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!

Just a quick post, this is a non-Maxwell entry, advance warning that there are no pictures of him in this post. Last weekend I did a super-fun “Trash the Dress” session with a group of mom friends and a couple great local photographers. If you’re not familiar, the idea behind “Trash the Dress” is for a bride to go out after her wedding, put on her wedding dress and take fun pictures now that she doesn’t have to worry about staining that beautiful gown. We decided that doing a group session would be fun, and it definitely was. We went to Seattle Center, which is where the Space Needle is but also home to the Experience Music Project, a big musical fountain, and a carnival/arcade area. Lots of fun backdrops, and we finished off the afternoon by getting soaked in the fountain! Both photographers have some “sneak peeks” up on their websites. The first is Justine Shelton, our family’s fabulous photographer. See her Trash the Dress photos here . I’m in the group shots, of course, and the sixth one down from the top is me. The lovely Stacey Atkin also put her photographic skills to work and got some wonderful shots. See the peek here . The 8th and 9th ones down from the top are me, check out the double rainbow in the 8th one! Justine and Stacey were assisted by the awesome Katia Lines, who posted some of her own great pictures from the day here . Since I’m not in a fountain in these, I think it’s pretty easy to tell which ones are me.

This was such a fun day, I highly recommend trashing the dress to any bride!

I can’t believe I forgot to post this link yesterday! Here are the teasers the fabulous Justine posted of Maxwell’s 18 month session. We are in love with them, Justine has such a gift for capturing our family. Enjoy!

I don’t have a theme for this week’s blog entry, but here it is Sunday and I’m trying to stick with my goal of posting something once a week. I know the grandparents check eagerly for new entries, so here you go, folks: some random thoughts and photos from our week. Max is continuing to be on the move, walking all over the place and exploring everything. My mom signed the two of them up for a Kindermusik class and their first session was Wednesday. Max enjoyed the class, stuck pretty close to Grandma and waited until he got home to try out his wooden music maker (just as the teacher said the 18 month olds typically did).

Today is a special day in our household…not only is today the day Max is officially 18 months old, but it also marks six years since Jeff and I had our first date! It’s been the best six years of my life, I am so blessed to have these two men in my life. Maxwell’s official 18 month checkup isn’t for another week, so I’ll have to post his height and weight stats after that. Max currently says “Da Da” and his versions of: meow, woof woof, whoo-whoo (he has owl jammies so we taught him the owl sound), vroom-vroom, and he attempts to say “Down” and occasionally “Mama” (usually comes out as “Mmmmmmm”). He signs: More, All Done, Water, Milk, Apple, Banana, Sleep, Bath, Book, Bird, Eat, Airplane, Change (we use this when we change his diaper), Thank You and Please. Max can point to his: ears, head, hair, mouth, teeth, tongue, cheeks, chin, neck, tummy, belly button, hands, fingers, feet and toes. Eyes are funny, he clearly knows what they are and can point to our eyes, Chester bear’s eyes, or eyes in a picture book but if you ask him where his eyes are, he points to his ears. I think maybe it just feels funny to him to touch his eyes.

Max loves books and definitely has his favorites, and also has favorite pages. When we reach such a page, he wants to stop, or turn back if we’ve passed it, and spend some time looking at it and pointing to his favorite things while we name them. He still loves to swing at the park, and often holds something small in one hand. We’re working on using utensils, he still flips the spoon over before it gets to his mouth most of the time, but he has the idea. He has definite ideas about how things should be, and will let us know if something isn’t right, such as a light that should be on. Jeff and I were just talking today about how much fun he is, we love this age.

And now for some pictures! Here’s a couple from a play date we had with some good friends last week. This is my friend Leanne’s son Oliver with Max. Max is sitting in Oliver’s baby sister’s Bumbo seat. For those of you who aren’t familiar with the Bumbo, it’s for babies to sit in in that phase where they want to be upright but can’t quite sit there on their own. We had one for Max but it’s been packed away for almost a year now. Maxwell thought the Bumbo was pretty cool and had to sit in it. Here he is consulting with Oliver:

Then Ollie tried to push him across the floor in the Bumbo, but it was hard to get up much speed:

The other day I came home from work and my mom showed me a couple things Max had done during the day. They invented a game where Maxwell sits on the first stair landing and Grandma tosses him a ball, which he then tosses back down. Here he is moving his arms and legs in excitement as he awaits the ball:

The other funny thing Max had done that day involved a blanket that Max decided he wanted to wear on his head. He had a great time wearing it draped over his head, walking around, peering out from underneath it. He decided that it should not be on his head when he was in his rocking chair, so he would climb in there and then take it off, then want help to put it back on before climbing down. He had the cutest grin while wearing the blanket. What a funny Bug.

Climbing into the chair:

Playing with Grandma:

So cute!

Last weekend we took Max to the zoo for the first time along with our friends Angel, Eric and Emmeline. The weather forecast was for showers, but the skies cleared and we had great weather. We saw lots of cool animals, shared a tailgating picnic lunch, and squeezed in a few more animals before Max was almost asleep on his feet. He zonked out before we got back on the freeway. We had a great time and look forward to going again! Here’s the picture bonanza, in a few of these you can see a small rock in Max’s hand, he held that through almost our entire visit.

These monkeys were making a crazy amount of noise that could be heard all over the zoo. Check out that huge balloon-like throat they have inflated!

Car picnic!

Max loves to be tossed in the air:

Signing “more” as soon as I stopped:

Happy boy:

We set the kids next to each other to take a picture. Maxwell sweetly reached over and held Emmeline’s hand. Awwww…..

Wait, what’s that in his hand?

Oh. He stole her snack.

I love the way you can see Jeff laughing in this one.

Max is walking really well these days. He looks so cute walking along, holding his hands out a bit for balance, self-correcting when he starts to tip over (most of the time) and standing up again when he does lose his balance. When we were at the zoo he definitely didn’t want to sit in the stroller for long stretches, but would much rather be out and moving. We had the fabulous J. Shelton Photography take Maxwell’s 18 month pictures (a week early) yesterday. I will definitely share those when we get them!

We took Max for his first haircut on Saturday. I took a gazillion pictures, no surprise, so be prepared for a picture-heavy blog entry. We went to this cute children’s salon called, appropriately enough, Bella and Max. They even have a cute sign out front that I forgot to take a picture of. Oops. I’ll get one next time. We weren’t too sure how Max would feel about sitting in the chair (actually, an airplane) for the haircut so we stopped en route to get a food bribe. Poor kid doesn’t often get sweets, so we got a piece of Starbucks’ pumpkin bread to use as a distraction. It worked well, when we first put him in the plane he started crying and reaching for me, but as soon as Jeff cracked out the bread, he was happy to sit there and kept signing for more. Here he is getting started, look how much hair he has in the back (he held his Duplo blocks the whole time):

The first snip:

Putting on the cape:

Here he is with a full mouth, beginning to sign “More” since the bread just can’t come fast enough:

Almost done!

Doesn’t he look so much older?

The salon gives a free ticket to ride the train when you purchase a haircut. So after Max got his new ‘do, we walked up the hill to the train, and the three of us went for a ride. Here’s Max and Daddy walking together, I love this.

Waiting to start the ride:

Max loved the ride. Much of it was over gravel, so it was really bumpy, and that was a big hit. Here he is enjoying the view:

In addition to the train, the shopping center has some other really fun things, so we checked it all out. They have birds:

And toys (yep, he’s still holding the Duplos):

And a play house:

Even a rooster named Bob!

Max thought this fountain looked like it would be fun to swim in, here he is attempting to climb into it:

All in all, a very successful morning! In other news, Max has gotten really good at walking just in the last few days. He can now walk much longer stretches, and while he still falls down fairly often, he has mastered getting up from the floor without any assistance. We have some recent video, so I’ll try to get that up with the next blog entry. Max still loves to wave…at us, at the kitties, at the garage door when it closes….the other day he was walking and passed the outlets on the side of our kitchen island. They have the safety plugs but he’s still not allowed to touch them. He stopped, looked at the outlets, gave them a wave, and kept going. So cute! He’s also learned how to get down the stairs by himself on his tummy. He’ll carefully lay down at the top of the stairs, then scoot back until he reaches the first step and slide down to the landing. Then stop, lay down flat on his tummy again on the landing, and repeat. It’s so much fun to see him learning new things all the time.

Wishing everyone a great holiday weekend! We are headed to the zoo with friends on Sunday (Max’s first visit!) so I’m sure I’ll have lots of pictures from that to share soon.

We’ve had a wonderful and busy weekend so far. Saturday Max went to his first concert! Our friends Angel and Eric introduced us to the children’s band “Caspar Babypants.” Their lead singer happens to be the former lead singer for the band The Presidents of the United States of America. They sing really fun, clever kids’ music that won’t make the grownups crazy when it gets stuck in their heads. Caspar Babypants was performing a free concert at a local bookstore and a few of our friends were going, so off we went. Here’s Max waiting for the show to start, enjoying a Starbucks breakfast sandwich (one of his favorite things):

The band, rocking out:

Then things really got crazy:

Enjoying the tunes:

Max’s friend Cambryn and her mom Kacie. The bookstore where we were has a big department of University of Washington gear, so Kacie had to represent for WSU:

Eric and Emmeline (and Angel in the background ):

After the concert Jeff and Eric waited in line while we let the kids play a bit. The flip sticks were a hit:

Then we got autographed CDs and photos with the band:

Then it was home for lunch and a nap, followed by more fun….we headed to Laura and Dave’s house for their famous shrimp and goat cheese pizza. Soooooo yummy. Before dinner we hung out outside for a bit. Max loved climbing up and down the deck stairs:

Taking a break with the ladies:

Maxwell discovered he could push one of the chairs around the patio. So much fun!

And sometimes you just need a Mama Hug:

A most wonderful weekend.

Max loves to have something small to hold onto. Riding in the stroller, eating a meal, or just playing, he can often be found with something in one hand. Often it’s a puzzle piece, fridge magnet, or small toy, but his most favorites are:

The Kitchen Utensils

Max looooves to have one of us take him to the kitchen counter so he can pick out a spatula, or wooden spoon, or whisk. Then he’ll hold said utensil, sometimes use it to feed one of his stuffed animals or for banging on the coffee table, but mostly it’s just nice to hang on to. Every so often I have to do a roundup of the utensils so I can get dinner prepared. I wanted to memorialize the kitchen utensil phase because I realize the day will come when they won’t be that cool, and I want to remember how much he loved them at this point in life.

We’ve had a fun couple weeks, and I have pictures to prove it! The weather here has been pretty variable lately. I’ll start with a shot from last weekend, when it was rainy and cooler. Max discovered that one of the playground slides had a puddle of water at the base just perfect for splashing. If you look closely, you can see the drops on his face from when he tried to drink the water.

Last weekend we had good friends over for dinner and playtime. Their daughter Emmeline has appeared in this blog before; it’s so fun to watch our two little ones together. Here they are checking out Max’s clock:

Max playing with Jeff and Angel (check out that tower!):

Emmeline loved Max’s new “Cozy Coupe” car. At one point Max was taking a turn in the car and Angel was pushing him. Poor Emmeline was walking behind them, arms outstretched, face crumpled up, as if she was saying, “Not only do I not get to ride in the car, but MY mom is pushing him!” It was pitiful and cute all at the same time. Thankfully, she was happy again once she got another chance to ride:

Mid-week Max and I joined some friends with little ones at a local children’s museum. Lots of fun was had by all, followed by lunch at Panera. Here’s Maxwell checking out the train table:

And the fish tank:

I’ll leave you with some “It’s a toddler in a cabinet!” pictures. Max likes to open and close this cabinet door and put toys in the cabinet. Last night he was doing that and while he turned around, our cat Pixel jumped into the cabinet. When Max saw this, you could see the light come on…”Maybe I could fit in this cabinet!” Indeed he did.