Christmas in Florida 2011

Unconventional, but spending the holiday at the beach was just what we needed this year!

Mama and Max looking at a shell he picked up.
Curt and Papa waiting for the sun to go down.
Bo and Max digging in the sand. That and swimming were Max's favorite activities.
Picking flowers for Mama!
Just another beautiful sunset!

Merry Christmas cont.

Lunch with everyone at the Mucky Duck on Captiva.
Max called it the "Monkey Duck".
We had a lot of fun playing frisbee on the beach.
Max only got hit in the head once!
Oh cousin Sadie! You're stuck now for sure.

Sigh!

I came across this video while prepping the birthday candle video. Where did the time go? It is hard for me to believe that the Max in this video is the same one that I see every day. I miss this little guy and his sweet giggles.

Happy 2 Year Birthday!

On this day, two years ago, Curtis and I had our lives changed forever... and it has all been for the better! Yes Max is officially two although I think his 2 year old switch went off on Wednesday. He has always been so good about minding me, especially when doing something dangerous. Well apparently all bets are off and we are in for it now! Deep breaths! We will persevere!

Last year after his birthday I blogged about how it wasn't the best birthday. For some reason Max and I were just "off" that day and we have had many more days like that since. But today was wonderful! I put together a very impromptu party with our usual play-groupers so many of the other kids in the pics will be some you have seen before. However we had a couple of additions which was extra fun as well. We had a quick b-day cupcake at our house followed my some serious fun at the Jump-n Place. We were so fortunate to share today with friends (and with Papa) making it a great day to remember always!

New Elmo shoes!

More Elmo... it was an Elmo-licious birthday!

Anne and Jasmijn made Max a birthday hat. Very cute!

Ugh! Too much birthday fun!

Jack, Luca, Jasmijn and Laina, thanks for making today a special day!

Sea World Continued!

Waiting for the shuttle to take us to Sea World.
Everything was decorated for Christmas... a little weird seeing as how it was 75 degrees that day!
Max and Daddy riding the ferris wheel.
Finally! The orca show! We waited all day for it!
Max fell asleep 5 minutes into the orca show.

One of Max's favorite things was the carousel. He rode it multiple times and would hand pick his horse each time. In the video we are sitting on the "red" horse. He would kiss his horse then grab me by the back of the head and make me kiss the horse as well.

Non-Thanksgiving Thanksgiving

Hi everyone!

I hope you are all celebrating this Thanksgiving in just the way you wanted! We didn't have any family headed our way so I decided cooking for just three was not MY ideal way of celebrating the day so we packed up and headed for San Antonio. Yesterday we spent the whole day at Sea World and kicked it off by eating lunch with the characters from Sesame Street. I was nervous how Max would like it... I was always intimidated by people dressed in costumes, but after a few minutes warming up he was ALL over them. He would walk away from our booth because Elmo was across the room and he needed to go and hug him. It was really sweet. And since there were so few families yesterday we really had a lot of time with all of them. At one point Max crawled up into an empty booth and both Grover and Elmo came over and sat with him for a good 10 minutes or more. Pre-school heaven!!! Later we walked the park and watched some shows. I'll post pictures from that later. For now our lunch with Sesame Street!

Max meets his hero!

Max and Rosita. She is not one of his "main" characters, but this was a cute picture.
Wow! Big Bird is tall in real life. Way taller than Mommy, and that's saying something!
A little shy at first. He needed Daddy confidence!
Cookie Monster! Nom, nom, nom!

And finally a video of Max, Grover and Elmo. Please excuse me eating in the background but in a situation like this we eat when we get the slightest break!

BU Homecoming

Go Bears!

We went to the homecoming parade a couple of weeks ago. It was a crisp autumn morning, just the right weather for football (it is currently 80 degrees now, not so footbally if you ask me). We also went to the first half of the game, but we didn't get any photos. Again, Max's favorite part of both the parade and the game was the band. He is crazy about the drums. In the clip below (which is the shorter version) you can see him clapping along. The longer version is just of the band and Max watches it over and over. He also yells "Go Bears!" along with the band. Even when we went to the Veteran's Parade he continues to yell "Go Bears!". Yup, we start 'em young.

Showing off our cool hats and Bear pride! Note: the hat didn't last much longer!

Max and Jasmijn enjoying the parade.