We took Max to see Santa last weekend. We thought he might not be too sure about the big guy in red, and it turns out we were right. Maxwell was fine when we go there, and was okay standing near Santa with me holding him, but wasn’t interested in sitting on his lap. We decided he was going to cry no matter what, so I quickly handed him to Santa, they took the picture, and then I rescued him again. You can see he has a tight grip on his good friend Chester bear, whom we brought along for moral support. The picture really is priceless:

We also recently did a holiday mini-session with the fabulous J. Shelton Photography . As always, we love how she captures Max, and he looks like such a big boy in these pictures! Thanks Justine!

After our session we wandered around the grounds a bit. Max was fascinated by the big water wheel. He kept saying and signing “Ball,” as in this picture:

What’s better than a ride on Daddy’s shoulders, and keeping the rhythm on his head?

Max’s Oma and Opa arrived yesterday and we’re having a great time together. Pictures of that to come next time!

Last weekend we were blessed with dry, sunny weather, so we took advantage of the opportunity to go out and get a Christmas tree. We went to a farm not far from our house to cut our own, which was definitely cheaper (not to mention more fun) than the pre-cut trees we’ve gotten in the past. I wasn’t sure what Maxwell would think of a tree in the middle of the living room, but so far it’s gone remarkably well. We brought it in and decorated it while he was napping, and he was certainly interested when he woke up, but then it was back to his toys, no big deal. He likes to point out the ornaments but has yet to try to take them off.

Here we are deciding on our tree:

We’ll take this one!

Max and I were excellent supervisors while Jeff cut down the tree:

What Seattle rain? Look at that view:

That afternoon I wanted to get some pictures of Max in what Jeff calls his “Breakout” sweater though the pattern is technically “Jelly Bean.” Now, don’t start to get impressed that I made this. I only knit things that are flat, like scarves and blankets. Max’s Oma (Jeff’s mom) is a very talented knitter who has made Max several beautiful sweaters, including this one.

I know this one is dark, but it’s such a cute smile!

Don’t you just melt?

Here’s Maxwell doing one of his favorite new tricks: Head on the floor, sometimes with hands in the air. He’s come close to going over in a somersault, but hasn’t quite gotten there yet:

Max is working on saying more words. Usually he just says the first sound of a word, which can make interpretation tricky….”Ba” could be Ball, Book, Box, etc. But it is great to hear him talking more to communicate. I get to hear a lot of “Mama” these days, which I love. We’ll be taking him to see Santa this weekend, which I’m sure will be interesting. My guess is Max may not be so happy in the picture, but who knows, maybe he’ll surprise me like he did at the dentist. We have been talking up how nice Santa is and how fun it will be to see him. Stay tuned for photos!

Happy Thanksgiving to all! I don’t have many pictures from yesterday, but I’m happy to report we had a snowy but safe drive to my Grandma’s house for Thanksgiving dinner with about 20 extended family members. Max didn’t eat a lot of the feast, but he did enjoy some sweet potatoes and turkey. Mostly he wanted to play with all the cool toys Great-Grandma has. I am so grateful for my wonderful husband, our amazing boy, and time spent with family.

I recently took Max on his first visit to the dentist. I figured it would be more to expose him to the dental office than to really do a cleaning, as I didn’t know how comfortable he’d be. The office we visited was recommended by a friend and specializes in pediatric dentistry. They had a cool train table in the lobby, so that was a good start:

Once they called us back, the hygienist explained that they would just get as far as they could with the exam, and stop when Max had had enough. We decided to see how he did in the chair, but she said we could do the exam with him in my lap if we needed to. Lo and behold, Maxwell surprised me by sitting in the chair as nice as you please, and letting both the hygienist and dentist clean and look at his teeth. This was good news on many counts, not the least of which was that it allowed me to take pictures of this historic first visit.

Checking out the chair:

Looking up at the TV:

Examining the toothbrush she’ll use:

This isn’t so bad:

I don’t know what you were worried about Mom, this is no big deal!

Max loved the water sprayer. I don’t know how long he would have kept drinking from it if she hadn’t moved on:

Look Mom! A light-up mirror!

At the end of the exam they let Max try on the sunglasses, which were a bit hit:

This month Max has been taking a gymnastics class on Saturdays. It’s “Parent-Tot Gymnastics” since of course it’s not like he’s quite ready to just hop on the uneven bars and learn a routine. We figured it would be a fun activity and good for his gross motor skill development. I’m happy to report that it has been a great success, Max really likes the different things he gets to do and is eager to get started when we get there. At the end of class the kids sit on the edge of the gymnastics floor and the teacher comes down the line and stamps their hands. Maxwell wasn’t sure about this at first, but once he had a stamp, he was sold. At today’s class he got stamps on both hands and on his feet. The class session is over now but we’ll definitely be doing this again in the new year.

We had a home visit earlier this week to evaluate Max for speech therapy. We weren’t surprised that the results of the evaluation were that Max is ahead of his age as far as receptive speech, and behind in expressive speech. The therapist was impressed by how much he understands, and says that she sees a lot smart kids who figure out that they can get by with “yes” and “no” and pointing, which Max does, though he does say a few words and signs nearly 20 words. She gave us some techniques to use to encourage him to talk more, and we’re already seeing progress. We’ll have another visit in a month to touch base and see where to go from there.

Max is definitely showing his own opinions on things more and more. The other night Jeff was putting pajamas on him after a bath. I was downstairs and heard Max crying. I figured he must have slightly hurt himself, but he was still crying when they came downstairs. I tried giving him a hug, but he was having none of it, just crying and tugging on his pants. Jeff explained that Max was suddenly NOT a fan of the pirate pajama pants (never mind that he’s worn them oh, 50 times). His favorite owl jammies were in the wash, so we offered the dog jammies as his other option, and that was satisfactory. Since then we’ve been trying to give him a choice between two options whenever possible when dressing him, and that definitely helps.

And now, gymnastics photos! Maxwell and Daddy wait for class to start while admiring all the fun equipment:

Every class starts with the kids picking a small stuffed animal out of
a basket and then climbing up these ladders to retrieve it:

Running down the trampoline ramp. This ends in a big pit filled with foam blocks. Maxwell wasn’t too interested in jumping into the pit the first couple times, but by the third class he figured out that it was fun. To be honest, I wanted to jump in there myself. They even have a rope swing so you can swing out over the pit and then jump in. How fun is that?!

The balance beam:

And assorted other fun things:

So we’re not quite halfway through November, and here I am finally getting caught up on October. Whew! I’m sorry to report that I don’t have any pictures to share of Max in his cute monkey costume, because Maxwell hates said costume. We attempted to try it on once, and great protest ensured. Thereafter, any time I would even hold up the costume, unpleasant sounds and frantic “All done” signing would commence. So, we compromised. We attended a birthday party for one of Max’s friends a couple weeks before Halloween. The party was a “pizza party” theme (really well done, may I add) and all the kids attending got chef’s hats to wear. Max loved his and wore it all through the party and later at home. So when we attended a “wear your costume” party held at a friend’s house, Max wore his chef’s hat and carried around a measuring cup (something he likes to play with anyway), as a makeshift costume. Here he is at Hailey’s party, wearing his hat:

And the group picture at the baby costume party. Can you see how thrilled they are to be posing?

Not to worry, fun was had at the party. Max discovered a Bumbo chair, which occupied him for quite some time:

And there were balloons! Here’s a series of Maxwell and his friend Holden enjoying them. First, Max finds an orange balloon:

Then, there’s some disagreement about who should hold the balloon:

But not to worry, there’s another orange balloon!

Hooray! Balloon fun for everyone!

We didn’t take Max trick-or-treating this year, since (a) He hates his costume and (b) He really has no concept of what the holiday is. I’m sure next year will be a different story. He did help hand out candy, and before the trick-or-treaters started, he helped Daddy sort out the candy. What? Everyone knows you save the best candy for the end, so if you have leftovers, it’s the good stuff.

And to close, here are a couple photos of Max being cute in his new hat from our friend Leanne of Tiny Toppers. He loves the hat and likes to wear it around the house.

Two blog posts in one day! I just may get caught up after all. My dad and Helen also visited in October, we had a great weekend with them and we all wished they could have stayed longer. It rained most of the time they were here, so we did some shopping, some lunching out, and some general relaxing around the house. We did have a brief period of dry skies Sunday morning, so we stopped at a pumpkin patch near our house to get a pumpkin for our porch, as well as some yummy pasta sauce that they have at the farm stand there. They have a cow train like the one at the other farm we visited, so Maxwell and I went for a ride on that, since it was such a hit before, and it did not disappoint this time. I thought I had more pictures to share with you from this visit, but apparently I did something wrong when uploading the ones from Dad and Helen’s camera. Here are some pictures from the farm trip:

Watching the train:

Wheelbarrow ride!

I’m a delinquent blogger again! We had such a fun and busy October, I’ve spent the beginning of November getting caught up on everything. Hopefully that “getting caught up” will soon include this blog. We were lucky to have not just one but TWO visits from family in October. Here are the pictures from Round One, a visit from Jeff’s brother Greg and our niece Elizabeth. We always love seeing them, and can’t wait to have them and Leah and Emma here for Thanksgiving. It’s an annual tradition that we visit a local farm to do the corn maze and other activities when they visit us in the fall. This year the weather was looking dicey but it was mostly dry Saturday morning, so off we went. We did a fast trip through the corn maze (Max is a little young to get much out of it this year) and got to do the fun kid activities, including the “cow train” before the rain started falling in earnest.

Max loved the wagon ride to the corn maze. It was nice and bumpy, one of his favorite things. The farmer driving the hay ride stops partway through to talk about the farm and the maze, and as soon as we stopped, Max signed “More.”

Here we are preparing to enter the maze:

The farm has a giant play area filled with corn kernels:

On the tire swing:

Riding the cow train, which was another hit with Maxwell:

Greg and Elizabeth share a birthday, and we celebrated them (a little late) on this visit. Here’s Elizabeth ready for cake:

Happy Birthdays!

What did I tell you, dear readers? Here I am again, just a day after my last entry, writing another one. Granted, it will be short, but still. This is round two of our October fun: A visit to my grandma’s house. She lives a couple hours north of us, so we don’t get up there as often as we would like. It had been too long since we made the trip, and we were glad to be able to spend a Sunday there earlier this month. Thankfully Max is over his “I don’t nap in the car” phase, which lasted a long and torturous six months, so he will usually crash on the drive home. Sunday dinner (aka lunch) at Grandma’s can be a large affair, but this time it was a smaller crowd, so Maxwell got all the toys to himself. Here he is playing at the same table where I used to sit, with the the same Fisher Price schoolhouse that I loved:

He loved this mailbox:

With my grandma, my mom and my Great-Uncle Bill:

When I was growing up, my mom and I would come to Washington for three weeks in the summer and stay at my grandparents’ farm. I loved those visits, and have such happy memories of time with family (one favorite: When I went to town with Grandpa and we stopped for ice cream on the way there……and on the way back!). I feel blessed that Max will have wonderful memories of time with his relatives too. He has a Grandma close by, my mom’s extended family not far away, and our out of town family visits as often as they can, and those visits will have special memories all their own. I have friends who have some crazy in-laws, and I’m very glad to say that both sides of Maxwell’s family are filled with wonderful people–he is a lucky boy, indeed.

Yes, I’m falling behind on blogging again, but I’m getting back on track, I promise. I’m going to try to at least two, if not three, blog posts this weekend to get caught up on our fun fall adventures. Of course this is somewhat dependent on how long Max naps, but hopefully I can get one post done today at least. My friend Jenn is a great writer and she has undertaken a mission to blog daily for a month to get caught up. Of course, she usually blogs at about 3am, which won’t work for me since I get up not even three hours after that, but I love reading her daily entries. I don’t think I’m quite ready for that commitment, but I’ll try to get back to once a week at least.

Fall is flying by for us! We’ve had a visit from family and have more family coming next weekend, two birthday parties for Max’s friends, and we have a Halloween party with some friends tomorrow. Somewhere in there Max was sick again but I’m happy to report he is feeling much better now. He has however developed a new habit of waking somewhere around 4-5 in the morning. He’ll sit up in bed, hold Chester bear, and cry until I go in. Then he’s instantly quiet and goes right back to sleep when I leave. Hmmm…I’m thinking we’ll be working on a Falling Back to Sleep By Yourself refresher course soon. Hopefully it won’t be too traumatic for any of us.

Max continues to add signs to his repertoire, he now also signs “ball,” “where” and “swing.”  One of his favorite foods is broccoli. That was definitely inherited from Jeff, as many of you know I eat broccoli fairly often, but only because I know it is good for me. The other day we had broccoli and chicken. Maxwell would only eat the chicken if we hid small pieces in bites of broccoli. Jeff and I were amusing ourselves wondering how many parents out there hide the food they want their child to eat in the broccoli he loves.

For round one of fall fun photos, I’ll share pictures from a visit Max and I made earlier this month to a nearby farm. We wandered around, since it was a weekday morning we had the place almost to ourselves. Maxwell loved the flags around the parking lot:

Checking out the bins of pumpkins and gourds:

Have you ever knocked on a pumpkin? No? Give it a try!

Showing me his rock, which he found in the parking lot and held almost the whole time:

I love these three:

This farm has a “How Tall This Fall?” sign that is up every year. We’ve taken pictures in front of it for the past couple years, and I wanted one of Max by it this year too. Yeah, not so much. I’m going to have to go back with Jeff so I can click the camera shutter the second Jeff stands him in the right spot. This was the best I could do:

And a final one of him showing me his rock (as you may have guessed, this was generally how I got him to look at me for a picture):

Those of you who visit this blog to see pictures of Max have hit the jackpot today! We got Maxwell’s 18 month pictures from the fabulous Justine of J. Shelton Photography and they are stunning. For those of you who haven’t done it lately, photographing a toddler is hard. Max isn’t old enough to get the concept of posing or sitting for pictures, but he’s past the age where we could plop him on the ground and he would sit there obligingly. He was on the go the whole session and had his own ideas about what he would do and not do for pictures, but you sure wouldn’t know it looking at Justine’s images. She did such a good job of capturing his sweet smile and gorgeous blue eyes. I really wanted to post all the pictures here, but I did restrict myself a bit.

We had Max’s 18 month well-child visit on Monday. I was so busy keeping him entertained and contained I completely forgot to get his actual numbers for height and weight, but I can tell you he’s moved up to the 70th percentile in weight, and remains at the top of the charts for height and head circumference. His pediatrician said that it’s okay that he’s not saying very many words verbally, she was impressed with his 15 signs and said he clearly understands what’s going on. She said if he’s not saying more words in a couple months, then we could do speech therapy as it can help things to “click” sooner and reduce everyone’s frustration level.

This is such a fun age. I love interacting with Max, watching him learn new things, and playing together. It’s so funny the things that he picks up on….we usually take off our shoes when we come in the house, and of course take off jackets too. Now when Jeff or I come home, Max insists we take off our shoes and coat before he will give us a hug or let us do anything else. He likes to hide inside a big cardboard box we have out for him to play with. If you say, “Where’s Maxwell?” you’ll hear a little voice say “Hmmm” from inside the box. He’ll also say it when he covers his eyes up and we ask where he is. So. Cute!

Here’s the picture bonanza, enjoy!