Max Turns Two

How is is that it's been two years since Max was born and surprised us by arriving ten weeks early? All I can say is that time flies when you are having fun. I mean that too, because these last two years I have had so much fun with my family...more fun than I ever could have imagined. Max has brought so much joy and giggles into our lives and taught me many things about life. One big thing he taught me is patience. That is something I did not have until two years ago. The first lesson of patience was waiting out the NICU time for him to feed and grow. I did that without asking one time when he could go home. I started to learn patience and Max was my teacher. Max has also taught me to sit back and enjoy life, and not to worry about the little things. I now don't care about my messy house...I care about the quality time with my family. I live in the moment more than I ever did before he was born. 

Max has turned into such a sweet little boy that I love more than anything in this whole world. I look forward to watching him grow and learn many more new things...but not too fast. 

Max started off his birthday with his special shirt. 

At Ms. Marie's house they celebrated by wearing hats that they created especially for Max's birthday. I also sent a special snack for all the kids to enjoy. He looks HUGE in the picture below. 

We came home to balloons and presents in the living room, along with grandma Laura. The balloons were a big hit, so much that he didn't even care about the presents for quite a while.

It was time for dinner and it was pizza and pasta. He ate his dinner at his new picnic table grandma Laura got him.

Moving on to the big gift of the night...a train table. We had that set up in his play room. This was a big hit! Max LOVES his train table and hasn't stopped playing with it since Thursday night. 

We had cupcakes for dessert and Max blew out the candles on his own. He remembered from last weekend when he watched me blow out ha candles at the Seifert's house. 

A big giant happy second birthday to my sweet boy!!!!

Father's Day Weekend

I hope all of our family and friends had a great Father's Day weekend. We had a busy weekend, but a good weekend. It started on Friday with birthday presents starting to arrive. Max has no idea it's for him. He just knows it's a box he could stand on. 

Then Max learned how to play hide and seek. He was rolling with laughter at this game. It was a lot of fun and how we spent our Friday night. Don't judge my pajamas in this pic.

On Saturday morning Max experienced play-doh for the first time and he really didn't care. He had more fun playing with the containers the play-doh came in. Maybe he's still a little young, or maybe play-doh isn't his thing.

Following the play-doh fail we headed to the salon fir Max to get his haircut. Honestly, after the last visit Andy and I were dreading this appointment. We were expecting another meltdown and a complete miserable experience, but we were wrong. Thanks to my friend Amber's tip of giving him a sucker during the haircut, we ended up with a happy boy. It was his first sucker, or first four suckers as he kept plowing through the dum dums. 

Saturday night we went to the Seifert's house for dinner since we haven't seen them in forever. They had a birthday present for Max that he just loved.

Karen also made him a neat construction truck cake. Max loved it, but he was unsure once everyone sang happy birthday to him.

I made breakfast and picked up doughnuts this morning before we opened gifts.

We then headed to Arizona Sea Life. It's a small aquarium in Phoenix that I thought might be a fun thing to do with Max. By small aquarium think over sized fish tanks. Max had a good time there and his favorite part was seeing the turtle.

I picked up lunch for us and then we headed home to relax. This afternoon Max enjoyed some yogurt on his face.

We had a nice Father's Day weekend. Max is such a lucky little boy to have a daddy like Andy who is very hands on and wants to be there for everything he does. I love that about him and I know Max does too.

Orlando: Day Five

It's our last full day in Florida and we spent it at the Magic Kingdom...all day long. After breakfast we headed to the park where we went on the Winnie the Pooh ride. Max loved this ride. Hey, he loved all the rides. Actually he was having a tantrum because he couldn't go on the roller coasters and splash mountain. He REALLY wanted to go on them and he didn't like us telling him that he couldn't go. 

We headed over to the characters so Max could meet Goofy, Donald, Daisy and Minnie. His favorite was Minnie and that is where we got the best photos.

After the characters we headed to lunch at the Be Our Guest restaurant. I was looking forward to eating there, but again the food was just ok. I do have to give Walt props for the process they use to get you in and out fast so there is little waiting while they feed hundreds (maybe thousands) of people. Again, max did not eat. He was more interested in everything going on around him. Following lunch it was time for a snooze followed by the parade that was a big hit with Max. 

Time for a water break while a Disney cast member took our photo. 

Max started to have a melt down and I think it was from the heat. I say that because I think I felt the same way he did. So we found a grassy area for him to have quiet time while he chills in the shade and get away from the crowds of people. 

Another photo opportunity before we left our quiet space. Following this Max passed out in his stroller. 

While he slept we walked around and we had to take a photo of him outside the entrance to the castle.

Max woke for snack time before we hit up a handful of rides. We rode Dumbo again, the tea cups, Buzz Lightyear, the Little Mermaid and of course Peter Pan. I believe we did each ride a couple times. 

We stuck around until the light parade started and then we had to head back to the hotel. We had to get Max up early to catch our flight back to AZ and I really did not want a cranky toddler on the flight. I had the best time ever at Disney. My son had so much fun and the amount of giggles and smiles we received all week made the whole trip worth it. This trip might be my favorite vacation ever. So much fun!