Happy Birthday Grammy

This is who you are!

We are thankful to be a part of this family and SO grateful that you are our mom, mother in law and Grandma!

WE LOVE YOU!!!!

Max decided to show you how much he misses you and wishes he could spend your birthday with him. He made his hat all by himself!

First Time at a Friends

Hi guys! I spent the first time at a friends while mom and dad went on a date. It was so fun! While I love being with Nana and Papa and Uncle Tom, it was really cool to be "on my own" at a friends. I LOVE being with Meila and her mom and dad, Celeste and Jake, are pretty cool. They let me and Meila play all the time, they give us snacks, let us have play time in the bath, have a cool little dog that I like, and they love on me the whole time I am there. I think momma and dad were worried I would cry, but NO WAY! I was on my own and loved it!

My momma came back all sappy from seeing some movie called Soul Surfer. She wanted to cuddle me, change the world and adopt little kids again. Oh momma! I showed daddy all the things I played with and showed him how Meila and I crawl all over the house. Did you see how happy I was on that bike! I LOVED IT! I love playing at my friends!!! (oh and can you see the shirt Momma put me in? It says "Mommy Needs a Date Night" She thinks she is so funny. Daddy and I just humor her and smile and laugh with her.)

It was such a fun night!

Swinging Around

Today Max had his first swing! We took the kids to the park and let them play a bit. MAX LOVED SWINGING! He giggled and laughed the whole time!

Clearly they are having fun!!

MERRY CHRISTMAS

It might be July and hot as ever in California, but this last weekend I swear it was Christmas! It was a jam packed weekend full of some of my favorite things. And my family even enjoyed the weekend, it wasn't just me making them have a "happy new tradition."

The weekend started off with a great "Christmas Eve" wrapping presents, watching a Christmas movie and anticipating the next day. We started off the day skyping with my parents and then our friend Dana in Ireland. Then we had "Christmas Morning."

Max got some new soccer balls and LOVED them as you can tell by the blurry boy!

Max took a very short nap (it's like he knew it was Christmas) and when he got up our friends Hayley, Ryan and Finn got here!!!

Max and Finn had such a good time playing together and I loved getting to cuddle Finn for a long time while he sat with me and Max went crazy on Sam. Finn is one of the sweetest kids ever and I love all his faces and little smirks. He's such a cutie and I am so thankful to have them in our lives.

Heading out to Tauranga's MidWinter Christmas. I ended up going with my friend Celeste and Max's friend, Meila. Sam and her husband thought it might be a bit more fun if we went together and fully embraced the night. It was an absolute blast!

The night was SO fun! We got there as it was beginning to cool off and get dark. We saw carolers and waked around with our hot chocolates and THEN they made it snow! I am pretty sure Celeste and I were at the snow area for the majority of the night.

Watching the Carolers

The kids watching the carolers

Here comes the snow!

This is my FAVORITE shot! Max loves to oh and ah and you can tell in this picture he is doing that!

Then as if the night wasn't so fun already, we ran into to Uncle Tom and Nicky! Max loved getting to hang out with his Uncle Tom for a bit.

Uncle Tom and Nicky took him to see the snow again.

Notice Max attacking me to kiss me. He was pretty over excited at this point and wouldn't sit in his stroller or stop spazzing out with excitement. I had to find Uncle Tom again to help me.

The night was such a great experience! It is a great addition to the Christmas in Winter tradition we started. The winter is SO long here with no fun thing to break it up like Thanksgiving, Christmas and New Years in the States so I love that the winter now holds two fun things to look forward to and break up the winter: 4th of July and Christmas! Hard to wrap your mind around those two holidays in one month, but so FUN for us here!

Sunday we had another great day. We went and tried this brand new bagel shop (they have never had anything like this here before) for lunch. It was SOOOO yummy! Bread is not really something that I can have but a "christmas" splurge was in order I think. I might be paying for it now but it was so worth it! We all enjoyed our bagels that tasted like we had been transported back to California!

Max clearly liked the cream cheese.

Then as if the weekend couldn't get any better...Sam surprised me with a date to the movies!

A perfect end to the perfect Christmas weekend!

"Christmas Eve"

I may or may not have had THREE Starbucks today. Man what a day! I won't bore you with the details but one Starbucks was paid for and two were free. One took me immediately to Christmas - fitting seeing it is Christmas Eve in my house. Mint Hot Chocolate that I pretended was in the Christmas red cup.



Now Max is asleep, daddy is working, I finally ate after a very naughty very little eating day for this momma and The Holiday is on and Christmas presents are being wrapped!




And I am anticipating tomorrow with smiles and delight. It most likely won't go at all like I am picturing but I am fully ready to just enjoy what comes. A fun Christmas gift for this momma is our friends Hayley and Finn and Ryan coming to visit tomorrow! When I got her text it truly felt like that Christmas feeling when you get the chance to see old friends!! Then mid winter Christmas festival will be upon us! Looking forward to a day with my family and enjoying our cold Christmas no matter what the day holds.

Merry Christmas Eve!!

New Pictures

I realized we never put the 7 month pictures that Sam took. Here they are. I LOVE MY BOY!





My husband is amazingly talented! He can catch moments and see things that never even cross my mind! I am so honored to have him as a husband that loves us, works hard for us, and humors me with all my desires. Check this little 8 month old out!!













These just capture exactly who our son is at this stage! He is SO curious. Thinks he is bigger than he is. LOVES LOVES LOVES the outside and trees especially. Has a million funny faces. And is sometimes serious and sometimes full of crazy! A perfect mix of his momma and dad. I have loved the journey of being a momma. It has been more like a roller coaster, but for the record: I LOVE BEING MAX's MOMMA!

Mid Winter CHRISTMAS

Yep. It's back. Christmas in Winter for us down here in the Southern Hemisphere. If you remember last July I declared a day that was to be our "cold" Christmas. This week it is July 16th, so the last week was declared Christmas! It started by lots of Christmas music, a few decorations (I tried not to go over the top:), a few little gifts to pick up, and the excitement of Saturday July 16th - A Mid Winter Christmas Festival in town. I have been excited about this for about two months now. I am actually giddy when I think of seeing Christmas displays, hearing Christmas music, seeing Christmas lights, having a cup of hot chocolate all while being cold with my family this Saturday.

Sam has the day off and is going to go with us. Max LOVES three things in life these days: Other kids, Dogs (seriously?!!?!), and LIGHTS. It is his crazy fascination with all lights - light fixtures in our house, street lights, lights in stores, light bulbs, anything that has to do with lights. We even took him in a lighting store the other day and he was buzzed out with excitement the whole time, so I am sure he will love all the Christmas lights. We are planning to go late afternoon so he can experience all the lights and I can experience a cold Christmas, and Sam...well he will get the joy of seeing his happy family reveling in some of their favorite things.

He's Growing

Our little man is growing and moving. Not really crawling. Not walking. But thinks he can do both. Today we did it. We lowered the crib. He thought he was pretty cool in his new big boy bed.

Max LOVES to swim

Thursdays might be Max's favorite day ever. He shakes with delight as we get to the pool and pretty much lunges out of my arms as we get closer and closer to the pool. Today everyone had to cancel but Max and I still headed off to the pool and had a fun Momma and Max day

I'm 8 Months Old

Sam was working all day (13+ hour shifts these days!) so these are just a teaser of some better ones that Sam will take on his day off. But here is our little man that thinks he is 18 months not 8 months.