Easter

Happy Easter!!! As Max will explain, Easter is "Jesus died for our sins". What a beautiful day to celebrate our Lord and Savior sacrificing himself so those who believe can live with Him forever! We had a wonderful day. I was even lucky enough that Max actually fit into his 18 month outfit from last year. There are many advantages to small children! It was finally a beautiful warm sunny day. It was too wet to do an egg hunt outside so the Easter Bunny hid the eggs Max had colored inside the living room. And then then he left some with Grandpa and Grandma Diana which she brought to hide on the front porch. My mom came over also and we had a nice dinner and a great afternoon!

Since we eat lunch right away when we get home from church, this was easier than totally changing them first!

Construction Boy!

I almost forgot one of the cutest pictures of the year. Lowes has a workshop for kids. Nate and Max have been there a few times when its been going on and got stuff to bring home but there wasn't ever room for them so we finally remembered to register him and he had his first one the other week. Of course he always likes going there and seeing Grandma too!

Mom-mom's 87th Birthday and Easter Eggs

Nice to know good genes run in the family. Mom-mom celebrated her 87th birthday last weekend so of course when you live that long you deserve a party right?:)
She is now living in a really nice assisted living home and its been a lot of work for the family to be cleaning up and packing up the house which is a life time of memories to my mom and siblings.
This was supposed to be a family trip in, however we realized Max had mold in his room so Nate decided to stay home and take out his carpets, clean the floor and put some new area rugs in there. As it turned out it rained horribly all day long so the kids and I actually got stranded in there so we wouldn't have to drive home in the rain. Lets just say I was very happy to be home the next day, take a shower, put in clean clothes and take a nap (I had Max in bed with me which generally doesn't leave a lot of sleep for the other person!)
The party was really nice, lots of family and some friends from her church. The kids had a blast showing off and getting lots of attention.

We figured Max was finally old enough to color some eggs. He was very excited. I don't think he gets the whole eggs breaking thing but besides that he did a good job and had fun.

Aliyah 10 months

Double digits in months!!! And what a month it has been for Aliyah. My sweet quite little angel has turned into a total wild child! She is officially on the move and that is an understatement. She is EVERYWHERE and into everything!! Its funny how different kids are because Max was not very content just sitting and playing and I remember being anxious for him to start crawling and once he did he was much happier being able to get to the toys he wanted to sit and play. Aliyah was perfectly content sitting and playing with whatever I gave her but now that she can move she never sits and plays. She just goes around throwing things and making a HUGE mess. She is like a human tornado:) We had finally gotten to the point where Max could clean up his own toys so we didn't have to as much but now its a constant thing in our house. She can also easily pull herself up and she creeps along furniture. She did get her two bottom middle teeth and I don't see anything else coming in yet. She did pretty good with them so it wasn't bad. She's a great eater and loves to try new things. She especially likes her fruit in the net eating bags. She is still on the same eating/nursing/bottle schedule as she has been. She does take her morning bottle around 10am now and goes down for her nap so we're definitely down to the 2 nap thing. I swear sometimes Max sleeps more in his one nap than she does some days in two but she's good with them and does them in the crib for the most part and has even gotten to the point where she'll play in there when she wakes up for a little. (I know I've been fortunate with Max that he always, and still does, like to have some time in his crib before he gets up so he never cried when he woke or anything). She still eats her dinner later, I guess I should move it more to our schedule but she still takes a bottle around 4:30am and we usually eat about 5:45pm. She always gets a snack, fruit or a teething biscuit or something while we eat so that holds her over. She is still nursing well the few times she does so I'm happy about that because by 10 months Max had no time for it anymore. They're still playing nicely half the time. Max tends to get a bit bossy but its a learning process. I knew this would happen once she was into his stuff so we try to compromise. 10 month shots didn't go so well.... someone doesn't EVER sit still anymore! And she loves to love on George!

I've been meaning to get bath shots for a while. They're so cute in the tub together and have recently had these splash fests!

I should update on Max too since he will soon be 30 months old! (easy to remember they're almost exactly 20 months apart). He is just so much fun. He loves to play and is good at playing by himself. He's getting such an imagination making his cars be different people and making them or his animals talk to each other. He loves to sing songs and is a good eater. We're still working on the potty training. He sits on the potty a lot and goes often but is rarely to the point yet where he tells us BEFORE he has to go. He is starting to catch it RIGHT after so hopefully we'll get there. Once it get warm out again we'll try the underwear thing. It just really didn't work when we did it in January cause he literally didn't care when he got wet and it was just too cold to go long without pants!

Kris & Wendy visit in March

In March we got another visit from Kris and Wendy. Since they bought a town house they had to come out to get the rest of the stuff they had stored and took advantage of some furniture (and tractor) they were trying to get rid of at my grandmother's. Despite the cool dreary weather we had a great visit! Made sure to get a family shot in. I need to crop it or something....

Visit to mom-mom Paul's. Max with his aunts!

Play time!

Friday we went to the State Museum. It was surprisingly a really neat place. They had a whole new dino exhibit which Max loves.

And they have the Curiosity Connection which is like a big play room. Max had a blast!

He picked food and made sure all the animals got fed.

And then left them some in case they got hungry later:)

Bed time stories

My mom promised him she would make these ice cream cookie things when Kris and Wendy came so he was SO excited when we got them out!

9 month stats

Since the Dr visit came a week or so in:
Length 28 3/4 (82%)
Weight 16,11lbs (11%)
Head 16 3/4 (10%)

9 months

Aliyah is 9 months already!

I feel bad, by now Max was getting lots of outdoor time as he started to move around but we're still all cooped up inside. We're all getting stir crazy and just very ready for March to be over!!!

But in our 8th month we've had a lot of big things. She has said her first word "dada" and also says "mama" as well as lots of other babbles and shrieks. She is also moving, however she can still only crawl backwards. It doesn't make her too happy and she can kind of scoot herself a little while she's sitting up to reach things but I'm sure regular forward crawling will come soon. Its a bit harder on our hard floors so we try to practice upstairs on the carpet.

She has learned how to wave and clap and loves to do so a lot. She likes when Max plays back with her too!

We've also worked into a better nap routine. She wakes around 6:30am to eat and then goes back down until about 7:45ish. We all eat our breakfast and then she takes her bottle around 10am and goes down for a nap. She sleeps anywhere from 45 mins to 1 1/2 hours. After Max goes down at 1:30 she eats again (nurses if I'm home or takes a bottle) and goes down for a nap around 2pm for about 1 1/2-2 1/2 hours. I won't say this is always a perfect nap but more then often now she can do the whole thing in her crib with little or no help settling back down if she wakes up. One issue we ran into is that she learned how to sit up but not lay back down so when she wakes up she'll often sit back up but it only took her a few weeks to learn and she'll often just settle herself or we put her back down on her belly and she'll settle. I remember Max going through the same thing.

I would say she's still rather content sitting and playing. She did start a separation anxiety phase and wants mommy all the time, especially if I'm around and she knows it so our perfect pea does have one fault now:) On the flip side the spitting up is now minimal so that's kinda nice for all of us and our clothes.

She still has her 5 bottle/nursing feedings- first thing, 10am, 1:30pm, 4:45pm and 8pm. And of course she eats her regular meals now (though dinner, usually yogurt, isn't until 6:45ish). She does well from a sippy cup and enjoys her heavily watered down apple juice with her meals now.

Unfortunately we did have another big sickness go around and it resulted in her getting croup. We had a few rough days/nights but even while we waited a few hours at the Urgent Care clinic Sunday afternoon (and she missed lunch cause I didn't think to pack it) she was all smiles entertaining the other sick people and the Dr's and nurses. After a steroid and few minutes on the nebulizer she was on the mend and a few days later she's doing much better.

We're looking forward to all the exciting things to come in the next few months.

And for a 9 month spoiler, she did have her first tooth on the bottom pop through on her 9 month birthday!