Christmas Weekend

 We started the holiday weekend with a playdate with one of Max's best buddy's. I also got to hang out with his mom and have some girl time.

Then Max and I had a lunch date at his second favorite sushi restaurant.

Christmas Eve festivities started with our annual tradition of filet mignon and crab legs. We went out for a neighborhood bike ride to check out the lights. One house decorated their house that matched music on a certain radio station so that was pretty cool. We finished Christmas Eve by tracking Santa to see where he was located before Max went to bed.

Christmas morning Max woke to his presents from Santa. He got a Segway and a really cool RC car. This car drives so fast that it can only be drive in the backyard or the park behind our house.

Max was a really good kid this year as he had plenty of presents to open.

This is the first year in a while that we were in town for Christmas night so we did a fondue appetizer and desert along with a salmon dinner. This menu was by request from Max.

We flew out the next day and headed to WI for a week long Christmas celebration with all of Max's grandparents.

Cookie's Busy Month

 Cookie the elf arrived at our house the day after Thanksgiving. He's been very creative this month and here are some of the things he did. 

One morning Max found Cookie playing the part of his favorite DJ and had music by DJ Marshmallo already playing early in the morning. Max thought this was pretty cool. I am not sure if it topped the cereal in the toilet though.

Cookie will be heading back to the North Pole with Santa early on Christmas morning. Until next year!

December Roundup

 This has been a very crazy busy month. We kicked it off with Max and I being sick for the first week of December, a very rainy weekend and a stray dog that wandered into our garage. This dog just ran into our garage and luckily our dogs were at doggie daycare all day so we put him in our backyard until we located the owner. This dog was super hyper and made our boxer babies look calm. He was a happy guy and the owner was only three houses down. He was a new rescue that escaped.

We hosted our first outdoor holiday movie night with a cocoa bar, popcorn bar and chili bar. The kids did not watch the movie at all. Instead they were crazy on the trampoline. There was a lot of crazy boy energy in this house and outside. It was a fun night with about 24 friends over, but next time we have to keep it small if we truly want an outdoor movie night. I am just glad all the kids had a good time and they were tired out when they got home.

I traveled to Orlando for a few days for my new firm's work conference. There were 3,000 people (half the size of the firm) at this conference. The firm bought out three resorts to house everyone and ended the week with a concert by an 80's cover band, but had the real singers from the original bands. It was pretty cool.

I got us tickets to see Twas the Night before Christmas by Cirque du Soleil in downtown Phoenix this past weekend. We had fun, but the show was not worth the amount I paid for the tickets. After the show we had to rush out of there to get Max to his best buddy's birthday party. He was so excited for it and couldn't wait to get there.

We made Dove cookies and decorated sugar cookies.

Max had his jingle jog at school and we lined the path to cheer him and his friends on.

As you can see, it's been a crazy busy month. Somehow we are a couple days away from celebrating Christmas and heading back to freezing WI to see family and enjoy all the snow they have. Wishing all of our friends a very Merry Christmas and a happy new year!

Happy Thanksgiving

 We had a busy end of November. First, Max had his Fall Festival put on by the PTO to raise money for the school. As soon as we got there Max found his buddies and he was off hanging out with them. Andy and I set up our chairs with some friends and hung out (and froze too) until Max was ready to leave.

Max is back at golf lessons this month. Grandma Shelley was able to attend one of his lessons.

Grandpa J and Grandma V arrived in town for the holiday. Since it was grandpa's birthday that week Max made him a cake. We celebrated when they got to town and the cake was very good.

It was time to prepare the bird for the big day and this was Max's main job. He absolutely loves to do this part so it's ready for Andy to drop in the fryer.

Max and Grandpa T popped a bottle and we all sat down for a Thanksgiving meal. 

We had a good time hosting this year.

To end the holiday festivities we enjoyed a Christmas movie out in the backyard.

I can't believe it's December already and soon it will be Christmas. I hope all of our family and friends had a Happy Thanksgiving!

Family Photos, the Gala and Cooler Weather

 The first weekend in November we had our family photos taken. I used the same photographer as last year and she does a great job. She's quick, like 25-minute photo shoot, and she gets some great shots. I will say, Max is so handsome in every photo. Here are just a few.

We went to the Children's Gala with our friends at the Children's Museum. It was a bit cold out, but we still managed to have a lot of fun together. This is always a fun night and it was even more fun because I got to experience my first silent disco. I have heard of these and thought they were dumb, but they are not. I am glad we all tried it out because it was way more fun than I anticipated. Everyone had headphones on and you had two different stations to listen to. Each station had it's own color on your headphones so you could see if someone else was listening to the same station as you. Hands down, a lot of fun!

It's been pretty "cold" here lately. It feels like it's the end of December it's so cold. We watched a movie outside with the fire pit going. We tested this out for our upcoming holiday gathering with friends. It was so fun and not cold out at all with the heater and fire pit. 

The dogs weren't too sure about the fire pit, but Zoe enjoyed snuggling up on the lunge chair with me.

I was in charge of putting the class basket together for Max's school fundraiser. The theme is wine lovers, but without the bottle of wine since you can't have alcohol on school property. Even though I have been very busy lately I am glad I got to put it together again this year.