First week of January 2016 - a 20 year Anniversary!

Ah...The fun when you come home from vacation... you know, unpacking, getting back to a normal routine.  THEN, add in the craziness of a Christmas morning tornado that has been waiting for you for a week.  UGH!

Can you even find the little girl in this messy picture? :)

Peter put his new pancake batter bottle to work and made some special pancakes for breakfast (see Max's smiley face?)

Emmalyn loves her new castle

Back to school

Visiting with Maxwell at school (I don't remember why I was there...reading to his class?  bringing his glasses he forgot?  who knows)

I made homemade chicken noodle soup and rolls!  I was proud of it.  :)  That's more cooking than I normally do.

Little miss hanging out on her new chair

Maxwell's 2015 year in review

Max's self-portrait "A Litl Boy Maxwell"

I love all the little notes he comes home with or makes for us at home

Working on his math workbook

Cheerios - - good for many things including math

video - Max doing addition and subtraction

On January 7, Peter and I celebrated 20 years of being together.  On January 7, 1996, Peter asked me to be his girlfriend for the last time and the rest is history...  To celebrate, let's remember what we looked like back then.

Here are the two of us before we went to his Homecoming that fall.

Us at Husky Howl - the girl's choice dance around Halloween at my high school

Brittany picked Maxwell up from school because he was sick.  He had a 101.8 fever and ended up throwing up at school while he was at the front desk.  (He wasn't eating his lunch and that isn't normal for him so his teacher asked if he was okay, felt his head and he was hot and she sent him to the front desk to be checked for a fever.  He had one and while he was up there, got sick. )  I had small little signals that should have added up and I should have known he was sick, but of course I didn't put them all together and figure it out beforehand.  He had a small fever the night before (he felt a little warm to me) and then this morning he wanted to cuddle with me in bed, which never happen.  And then as we were leaving to school he said he was cold.  I thought, "hm...he might have the chills" but he was acting fine other than that so I took him to school.

Video - Emmalyn playing while counting with dad

Emmalyn is talking soooo much!  In her bath she talked basically non-stop.  It's fun to see what she says.  She was playing with balls and said "ready go" when she was throwing them.

Maxwell gets annoyed she she copies what he says.  She's really skilled at annoying him when they are in the car.  She will annoy him just by looking at him or she will keep saying his name over and over.

She now calls him "Mass" which also bothers him.  He wants her to call him MaX.  I explained to him that she can't say "x" yet.

Emmalyn can count to 10.  She will sing all the time and most of the time you can understand what she's singing.  She likes to sing ABCs, Jingle Bells, Jingle Bell Rock, Twinkle Twinkle Little Star, Shoo Fly - Don't Bother Me, and the songs in our Kindermusik Animal Serenade book (She also says the words that go along with it).  She will also say some of the words when reading her favorite books.

Emmalyn starts to walk!

I celebrated Mother's Day at Maxwell's school on the day after Mother's Day with a breakfast for the two of us.

This is how we get him to smile without it looking like he's in pain - laugh and smile.  It isn't a very genuine smile but at least it's not a grimace.

The tables were all set up nicely and it was a nice way to spent some time with Maxwell

Opening up a cheese stick by yourelf?  Genuine smile.

He also had a present for me.

We took the kids to the neighborhood park after work since it was so nice.  Love the long, sunny days of late spring! And Love finally having a park so close!

Peter helping Maxwell be brave enough to  go down the big slide

woah, that's some static!

crawling baby

walking a little big with dad's help

Emmalyn loves going down the little toddler slide at the park.  She's got no fear and is so bold.  I can't get over how brave she is because it seems like Maxwell only started to like going down slides when he was 3.

Warning - I have posted a bunch of videos on this blog.  I can't help it - its much more fun if yo can see her trying to walk rather than me just tell you about it.

Video - I captured Emmalyn walking on video.  It's so exciting!!!

Video - Maxwell is too busy dancing to bother with his sister walking

Bedtime routine still includes the ipad

Emmalyn drumming at Brittany's

I tried a black bean burger for the first time ever at work.  It was delicious!

Maxwell showing off the present he made me at school for Mother's Day.  It's two hot pads with his hand print as the petals of a flower.  I love it and I love that he let his teacher put paint on his hands!

Video - Emmalyn trying to walk a few more times

Video - Maxwell trying to get Emmalyn to walk to him.  I love how he says her name.  Pretty cute big brother.

Video - Maxwell being a "great" big brother.  Oh man, he just doesn't have that nurturing personality.  

On the 13th, Emmalyn turned 13 months!  She began walking just 3 days ago so we can say she started walking at one (rather than after that).

The laughing smile

Sweet smile

silly smile

She is LOVING being at the park.  I need to send her to Britt's with shoes so she can get down and walk around.

Max still doesn't want to swing normally

We went to chick-fil-a for an end-of-season "party" with Maxwell's soccer team.  It was our last time with this team because we have signed up with another team for the next season.  The new team will be coached by Max's friend Evan's dad so I am hopeful it will be a better experience that this season.  Heck, if we can have regular practices it would be a big win.

Not wanting to go play with the kids in the play area.  Instead he wanted to sit here.

Oh man, a participation trophy.  I am not a fan of participation trophies.  Why give them anything?

Do I have a green thumb? We'll see...

My first gardening project!  But first,

Here some cute videos...

Video - Maxwell waving goodbye.

Video - such a cute wave!

Video - Max isn't interested in his oatmeal and requests a banana.

The flowers that were planted by the builder had died.  I knew my dad was coming and wanted the yard to look nice and thought it would be better to have a little color again.  So my little family headed to Home Depot to prep for some gardening.  Since we've never had a yard, we had NOTHING.  I had to buy a shovel, some gloves, etc.

The pretty flowers waiting to be planted

Max kept my company and played outside, however not for long.  I soon realized that it didn't work to have me focused on gardening and him playing on the sidewalk.  That put him closer to cars speeding by than to me (I didn't think this street would be so busy when we were looking at the house - hopefully once everything is built it slows down a little).  He didn't try to go in the road or anything, it just made me nervous.

Before

\After - looks better, right?

I planted a little on both sides of the sidewalk.  It felt good to look at them and know I planted them! It made me feel like I had had productive weekend.

Time to go back to work!

Max grabbed this apple out of my bag for work and started eating it.

Max "talking" into the remote.

Video - I tried to get Max to send a video message to his dad.

Happily sitting on the trike.

Playing in the walking stroller.