Decorating Gingerbread Men and Singing about Frosty

We are having a lot of fun this holiday season.  It's fun to have Maxwell old enough to really be into it.  It's fun to have Britt's family in the house and celebrating the season with us.  It's fun to have our beautiful Emmalyn around and boy is it nice to have had the decorations up from the beginning of the season!

This is what happens when 3 year olds start to accessorize...swim goggles, a glow stick necklace (because he kept his pullup dry overnight) and snow boots.  

And now he's modeling it??

The boys had fun decorating gingerbread men (that I bought last year and we never got around to doing)

Super intense on his decorating

The other great thing about 3 year olds is their "cheese" face you get when you want to take a picture.  It certainly isn't pretty or an authentic smile.

So then you, as the one behind the camera, spend lots of energy trying to get them to break out of their cheese face into their true smile so you can capture sweetness like this.  It's exhausting!

The three finished products.

That old gingerbread couldn't have been easy to take a bite of...

My little shortie who legs don't fill up her pjs so the leg end up dragging behind her

One of my sweet neighbors gave us this playhouse that she didn't need anymore.  I figured it would be fun to have when Emmalyn gets a little bit older but as soon as I brought it in the door, these two boys were all about playing with it.

Bedtime stories (it isn't always this sweet)

Landen adores Emmalyn and is her protector and care giver

Poor Britt has bad luck parking on the street in front of my house.  A few months ago, some guy scraped up the side of her old car (luckily the neighbors saw it and stopped the guy before he took off so he paid for it)...but then she comes outside and sees that someone broke off part of her side mirror (and didn't stop - we don't know who it was) on her new van.  Such a bummer. I told her she should park in the driveway after the first one but she kept parking on the street.  It's super unfortunate.  

We live off the main street in and out of the neighborhood on our side.  We didn't realize it when we bought the house because #1 so much of the neighborhood was still just a big field and we assumed of course they would have another outlet for drivers and #2 no one lived here yet so there was no traffic.  We know now to pay attention to things like this if we ever move.  I love so many things about our home but it is a big bummer to live on this main street because it's the longest street in the neighborhood and people just fly down it without paying attention to the speed limit, children playing and often not paying attention to the stop sign 2 houses away.  We will be more aware next time.

Climbing even in her dress

She likes to play with the doll house too

I love this outfit

Video - (Really it's more of an audio clip) Maxwell singing "Frosty the Snowman" while he's going potty.  His version is more like "Frosty the Snowman, was a happy jelly snow," instead of happy jolly soul.  :)  He loooooves the cartoon Frosty the Snowman.

Hair today...gone tomorrow

I can feel the end of my maternity leave creeping closer each day so I'm trying to get out of the house more and do things with my buddy, Max.

While Hayden was in summer school, we took the boys to the park (Emmalyn slept in the shade).

Silly Landen, Stylin' Max (with stickers on his shirt).  See Max's nice long hair?  It was wet with sweat by the time we left.

It was fun to play at the park with Max.  For awhile I pushed him on the swing and even did the thing where you push them high and then run around him.  It made him nervous but he laughed.

After the park we went to Kohl's so Max could pick out some presents for Father's Day.  I let Max pick a few things all by himself.  I thought he did a great job!  Peter's going to like what he gets.

Apparently being a new mom is tiring!

We hit up the neighborhood pool.  Max is doing great with his swimming and getting quite brave.  He loves jumping into the pool and swimming to dad.

Sweet girl just has to hang out while everyone else swims

I don't mind keeping her entertained.  :)

She's so much more fun now that she's smiling and cooing.  She tries so hard to talk and sometimes nothing comes out and you can see how frustrated she gets with that.

Her onesie says "I'm the little sister"

We started a new curriculum at Kindermusik.  Max was excited to read the new book...

...and play with his new castanets and blow up beach ball.

Peter had asked him earlier if he wanted to get a haircut and he immediately said yes and then continued to talk about it on the way to Kindermusik and back.  He REALLY wanted to go.  So, momma took him to get his hair cut (although I know what he really wanted was the sucker he gets after the hair cut).  I decided to try a shorter hairstyle for the summer.  I picked out a style in the style book and crossed my fingers.

Before...such beautiful hair!

Yikes!  Look how much hair is on that cape.

He was AMAZING and sat there with no problems.  So proud of him!

The after is so dramatic that he stopped outside to look at himself some more in the reflection.  He called the spiky part at the front a "hat".

Enjoying his sucker

And the after picture....ugh, it's so dramatically different.  I really miss his longer hair.  Why did I do this!?

Washing some fruit in water and vinegar.  I thought it was a beautiful thing.

Hanging out more by the pool while daddy, Maxwell, and the Mejias swim

Dinner at Mooyah means he gets to write on the wall

The 3 ninjas 

(They were all dancing to the music)

Max is certainly growing up.  I went it to check in on him when he was sleeping and he was sleeping with his HEAD on the pillow instead of laying, with his whole body, on top of the pillow.  Sad.  :(  Plus he wasn't sleeping all curled up with a stuffed animal or blanket.  It's such a weird contradiction to enjoy seeing your child grow but to also hate it at the same time and want to keep them just the way they are today.

Max has gotten the hang of using feminine pronouns when referring to Emmalyn and will now say "she" and "her".

One of the things I love about Emmalyn is how after I'm done nursing her and she's fallen asleep, I will lift her up to burp her and she will keep her feet all tucked in to her body like they were when she was nursing.  I find it so sweet.

Good news - she has only pooped on me once in a few weeks so I think we are finally past that stage!