Thursday, January 10, 2019

Christmas 2018 and the Rest of December

Here's the rest of December and our Christmas! Celebrating Christmas with an enthusiastic, hard core Santa believer is quite possibly one of the most joyous ways to spend the season. Thank you to everyone who helped make our 2018 Christmas a fun one!

Christmas Eve shenanigans...


Handsome boy ready for the Christmas Eve service at church.




Max wanted to take a photo of us, too! A little (or a lot!) blurry, but we're centered!



This year our church had battery operated candles for the kids (and real candles for the adults) and it worked out really well!


Picking out snacks for Santa and the reindeer.




Santa came! (presents from Santa, Mom and Dad, and New England relatives)


Looks like Santa got comfy and read "'Twas the Night Before Christmas" while he had his snack!


First peek! (at 5:00AM!)


Light sabers from Santa!



Darth Vadar "costume" (aka pajamas) from Santa!


Operation Game from Santa!


Last but not least, fun stocking treats from Santa. Max was excited to have gotten three things from his list!


Daddy reading his card and opening his gifts from Max...




"Hey, Mom! Take a picture of me with the dogs!" Haha  Don't Charlie and Lucy look thrilled?



Class book exchange on pajama day!


Reading to a therapy dog at the library!



Enjoying a "ninja bread" man!


Forgot to take a photo before we sampled a few...


Annual Chinese food dinner after church on Christmas Eve!






Trying out playing keyboard on his new keyboard stand!


Building projects with John!


Wednesday, December 19, 2018

November 2018 (and December so far!)

Due to busy schedules and technical difficulties, I'm quite behind on sharing photos! Since we're already halfway through December, I thought I'd share some photos from November and a few from the first half of this month. As always, wildly out of order due to the computer saving them in random order. :-)


Matching mother-son toothless smiles! (Max has lost three teeth and the other big one in front is a little wiggly!)


Max spotted this jacket at Target and thought it was really cool. He ran around flapping his wings. :-)  (Sharing because this was a funny moment... it doesn't need to show up under the Christmas tree, grandparents! Haha He wouldn't be able to wear it at school anyway.)


Max bonked his head on something and decided he needed an ice pack. As you can tell from his face, he was really suffering. ;-)


Our sweet friend Natalia turned three years old! Steve and Kirsten hired an INCREDIBLE face painter (seriously the best we've ever seen), and Max chose a full face Spiderman look.


Shooting some Spiderman webs!



Riding the pinata!



Birthday girl!!

Pals!

Ben Sr.and Jr. froze at the GA Tech game, but had a fun evening together nonetheless!


A bittersweet day for me... I sold my Saturn! After 15 years it was starting to become unreliable so we decided to sell it. Lots of great memories and milestones in this car... my first "big" purchase as a young adult, drove it to my first professional job, lots of moves to different apartments, drove it to Hiawassee for our wedding, brought Max home from the hospital in it, and lots of fun road trips. (And if you're wondering, yes, I cried as we left the parking lot without it!)


Max was home sick one day, but felt a little better after a long nap so he enjoyed from fresh air outside while Ben worked on a project in the driveway. He looks like a tiny adult!


Santa!! Max is SO in to Christmas this year. He was really excited and confident in meeting Santa, and is really pumped for Christmas morning. I'd say six years old is my favorite age for Christmas excitement so far!


The place where we visited Santa offered one free download of a professional photo -- turned out pretty good!


Photo from the church Christmas play! Max is in the choir on the left side of the stage.


One day I came out to the kitchen and Max was sprawled out on the counter listening to Christmas music! Crazy kid.


Our little book worm...

Antlers and elf hat headbands are our headgear of choice for putting up Christmas decorations!


Annual putting the star on the tree photo with Dad....


Annual photo in the pilgrim hat! (Unfortunately we were all sick over Thanksgiving, and this is our only Thanksgiving photo. Thank you to everyone for hosting us sickies!)


Second annual Mommy & Max Waffle House breakfast before Christmas shopping for Daddy! We sit at the counter and split waffles, eggs, bacon, and more. It's a blast hanging out one-on-one, watching the staff cook, and chatting with the servers and cooks.


Silly monkey!

Look how LONG Max looks in this photo!!


School holiday performance! From the left, Max is on the back row about 2/3 of the way over. You can see his little blonde head and he's wearing a red sweater vest.



The "big kids" in the church Christmas performance.


Max did GREAT singing in the choir!


Somebody loves Lisa!!


Lisa and John were able to join us for Max's performance at church. Unfortunately bad weather kept all the grandparents away, but we know they were cheering him on from afar!


Handsomest boy at the school holiday performance!



Kindergartners singing at the school performance -- Max is second from the right.


We signed Max up for a martial arts after school program, and he's been taking lessons every Monday during after school care. This Monday he earned his yellow belt! We are so proud of him, and his teacher (Mrs. Wendy) said he has been an excellent student. Looking forward to continuing on in January!


Kicked a board in two as part of his yellow belt test! Needless to say, he thought this was really cool.


Side note: This also happened to be "crazy socks day" at school, hence the two different colored socks. :-)

Church  Christmas performance (K - 2 or so makes up the choir and grades 2 or 3 - 5 make up the actors and solos). Max is looking over his shoulder in a lot of these photos because he wanted to see what the older kids were doing on stage. :-)  These next few photos are from whomever took photos for the church. We couldn't see Max very well since the risers were on the floor and he was on the bottom row, so it was fun to see some up close pictures!







Max spent the night at Walter and Denise's house while Ben and I went to my company holiday dinner. Had to snap a photo of the two of us while we were in something other than jeans and a sweatshirt!


Max loves rubbing Abby's little belly!


Denise and Max enjoyed some pre-bedtime snuggles and books (Abby supervised, of course).


Abby got under the covers at one point and kept licking Max's hands and feet. He thought it was really funny!


Lego time with Walter!


Silly guys!


School performance snippets:



Choir performance snippet (unfortunately we couldn't see Max all that well since he was on the bottom row, but you'll get the gist of it!).


A few clips from Max's martial arts test (to earn his yellow belt).