...

I like Max to do "big kid things" like have his own drink and straw.  I also like him to explore however some things I would prefer that he doesn't learn for now.  :) ...like how to take the lid off his cup!

Good throw, Maxwell!

Max found a new hiding spot - in the cabinets.

Cute little hand peeking through

He'd hold onto one side while he stretched WAY out to grab the door and close it...then after I said "where's Max...where's my Max?..." he'd push the door open and pop his head out and we would do it all over again.

December 22nd was a rough parenting day.  Max has started throwing tantrums.  When he throws his tantrum he collapses to the ground and throws his head against the ground.  So I have to try and slow his momentum in order to protect his head.  So not only were there tantrums but he wouldn't take a nap.  He clearly didn't feel good and wouldn't eat either.  (Of course we tried to make him eat and take a nap which meant there was a struggle on both.)  He was whiny and fussy and NOT HAPPY.  Bad days for Max = bad days for parents.  It's HARD when you don't have a happy kid smiling at you to melt your heart when you are ready to pull your hair out.  It's a good thing we don't have many days like today.  No fun.

The next day, Peter and I went on a wild good chase throughout the house looking for the remote to the projector.  We were tearing the house apart.  Looked in every room, looked in every drawer, looked everywhere we could think to look.  We looked for a half hour straight.  We were so frustrated.  Clearly Max had taken it at some point when we weren't looking and put it somewhere.  So just about when we were ready to give up we were thinking of where we hadn't looked.  I suggested to Peter that we hadn't looked INSIDE the diaper pail.  Just to mark it off our list, Peter was a trooper and opened up the bag of diapers.  Guess what we found?  Yup.  The remote.  Max put it into the top of the diaper pail and flipped the top over causing the remote to fall in with all the diapers.  Gross.  AND do you know what this means for the future?  Max could potentially do this with nearly anything.  We are going to either have to watch him like a hawk OR go through the trash bag of diapers before we throw it out.  UGH.  I love him learning SOME new things but not ALL new things.

It's going to be a fun Christmas season this year!  The weather forecast even says that we might have some snow on Christmas Day!  My fingers are crossed.