Second week of December - Enjoying the holiday season

Uh oh - I was just hoping she wouldn't notice all the ornaments on the tree... (Ha, yeah right!)

Maxwell enjoyed one last play date with his friend Sam and us adults all enjoyed visiting with each other.  We have had a lot of fun hanging out with Sarah and Brad and Sam.  They are moving to Michigan and we are quite sad to lose them!

Maxwell helped me secretly "elf" one of our neighbors

My smiley girl!

Here's a couple videos to show you some of my kids "talents"

Video - Emmalyn blowing raspberries

Video - Maxwell working on his dribbling skills

My Christmas shopping is coming right along

Cuddle time at night - it's a big fight between these two on who gets to be next to Momma

Silly faces

She is perfection - - pure, true perfection!

Playing ring toss on the elf hat

We made our annual trip to the Deerfield neighborhood to look at lights.  This year we went by ourselves and got out and enjoyed a couple streets on foot (and stroller).  Some of our favorites weren't up this year... maybe the houses were sold to new people?

Maxwell caught Daddy resting

Max's selfie

Nerf darts - they make super chew toys

One handed push up

Love those baby eyelashes

She's working on her climbing skills

Everything goes in her mouth...

...even big things

I let her play with one of the ornaments

Emmalyn loves the song "Row, Row, Row your Boat" and will start laughing (really it's more like chuckling) if you sing it to her.  

She has been sleeping horribly lately - she's up every half hour to an hour and sometimes it will work to put the binky in and sometimes it won't.  :(  She is only completely calm and sleeps well if she's in our bed.  While I'm not a fan of having my kids sleep with me, I am a fan of sleep.  

She is great at swallowing her food and is starting to be able to pick up her puffs.

It's great that she can pick up the food we want her to pick up however, the flip side of that is now that she is able to pick little things up, she is also picking up and trying to eat things that she shouldn't - like stuff on the floor such as leaves...and she loves it!  UGH.

Christmas in the Square

December is in full swing!  Yeah for the holidays!

This is what my Christmas shopping looks like - a bunch of Amazon boxes.  I am doing a lot of online shopping this year.

We took the kids and went to the city's "Christmas in the Square" event.  We met our friends Sarah and Brad there with their son Sam and new daughter Naomi.

Santa was arriving just as we were arriving so we got to see him before the official start of the "parade"

Max was not happy to see him

Reindeer Daddy

He was quite nervous knowing Santa was around

The girls!

The boys!  Maxwell didn't want to participate or do anything.  It was incredibly frustrating for me.

Sarah (Naomi), Sam, and Max

Let me correct myself, he was only interested in his funnel cake...beyond that he didn't want to do anything.  Remember how I mentioned that if anyone else is eating, then Emmalyn will get upset until she gets something? Yeah, so she was getting upset and I didn't bring food for her so she got a few bites of a funnel cake.  Sheesh - I couldn't believe I was letting my nearly 8 month old eat a friend funnel cake with sugar on it.  Maxwell was certainly not that "lucky" at that age.  That's what happens with the second child though, right?

Looking at the real reindeer

Max did play a couple of the "games" at the booths.  Apparently the vendors were cooler than Santa.

Waiting for the lighting of the Christmas tree (it ended up being colder than we were properly prepared for so we didn't hang out forever).

When we got home, we'd been "elf'd".  Max was really excited to see what one of our kind neighbors had left for us.

On our way to the event, we passed a big blowup Mr. Potato Head wearing a Santa hat in front of one of the businesses.  Maxwell said the funniest thing as we were passing.  He goes, "That a big potato!  He's wearing a Santa hat.  He should give it back to Santa.  But we should do it for him because he doesn't move."

:)  Isn't it fun to hear the way 3 year olds think?

First night away from Emmalyn

I had been able to avoid any overnight travel for work until this point but I couldn't avoid it any longer.  I finally had to spend my first night away from Emmalyn (hey, I made it 7 1/2 months).  I had a team meeting with my entire team and my clients that would require 2 nights away.  It was incredibly hard to leave.  I had planned to pump the entire time so that my milk supply wouldn't be affected but once I got into that hotel bed, I lost all drive to get up in the middle of the night and pump when she would normally eat.  A good night's sleep totally won out.  Luckily when I got back, my supply was still okay.

The first night we had an appreciation dinner right off the river front in Cincinnati at the aquarium.  

This is the cute pic Peter sent me of Max ready for bed.  I missed him so much!

They brought in a penguin for us to pet.

I tried it.

One of my clients, Ted was all about it.

Mike and Dave (client contacts for another client) presenting an award

Ted's commonly used phrase

Britt sent me this pic the next day of my cute baby.  It was nice to get pictures of what my kids were doing even though it made me miss them.  I tried to Facetime with them every night.

After a long day of meetings, the next night we went out for another team activity.

These characters were excited to wear the Kool-Aid shirts we all got

I thought this centerpiece was festive, pretty, and super simple.  I need to remember this!

Facetime with Emmalyn.  She was so happy to see me.

The meeting went well.  The clients were pleased, my team was pleased, and I was pleased.  AND I was super excited to come home even though it was nice to get away from it all and have a little break.  I really do enjoy work travel but I don't enjoy it enough to sacrifice time at home unless I have to.

This is what the clouds looked like on my way home from the airport.  It's like someone up in the sky was watching me....kind of creepy.

Yeah for being back with my kids!  Here's some of what they are up to lately:

Max is certainly keeping me doing what I "should" like when I am driving with one hand he will remind me to keep two hands on the wheel.  Or, if I cough he will tell me to cough into my elbow.

He's whiny more and more and has started throwing more fits (with tears!).  His whining really gets to Peter.

He continues to shock me with what he remembers and will bring up something from awhile ago.

I don't like his hair short but you do see his dimple more when it's short...

He will make comments on the weather.

He knows when his birthday is.

He still hasn't learned how to recognize a compliment and so I have to prompt him by saying" so and so just paid you a compliment, what do you say?" and then he will say thank you.

He is really polite.

He has no interest in being pushed to play with someone or pushed to play a certain way if he doesn't want to.  He is stubborn in that.

His independence is growing.

We make Maxwell only use the big potty now, where before we would let him pee in the little training potty and poop in the big potty.

He's not tall enough to reach light switches yet.

He's a timid boy.

I love them I catch him singing to himself.

He really wanted us to put up the Christmas decorations, which was fun.

On the plane right home from Utah he asked then the girl was going to bring him food (He was referring to the flight attendant...we might regret having him fly first class if he expects flight attendants to always bring him food!)

Since we got back, Maxwell has been really focused on Utah and says things like, "I want to go to the other Utah" or "Are we still in Utah?" or "We have a Utah car" - - referring to the rental car with the Utah license plates.

Emmalyn is moving all over now.

She will pull up to standing on me.

She has big smiles for everyone but that doesn't mean she wants them to hold her.  She was super clingy to me in Utah.

I learned, in Utah, that she really needs time to just play by herself with her toys rather than having to engage with people constantly.

She is banging things.

Emmalyn does a great job swallowing pureed food.

She HATES it when other people are eating and she isn't.

She wakes up multiple times every night but usually I can pop the binky in and she will go right to sleep.  She has been getting up to nurse at 11 pm and 4 am every night.

Time to get ready for Christmas!

We came home from Utah on Saturday night, which meant we had a late night but it was all worth it because we were able to spend all of Sunday at home unpacking and getting ready for the rest of the week.  That was so much better than coming home on Sunday and feeling stressed (plus we really only missed a few extra hours of visiting on Saturday night).

One of my big goals was to get the holiday stuff put up so that we could enjoy it for more than a couple weeks.  Peter brought everything down from the attic, and then I got overwhelmed.  Why do I have so much stuff??????? (I enjoy it once it all is up but the whole putting it up part is almost as bad as taking it down.)

Maxwell and Hayden helped me hang up the ornaments on the tree.

Always so silly

We finally have a star for the top of the tree.

Our angel tree bag of goodies - all done!

Unhappy, messy girl