"ALIA"

Guess who can write her name all by herself?

Alia totally surprised us by picking up a crayon and writing her name this afternoon! I'm thinking I might cut it out and save it in her baby book :-)

(I should note that the "Max" you see on the left hand side was written by a grown-up.)

Swim Lessons

This morning we had our final swim lesson of this session. The next time we take swim lessons, Alia will be in Catfish 1 all by herself with no Mommy or Daddy. On the last day of class, the kids can go down the big water slide with their parents if they want to. Alia was not remotely interested in doing it! Max however, really enjoyed it and even went back for a second turn! We were lucky to have Uncle Monkey in town for the weekend working the camera for us :-)

The "Get Ready For Bed" Dance

Alia invented this silly dance one night and it's really caught on :-) First you brush your teeth, then you comb your hair and then you fall asleep!

Children's Museum

This morning Alia, Max and I went to the Children's Museum for the first time in quite a while. It was a whole new experience for me having two fully mobile children there ... and no stroller. I was exhausted after just two hours. As you can tell from the pictures, Max absolutely loved it and couldn't really control his excitement. The water play area was the big hit!

Photographic evidence of Max struggling to control his excitement!

Splashing and splashing and splashing

Max was just tall enough to enjoy this little spot.

We had tons of fun at this water table. Alia is getting to the stage where she really enjoys putting in the little dividers to see what happens and Max enjoyed watching the boats float down the different paths we made. We got to the museum early and so had this area all to ourselves the whole time.

The dig pit is another one of our favorite spots.

Max did a much better job shoveling the "dirt" rather than eating it this time!

More Dancing

Here are a few clips from Alia's most recent dance class. I just took them on my phone, so the quality isn't the greatest. She is the absolute youngest in her class and has already learned so much and made so much progress. She truly loves it and we love watching her. Jason was even able to skip out of work early this week to make it to the studio to watch!

Thanksgiving - Video

Here are some random clips from Thanksgiving morning at our house this year. Enjoy!

Thanksgiving 2011

We had a very nice Thanksgiving this year, until that evening when we all came down with the flu (expect Max). My mom joined us this year which was wonderful. We woke up and had our traditional "special breakfast" (cinnamon rolls) then decorated the Christmas tree. Jason and I managed to squeeze in a pre-feast work out at the gym too. That evening after naps, we went over to the Helbling's house for Thanksgiving dinner. It was delicious. The kids had a fun time playing together and with Charlie the dog :-)All was wonderful until about 10:45pm when Alia woke up sick. Then it was rough going for all of us for a solid two days.

Alia's turkey project from church

Enjoying yummy "special breakfast" and looking for "deals" in the paper

Yay for matching Christmas pajamas on Thanksgiving morning .... mommy's favorite!

Max enjoyed helping decorate the tree this year. He was very good about getting ornaments out and walking over to the tree, but not so great about leaving them there!

Alia was an expert decorator this year!

A random funny moment from the day ... My mom and I got out the old infant car seat for Max to play with because he is currently obsessed with buckles, however things got interesting when both kids tried to play with it at the same time!