Second week of September

Cruising the neighborhood in the neighbor's ride

Maxwell had a ton of fun going through the neighbor's Pokemon cards.  He is really getting into those cards.

Not sure why her whole body is tanned 'cept her bum.  It's not like she's out in the sun only in her diaper.

The school asked for volunteers to help during Kindergarten lunch to help the kids as they get used to eating lunch there.  I took the opportunity to get to see Maxwell at school.  :)

His lunch box is all set up waiting for the kids to get in there (at 10:30 am!).  

His friend Avery

He was happy to see me

With his lunch

Landen at lunch.  It's fun that they go to the same school.  (Note the mom in the background totally feeding her child... I was taken aback to see that.)

I spent my time at the school opening juice boxes, wrappers, getting utensils, letting kids go to the bathrooms, etc.  

Doing some pushups with uncle Joe

Tennis lessons!

She's tall enough to get some water out of the fridge - crazy!  She just doesn't know when to stop, which is a mess.  She loves having ice in her water.

We visited the pediatrician.  I have no idea why at this point...it's been too long.

Movie night

Brittany's birthday!  Joe got her this delicious bouquet from Edible Arrangements.

Peter finished up his major project replacing the lining on the roof of his car.  

Enjoying the weather outside. Wonder where her shirt is???

She had her baby doll too

Emmalyn got a big bike from the neighbor.  It's still a little big and she can't totally do it, but she's very excited about the baby doll seat on the back.

Finger paint fun

Trying it with some paintbrushes

Maxwell painted the letters for his birthday photoshoot all by himself

I wanted Emmalyn to wear this super cute dress that she hadn't worn yet and she threw a huge fit about it.  I finally told her I'd take it off if she would let me take one picture.

Here you go.  Cute dress, cute girl yet the two shall never meet again.

My awesome cucumber and my pathetic strawberries.

Just so you can see how little they are - they are next to a sour patch kid. 

We went to dinner at Chik-Fil-A for Maxwell's School Spirit night.  It was super full of kids - just craziness.

We then went to sonic for ice cream for Grandma Donna's birthday

Update on the kids.
Maxwell gets up in the morning without calling for us to come get him and has been doing it for about a month because the webcam in his room is broken. He used to come in and let us know he is up but he doesn't even do that all the time anymore.  Instead he just gets up, goes to the living room and gets on his ipad.
Emmalyn wakes up grumpy and crying each morning but can quickly shift to happy if you get her out and talk to her.
She's saying 6 words sentences frequently and uses words like "both", "already", and "too".

First week of February 2016

Now that Maxwell has moved up to Level 7 at his swimming classes, here are the skills he's going to be working on. 

She likes to sneak and grab her dad and brother's glasses

Maxwell is so little compared to the other kids in his class (some are two heads taller!)

What a good dad - brushing Emmalyn's hair

He wanted to wear a tie to school... so of course, I helped make that happen.  :)

Maxwell in Kindermusik - he's wearing the red hat.  We have a new teacher - Ms. Carolyn. She reminds me a lot of my mom in her energy and passion.  I really, really, really like her and her teaching style.  It's fun for Maxwell to be back in Kindermusik (last semester there weren't enough kids to have the class).

Soccer skills class

Nice strong kick

Again, he's on the short end in his class.  This is going to be his life - sorry Maxwell!

Running the obstacle course

It was fun watching how his skills have grown.  I still don't like the coach and think he's too harsh on these little kids but at least Maxwell is improving.  

Her morning set up - ipad, cereal in a bag, and sippy cup with milk - - also known as "Bibad", "Cereal" and "Moak"

Peter and I went out so our favorite babysitter Bridgette came over.  The kids were happy to see her.

Maxwell is such a boy - - poop, "bottom", and farts are funny.  He sang jingle bells with "poop" replacing every single word and thought it was the best thing ever.

He has a crush on his aassistant teacher Miss. Shauna,  He told her when she gets married her last name will be Millar and he loves to help her and draws her pictures. It's pretty sweet.

Emmalyn counts to 13, She's really communicating what she wants.  For example: Jingle Bells is her favorite song and she asks for it continuously in the car.  She asks for "Frosty" on the tv, also asks for the iPad

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!!!