Max & Mommy, Mommy & Max

 

 

 

Christmas Sing

Max was very excited to watch Liam's Christmas concert yesterday!

Max's friend Kendall, who is also Liam's friend Joey's sister, with her dad.

Liam's class! He was "very nervous to sing in front of people", but did a great job!

And here he is after the program, just buttoning his pants up all the way! Good thing he was wearing a long shirt! And his "girlfriend" Ari is the little blonde girl on the far left!

Cute brothers at school! 

Baking

I am on my third batch of caramels this Christmas season, and just finished whipping up some "million dollar cookie" dough that is now chilling. I have my fingers crossed that this year will not be a repeat of the epic Christmas Cookie Fail of 2009...

Stay tuned...!

Snow!

We don't have a sledding hill at our house, so the boys improvised...!

 

 

Even Ellie got in on the fun!

Moore Wedding Snapshots

The boys looked so handsome all dressed up for Aaron's cousin Rochelle's wedding a few weeks ago!

Love this sweet boy!

Meg and Aaron's cousin Josh.

Max spent the majority of the reception on the floor, drawing!

Elfie and Barfing

Elfie played another trick last night by parking herself on the window seat with some miniature hershey's kisses and making a mess! I actually wrapped chocolate chips in tin foil and put a little chocolate on Elfie's face for the kids to find! Before morning, though, Liam woke up and said he had a stomach ache...and then puked all over our bedroom floor. Poor kid. He slept on the couch and felt better this morning. He and Max were both very excited to see what Elfie had been up to...during the night...and the barfing episode...

Elfie Update

Our elf has just drawn a Christmas tree on the bathroom mirror with toothpaste...the boys are going to love it when they wake up and find her holding the toothpaste tube in there!

Happy St. Nick's Day!

St. Nick visited our house veeeeeery early this morning in a sleep-deprived stupor after a long shift at work! The boys have been asking for "Elf on a Shelf" and St. Nick brought it for them! The elf somehow busted through the wrapping paper, though, and then wound toilet paper around the Christmas tree before perching herself on a top branch! Liam got the Junie B. Jones Christmas book he's been wanting, and Max got "Yummy, Yucky" by Leslie Patricelli, one of our favorite author/illustrators! St. Nick also left some treats in their stockings AND some "north pole snow" scattered around the living room.

The boys named their girl elf "Elfie" and are very excited to see where she will end up tomorrow morning!

More Cookie Party Pictures

The newest dispatchers - Holly, me and Ashley.

Everyone, and some cookies!

911 Christmas Party

My co-worker, Amber, hosted a "wine and cheese"/"cookie exchange" night at her house for all past and present 911 dispatchers. It was a ton of fun. It was nice to visit with everyone outside of work, and just relax and have a night out. Plus, everyone made great Christmas cookies to share! I've had a hard time meeting good friends my age since moving to Green Bay, and now I'm finally in a job where there are a lot of young moms and fun ladies! We don't often have much time to hang out away from work (most of us are sleeping if we're not working!), but I still count many of them as great friends! Hopefully when things calm down and we all have a little more free time we will get our families together, too!

Whistle While You Work

Max loooooves our dog, Ellie. He is constantly wrestling with her and playing with her. She follows him around for hours, just waiting for him to drop something for her to eat and/or chew on. He watches how we "train" her very closely and has begun "whistling" for her to come to him. Instead of actual whistling, though, he makes this adorable high-pitched "hoooooooooooo!" sound and she comes running. It's hilarious!

Last night, he came out of his room after bedtime to go potty. He was in there for awhile and then we heard, "Mom, can you help me wipe my butt?"...."Mom? Hoooooooooooooooooooo!"

Oh, Maxwell. :)

Happy Thanksgiving!

I hope your Thanksgiving celebrations were relaxing and fun! We had Thanksgiving brunch at Ron and Meg's so I could get some turkey and stuffing before my 2pm shift. Liam made a sign and put out a basket for people to put donations in. He explained that he was collecting donations for Hurricane Sandy victims! They did a colletion at his school that raised over $1000, and he wanted to do his own! So, tomorrow I will bring him to the Red Cross to deliver his donations!

Love my compassionate kid.

Party for Liam!

Ron and Meg graciously hosted Liam's party again this year!
Sarah made him this awesome pirate ship fort that slips over a card table! We piled his presents on top.

With the pirate fort came pirate garb...arrrr!

I can't believe this kid is 6! Stop growing!

Aww...cute brothers!

Again this year I vowed to take a picture of the boys with everyone who came to the party. And AGAIN this year I took ONE picture. Just one.

At least it turned out cute!

Oh, and one with me, but that doesn't count in my tally!

He got so many awesome presents! People really know what he likes and made some great choices!

A microscope and telescope set!

 

A digital camera!

Grandma Meg made this awesome cake with Liam's favorite candy - Kit Kats!

Happy Birthday, buddy!

He loooooves his camera!

Such a great day!

Bells Will Be Ringing...

We rang bells at the Big Red Kettle tonight! The boys did very well and made sure to say "thank you" and "Merry Christmas" to everyone. We had a 1 hour slot, which turned out to be just the right amount of time.

Liam likes wearing the apron and the Santa hat, Max...not so much. Liam rang the bell for most of the time we were there. Max...rolled around on the floor, did ninja moves whilst ringing the bell and laid partially under a loveseat in the middle of the mall. And you know what? I let him. He wasn't hurting anyone, and he was being pretty good despite spending the majority of his time on or near the floor. He was right next to us and just couldn't stand to be doing one thing (ringing bells) for a whole hour. Aaron did have to take him on a walk once, but he really was not that bad.

Max told me all about a game he made up that he was practicing while we rang bells. It involved jumping on the loveseat, falling on the floor, running around in a circle, tackling, lying half under the loveseat...and I'm sure there were some other rules I'm forgetting. It was cute. He has an incredibly big imagination, but he uses it differently than Liam does. He experiences things much more physically than Liam does, and I need to just let him be Max. Most of the time...!



Liam is 6!

It doesn't seem so long ago that Liam was just this big!



And it's hard to believe that he's now THIS big!!

I asked him what kind of balloons he wants for his party and he said,
 "I don't know. But, whatever they are, I'm going to LOVE them!"
I think that about sums up his view on just about everything.
Happy Birthday, Buddy!

Happy Halloween!

Here we have a ninja and "Wolverine" ready to go out and get some candy!

Veeeery intimidating...and yes, Max's mask is not in fact a Wolverine mask...but it works.

 

 

 

We took the kids to Halloween at Heritage Hill to trick-or-treat and play lots of Halloween-y games.

Note Liam's stance for "mummy bowling"...

And now Max's stance...!

Liam decided to try the "apple bobbing" station, where you try to bite an apple that is suspended from a string and impaled on a fork. It was HILARIOUS. We laughed and laughed, and he tried and tried! And when he was done, he and Max both got excited to choose an apple to take with them. And they both began eating them immediately. They may have been the only kids eating fruit before candy that night!