One Month for Max!

Baby Max was born one month ago today. I haven't documented the story of his birth yet, but that will have to come another day.

As of today Max is:
- holding his head up more and more
- starting to focus on faces and I swear he has genuinely smiled at me a few times this week
- sleeping up to 10 hours a night and still growing nicely even skipping his night time feedings
- 10 lbs 3 oz and 22 inches long
- great at tummy time. Sometimes when he is fussy he just wants to be put down, and sometimes his tummy is the best way to go.
- easy. I realize he is only one month old and still sleeps a lot, but he is an easy baby.

We all love him. Nora and Ollie love to share their blankies with him. Ollie is always eager to "keep an eye on him" while I use the bathroom, or "give him a ride" by pushing his bouncy chair to wherever I am if Max gets a little fussy. Nora always wants to stick a binky in his mouth and give him constant kisses and hugs.

What did we ever do without our sweet baby Max?

I love comparing how my sweet babies look as they get older. When Max was first born we were sure he was a carbon copy of his older brother, but he's starting to look a little more like himself. Actually, looking at all of these side by side now, he looks quite a lot like Nora to me.

In the hospital:

                Ollie                                                           Nora                                                Max

             

                   Nora                                                                                                               Max    

 

Ollie                                                     Nora                                                   Max

 We sure love these beautiful kids.

A Christmas Photo Dump

Christmas this year was wonderful and oh, so busy. We had a great time and it was so nice to see so much of our families (including Danny, he had a whole month off of school!)

Here are (more than) a few pictures of our family festivities:

Lots of baking time. 

We had three extra uncles in town! Jackson, Conrad, and Jon

 A few shots from Christmas morning. This tent is already on it's last legs.

The beautiful Kitchenaid my parents bought for me! I love it, I use it almost daily. Plus, for my birthday the next week we bought a grain mill attachment for it so I don't have to travel to a mom's house to grind my wheat for bread anymore!

We did an advent calendar with a Christmas activity each day - this was our "gingerbread" house building day.

The kids helped Papa with the Nativity story on Christmas Eve. 

Our attempted photo shoot for Grandma's Christmas jammies.

Family photos with my family. They were good sports and let me make them get dressed up just to go out in the back yard with my tripod and timer.

This was eventful only because my parents' cat usually evacuates the premises immediately when the kids show up - he let Nora be in his face for a good five minutes before he got tired of her.

A few years ago at a Relief Society Enrichment night in Manito Ward, Sister Felsted showed us how to make Christmas pinatas and it's become a little bit of a tradition in our family. We had great weather for it this year. This was also the morning we met Yui, Jackson's girlfriend he brought home with him from California.

We spent Christmas Eve afternoon at Danny's sister Chari's house. We had a great time eating Mexican food (hooray, Danny's favorite Christmas tradition resurrected!), playing the ornament game that Mom Olson came up with a few years ago, and making ornaments. 

After Christmas morning at our house (there are apparently out of order) we headed to Danny's parents' house for brunch. 

Funny Ollie Guy

These may not be very funny since you didn't get to hear his cute little voice, inflection, and timing, but Ollie sure had us cracking up a few times yesterday and I wanted to document it.

At dinner with family yesterday Danny sister Chari was talking about how her daughter Lydia is often just 'Bug' instead of 'Lydi-bug' anymore, and her 6 year old Andrew commented that Lydia is a bug and Nora is a beast....because we call Nora a beast. Because she is. Danny then asked Ollie what he was, and mis-hearing him he said "I'm good." That was cute enough, but Danny asked him again and Ollie got a little smile on his face and said "I a poopy diaper."

Last night when we got home from dinner, my little brother Conrad came over to play games with us and got there right at bed time. Sitting and talking with Ollie he asked him, "Ollie, what's your favorite thing?" and Ollie immediately replied, "I like scooters!" It was so funny, we've never talked to him about what his favorite thing is, he doesn't have a scooter, and he had no hesitation whatsoever. Cracked me up.