When Winter Gives You Snow...

Make Snowmen!

This winter has been brutal - with the ice, and snow, and cold.  We have only had a few days where it warmed up enough to actually be outside for a while, so when those days arrived the kids and Jason headed out to make a snowman.  Ellie was very excited to get to use her "snowman kit" that Santa brought last year.

Then they headed into snowball fight mode.  This didn't last too long, because this snow was so compactable that those snowballs really hurt.  Not ideal for a 4-year-old and 2-year-old.  Where are those obnoxious, teenage boys when you need a target?!

And finally, they had a little taste test.  For some strange reason, my kids love to eat snow.  Of course, we always make sure to point out that one should only eat the nice, clean, new snow, and never dirty or yellow snow.  Mmm-mmm-good.

Peek-a-boo with Mr. Snowman.

P-U-D-D-I-N-G

Max likes pudding.  Well, not just pudding, but chocolate pudding.  And the pics below say it all.

Generally, Max is a great eater, and some would even say a fantastic eater when compared to his older sister.  While Ellie sticks to the main food groups of chicken nuggets, hot dogs, and mac 'n cheese, Max will usually try anything we put on his plate.  This boy will even eat hummus and sauerkraut.  With such an exploratory appetite it amazes me that he is still such a skinny-mini.  He has that 2-year-old birthday and check-up coming up soon, so we'll see if he has jumped up much on the growth chart from 18 months.

Catch Up

Yes, I know it has been ages since I've posted, and now it feels a little overwhelming to try to go back and blog about all the stuff that has happened over the past few months, but I'll do my best.  My main preoccupation has been this pregnancy, and family, and the holidays, and...

Everything has been going well with my pregnancy.  The baby is growing like he should, and maybe growing a little too well - my doctor is projecting this new little guy will be even bigger than our almost 9 pound newborn Max.  Which I'm totally fine with - I think the bigger babies eat better and sleep better sooner (at least that has been my experience) and it means more pregnancy weight is lost during the hospital stay.  HA. 

It's getting into one of my busier seasons at work, when I'm normally traveling quite a bit, but at over 34 weeks now, I only have a little more time available for flying before I'm grounded.  I'm sure the next few weeks will fly by trying to wrap up as much as I can before I begin my leave.

We still don't have a name picked out for the little guy.  There are a few names that Jason and I both like, but we haven't nailed it down yet.  I also don't have the nursery ready for the baby, since Max is still in the crib.  We'll be doing some room shuffling, but amazingly, I'm not stressed about it the way I know I would have been at this point in my pregnancies with the other two.  I know it will get done, and the baby will be in our room for the first couple of months anyway.  Although I do need to drag out the baby clothes and get started on some laundry.

So, here's a picture of the little rugrats to tide you over till I get some of my backdated posts up.  These two were all snuggled up together in Ellie's sleeping bag, after a long day of playing with new Christmas toys.

Christmas 2010

On Christmas morning, we actually had to wake the kids up around 7am because Jason was just too excited to sleep anymore.  After waking from the fog, Ellie remembered what day it was and rushed downstairs.  Santa was very good this year, and the kids favorite gift... the Wii race cars.  They are awesome.  Ellie has become quite good at Mario Kart now, thanks to her new wheels.  The cars are even supposed to hold up to 300 lbs, so J and I may be having some races too.

Santa also brought a John Deere gator battery powered car for the kids, which they are also very excited about.  Unfortunately, we got a big snow storm right before Christmas, which makes for a beautiful white Christmas, but is not conducive to testing out the new wheels outside.  I found that we took a lot of video of Christmas morning, but not too many pictures... oh well.  The one below is the kids modeling their new bath wraps.  There was even a froggy one for the new baby, when he gets big enough to wear it.

After our festivities at home, we all showered and got dressed for round 2, at Aunt Pam's house.  This is the annual Freed Christmas gathering, and this year, we squeezed everything into actual Christmas day.  With Christmas being on a Saturday, it seemed like people had less time off from work, so there was a lot of feting crammed into a short period of time.

Max loves hanging out with older boys...I think it is his escape from playing with a big sister every day.  And he especially loves cousin, Justin.  Justin is very good and patient with Max, including helping him open his gifts.

Ellie and her cousins were so anxious to open gifts.  I remember those days...begging my parents to open gifts before they'd even finished eating.  And Ellie got some great things this year.  Thank you everyone.

After the Freed festivities at Aunt Pam's, we headed over to Papa & Mamaw's for our immediate Freed family Christmas evening.  We had a nice dinner with our Christmas crackers (note the paper hats in some of the pictures).  And again, Ellie and Paige were very excited to open more gifts.

Baby Cole was ready for the present carnage to begin as well.  Check out that smile.

And the final Christmas event was with the Marler family, only this took place on New Year's Eve.  My sister and her family were fighting a GI bug the week before Christmas, so we elected to postpone Christmas for a week.  It was a nice low key Christmas/New Year's, where we weren't on a schedule, and could just hang out, eat, and visit all day.  What a great way to end the holiday season.

What's in the box?

Don't you just love the build-up to Christmas?  I know I do.  I love everything about the holiday season, and having kids around makes it so much more fun.  As packages started arriving in the mail from my online shopping and from faraway family, the kids became very excited.  But of course, the boxes held just as much entertainment as the prospect of what could be inside the box.

And what might be in this box?.....

It was a Max-in-a-Box.  Now that is a great gift!!

The First Snow

On our way home from visiting baby Audrey, the weather started to change, and by the next morning, we had snow.  This was the first real snow of the season, so even though it was freezing, we let the kids go out to play for a little while.  It is always amazing to me how kids will stay out in the cold for as long as you let them, even though their little fingers and toes are frozen when they finally come inside.  Max even took a digger while walking through the snow, and came up with his face completely covered with snow...but he loved it, giggled, and kept on going.

Visiting Santa and Baby Audrey

Before Christmas, Ellie started seeing the commercials for Bass Pro Shops' Winter Wonderland with Santa, and she mentioned many times how she thought Pop would like to take her there.  So, Pop was happy to oblige and we all tagged along for a trip to see Santa.

While we waited for our turn to see the big guy, there were lots of other activities for us to do.  The kids played with trains and Ellie got to write her letter to Santa.  She had lots of things on her list at home (nearly everything in the Toys R Us catalog), but she just picked out her most special requests for the letter...a pillow pet, a Barbie, a Whoopsie-Do doll, and a train for her brother, Max.  (Isn't she sweet for thinking of her brother in her letter to Santa?)

After she was done writing the letter, she took it to the mailbox for the mailman to pick up.

Max and Daddy tried on various hats while waiting on Santa.  Max is very into hats now.  If Jason puts on a hat on the weekends, then Max usually insists on wearing one too.  He only has one little hat that fits his head, so Santa will probably bring him a few new ones for Christmas.

Finally it was our turn.  I wasn't sure how Max would react to Santa, but he made us proud.  Ellie kept talking to Max before hand to prep him for sitting on Santa's hat, and when it was our turn, they both ran right up to him.  Ellie told him the specific things she wanted from the letter she had just written, and told him how she had been trying to be a good girl all year.  Ellie also told us afterwards that Santa said to leave him cookies and chocolate milk on Christmas eve...she didn't want us to forget.

After visiting with Santa, we all headed to Columbia to meet our new niece.  My sister was due on Christmas eve, but delivered a few weeks early.  Audrey Catherine was born on December 9th, and she is perfect.  Ellie was very excited to get to hold another baby.  Max was trying to love on her too, though he was a little more interested in playing with Ella and all her toys.

Last summer when our nephew, Cole, was born during our family vacation to Lake of the Ozarks, Max was rather jealous whenever I would hold the baby.  He would even try to pull Cole out of my arms.  This was a little concerning to me, seeing how I was newly pregnant at the time...how would Max handle our new baby in the family?  Well, I needn't have worried.  By the next time we saw Cole (about a month later), Max was completely different.  He wanted to see Cole and kiss him, and was very gently with him.  This came out again when he saw baby Audrey.  There didn't seem to be any jealousy, and he was very sweet with the baby.  I hope this continues when our baby boy arrives in a couple of months.

Sweet baby Audrey.  Isn't she precious?!

Halloween 2010

For Halloween this year, Ellie decided she was going to be Ariel from the Little Mermaid.  Great!  We already had an Ariel costume, so that was easy.  Then a couple of weeks before the big day, she came home from school and told me that another girl in her class was going to be Ariel, so she was now going to be a cowgirl.  Um, okay, that doesn't sound too hard either.  I found some adorable cowgirl boots at Target, we headed to the fabric store to get some denim and pink fabric, and Gran whipped up a cute little costume.

We all headed to Ellie's school for her Halloween party and parade.  Jason was dressed up from work (he didn't just dress up for Ellie's party), and Max had a good time watching the kids.  He always loves going to Ellie's school.

We also headed to the zoo on the day before Halloween for Boo at the Zoo.  Ellie decided to mix it up and wear her Ariel costume this day to get a little use out of both costumes.  That trip quite possibly will be our first and last attempt at Boo at the Zoo, because it quite literally was a zoo that day.  There were so many people!! 

Here are the kids on the big night getting ready to collect their goodies.  We had an adorable monkey costume for Max, which of course he absolutely refused to wear.  So we improvised and he was a Mizzou football player.  At least he was comfortable, and maybe the new little guy will want to be a monkey for Halloween one year.

Soccer Time

Ellie had her first season of soccer this fall, with Daddy as the coach.  Papa Mike helped out Jason on the sidelines and with practices - they both said it was like wrangling cats.  Jason was a great coach with the girls...very patient, very playful, and still managed to impart a few basic soccer skills.

Even though at this age group they don't keep score, our Green Machine team was pretty good.  We had a couple of girls that were really good little ball handlers.  However, Ellie's main focus at the games was socializing, and there were many times when the parents were yelling for the girls to turn around and watch the ball rather than tickling each other and giggling.  Max attended all the practices and games with us, and loved every minute of it - maybe even more so than Ellie.

I'm sure we'll be playing soccer for many years to come.

Old Iron Works Days 2010

We went to Meramac Springs last weekend for the annual Old Iron Works days.  We try to go every year, but weren't able to make it last year, so this was Max's first time.  Jason was on his guys' golf weekend trip, so the kids and I met up with Popi and Aunt Laura and Ella to spend the day.

We walked along the path at the fish hatchery.  Isn't this a beautiful shot?  The trees were just starting to turn, and it was a beautiful, warm, fall day.

The kids had a ball playing on the old playground equipment.  I don't think these types of toys are even produced anymore, and probably for good reason.  I'm not one of those parents that is too protective of my children and restricts them from playing and climbing on toys that are meant for children.  But I was still a little anxious while they played on some of these things.  I mean, come on, check out the flying-saucer-type-spinning thing pictured below.  I'm sure many a child has flown off of this thing and has the broken bones to prove it.  But regardless of the danger, the kids loved it.

We arrived a little too early for some of the activities and booths to open, so we walked around for a while.  The booths are mostly demonstration booths of some past art, such as basket weaving, rope making, blacksmithing, etc.  When I was ready to move on to something else, I'd say, "Let's go find a new activity."  Miss Ellie began to catch on and so she told me, "Mom, I like the kinds of activities that we get to do something.  Not just the activities that we have to watch."

So we found her an activity where she could do something - sawing wood.  Ellie and Popi each took an end of the band saw and went to work.  We have pictures of my dad with me and my siblings doing this exact same thing when we weren't much older than Ellie, so this was a neat "activity" to get a picture of Ellie and Popi doing together.  And E was very proud of her slice of wood.