Santa Came

Since we are heading out of sunny AZ on Wednesday for the frozen tundra, Santa came to our house on Saturday night so the big man had a nice surprise on Sunday morning.

Since the big man is so young this year Santa was able to drop off his presents early and Maxim had no idea. He even played on the boxes in the kitchen. This was great. Next year Maxim will be too big for this, so if there are any large gifts that Santa drops off early we will have to hide them.

This was the most fun I have had on "Xmas morning" since I was a little kid. To see the big man's facial expressions is priceless. He understood opening presents and had fun tearing the paper. It took an hour (with help from mom and dad) for him to unwrap his gifts, and there really weren't that many. He would get distracted from one present to another and at one point he was over the present unwrapping thing. 

P

I just loved the Elmo slippers on him. It was beyond adorable seeing him in them. He loved the big wheel that is too big for him, but he will grow into it. The water table will be a big hit once we can put water in it. The play house is also a big hit too! He likes the basketball hoop so he can put everything in the hoop and watch it fall through. He is actually pretty good at throwing his balls in the hoop. 

The big man got a sneak peak of his very busy Xmas weak ahead of him. He made our Xmas extra special this year and I look forward to watching him in WI.

Zoo Lights

It only took nine years but we finally made it to Zoo Lights. It's definitely an event for children so I am glad we waited to go with Max otherwise I am not sure if I would have liked it. Since this is a very popular holiday activity that brings all the random people out of their homes we went on a Wednesday night. That is very random and rare for us since we usually stick to a routine with Max during the week, but sometimes our sanity out rules a routine. 

Zoo Lights revolves around a pond and has tons of bright lights for the children to look at. There is even a music show that the lights play to. Max's favorite part of the light show was this ball in the middle of the pond. No matter where you walked you could see this brightly lit ball and if for some reason you could not see it Max pointed it out every five seconds...ball...ball...ball!

Here are some photos of us sharing the light experience with the big man. We were there for a total of 30 minutes. Maybe it would take longer if Max was a little bigger. We will find that out next year and I am sure again the year after that. The light show is not that big so we got through it pretty fast and the big man fell asleep in the car before I even got out of the parking lot.

Playing in the Backyard

The big man just loves to play outside and he will play all morning long until nap time and then again after nap time. It is both fun and exhausting. One thing he likes to do in the backyard is journey down to the bottom of our yard and check out the orange tree. Since it's all rocks and on a slope he holds our hands on the walk down.

Once down at the bottom he points out all of the oranges and then we walk back up to the top of the yard, only to walk back down again and check out the oranges. This toddler has tons of energy and can do this for hours on end. It's super cute so of course we busted out the camera and got some pictures.

Meeting Santa

Like I said in my recent post, the big man was not a fan of Santa. We went on the night of Black Friday just like we did last year to avoid any crowds. We arrived and found that there was no line. Due to his stranger danger attitude and how he really dislikes males I already knew it was going to be bad. I asked the cameraman if he was ready before I even put the big man on Santa's lap informing him this would be fast because I already know it's not going to go well. The young kid was surprised and jumped behind the camera and was ready to capture this awesome picture.

The poor guy lasted a half a second before I jumped in to get a picture with him. I kind of felt like a bad mom for a second because I thought the whole thing was funny! I now have an awesome photo to show the big man when he's older how much he was afraid of Santa.

Thanksgiving Weekend

I am a little late on this post, but we have been busy. For Thanksgiving we went to the Seifert's house like we have been doing almost every year for the past nine years. I am super bummed that I did not get a family photo of the three of us like we did last year. Oh well, but thanks to Kristin for taking this picture of me and my favorite little man.

He had fun on Thanksgiving eating his turkey and everything else on his plate. His favorite though was grandma's buns. Yes, Andy and I stayed up until 1am the night before making two batches of these buns and it was oh so worth it.

On Friday I did not do any shopping, well, maybe a little online. Instead we spent the whole day outside playing in the backyard. That is the big man's favorite thing to do these days. You cannot open that back door without him or he freaks out. Plus, I enjoy it too because then he is completely wiped out at night from all the fresh air.

After a day of playing we headed to see Santa, which was an epic fail. The big man was not a fan and actually freaked out, so I had to get in on the photo with him. 

I decided it would be fun to make and decorate sugar cookies with the big man. Yes, I do know he is 17 months old and will not get it, but I figured it would still be fun. I made them from scratch and did not use the dough from one of those plastic tubes...gross! Once the cookies were baked I was showing the big man how to decorate them. He was excited so I put one on his tray so we could "decorate together." I really didn't expect him to decorate, but thought it was still something fun to do. Of course he did not decorate, instead he grabbed the cookie and shoved it in his mouth. He loved the cookie so much that he had frosting all over him. He had two cookies and then he was on a sugar high for the next few hours. Fun!

We had to follow the cookie adventure with a fun bubble bath to get him all clean again.

Happy Thanksgiving

I am wishing all of my family and friends and happy and healthy Thanksgiving holiday. We are staying in Arizona for the holiday (like we do every year) and will be enjoying the beautiful 70 degree temperature. With that said, here is what I am thankful for this year.

1. An amazing, happy and healthy child. With Maxim being a 10 week premie anything could have happened, so I am extremely happy that he is a strong and healthy baby boy. He is very smart, adorable and I could go on and on about how perfect he is...but I won't.

2. Green tea to get me through the days. I don't drink coffee or soda, so the only thing that gets me through the long days is tea...and lots of it. I would say I drink about four cups of green tea a day...at least four cups.

3. Awesome friends...near and far. I have this saying "You can't pick your family, but you can pick your friends, so choose wisely." I definitely picked a great group of friends who mean a lot to me. I have friends all over the U.S. and wish I could see them all the time, but I can't. Even though there is distance between us I know that when we do touch base it's like no time has passed at all. Those are the good friends that I choose to have in my life.

4. Family...near and far. Unfortunately our blood family lives far away, but even so, I am very thankful for them and I look forward to seeing everyone next month at Christmas. I am also thankful for the family close by that we have in our lives. They may not be blood related, but they sure are family.

5. An awesome husband and daddy. Let's face it, Andy is a pretty awesome husband and daddy. He helps out a lot and definitely shares parenting duties. I do know that not every mamma out there has that support so I definitely appreciate it and am thankful I have Andy.

6. The HOV Lane. This might seem trivial to some people, but when you have an extremely long commute like I do, you would be thankful for an HOV lane. I am glad I found a sitter for Max by my work so I can take the HOV lane both ways because without it my commute would be close to an hour instead of 35 minutes.

7. My-Grastick. I was introduced to this recently and I absolutely love it. Basically, it's oils that help with headaches. I don't get a lot of headaches, but I do have a lot of tension on my neck so I use it to release the tension. It works great and I would definitely recommend using it if you are prone to headaches or just have a lot of tension.

8. A career that makes me happy. Not everybody has a job, or a job they like, or even a career, but I do and I am thankful for that. To leave Maxim every day like I do, it has to be for something I love doing, and I do love my career.

9. FaceTime. I don't know how parents got away back in the days without FaceTime. It's the only thing that keeps me sane when I get out of dodge. It's hard enough to leave the big man behind, but it does help when I can see him (and he can see me) whenever I want. It makes the distance a little easier on this mamma.

10. A great sitter for Max. I truly lucked out on this one. Earlier this year we found the perfect person to watch Max while we work during the week. Ms. Marie is amazing and so good with toddlers. I am very grateful for such a caring individual to watch my sweet little boy who teaches him new things and does arts & crafts with him.

Girls Weekend

It's extremely hard for me to leave the big man for even one night, let alone a whole weekend, but it was that time of year to pack a bag and head to Palm Springs with two amazing girlfriends. Even though it's very hard to leave the big man I really did need a dose of girl time and a weekend doing some damage shopping. We had plenty of girl talk, laughter and most importantly good food.

The first night we ate at Roy's...it's kind of our annual tradition. Both mornings we had $3 mimosas. Who sells mimosas for $3...Louisa's of course! After a long day of shopping on Saturday we shared sushi together along with a few bottles of wine...yes, I did say a few.

During my much needed ladies time, I did step out here and there to get in some FaceTime with my favorite big man. He's super cute here in the picture I took of us FaceTiming.

After I hung up Andy said he kept looking for me on the iPad and saying "mamma." Completely broke my heart, but he broke my heart even more when he screamed when I left the house with my bag on Friday.

I can't believe another year of Palm Springs has passed. Of course I had an excellent time with my ladies and even though I know them pretty well I still learned a couple new things this year. I learned about Amber's love of calf socks and Kim's new love of essential oils. We all love to shop and apparently did some major damage in Palm Springs.

Until next year Palm Springs!

Playing With My Hair

The big man has always loved playing with my hair. He has always liked putting his fingers through it and feeling the softness of it. Sometimes he has pulled out of curiosity, but most of the time he is petting my hair. The other night after I got out of the shower Andy captured the big man sitting on my lap fascinated with my wet hair. Too cute!

First Haircut

We have reached another first in the big man's life...the first haircut. Where is the time going? Why is it going so fast? If it wasn't for the massive mullet he was growing I probably would have waited a little longer because he doesn't have a lot of hair, but he definitely had a mullet in the back and I just couldn't take the white trash baby look anymore. I booked an appointment at a kids hair cut place hoping that it would be fun for him. Each chair had it's own TV and they played whatever movie the child was into, so the big man got to watch Elmo for the whole 10 minutes it took to cut his hair. He also got to sit in a really cool fire truck.

Overall, it was a good experience. He got to turn the wheel on the fire truck, watch Elmo and they saved his hair from the first snip into a small baggie. I did not ask for this, but the place automatically did it when I said this is his first haircut. They packaged it up nicely so it would easily go into his baby book. Talk about customer service, or a good marketing strategy, so that I will continue to go back.  The big man was a little scared, but he managed pretty well. We got the mullet trimmed off and now he looks like such a little man. Time, please so down!