Pumpkins and babies and birthday's, oh my!

A few weekends ago we met up with our friends at Kinsey Family Farm to see some pumpkins, and celebrate Denise's birthday with a picnic lunch! We had a fantastic time and enjoyed perfect fall weather. Here are some pictures from our big day out! (Seriously... is there anything cuter than two babies in a pumpkin patch?)

Waving "hello" to people riding by on the hayride!

Love this little girl! Look at those big brown eyes...

Important discussions about pumpkins ensued....

Happy birthday, Denise!!

More than likely saying, "Hi-eeeeeeeeeeeeee!"

Baby playing with matches... always a good idea. :-)

We Have a Walker!

We have a walker! Max took his first unassisted steps the day after he turned 13 months old. Crawling is still his primary mode of transportation, but he's taking more and more steps all the time. Watch out world!

Other fun things to note in this video...

- One night at dinner Ben showed Max how to make his hand move like a little mouth and say, "Quack! Quack! Quack!" and he picked it up immediately. It is adorable!!

- Max loves the sheriff dog on his shirt. When we put it on him he gets really excited and pats his belly and pulls it out to make sure we see it.

- Don't these pajamas make him look more like a little boy and less like a baby? Gah! I love it and hate it all at the same time. :-)

http://youtu.be/5tCfJMGXDT0

Big Boy....Proud Mama

It's a big week at Crabapple Academy! Max has been moved up to the Toddler Room at daycare as of Monday. Drop-off and pick-up were a family affair the first day. Max was fine, of course, but I shed some tears (Ben was quick to remind the teachers that I cry at cat commercials-- haha!).

I admit that my chest swelled with pride when we picked him up. One of his teachers said something like, "I have found my new little buddy! He is so sweet and well-behaved. Max waves and says 'hi' all day long. He fell asleep two seconds after we put him on his cot at nap time, and did great sitting at the table to eat."

My baby is growing up!!!!

Life Lately

Life and work has been super crazy around here, but I didn't want too much more time to pass without some updates on Mr. Max! We are in full-on toddler mode these days and Max is practically walking, learned how to climb stairs, does a little bit of sign language at meal time, tries to communicate and occasionally follows simple directions (i.e., "Where is your book?"), and the big one.... HE TAKES LONG, REGULAR NAPS AND GOES TO SLEEP RIGHT AWAY AT NIGHT!!

If you have ever been around Max for an extended period of time during the day or at bedtime, you know that sleep has always been a big struggle (basically little sleep and lots of crying... for Max and Mommy). The only thing that changed was the calendar; and the kid now takes one long nap a day if he's at daycare (usually at least 90 minutes long), and two long naps if he's at home (usually an hour to an hour and 45 minutes EACH). At bedtime we do his routine, plop him in the crib, he fusses for about a minute (more of a "Hey! Where are you going?!" type of fussing) then he lays down and sleeps all night (occasionally a 4:30am wake-up because he's hungry, but then he'll often go back to bed until 6:00 or so).

An answered prayer, a miracle, whatever you want to call it... life is grand, people. :-)  Max has always been a generally happy little guy, but now that he's a WELL RESTED little guy, the happiness is bursting out of him and he's a barrel of laughs. (Now that I have put this out in to the Universe I need to go knock on every piece of wood I can find so I don't jinx it! haha)


Now, it' photo and video dump time....

http://youtu.be/OVMtLmA4QYk

http://youtu.be/r6ZyrZYer0Q

http://youtu.be/1FieBbK2N3I

http://youtu.be/AabsKNTqm6k

This is a picture from Max's video baby monitor. If you look closely you can see that he's propped his foot up on the crib bumper in his sleep! haha

Spoon Feeding

Max is starting to learn how to use a spoon to feed himself. For this first real go-around at home (letting him do everything rather than loading a spoon and handing it over) we decided to strip him down to his diaper, cover the floor, and hand him a bowl of yogurt. Here are the results...

http://youtu.be/JEQEofKET5c

Needless to say, Max went straight to the bathtub. :-)

Catching Up

Here's a bunch of random, unrelated stuff I never got around to posting... enjoy!


First "Art" On the Refrigerator:

Max's teachers at daycare are always doing lots of activities and crafts with the babies. We get fun pictures and things with hand prints and foot prints on most holidays, and occasionally out of the blue. This time, however, Max did most of the work! He and Ms. Sondra worked together to stick these dots all over his paper. You'll notice that some of the stickers are outside the white area. We like to think this means he is creative and "thinks outside the box".

Then and Now:

Max often hung out in his bouncy seat while we ate meals, showered, etc. in the early days. We haven't used it in months, but I thought it might be fun to take a picture almost a year later. It's crazy how much he grew!

Fresh from the "oven"...

~ 365 days later...

Baby shoes in the shoe pile... adorable!!!

Max finally discovers Juliet (the fake dog in our entryway).... and loves her:

Here is a video of itsy bitsy Max that never made it to the blog! He was so TINY!

http://youtu.be/-WAR0nJOBOU