4th week of January 2016

So January is almost over but in some ways the Christmas Holidays are still going on in my house.  Emmalyn LOVES to sing Jingle Bells and watch Frosty the Snowman.  (Max loves the movie too.)  It's all about the Christmas songs in January!  We listen to Jingle Bells over and over and over in the car.

I was out doing yard work and found this not-so-awesome break in the drip line for my sprinklers.  Some stinking bunny just HAD to see how it tasted.  But huge kudos to Peter who saw it, was immediately confident on how to fix it, and got it handled like it was nothing!

I finally took down the Christmas decorations... sad to put the holidays away but such a relief to have my house all nice and clean again.

When I was putting away the ornaments, I realized that this beautiful ornament my mom made for me and my siblings in 2010 was cracked.  This was the last ornament I got from her before she passed and I was super bummed to see it had cracked (maybe from the heat in the attic where I keep all the decorations?).  :(  I've separated it and will need to figure out how to save it before I use it again.  I'm super sad.

Good bye stocking and animated animals

Goodbye Christmas card door that was a fun reminder of how many great people we have in our lives.

Take 1

I tried to get a cute picture of both of the kids at Home Depot but it's never easy to get them both looking at the same time and smiling and looking cute.  :)

Take 2

Take 3

Take 4 - I give up!

Rockin' her shades

I took Maxwell shopping with me at Gymboree.  For the most part he did great and it wasn't as painful as I was expecting.  He was excited to pick out a shirt for Valentine's Day.

That hair in the morning!

We went shoe shopping as a family and I handed Little Miss my phone and she took a few pictures and a video that I found later.  

Maxwell graduated to the next level at his swimming lessons!  I wanted to get a picture of his card all filled out with his accomplishments but they had already cleaned it off when we got there.  (They were clearly planning on him moving up today.)  Here we come Level 7!

Getting to ring the bell and getting his certificate

Playing on the indoor playground...

(There are two days a week when Max and Landen are both in preschool, Hayden is in elementary school, and it's just Brittany and Emmalyn.)

... and playing outside too.  

It's awesome when days are sunny and warm in winter and you don't need a jacket!

Video - Emmalyn throwing a fit over her food.  Sometimes she isn't cute and fun.

We started Kindermusik again this week.  We are going to a different location with a new teacher, Ms Carolyn.  She's awesome.  In some ways she looks like my mom and she's so fantastic with the kids.  I really, really like her and her style of teaching.  Both Maxwell and Emmalyn are taking classes now.  Max still has his KiddieKeys piano lessons during the week with one of our old Kindermusik teachers, Ms. Leah.

This week, Max had a rare accident at school.  It's been a really long time since he had an accident.  Poor kid.
Max sometime struggles to look through his glasses, he lets them fall down his nose and looks over them since they are blurry to him.
We have added something to my nighttime routine with Maxwell.  I now ask him 3 questions at night.  #1 - What was your favorite part of the day #2 - What was your least favorite part of the day #3 - What is one nice thing you did for someone today.  He rarely comes up with an answer, but I keep asking because I'm trying to build a behavior with him and emphasize the importance of helping others.

I think Emmalyn may be teething again because the drooling is picking back up again.
She will say, "why momma" or "why daddy" when asking why.
She hasn't had much dinner lately.
Emmalyn is tired super early lately.  In face, I put her down at 5 this past weekend thinking that she would take short nap and she never woke up and stayed asleep all night.
Emmalyn is strong at being wiggly when she wants to escape, so strong willed!!!

Maxwell graduates to a new level at swimming lessons

The second week of August was another fun week.  (Sometimes, when you are in the middle of summer, you forget to appreciate it.  Then, you get to the middle of winter and look back at even the most boring weeks of summer longingly.)

Tida and Jason went with us to Costco

Then we hit up the library for some new books

And we topped it off with a stop at the Snow Cone Lady for some snow cones!

Max showing me the computer watch he made at Brittany's

BIG Maxwell

(And since she has to do everything her brother does)

BIG Emmalyn

Max and the coach he's had since he was 18 months (with only few exceptions), Coach Katie.  She's been awesome coach and has continued to challenge Maxwell even when they haven't let him move to the next level because of his age.  She will continue to push him to do more.

Maxwell is graduating Level 5 and moving to Level 6!  Pretty exciting.  They let him go a few weeks before he turned 4. (Level 5 is for ages 5 - 7 and the kids start swimming in a lap lane in the middle of the pool without stairs or a ledge to hang out on.)

More time at the library (it's a great "activity" when it's too stinking hot to be outside).

Ahhh... the drool that NEVER ends.  Look at that drool "spot" on her shirt!

The Halloween fun continues!!

We have had so much fun in October.  As I am going back to blog all about it, I am reminded about what a full month it was.  I don't think we've ever done so many fall/Halloween activities!

Maxwell has achieved all the skills in his current swim level - that means he's going to graduate to the next level!

Ready to go to class

Max and the best swim coach ever - Coach Katie.  She was annoying to me (it makes sense when I learned that she was 16 because her approach in communicating with me was what irritated me the most - she just didn't know any different) when we first started lessons but I have grown to love her and she and Maxwell have a special relationship.  Can't have anyone else but her teach Maxwell!

Maxwell with his certificate of graduation!  He's moving on to Level 5!! We are quite excited that he didn't get stuck in level 4 for a long time.  Katie's done a great job of continuing to challenge him even though he was a pro at the needed skills.

All handsome for school picture day

Here's how the pictures turned out.  I didn't like them enough to buy any so all I have is the proof sheet.

Every once in awhile we have a little fun at work.  I was out at retail and lunch with some of my team and my Perfetti client and we some how came up with the crazy idea of doing a little food eating competition.  So we all tried to eat as many of the cheese puff balls in a minute as we could.  I don't remember who won, but I know it wasn't me.  I laugh too much at what everyone else is doing to focus only on what I'm doing.

Back at work we had our annual Halloween celebrations with people dressing up in costumes and decorating their work areas/departments.  For the first time, we also were able to bring in our kids to "trick or treat" through the office.  So Brittany brought all the kids up after Maxwell got out of preschool and they got LOADED up with goodies.  We had so much stuff that we had to empty everyone's bags out in my office at one point and then kept going.

Landen the farmer, Hayden the bat, Maxwell the pirate, Momma the daily, and Emmalyn the cute Halloween baby

Trick or treat!

Cute kids!

It takes like 10 pictures that look like this with only one kid looking before you get one that is decent.

  

I thought we'd only be there for a short bit but the office is big and the kids kept wanting to do more... plus my kiddos are so cute that we were frequently slowed down by my friendly co-workers wanting to gush over their cuteness to me.  :)  We ended up finally getting out of there after 5:00.

But the fun didn't end there...that night there was a carnival at Maxwell's preschool.  They had lots of games for the kids to play with a bunch of non-candy prizes/treats.

Racing cars

Throwing the rings onto the pirate hooks

I think the adults were pretty impressed with his skills.  :)

Emmalyn got to expand her solid food choices to pears, which she enjoyed.  She is back to cooing and talking to herself before she goes to sleep.  I'm glad she's doing it because I enjoy laying there and listening to her after she nurses in the middle of the night.  Such a sweet girl...