Happy Birthday Max!

Happy Birthday, Max!! 2!! wow... 2!!!!

These pics are from Max's photo shoot with Jax Creations. (http://www.jax-creations.com/) Our little baby is now a big boy toddler! He's so fast and strong; it's hard keeping up with him. But, he is, by far, the biggest joy of our lives. He makes me and Tommy smile every day and just fills our hearts!

Tonight we're going to PanHandler Pies for dinner ... followed by a small cup cake party on Sunday.

* photos by http://www.jax-creations.com/

Countdown to Two!

Look how handsome I am!


Inspecting the creation.

The countdown to two is ticking away! I can’t believe our “baby” is 2! *blink* TWO! Max is so strong, fast, funny, inquisitive; loveable, smart … I could go on and on! Proud mama! Some Maxisms – his favorites things at age 2:

Lights, this has been a fascination all along, but now he can control them and that makes it all the more exciting. Nighttime ritual includes walking around down stairs and making sure all the lights are off. We get particularly excited over the swag hanging light that he has to be lifted up to pull the cord and the ceiling fan.

Coloring is another wonderful obsession. Tommy covers the coffee table with white paper and tapes it down for Max’s daily new canvas. Every morning when Max wakes up, he is completely excited to see the vast blankness and anticipates, excitingly what he will create.

Watching home movies starring… Max! Every diaper change involves Max checking out the documented adventures of his life. It’s the only thing that keeps him still enough to change him without making a total mess. As Grandpa always says, “He’s the most well documented kid on the planet!”

Pushing around anything with wheels including the tricycle he hasn’t figured out he can actually ride on. It’s a total bonus if he is strong enough to flip the object over and spin the wheels with his hands as fast as he can.

Favorite foods: Oatmeal with daddy in the morning, peanut butter and jelly, grilled cheese, broccoli, spinach, goldfish, and bites of mommy’s go lean bars. He loves and drinks tons of milk and enjoys making cow sounds whenever we take the carton out of the refrigerator.

Getting ready for night night is the best part of the day. Max and mama snuggle and watch Blues Clues before we make the rounds to turn off the lights. Daddy is in charge of making sure dino-blankie is heading upstairs with us. I hold Max’s hands and try to get him to actually walk up the stairs instead of just floundering his legs like a crazy man. Max then runs for the fan and picks it up like “strong man” and grunts and shows how strong he is. He gets one binky to suck, and one to hold for good luck. (I think we’re breakin’ the binky habit for our birthday.) Kisses for mama, kisses for dada, family hug and down he goes. Night time prayer and lots of love.

What a beautiful time two is! I hope we remember it forever!

Long time... no blog

I am sooo far behind on updating our family blog! It’s February and I haven’t even posted about Christmas! We had an awesome time visiting family back in Massachusetts. Max loved hanging out with his cousins and getting lots of special attention from them. We also had a blast visiting Auntie Lisa at the Little Gym. Max got to play with a bunch of little kids, which he loved. We only wish there was one close to home. We also went to the New England Aquarium with Grandpops Bob. That was a very special, great time. Grandpa Dave took us to a fun Christmas show with all kinds of mannequins displaying Christmas scenes … that was fun … except Santa scared Max. LOL

January has been a blur! Mama has a new job and it’s sucking up all kinds of time. It’s all good, just have lots to learn. Now that February is here … it’s time to start thinking about Max’s birthday party! He’s almost 2! Can you stand it?

SANTA!

Max went to see Santa at the Creek yesterday. He, of course, was hesitant … so we sat on the side of the room and watched Santa with other little kids first. Then we got up the courage to wave to Santa. He came over to try to let Max know Santa was nice and was talking softly to him. Max even was brave enough to give a high five and a fist bump to Santa. But, when it was time for Max to sit on Santa’s lap …. Uuuhhh…. No way! He put the vice grip on Mama. So, we sat in the chair and Santa stood behind us. This was the first picture taken. Right after, Max burst out into tears and held his arms out for Daddy. Poor little guy was scared to death. I could feel the death grip and him tremble. So, we ended that experience pretty quickly. LOL. I guess every kid gets to be tortured by scary Santa in their lifetime. It’s a right of passage.

Great Friends

Our favorite part of the week is always a playdate with Chloe. The mama’s like hanging out too, so it’s really perfect. This week Jenn and Chloe came to our house. Max was in the mood for coloring and lots of “ring around the rosy”. That is his new obsession; I thank Jenn for teaching it to him! I don’t think Tommy plays it often with Max, so it’s always the first thing he wants to do with me when I get home. So funny and sweet. Anyway, we love our time together and are so lucky to have such nice friends.

Coloring is fun!

Can I have your binky?

Great Friends!

Max random cuteness!

Snow!

We had a light dusting of snow recently, just enough for Max to get familiar with the fluffy white stuff. He couldn’t really get around on his own last year, so this is a much different experience. He had a great time pushing his truck and/or stroller around the drive way. He gets a little OCD about it; don’t know where that comes from. Anyway, at first, his gear was a little sparse. We had to wrestle him down to bundle him up so he could continue with his mission of pushing anything with wheels around the driveway in circles. Our little boy! He’s just a crack up to be around these days!

1st Haircut

Max had his first haircut today. He cried a little bit, but all in all, he did very well. No buzz cut or anything extreme. Just trim off the bozo curls that stuck out. You can see that he was a little tense in this pic. He looks great. So grown up, our little boy!

Artwork

Max is learning to enjoy crayons and drawing. His artworks, of course, are master pieces. Luckily he hasn’t tried to eat the crayons or draw on the walls … yet! I’m sure that is just around the corner.

Halloween 2009

We had a fun time at the Little Creekers Halloween party. It’s always a crack up to see all the munchkins all dressed up; Max was a tiger. We had been practicing our ‘roars’ for days, but he got some stage freight when there were a lot of people around. He found a cool pumpkin mask on a sick that he liked playing peek-a-boo with. That was probably his favorite part. The candy would have been his favorite part, but we didn’t give him any. I know; we’re so mean. LOL.

Happy Feet

Max got to play with his BFF Chloe yesterday. It was great fun because we haven’t gotten together in a while. He taught Chloe one of his favorite things to play: “Happy Feet”. So dang cute!

Autumn Bliss

Fall is in the air! It’s beautiful!! We’ve had a great weekend, playing outside in the crisp air, running around in circles by the garden and endless games of “I’m gonna get you”. Family fun at its finest. Max is so big and fast, that often times Tommy and I just look at him like, “WOW! Who is this little boy and where did our baby Max go?” We’re so proud of him and love how much he makes us laugh every day. It’s such a blessing to have such a happy, safe and healthy family that fills us with such joy! Life is good.

Grandpa's Birthday!

Grandpa has been visiting us this week from Corpus Christie. Max is having fun chasing him and making him read his favorite books. I don’t think Grandpa seems to mind though. We were extra excited to be able to spend his 78th birthday with him. Tommy made us all a wonderful dinner and then we had cake for Grandpa. Max wasn’t sure what to make of the candles and us all singing. He was looking at us all kind of funny.





Grandpa also brought some old family photos with him. Those were really fun to look through. Especially when you see his baby pictures; Max looks sooo much like him! It’s crazy! I guess Max is a Rowell, through and through … and those are some good genes.

Max's favorite activity

What is Max's favorite thing to do? Watch videos starring ... MAX! He's our little ego maniac. I have to say, it comes in quite handy. Changing a diaper and Max is a wiggle worm? Turn on a video and he's obsessed with watching and laughing at himself. Pretty dang funny. He has now learned the sign for "please". So, he stands in front of the computer, points at it, and makes the "please" sign. Oh, well ... at least he'll be a polite ego maniac!

Max and Jax .... Max's first ice cream cone

www.jax-creations.com

Max and Jax got to meet for ice cream! I got to meet Jackie's new precious boy, Charlie too. What a darling. I just wanted to cuddle him up.

Max was very serious at this ice cream shop. He had Jackie dancing on the sidewalk trying to get him to smile. It was fun for passers by too. :)

Jackie is such a wonderful photographer! I can't recommend her highly enough. Check out her web sites and see her art!

http://www.jaxcreations.blogspot.com/






e





www.jax-creations.com

cha cha changes ....

such a happy guy




tough guy look



Max is changing! He's growing soooo fast! You can see the little boy in him coming out and the baby fading away. That went too quickly. But, he just keeps getting better and more fun all the time. He loves to give kisses, dancing, running in the yard, chasing the cat, etc. He is now tall enough so it's not just turning the light switch off, it's on too! On, off, on, off, on, off ....

Other favorite past times include: dumping the dogs' water dish outside, climbing on furniture, putting rocks in buckets - dumping them out and starting all over again, turning on/off TV/Dish, pulling all the books off the book shelf, rearranging furniture and trying to plug/unplug all wires and cords. Completely obsessed with watching videos of himself. Funny stuff!

He's got some serious molars coming in so he's always got his fingers in his mouth. He's taking it all pretty well, although he has woken up the last couple of nights. which is unusual. Hopefully he's feeling better soon.

Other than that, it's been the best summer ever! We have another visitor coming out soon ... Grandpa Tom from Corpus. We can't wait for him to be here!! We're hoping to pull off a painting project before he arrives. There ought to be some good blog posts on that! Are we crazy to try to pain the downstairs with a 1 1/2 year old? Probably!



playing at the lake with Daddy.



Exploring the yard.