New Years Eve 2012

The last night of 2012 was fantastic.  I am so grateful for my awesome sisters and their families.  I am also grateful for our house and the space it provided for us to all hang out together.

Max happily played with his cousins all night.

 Each year we make basically the exact same things to eat for our New Years' snacks.  This year I wanted to shake that up so I challenged my sisters - we each had to try at least one new recipe.

Brittany testing her recipe.

The kids enjoyed their fort.

Hayden has no idea what's about to hit him...

Tackled by Max!!!

Look how big and awesome that fort it - thanks Aunt Kimi.

Love!

What a cute family.

My cute family.

Kimber's family with a photo bomb courtesy of Hayden.

Superman shots (and Kaity holding nothing).   No one is having fun. (HA!)

The kids enjoying their celebratory virgin Pina Coladas.

Even Max got  to enjoy some.

Our spread...

The new recipe items -  (and because I'm blogging this 3 1/2 months later I can't completely remember)

Italian Sausage Hoagies

Jalapeno popper dip

cornbread jalapeno poppers

...and I don't remember anything else.  We didn't end up making one of Kimberly's because it was too much food already.  While it was all good, nothing was so amazing that we would make it again.  Oh well - it was good to try something different!

Pina Colada/Strawberry Daiquiri mixed together.  Yummy.

Gotta love the drool stain - he's teething.

Having a father/son talk.

Video - I can't get enough of this giggle.  Peter is still the best at getting it.

Kisses for Aunt Brittany

Picnic dinner

TOnce the kids were down, we played Apples to Apples.  We didn't even notice when midnight hit because we were having fun.

Small chance getting a picture without one of us pulling a face... :)

I called it a night earlier than everyone else (because Max was still going to get up at 7:00 regardless of a holiday or not) and they stayed up playing more Uno.

Second half of Christmas break

Here's more of the fun we were up to during Christmas break.

Video - I finally was able to capture Max saying some of the words he knows.

Kaitlyn wanted to help give Max a bath.  He was pretty happy with that.

LOVE the way they are looking at each other.  I think this bath helped break the ice with Max regarding Kaitlyn.

Sometimes, with all the crazy cousins around, Max just needed some alone time.  He thought watching a movie on the ipad while sitting at his table was a pretty neat thing to do.

Kaitlyn opened her "restaurant" for breakfast.  She did a great job taking every one's order, helping cook, and setting the table.  Her and Tyler are getting so old!

The snow was completely melted a few days after the storm.  Peter and I had gone shopping for a bunch of crafts/activities for the kids to do so that it wasn't complete chaos or boredom.  We broke out the first activity and played with some sidewalk chalk.

Even Max got into the action... for a few minutes anyway.

Then he just entertained himself and played outside.

The big kids did pictures with the dot makers.

Max in his fort.

Looking at Aunt Brittany's phone

Whatever they were looking at must have been funny!

Kaity got in on it too.

The REALLY big kids played too later that night - UNO!

Max is climbing on everything lately.  I worry if giving him this slide was a good idea.

He will only go down on his belly though.

Max loves reading this book lately.

And he loves daddy reading it to him. 

Max is really climbing on everything lately, whether it's his new table, his slide, Christmas boxes, whatever!  I stopped nursing Max at night before bedtime on Christmas Eve which means he now only nurses in the morning when he wakes up.  While it's nice to not have the hassle, I am sad we are down to nursing only once a day.  Max said "candy" today and I was like, what?! How did you learn that! (I blame Christmas vacation.)  Max is really good as saying "please" (it sounds like "eeze") and "thank you" (it sounds like "day-do") when we prompt him to and sometimes he does it without being prompted.  He says "Kallie" but it sounds like "daddy". 

He says "eight", "nine", and "ten".  (Thank you, book pictured above.)  Sometimes he will know what number is coming next.  He loves to touch and poke at your eyes while saying "eyes".  "Bubbles, Bubbles" is his favorite book to read right now before bed and he has started asking for it specifically by saying "bubbles".  He is beginning to mimic back the words when we ask him to say something.  It's a fun thing seeing him develop his language skills!  Lots of proud Momma moments.

We should have gone to Mooyah...

Christmas vacation continues...

The day after Christmas, Kimberly, Kaitlyn, and I hit the streets for the after-Christmas clearance sales.  I had wanted to get out of the house before 7 am but we didn't leave until around 7:30.  I was worried everything would be picked over.  NOT AT ALL!!!  We should have snow storms every year on Christmas Day.  The roads weren't cleared yet so people weren't venturing out.  There were like 5 cars in the parking lot at Target.  And it was the same at Lowe's and Joann's.  It was awesome.  The only downside was that the parking lots were sheets of ice.  So you walked super carefully and still ended up sliding.  Trying to push a shopping cart on ice is interesting. :)  It made for great shopping though.

Max had fun hanging out with dad while the girls shopped.  Peter sent me this picture of him taking advantage of his new table.  Ugh!

Naps were pretty tough during the holiday break.  Max wouldn't sleep by himself in the pack-n-play so I ended up laying next to him, stroking his face until he went to sleep for nearly every nap.

Kaitlyn, Tyler, and I tried to make a snowman.  It was NOT good snowman snow.  Here's our sad snowman.

More playing in the snow!

Snowball fight

Max loves the tablet Aunt Kimi gave him for Christmas

He thought he was pretty cool drinking water out of this big kid cup

I loved watching all the cousins play together.  They did such a good job!

Kimber and her kids were hanging out at Brittany's one day so we had an afternoon to ourselves.  We decided to get out of the house and go to lunch.  We couldn't decide where to go.  We finally chose to go get hamburgers at Mooyah (similar to a 5 Guys).  When we got to Mooyah I pulled a last minute change and suggested we go try a Mexican Restaurant in the same parking lot, called Ernestos.  The parking lot was pretty empty and I did what I usually do, park a few spots further from most of the cars so we could get a few more steps in.  :)

Max enjoyed himself coloring!

He also enjoyed snacking on the chips.

We had eaten the appetizer we ordered and had just gotten our entrees when one of the employees of the restaurant came up and asked if we were the owners of a silver Toyota Highlander.  We said that we were.  He then said that someone had hit our car and the guy that hit it was in the restaurant trying to find the owners of the car he hit.  WHAT?!?!?!?!?!?!

So the guy came over and apologized, said he would take care of the damages, and gave us his business card.  We were calm and nice but inside I was FREAKING OUT!  As soon as he left, Peter went outside to check out how bad the damage was.

I was inside with Max envisioning how bad things were going to be.  Would we have to have our car towed?  Was it drivable?  etc.

Peter came back in and showed me the pics he'd taken:



As you can see, it was not as catastrophic as I was imagining.  So this guy had a big old u-haul and wanted to park it.  I don't know if you can tell or not, but the parking lot was really empty.  So why he had to park so freaking close to other cars versus parking further out stumps me.  But anyway, he pulls this big truck in and a part of the truck swipes the side of my car, breaking my tail light and scratching my bumper.

I was glad it wasn't as bad as I thought but of course was still super bummed about my car.  So our meal was ruined.  I think I had 1 bite of my entree.  I instead went into "problem solver" mode.  While we were still in the restaurant I got onto Yelp to find a body shop with good reviews, called the shop and arranged to bring the car over for an appraisal.  We drove straight there from the restaurant, the guy appraised it, and we set up a time for me to bring it back in the next week to get the taillight replaced and then bring it in a week later so it could be painted while I was traveling out of town.

We called the guy who hit it to let him know how much it would be, he agreed to pay the full amount (over 500.00 in damages!).  By the next day, Peter and this guy met back up at the "scene of the crime" to get the guy's check and we had cashed the check.  I am so grateful this guy owned up to what he did and took responsibility for it, especially since he just paid for it and we didn't have to deal with the hassle of insurance companies.  It was solved easily and quickly.  Yeah!

I LOVE the owner of the auto body shop we went to.  He is absolutely fantastic - great service and great work at a fair price.  If you are in North Texas and need a good auto body shop, let me know - - I've got the guy for you.

Things about Max recently:

• When he sleeps at night he takes his blanket and sleeps on top of it
• He says "blankie", "on", "ow", "bubbles", and "down" (he uses down for both down and up)
• He has been super clingy and won't go to Kimberly or the kids so far
• He loves eating Oatmeal Squares cereal
• As you have read, he's had a couple of firsts this week - first time eating bacon, first time going to McDonald's, first time blowing kisses, and today after all the car drama we stopped at a liquor store to get supplies for New Years Eve and so Max has now been in a liquor store for the first time (yeah, we were those parents...but the shopping carts DID have spots for kids to sit in so we can't be the only ones)