Second Week of November - Shannon's yearly trip! and Maxwell takes on the stage

I was pretty impressed with this painting Maxwell did.

Trying out my new charcoal mask

I had cavities.  :(  I haven't had them in years.  It was weird to have that numb face feeling again.

Maxwell decorated his turkey for school like Super Mario

Time for another visit to the pediatric optomologist

He always does a great job and is a super patient.

His eyes are improving but not enough that we need to get new glasses unless the ones we have break.

I think I've finally found a hairstylist I'm happy with here!  Her name is Karen.

It was Maxwell's kinder teacher, Mrs. Garza's birthday so the other room mom and I took her a little cake and the kids sang Happy Birthday.  We wanted to do more (nothing crazy) but the principle put out a really strict set of guidelines about what could be done for teacher's birthdays...could only take 10 minutes at the end of a day, couldn't collect money for a present, etc.  It was obnoxious and overboard in my opinion but I followed the rules.

Play-do fun.

Tennis practice

I took the kids to JC Penney to get their Christmas card pictures.  They are going to be so cute.  I give myself brownie points because I did it all by myself - neither Peter nor Brittany were there.  The worst part is after the pictures have been taken when you are going through them all at the computer and trying to look at the pictures but also keep the kids entertained.

She really is this precious and sweet (just with a little spunk sometimes)

Being a silly kid

Donna moved out this week.  It just wasn't working out so she packed up her stuff and Peter took her to the airport to fly back to Utah.

Yay!  My friend Shannon came to town for her yearly trip.  We ALL love having her here.

I took her to a new foodtruck park in town.  I was thrilled to see that my favorite sliders foodtruck was there!

2 sweet and lowdown please!

Maxwell was invited to his friend Preston's birthday party at a kid's theater place.  The kids were going to practice and put on a show for the parents.  Maxwell wanted none of it and was super scared and crying.  I was at Kindermusik with Emmalyn while it was going down and he texted me that Max was doing the super hard-can't-catch-your-breath cry.  The Teacher guy was kind to Max and tried to help him calm down.

Talking and getting ready for the performance.  I wonder if Max will end up doing it?

He did!!!

Whew - that went okay!

Maxwell and Preston (who was the star of the show and a born performer)

We hit up Sam Moon, as always!

Delicious Mexican food for dinner

Spa night and staying up late talking

Maxwell slept in our room on the floor so Shannon could have his bed since Donna's room wasn't fully cleared out.  He thought it was pretty cool.

Shannon and I finished off our fun, but short, weekend with a pedicure where I let Emmalyn pick the color before I left.  She chose orange.

Maxwell loves Shannon.  He only wanted to cuddle with Shannon on the couch, not me.

Daylight savings happened which is awful!  The kids wake up so early, it's painful. Emmalyn keeps waking up early (like before 6:30 am) and only wants milk or milk and cereal.  She doesn't want to go back to sleep.

Love that cute bum in the air.

Emmalyn is progressing on the potty training.  She's had multiple accidents for both pee and poop.  We need to be better facilitators of this process but I'm just no ready yet for her to go out of the house in panties and she won't treat pull-ups like panties but just like a diaper.

Maxwell's first indoor soccer game

Maxwell got to play in his first indoor soccer game for the Tiny Tornados!  We missed their first game because of the cruise...

He was not happy that his shirt was so big that it had to be tucked in

We had asked him what number he wanted to be and he chose "19"  (not sure why - - maybe because his birthday is on the 19th?)

He had to be walked onto the field because he got all shy and nervous despite all our coaching/pep talks beforehand.

The field was separated from the stand by glass.  It meant that the kids couldn't really hear the "fans" in the stands (doesn't mean that stopped some parents from yelling at their kids)

Around the edge of the field were big blowup tubes.  It was great because those kept the ball basically always in play.

Excited to watch Maxwell!

Sorry - - my pics did not turn out well due to the glass.  :(

Maxwell is standing next to his coach rubbing his eyes.  He was crying when the game started because he didn't want to play.

When they finally put him into the game he was still upset.  Here he is just standing on the place where they do the kickoffs even though the game is going on around him.

The coach is trying to talk him into kicking the ball.  She wasn't successful and another kid ended up running up and kicking the ball.

When the coach wasn't successful, the ref tried to talk Maxwell into kicking the ball (I appreciate how kind they were with trying to get Maxwell into the game)

Now the ref is trying to guide Maxwell forward to kick the ball.  He's still not having any of it.

The ref tried to pick Maxwell up and swing his legs so that he would kick the ball.  Max lifted up his legs so that they wouldn't touch the ball.   At this point I about died in the stands.  ugh...were we just wasting our time with this?  Was he ever going to try and play the game?!?!

The whole first half Maxwell just didn't play.  During halftime, Peter took him to the bathroom and after that he came back a totally different kid and was excited to get in and play.

Maxwell finally kicked the ball on a kickoff after the other team scored a point.

Look!!!!  He's running after the ball!!!!

Video - Maxwell playing in his first soccer game.

He's actually going after the ball.  You'll notice how cute the kids are - they all just run after the ball.  When Max runs after the ball he doesn't run into the whole group of kids, instead he prefers to try to get to the ball by running around everyone.

High fives for the other team after the game.

At this age, they don't have a goalie and they don't keep score.

He was happy and pumped after the game.  Hopefully next time he'll get into it much quicker.