Halloween

A fun time was had by all at the MST Trunk or Treat. My whole family came over as well as the Torres family (who I now realize I don't have any pictures of!!). We started with Tony's pizza at our house and then went to the church parking lot for treating. It was raining, but strangely warm for the end of October. The kids didn't seem to notice and the rain cleared up eventually. Max tried eating each piece of candy as it was handed to him and really enjoyed his first real trick or treating experience.

Where Does The Time Go?

I can't believe it's been almost a month since my last post. The biggest thing that's happened is we were totally blown away to learn that Max is going to have a little brother! For some reason Matt and I were 99.9% convinced we were having a girl, to the point that I almost bought pink things and we were calling this little guy "Coco" (Corinne was our choice for a girl's name)! We're looking forward to life with two boys. I'm sure it will be full of adventure.

We've been very busy with doing lots of fun fall things like going to Cox Farms, going to Pennsylvania for a week, riding a restored train at Strasburg Railroad, carved pumpkins, learned to ride a tricycle, had a major language explosion and visited with one of my childhood friends, Loree, and her daughter,Tahli, who were here from Luxembourg. We even learned a new word, "Oopala!" - which is evidently used in place of "oops!" by some parents in Luxembourg. It's fun to say - you should try it!

Tomorrow is Halloween and Max is going to be a train engineer. Hopefully I'll be able to post pictures of all our fun adventures over the last month soon. Check back in a few days!

The Wheels on the Bus

Max got to live one of his dreams today - to get on a real school bus! Thanks to Heidi for letting us come up and look around - Max loved it!!!!!!!!!!

A Birthday Celebration

**I LOVE this idea from a blog I frequent, The Wonder Years. Click on the link to see a better version of this post or read below.**

http://mommyme-thewonderyears.blogspot.com/2009/09/birthday-celebration.html

We recently celebrated my daughter's 4 year birthday. It is so fun to celebrate now that she is aware and interested in celebrations and traditions. This year we started some new traditions. These traditions are inspired by Montessori and Waldorf birthday celebrations.I love the birthday ring, originating in Europe and used by Waldorf families. Each year another ornament is removed and a candle put in it's place.I added a bit of Montessori to this, with the telling of my daughter's life story. Before any candle was lit, I started by saying: "______ was born September 16, 2005 in (city, state). It was a warm evening, around dinner time when you were born in the hospital. Mommy and daddy had waited all day and Grandma had arrived to see your birth. At 5:16 you were born. You had lots of dark hair on your head and you were so small. You had to be held and taken care of all the time. You couldn't talk to tell us what you needed, you slept a lot, you had to wear diapers and drank only milk. By 6 months you could sit up, laugh and hold things. (Then I lit a candle) Then you turned one. When you were 1, you learned to___, you liked to___ . I continued to her present age and said: "And now, you turn 4 years old! You can ____ . Your favorite food is___, and you love to _____. Happy 4th Birthday."The telling of the life story is part of the Montessori celebration. Parents write it with their child and then come into the class to share it while the child does the "birthday walk." The life story is a tradition they look forward to hearing each year . The birthday ring is a beautiful way to celebrate years of life, past and future, but even if you don't have a birthday ring, you can just as easily use the candles on the birthday cake to light and tell your child his/her life story.Another tradition we started was the personal time-line. The time-line is part of the Montessori birthday celebration. The child (with the help of the parent) puts the photos in order to make a personal time-line. We will keep ours and add to it each year.Our other traditions include a birthday place mat, a birthday crown, and a special morning surprise waiting at the child's seat at the kitchen table.I would love to hear what birthday traditions you use!

Putting the Sun in the Sky

Yesterday, Max picked a dandelion from the yard, brought it over to me and began talking (babbling!) quickly and trying to tell me something that was obviously very important. He was showing me the dandelion and holding it up to the sky. I said, "Does the flower look like the sun?" He eagerly said, "Yeah!' Then he got on his tippy toes and reached his hand up as high as he could as if to put it in the sky. He became frustrated because he couldn't do it and suggested, "Daddy?" I asked, "Can Daddy put the sun in the sky?" "Yeah!!" he replied enthusiastically.

The magic of childhood shines through again.

Birthday Parties!

Birthday Party Recaps!

(Pics are out of order!)

Train cake from party #2 with Sarah's side of the family.Train cake again




Pennsylvania Party

Max and Uncle Adam in matching red baseball caps.





Getting ready for a dip in the pool.

Waiting for the party guests to arrive.

The cake made by cousin-in-law Dani!!

Here are some pictures from Max's birthday parties. The first (above) was at Nana & Pappy's house in Pennsylvania. We had a great time celebrating with extended family and old friends. Of course all the pictures of the guests and present opening are not accessible for me to post at the moment! Some of the gifts he received were: a ukulele (we call it a guitar), books, clothes, Scotty Potty (or is it Potty Scotty - an anatomically correct doll that pees!). We had a cookout and pool party. Max LOVED getting to play with two new friends, Liam & Kiera!

Party #2 was at our house with my side of the family. I saw a train cake made by a friend from church and I decided I wanted to make one too. I had no idea how much anxiety I was going to experience from that. I even dreamed about it the night before putting it all together. I started baking the cakes on Friday and Matt and I decorated them during naptime on the day of the party on Sunday. The hour between the end of naptime and when the party started was filled with me finishing getting the food together and Matt protecting the cake from Max's lightening-quick fingers. We had a baked potato bar and LOTS of cake, candy & ice cream! I think his favorite gifts were the gigantic helium balloon that played "Happy Birthday" from Uncle Josh and the Crayola bath supplies (crayons, paints & water coloring tablets). It was a crazy and fun time!

Two Years Old

I haven't posted about Max's 2nd birthday yet because I wanted to be able to post pictures, tell about both parties and generally describe where he's at developmentally now as well as reflect on some of the things I love about him at this age. Well, life is busy and if I wait to get the perfect post up, he may be 3 by the time I do, so here's my best shot.

Overall, I was much more ready to get to Max's second birthday than his first. I recall feeling sentimental and sad before his first birthday because of how very much he had changed in that one year. He's changed a lot in the last year but it just didn't hit me as hard as the first birthday. From birth to age one he went from immobile to toddling slowly. From one to two he went from toddling to EXTREMELY mobile!!! I have never been as active in my life as I have been over the last year. This child NEVER STOPS. He even lost a pound or two since his 18 month check up.

One wonderful advance is that he no longer eats every speck of dirt, food, or all manner of disgusting items off the ground (okay, to be honest, he does still try to eat food off the floor if I don't intervene!) He put everything in his path in his mouth until he was more than a year old. Parents who have never had children who do that (I didn't know there was such a breed of child who DOESN'T do that until recently) should thank their lucky stars.

As I sit here envisioning what the last year was like for me, the image of Venus or Serena Williams comes to mind. The way they zip hither and yon on the court with outstretched arms to chase that little yellow ball around and not let it go out of bounds is exactly what my days look like! "Oh! He's over there - no wait - now he's over THERE! WOOOOAAAAAHHHHH he's almost out of bounds!" It's exhausting.

He is my little Monkey Boy. He can climb anything. Last year when I'd take him to the local playground, I was nervously hovering to make sure he didn't kill himself falling off the equipment. I'd see other kids climbing the chain ladder and arch-like thing to get up to the highest level and think that maybe when he was four or five he's be able to do that. He's been doing that for a couple months now! I still hover and he pushes my hands away and says, "Bots!" That's his version of "Max".

Verbally he is adding new words almost every day and starting to combine them into two word phrases. He has no problem making his desires known! He still uses some of his baby sign language rather than the words those signs represent (i.e. milk, thank you, sorry, listen, plane). He constantly surprises me with his receptive language. He'll be playing and apparently not paying any attention to the conversation of the adults in the room and then someone will say something that interests him and he's immediately injecting himself into the conversation.

He has a good memory for places and events. For example, when we're heading in the direction of Aunt Katie's house he squeals and gets excited when we get to her neighborhood and will cry if we happen to go there and not go to her house. If we head in the direction of Old Town Manassas, he automatically starts talking about the trains before we even see the tracks or gates.

At the age of 16 months he finally started sleeping through the night. He is such a good sleeper now, it's hard to believe I went 16 months without a full-night's sleep! He self-weaned at about 18 months. I tried weaning him around 15 or 16 months but he wasn't ready, but a few months later it just happened. As far as potty-training goes, my nature is to let him get to the stage when he's ready when he's maybe 2.5 or 3, but with the addition of his little brother or sister next winter I don't think I can handle potty-training AND being sleep deprived. So I'm going to be attempting that sometime in September. I have all the supplies, I just need to have a few focused days of working on it with him. He already uses the potty once or twice a day, so he has some concept of it. I would like to get him in a big boy bed before bro/sis arrives too, but one transition at a time is what I'm focusing on.

I'll save the party info for another post. For now this is "Bots". Every day is a new adventure!

Big Brother Max

Most of you know by now, but Max is going to be a big brother! Probably the only person who doesn't really know about this by now is Max. We've told him, but I think this is one of those things that he's probably going to have to experience to understand.

Thanks to his newest cousin Lucy, he now LOVES babies, but I've been told loving OTHER people's babies and one that comes home to live with him are two different things. We'll see. It'll be fun having two little ones in the house! I can't wait!

Our Place at Eastern Mennonite University

Now that we're home for good, I have a few minutes to upload the picture and videos I took of our "summer home". We were fortunate to be able to rent a 1 bedroom, 2 level apartment just off campus at EMU. It was furnished (barely, but enough) and fit our budget, so it worked. Max slept in a walk-in closet and we didn't have TV, internet or central air, so I felt like we were really roughing it!

Our apartment is on the right side of the building above.

Summer Fun

Yesterday I took Max to the Signal Bay Water Park for the second time - it's so much fun! It's like a gigantic baby pool with water slides. It's geared to the 6 and under set so there aren't many "big kids" there to trample the little ones. Josh really did the bulk of the work playing with Max and making sure he stayed safe while I chit-chatted with a friend from church. Katie, Nevin, Mabel, Weston & Lucy came too. The scariest part of the afternoon was when Max came within a foot of running full speed into the Lazy River. He saw Aunt Katie arriving on the bridge that goes over the Lazy River and before anyone could blink he was running to get to her. Thankfully Uncle Josh was hot on his heals and snapped him up just in time. All the kids cried when it was time to leave, so I'd say the outing was a success!

Eastern Mennonite University

Here are some pictures from our first couple of weeks in Harrisonburg. Sculpture outside the EMU library.

What we do for fun in our little apartment.

Fountain at EMU




EMU

We only have 3 more weeks left, but Max and I haven't been there for a while because of Max needing some stability and Matt's schedule being strange for the next couple weeks. It was fun in some respects (getting to go out to eat, having new sites to see, revisiting my alma mater, JMU, and seeing all that's changed), but we'll all be glad when it's over. Matt has had two days off since Memorial Day and doesn't expect to have another day off until August 6th. This is not good for him or us and he's getting very weary. Pray that the next few weeks move quickly!

We're Still Here!

Hi. How are you? We're still alive and I hope to have some new posts up soon. We have a "messy playdate" with Mabel & Weston (& Lulu, Max doesn't like to leave her off the list!) later this morning, so I'm sure I'll have some good pics from that. Other than that we've been busy with travelling back and forth to Harrisonburg for Matt's CPE class (Clinical Pastoral Education - a requirement for ordination with the Virginia United Methodist Church). While all that craziness has ensued, Max has also been preparing to make his grand entrance into the awesomeness that is TWO! This involves a lot of trantruming over things such as not being able to eat 4 bananas in one day (yes, that means he had 3 bananas yesterday and that STILL wasn't acceptable to him. Can't wait to see what the diaper situation is today - woot!). However the bane of my existence at this time is H-I-T-T-I-N-G. I have to spell it so he doesn't hear me and try to get even more attention from this atrocious behavior. So, yeah. I have a hitter. I can tell it's because 1.) he doesn't have much language to express what he really wants to say, "Mother, may I please have just one more banana this fine summer's day? Bananas are healthy and much better for me than things other heathens my age are crying about, so what do you say? Just one more?" and 2.) He's almost 2.

Don't worry, I am not ignoring this behavior and creating the next playground bully, I'm just doing my best with what I have right now and my best doesn't seem so hot. Oh well, this, too, shall pass. Is it strange that I find comfort in the fact that he's not hitting anyone else but me? At least it hasn't progressed to other kids...yet.

So let's hope for fun times ahead during our messy play date today!

Fun on The Farm

We went to Perrydell Farm again today (the site of the infamous cow-eating-Max's sleeve-incident) and had a fun time. It was cold and overcast even though it's the middle of June! What's up with this weather???? Anyway, a picture of Max with the York County Dairy Princess, who also happened to be visiting. Now he can tell people he was less than two years old when he met royalty for the first time! I had a video of his latest encounter with the calves, but it didn't load, so I'll have to try again later.

Max's Current Faves

Before I forget, here are some of Max's favorite things at this point in his young life. He will be 22 months old at the end of the week:

Bedtime song: Silent Night

Books: Biscuit, Hello, Duke Dog!, Various kitten & puppy touch and feel books from Nana, Song book with Daisy, Daisy, Wheels on the bus, Yankee Doodle, etc., Playtime Peekaboo, Frog & Toad books

Events that have happened he tells about over and over: Train horn blowing, train gate going "up, up, up", cow nibbling his arm, Grandpa Allen spraying canned whipped cream in his mouth & him crying, falling off the kitchen stool right onto his face, getting a booboo on his toe that left a blood blister under the nail, babies crying, Daddy letting him "drive" the van and press all the buttons.

Characters: Santa ("Ho Ho"), The Count from Sesame Street

Youtube Videos: Cats swatting out a candle flame, Train gates going up, Fat cat in a little box

Church Activity: Singing (or watching the musicians play and listening to everyone else sing).

Favorite non-edible edibles: Crayons - might be tied with soap/bubbles/paper --Yum!

Word: Mama!, Mama!, Mama!, Mama?, Mama?, Mama?, Mamamamamama, Mom!, Mommy!, MaaaaaaaaaaaaahhhhhhhhhMaaaaaaaaaaaaaahhhhhhh!

Stylin' Max

Here is a video of Max watching some Sesame Street videos while wearing my sun glasses. What a looker~!

I Crack Myself Up!

I had to post this picture of myself. We went to Nixon Park when we were visiting PA last week. They had a small nature museum with a kids interactive room. This is me trying to entice Max to play with the dress up clothes. What we do for our kids!

Moooooooooooooooo

Here is a little video from a dairy farm we visited on our vacation to Nana & Pappy's house last week. The calf chomped on Max's jacket sleeve, and while it didn't seem to upset him terribly at the time, he has "told" everyone about it since "the incident" a week ago. The morning after he woke up calling out "Noooooooooooo.......Nooooooooooooooooo............Nooooooooooooooooo!" and I just had visions of him having nightmares about being eaten by a calf.

Easter

Max & his grandparents: Pappy, Nana & Grandpa Allen
Max on the way to church for the egg hunt.

Making his first church craft!

Handsome boy! He was NOT into wearing a tie!

This is Max's reaction to being snatched from the arms of his #1 gal, Nana. I KNEW this was going to happen, hence the look on my face.

We had a great Easter weekend. Nana & Pappy arrived on Thursday (Maundy Thursday) and gave Max his Easter basket filled with awesome books and a stuffed Count von Count from Sesame Street and some Sesame Street Videos. The weather wasn't so great Friday morning and was terrible Saturday morning, the day of the Easter egg hunt at our church. We went anyway and there was a big turn out, considering the weather. Max found about 5 or 6 eggs and I made sure to help him eat the candy. He also made his very first church craft - a "stained glass" cross. He actually wielded the glue stick himself and decided where to put each square of tissue paper. I was so proud!

Easter itself is always crazy around here since Matt is a pastor. I don't even know what Max looks like in his Easter outfit until he shows up at church with Nana & Pappy hours after Matt and I have been there. After church Nana & Pappy put Max down for a nap and went back to Pennsylvania and Matt & I both napped. We had a fun dinner at my dad's house with friends and family after all the kids woke from their naps, although my corn pudding left a lot to be desired. I found a recipe on-line and it was not tasty! Anyone have any good recipes for baked corn/corn pudding? Send it to me: sarahallen22@hotmail.com

Hope you had a blessed Easter!

Church Clothes

"Okay I'll pose for a picture for you, Mom."
"I said "a" picture. "

" No, really, I'm over this. Can I PLEASE change clothes now??"

Sunday Afternoon With Max

Here's a minute or so of Max from this afternoon. I thought he looked so cute in his church clothes, I got the camera out. He's so sweet!