Every week seems to
go faster than the one before. This spring has been by far my busiest
ever, with three kids . . . between Noah playing flag football,
having guitar lessons and going too Boy Scouts; as well as Amelia
participating in soccer, dance and swim lessons. To add to the
busy-ness, I recently started some personal training with clients again;
anyone that has a one-year-old know that’s a full-time
job in itself. It’s been around two months since my last post and I
know there is way too much to try and cover, so I will hit the
highlights.
Noah and his friend, Ben, built this awesome theme park out of K'nex.
During spring break I
had planned on taking the kids to Florida for the week to visit Mike.
As bad as this sounds, I never got around to booking
the flight. When I looked a week before I planned to leave, the prices
were outrageous. It worked out for the best, since I feel like the
kids and I made the best of staying at home and lounging around. It was
so nice to not set the alarm for 6:30am every
day. When school started the next week, Noah and I were both wondering, “Is it summer yet?”
Believe it or not, he was actually happy.
My workout buddy!
Practicing some pretty awesome dance moves.
Our family REALLY loves to dance!
Max is FULLY
walking. In fact, if he’s not down on the ground walking around, he
lets you know just how mad he is. He has also really been expanding
his vocabulary -- some of his new phrases include: thank you, welcome,
baby, big boy, "Let It Go" (singing a song from
Frozen), ball, book, uh-oh,
more, no, yes, Max, guitar and dance. If he’s hungry, he goes to where I
keep his food in the pantry, grabs a jar of baby food, brings it to me,
and then goes to his chair and waits for me to put him in.
My mom visited for a
few days and it worked out perfectly that Jason stopped by to stay the
night on his way to and from Oklahoma. It was really
fun and made me realize how much I really miss living by family. Max
was especially smitten with Jason; he constantly wanted to be held by
him and would keep leaning over to smile at him. It was great to play
cards with my mom, even if she kicked my butt.
My mom was able to go to "Grandparents Day" at Amelia's preschool.
My mom watched the kids so we could go on a double date with some good friends.
We are currently
working on some house projects, both inside and out and will post some
pictures in the next blog. It’s been a lot of work, but it
feels good to invest in our home and make it feel more like “ours”!
It’s hard for me to digest that Max turned one . . . it feels like
yesterday when we got to hold him for the first time and look into his
beautiful blue eyes. He is such a good-natured little boy and brings so
much joy to our family. He is also very lucky to have Amelia and Noah
as siblings; they truly dote on him!
Mike’s
mom, Nancy, was able to fly out for his birthday party. Unfortunately,
Max and Amelia were up in the middle of the night throwing up the day
before she arrived. I got the stomach bug the day after she arrived,
and she and Mike followed shortly after. Thankfully, we were all well
by the time of his birthday party.
Being
that it was his first birthday and he doesn’t care about picking the
theme, I chose a “Mustache Bash” for him. It was incredible to me all
the party supplies available for a mustache-themed 1st birthday. I may
have gone a little overboard, but I do enjoy planning and hosting the
kids' birthday parties.
He wasn't a huge fan of the icing...
Max is a
momma’s boy, big time; thankfully, when Mike is home, he enjoys going to
him, too. After a few days with Grandma Nancy, he warmed up to her.
However, at the birthday party he wouldn’t even consider going to anyone
else. Max was in a really good mood and seemed to enjoy having “Happy
Birthday” sung to him.
Max at one: Can say Mama, Dada, dog, cat, light, ball and he just learned "nose" Loves to clap Gives high-fives, usually to only Mike or me Waves hi and bye Puts the phone up to his ears and jabbers Takes a few steps on his own every day for the last few weeks but isn’t walking yet Gives kisses and hugs to the people in our family Absolutely LOVES Lucy and is always trying to get her to give him kisses Loves playing peek-a-boo, patty cake and Itsy Bitsy Spider Loves to turn the pages when we read books together Is always trying to get my earring and necklaces Loves to strum the guitar and likes to watch Mike and Noah play guitar
Mike
started traveling to Florida for work right before the holidays, so we
thought it would be fun for me to fly out and meet him there to
celebrate
his birthday weekend.
We
spent the majority of our weekend in Miami, and I was happy for the
beautiful, warm weather, especially because it seems like we’ve had an
extra
cold winter in Texas. It was an odd feeling to be walking in our
bathing suits on the beach in the middle of January. I had no idea
Miami Beach would be so beautiful, and I was shocked to see how clean
it’s kept. We stayed at the Conrad in downtown Miami,
which had an awesome view of the ocean. It was amazing to look out and
see all the lights from the different Florida Keys and see the giant
cruise ships docked in the harbor. I’ve never been on a cruise or seen a
ship close up – they are pretty impressive.
On
Sunday we drove to Key Biscayne and spent the day relaxing on the
beach. I can honestly say that walking on the beach is one of my
favorite things
to do in life. Combine that with being with my favorite person in the
world; it was pretty much the best day of my life. When we were
walking, we realized there were giant sand bars about 50 to 100 feet out
in the water. You didn’t have to wade too deep
to reach them and once you’re on them, it looks like you’re walking on
water. Mike and I agreed this particular experience was probably our
favorite memory from the weekend.
My
mom made our getaway weekend possible by flying out to watch the kids.
It worked out that my dad was able to fly out on Saturday and stay
until
I got back on Monday to help out. Watching three little kids is not
the easiest job in the world, but from the photos she sent me, I could
tell they were really enjoying their time with their nana and papa. I
was happy to get back early enough on Monday
to spend some time with my dad before his flight back.
We
had a fun holiday break. The best part was that Mike took two weeks
off, and we had him all to ourselves! I was spoiled rotten by him
cooking amazing
meals every night; seriously, he hasn’t made food that is anything
short of delicious. It was extra nice to have him home since he
recently started traveling for work again, so we all tried to maximize
our family time.
We
decided that with his two weeks off, we’d try and do a big house
project. We painted our office/guestroom that is located above the
garage. It
was built to be a media room, so it was painted a dark green and didn’t
have any windows – that have been fine if we used it as a media room,
but that was not the case.
I took Noah and Amelia to ICE! at the Gaylord Texas; the theme this year was
The Nutcracker. It was ice sculptures of different themes
throughout the story and made with over two million pounds of ice. It
wasn’t quite what we were expecting but fun nonetheless. We went back to the Gaylord once Mike was on was on Vacation so the kids could see Santa.
We
had a giant storm the week after Thanksgiving that kept us homebound
for a few days. The kids loved it because school was cancelled for two
days
and they got to go sledding.
Our
neighbors invited us over for a Christmas Eve party. It was great
because the kids all played and it made Christmas Eve extra special. I
feel so
lucky to have so many wonderful neighbors . . . the people in Texas
definitely make up for some of the “down” sides to living here.
Christmas
morning was a little interesting. About 30 minutes into the kids
opening their gifts, Mike got the worst bloody nose I’ve ever seen. It
was seriously gushing out of his nose. After about 45 minutes of it
not improving, he drove himself to the ER and was gone for the next few
hours. Thankfully, it finally stopped at the ER, but I felt so bad that
he missed most of Christmas morning. Then,
poor Max and Amelia were both diagnosed with RSV (respiratory syncytial
virus) on New Year’s Day and have spent most the week battling fevers
and dealing with terrible congestion. Max definitely had it the worst.
I’ve never seen him more miserable! It’s
horrible watching your children when they feel horrible, and I am so
ready for Max to be back to his happy self.
Noah
got a skateboard from Santa, and I bought Mike a longboard for
Christmas. We’ve had so much fun riding them around. For anyone who
loves to surf
and snowboard but lives in a place where those two things aren’t
possible, you have to buy a longboard!
I was able to attend both Noah and Amelia's class holiday party. Which was nothing short of amazing because Noah's started 30 minutes after Amelia's; thankfully there schools are only a half mile apart!
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