Second Week of February 2016

 I know...it's been forever since I've blogged and I"m getting further behind.  We've been busy watching the summer Olympics and that's been taking up the evenings.

Maxwell came home from Brittany's and asked to workout so we put on a video and he did an awesome job.  

He wanted to lay out his clothes for school in the morning.  He calls this making his "Maxwell".  He even puts underwear inside the pants.

My sweet little girl  - she's been tucking her hands into the neck of her pajamas when she goes to sleep lately....very similar to what Maxwell would do.

I threw my team a Mardi Gras party  - gotta have a little fun every now and then.

Maxwell had a party and parade at school too

The kids all dressed up in their mardi gras beads and masks

celebrating Hayden's birthday

Emmalyn really loves her uncle jo jo

messy face

Her hair is getting longer - look at that cute little flip

Each night she needs to sleep with her turtle and her puppy

We are having a progressive dinner with some friends in the neighborhood for Valentine's Day.  I want to make sure my party of it (soup/salad) turns out great so I practiced my recipes before hand.  This Thai chicken salad is delicious!!

Lovin her boots

Max filling out his Valentines for his class.  He wrote "To: A Friend" and From: Maxwell" on every one.

Silly girl

Maxwell and his finished Valentines.  It's an arrow with a pencil making up the stick part of it.  I thought they were pretty cute.  This is the first time we've made our own Valentines and it wasn't bad.  (Of course, I purposely picked a simple one.)

Tickles from dad -- Maxwell loves 'em

Maxwell's Friendship Party at school

The kids at his school weren't allowed to bring candy valentines so he came home with lots of non-candy treats.  Including temporary tattoos - I don't normally like to let him have them but I made an exception and he was thrilled. (I know this is a battle I will win less and less as he gets older.  Sigh)

We decided to go get pizza for dinner and one our way, Max was thinking we were going to Little Caesars and says, "I want daddy to say to them, um...'my son wants a pepperoni pizza' and he can say after that, 'because my son loves pepperoni pizza and cheese pizza'."  It was super cute the way he referred to himself.

We ended up going to get pizza at a new place - it was more Neapolitan style pizza.  It was yummy but the kids didn't like it much.

Waiting to get some pizza for dinner

Love these kiddos

Maxwell wanted to work on his math this morning.

Here's what he wrote for himself.  He can do two digit addition until he has to carry over.  If you you look at the last problem you can see his methodology.  It makes sense unless you understand math principles.  :)

Emmalyn looked so adorable at Kindermusik, that I had to get some pictures...

You know me, never need a reason to justify putting her in a fancy dress. :)

Max at Kindermusik.  He loves Ms. Carolyn and always wants to sit next to her.

It was a pretty day for a walk!

Update on the kids...

Maxwell always used to self-sooth by touching his nipples and I don't see him do that anymore (glad to know he grew out of it) - - however, his sister does it, just with mine.  (yeah...can be awkward when she reaches down my shirt if she's nervous in public - I have to quickly stop her).  

Emmalyn is always asking where her brother is.  She eats very little for dinner, wants to watch "frosty the snowman" all the time or watch frozen on her iPad.  She can sing the Jeopardy theme song because we watch it every night when we get home from work, 

Maxwell is struggling with losing.  He gets mad if we race to his room and he loses.  And he has started saying he doesn't like going to gym during school because he only has fun if they are doing an obstacle course, but if it's a game he doesn't want to play..  In fact, he cried in gym last week because didn't want to play game where he could be out.  We are trying to help him understand that losing doesn't have to be a bad thing, that every loses sometimes and to focus on if he had fun or not but he's having a hard time understanding that.

3rd week of December 2015

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!