Thanksgiving

I woke up feeling sick, full of sugar, tired, and VERY THANKFUL. I clearly had a great Thanksgiving. Our friends Steph and Dan (Liam's parents) asked if we could do Thanksgiving since they had experienced it before and loved it. Ummm. Yes!!!!

We did it at her house, which I'm pleased to announce is going to be our house in 3 weeks! We will be renting their house once they move into their new house. It has worked out wonderfully.

We had a few families over and lots of kids running around. It was yummmmy! And my Kiwi friends even liked the sweet potatoes I made. I did laugh at my American eyes when I saw the Turkey and thought there is no way that will feed 11 adults and 10 kiddos. Yet it did and everyone had seconds!

Max has pink eye unfortunately but he still had a blast. We were their all day playing and then had a very long night there ending with jammies and stories on Liam's bed with Liam's daddy and Arie & Liam. He loved it.

Sam is in the midst of midterms, but had a test during the day and not another one until next Thursday. He was able to come and that made me very Thankful.

Max loves his buddies and in a couple pictures you can see how much he loves showing them!

Hair Cut

Check out the cool way Max got his haircut yesterday! No crying. No fussing. Utter enjoyment.

Favorite Gifts

Max got incredibly perfect gifts for his birthday. As he woke up this morning he went straight for his toys from Liam and Arie. Such fun!

Lazy Warm Day

We had no work and it was sunny. Perfect combination! We headed to the beach after playing at home all morning. We then headed to Starbucks for a treat. Max has had crazy amounts of sugar so he wasn't getting a cookie today, BUT some of his most favorite spoilers at Starbucks were working. So he got a cookie and a whip cream and chocolate treat. He can say "red cup" now. Makes me laugh every time. After our fun day and Sam's long day at school Max & daddy watched some Beat Grylls. Great ending to a great week.

Birthday Number 2

Today was a beautiful warm sunny day. After being in my down jacket Monday I was VERY happy to be in a sundress today. We played at Liam's
house outdoors for a couple hours and after dragging Max back inside screaming "no mommy play outside mommy" we finally made it back to our
place for birthday party number2!

Max and his little buddies had fun. Too much sugar, great toys, and lots of playing:: perfect boy birthday.

Little Old Men

Sometimes when Max is with Liam & Arie I crack up. Arie & him looked at boats & containers & diggers at the port for an hour yesterday. Today max & Liam decided they needed to have their breakfast on the kitchen stools. Little old men chatting about their day having breakfast!

Lunch.

After a VERY fun weekend Max and I are wiped out. I had to pull him out of bed to work this morning as evidenced by his bed head still at lunch. We had a quick lunch break at Starbucks. (RED CHRISTMAS CUPS are here!!!) And then headed back to work until tonight.

He LOVES his new All Black lunch box & water bottle. And he's too cute in his new 2 sweatshirt Nana brought him back from France. The pictures cracked me up I took. He's definitely a ham and my American boy. (On a side note:: SO proud to be an American tonight. Sitting in my tiny apartment at the bottom of NZ, listening to the President's speech I felt connected, proud of where America is going, and absolutely loved that my vote counted!)

He's TWO

Full of life. Joyful. Brave. Hilarious. Happy. Funny. Expressive. Cute. Silly. Smart. Adorable. Loveable. Playful. Kind. Thoughtful.

Every where we go people fall in love with Max. He makes people smile. He makes people feel special. He makes people feel loved. I love that he brings joy into each room and reaches out to people all the time.

He's a gift and I find myself praying more and more that God would help me cherish and raise him well. Here's a few shots from our day. We even stopped by the rugby stadium to say hi to daddy at school, but I didn't get one picture with daddy today! (He's in his new All Black jersey we got him which he opened and knew exactly what it was! Too funny!)