Nate's VA Birthday Trip

For Nate's birthday his mom and Jeff paid for a trip to Shenandoah Crossing for us. We're SO thankful to her and the Browns for keeping the time share there and allowing us to use it like we have. I don't think we would have been able to afford vacations the last few years if it weren't for having a great place like that to go. And having the full two bedroom cabin is definitely helpful with 2 kids (not sure how you could do a hotel room stay with 2 babies!). Our trip did get cut a little short due to some very sad news at Nate's work. They announced they were closing down most of the cooperate account department, however, they are keeping a handful of the current workers and luckily for us Nate is one of them. He's pretty depressed to loose most of his co-workers but we're SO thankful that Nate still has his job.

So.....the kids and I went down Thursday afternoon and met Nate at work and we left from there. Even after driving 45 mins out of our way and stopping for dinner we still made it down in 5 hours so that wasn't bad at all. The kids were great in the car.

Aliyah got her first taste of a pool. She was too young last summer and of course the water baby LOVED it. It helped I'm sure that the pool water was warmer than her bath water! They really are best buds these days. I guess they were close enough in age we never really had the jealousy thing going on!

Friday was SO nice, it was over 70 degrees!!!! We went into Charlottesville and took Max to the Children's Museum. He had a great time of course. We were a little disappointed that the whole back room basically had nothing to play with but Max found plenty to do in the rest of it. Nate took Aliyah for a walk around the downtown mall.

Then we even got to have lunch outside, which is SO nice with two little ones to not have to worry about their noise volume!

After nap playground time!

Aliyah in her first swing ride.

More swim time! We hit the pool Friday night, Saturday night and then we actually went Sunday before we left too, first thing after breakfast and it was great because we were the only ones there for the whole 45 mins!

We went to the stables but Max wasn't into riding the pony this time. It was much bigger than the one there this summer. He was more interested in chasing the chickens, roosters, ducks, peacocks and turkey.

Aliyah learning what fresh air is again!

Had to get a full shot of the big peanut in her bathing suit, compliments of friend Heidi (didn't want to buy her a suit when it probably won't fit some summer time!)

It was a great relaxing time away. Just the right amount of time. Max was happy to be home, he went off and played by himself for an hour before bed just enjoying the space and all his toys. Aliyah grew quite attached to me and now cries if I'm around but not WITH her, as in holding. Some of the ride home in order to keep her from crying I had to literally hold her hand, with my arm bent around behind me to her in her backwards car seat....she's been so perfect so far I guess I can't complain:)

The Browns were supposed to come down and meet us but they were spreading germs around to each other and decided it best not to share. We did miss them. Hopefully this summer we can all get out there sometime!

Post-Christmas Family Gathering

Since we got a big snow storm the day after Christmas, we had to do our gathering a little late this year. We met at the assisted living place again and had a great time and a nice weekend visit with the out of towners!

Almost all the grandkids and great grandkids. Just missing Kris and Ryan. All the great grand kids.

4 generation, can't you tell!

Aliyah and Logan. He's 3ish months older (and a LOT heavier:))

They were SO cute together!

Aliyah was so excited she was shaking!

Aliyah 8 months

Time goes way too fast. I didn't feel that way too much with Max but definitely do with Aliyah. I think with two you just don't have the time to catch everything like you do when you're only focusing on one.

But she's growing up! She is still so good 90% of the time and has a bit of a temper every once in a while. She sits very well now on her own and is very content just sitting and playing wherever you put her. I don't remember Max being that content just sitting to play. I know she'll be moving soon so we take advantage while we can! She rolls on her side and stomach to sleep sometimes, not all the time. She's still on 2-4 naps so we need to work on that. Still the same eating schedule as before. She does pretty good with her food and enjoys her sippy cup. She can even do it herself every once in a while if its full enough. She also is starting to eat puffs. She has gotten them into her mouth herself a few times but it happens rarely. She does like them though if you do it for her. We're starting to get into stage 2's and more yogurt (it seemed to mess up her tummy a little when I tired it earlier but seems ok now). She still loves her bath and its fun for her and Max to bath together now. (We just have to make sure he doesn't pee on her!) She still loves her brother and 75% of the time he's really sweet with her too. He loves his peanut!

Farm Show and Snow

That time of year again! Nate didn't get to go this year because the kids were still sick over the weekend but by Thursday we were ready to go so my mom and I took them. Max had to touch every tractor he saw! And there were some beeeeeg ones!

Watching the cattle round up.

Got to touch a sheep.

Best part of the show is the famous milk shake!

And finally got out in the snow. Luckily for us we still had some in the back yard so Max enjoyed his sledding time!

Crash

Of course you have to have cars/trucks to play with. I made him bring a big one out so we weren't searching for hotwheels in the snow!

Peanut liked it too even if she couldn't put her arms down:)

Aliyah 7 months

Aliyah is 7 months old!

Of course Max had to go first...

So happy to have such good kids! She is still mostly smiles. She has a temper when she needs to but luckily she's happy 90% of the time so we don't have to see it often. I don't think our schedule has changed much. She wakes between 6:15-6:45am to eat and goes back to sleep. We're trying to cut out the first morning nap (though if she wakes back up before 8am its hard!) and then she goes down after her 10:15am bottle for about 45 mins. When she does wake up around 8:15am she eats a big bowl of baby oatmeal so that holds her off till after 10am for her bottle. She does also eat lunch, a stage one fruit at normal lunch time. After Max goes down between 1:15 and 1:30 she eats (if I'm home I nurse her) and she goes down. We're working on a long pm nap cause she got worse with it but she's getting better again. I try to keep her up there till 4pm at least, even if it requires rocking her back to sleep, or her sleeping on my lap or even just turning her glow seahorse on for her to play with so it keeps her in her crib till 4pm. This worked for Max and now, especially with being sick, he's down till almost 5pm some days. (But I never get him up before 4pm even if he wakes up earlier, he loves to play in his crib a while). She eats again around 4:45pm. After dinner she takes a little lappy nappy and then she eats her dinner around 7ish. The both get baths and Max goes down around 8pm and then she nurses and goes to bed herself. I do think this time when they're eating AND drinking is tough because, as you can see, there isn't much time one of them isn't napping or eating and its tough just to get out of the house but its such a fun age, I will miss my babies soon enough!

She's doing good, she does roll some but not often. The 2 best things are she can get her paci in herself and she sits up great. She loves to just sit and play and is very content doing so. She makes a lot of noises and can be very loud. She's quite impressed with her noises too! She loves to splash in the tub. She's getting funny about "mom". She doesn't like anyone else to feed her if she can see me and she gets very excited to see me but she also loves her play time with daddy too!

You can tell she's toughened up by her big brother because when I took her to get her 2nd flu shot on Friday she barely even flinched let alone cried!

Since we're usually all cars/trucks and trains...

It was really cute when I came downstairs the other day and found him putting Ali's baby in the carrier and "caring" for it! He even took her on a stroller ride too. (Note: she did end up under the TV cabinet but it was cute while it lasted!)

Happy New Year

Well, the sicknesses went from bad to worse. Max's cold (3 1/2 weeks later) is still lingering but him and I both came down with a stomach bug in there as well. Max's fever spiked high Christmas night but finally broke and came down. His special treat was sleeping with mommy! Nate ended up with a cold (so did my mom) and then I got it too. I had a high fever off and on, stomach bug, cold, etc... Max did end up with an ear infection we found out by the time we finally got him to the Dr's on Monday but was allergic to the amoxicilin (just a body rash and red ears) so he had to take something different (which didn't help his stomach bug). Ten days later Aliyah finished her meds then, New Year's Day, she came down with a fever too but luckily it didn't last too long. I wish we had frequent visit/call cards to the Dr's because between all of us (I took a trip to the Urgent Care Clinic when I was really sick because my Dr's was closed for the day) we had 6 calls and 4 visits! (Including a call Christmas and New Year's Day!) But anyway, once Max kicks this cough we should be good.

In the middle of all that, New Year's weekend the Brown's came up. Friday, New Years Eve, was actually an ok day for us. Max and I were still limited on what we could eat but feeling decent enough to get out of the house and meet everyone at Chocolate World and then head over to Grandma's for a New Years Eve party. We did come home around 9pm so the kids could go to bed and Nate and I made it up till midnight (a stretch for me which I paid for the next day feeling lousy again!). New Year's Day Ken and Diana came out and the Brown's came over. This was the day Aliyah got a fever and wasn't her usual smiling self but we had a nice visit and as always Max LOVED playing with his cousins!

Chocolate World:

Usually Aunt Ellie is taking the pictures, nice to have her in some!

The perfect shot! Ellie was trying to catch her with her new toys and caught this (this happens at least a dozen times a day so I guess it was bound to be caught on camera at some point!)
New Year's Day with MORE presents!

She actually kinda got the hang of opening this year!

Can never have enough trucks!