January Roundup

 It's almost the end of January and I have not blogged one time about our January adventures. That's ok though, because we really have not been up to much this month. It's been really "cold" here this month which has deterred me from wanting to leave my house. I did get my pantry organized...well sort of. I am still working on that project, but I would say it's 75% done. I still need to get more containers and move things around, but it does feel good to get it cleaned out.

After our trip to WI Max was excited to get back to AZ to see his doggies. Sammy ended up getting kennel cough from doggie daycare all week so she ended up at the vet to get some drugs. After a couple days though she was much better.

Max's activity calendar has been keeping us very busy. He is in flag football, golf and skateboard lessons right now. It's crazy busy during the week here. That's our fault though. We didn't realize how much we signed him up for until it was too late. Oops!

Max has flag football practice during the week and games on Friday nights. His team is call the Packers and his first game was last Friday night. We all love the team name! It was so fun to watch him and his teammates. The team lost by one touchdown at the very last second of the game. These boys played really hard.

Max wanted a skateboard for Xmas and the agreement with getting a skateboard is that he takes lessons to learn how to ride it. I know if he doesn't learn how to ride the skateboard he will never use it and it will sit in our garage collecting dust. I found someone who comes to the house once a week to teach Max. He has had two lessons so far and he absolutely loves it. It's so fun to watch him trying so hard to learn and get excited when he can do something. He was so excited for his first lesson that by the time I got home from work he was ready to go with his pads on. Max waited for Dee to arrive by hanging out in the driveway. He even thanked me afterward for the lessons because he learned a lot and had fun. These lessons will go on for six weeks. Right now they are held in our driveway, but the goal is to get Max to the skateboard park in the end.

Here's Dee teaching Max his first trick. It's called the popcorn. After a few tries Max was able to do it without Dee's help. He was so excited to do this. 


Max is also doing golf lessons once a week on Thursday nights. This is at the same golf club with the same instructor that he's been seeing on and off for a couple years. After his lesson he joins Andy and Grandpa T in the clubhouse for a lemonade.

I had a childhood friend in town so we spent one day at the spa. Don't let this picture fool you, it was a pretty cold day. Too cold for swimming anyway.


We haven't done much in January, but we have done a lot for Max's activities.

Wisconsin Part III

 The last part of our Wisconsin adventure took us over to Grandpa T and Grandma S's house. In the morning Tayler stopped by to say hi. It was really nice to see her. Max just loves to see her every time and he is almost as tall as his cousin.

We opened presents.

Max got to spend a lot of time with his cousin Beau. I didn't know how he was going to react since he hasn't spent any time with babies before, but he did awesome. He loved hanging out with Beau. Max wanted to play with him, carry him and feed him. This was beyond adorable to see. I know he would have been an awesome big brother if we would have been able to have a second child. Max was commenting to me how small his hands and fingers are. He said it's just too cute. I reminded him that his hands, fingers and feet were that small too at one time. 

For a fun NYE activity, a magician came to the house and did magic tricks for an hour. Max was completely engrossed in this. He was trying to figure out every trick and thought the tricks were pretty cool. This guy was not a little kids birthday party magician, his tricks were more for older kids and adults. He did a really good job and it was entertaining to watch. 

Time to pop the Champaign, bust the pinata and celebrate the new year.

The next morning Tayler popped back over because she forgot her presents and this time Max was able to get a picture with two of his cousins. He thought this was pretty cool.

It was time to say our goodbyes and head back to warm Arizona. It's always nice to visit family and get back to WI, but it always feels great to be home! 

Wisconsin Part II

 For the second part of our WI trip, we headed over to Grandma L's house. After a night of playing with Barb and Shirley (the dogs) Max woke up and wanted to open presents. He was definitely spoiled.

Max was in luck, Grandma L found her lefsa making machine and tools. They rolled the dough balls and then Max's job was to roll each dough ball out flat. He did great on the balls and then quit on the dough rolling after a few. He was just tired and opted to take a nap. Andy finished rolling out the rest of the dough while Grandma L heated them up.

The next day Max and Grandma L did their annual trip to play video games at D&B. Max looks forward to this trip every year. That night Max was especially spoiled by going to the UW basketball game with three of his grandparents. 

He had the best time that night. He ate tons of snacks and enjoyed the game with three of his grandparents.

Wisconsin: Part I

 After we witnessed the Southwest craziness in the Phoenix airport we eventually arrived in freezing cold WI. When your face first hits that cold air you start to second guess your holiday plans to the frozen tundra. But, then it's all worth it when I saw Max's face every time he saw his grandparents. He just loves to see all of them. We even offered going to Hawaii or a cruise for the holidays, but Max still chose to make us all freeze in WI.

We started the week off in SP with Grandpa J and Grandma V. It was the standard trip where Max got to do all of his favorite traditions with them. We started with opening presents.

Played a very competitive game of cards. Grandma V and I had to take our rings off because they were starting to hurt the rest of the players.

We went to Tube Town where it started at 9 degrees outside and warmed up to a balmy 12 degrees. Since it was so cold Max didn't last as long as he has in prior years. Let me tell you though, when you are cruising down that hill it feels like needles were hitting your face. Due to this, Grandpa J gave Max his full winter face mask to see if it would help him and Grandpa J wore Max's WI hat with the fuzzy ball on top.

Mas has been addicted to popcorn lately so he was super excited to learn that Grandma had a popcorn maker and so they made popcorn together.

We also did the annual family bowling at the local bowling alley. I do have to say that I won both games.

Max and his grandparents continued with their tradition and went to see a movie followed by a snowball fight.

We had a great time in SP with Grandpa J and Grandma V, but it was time to move onto Grandma L's house.