Smiley Max

Baby Max was 11 weeks old yesterday. Can you believe it?!? He is really such a cute, good baby and is growing up so fast! Lately he is so, so smiley! Everytime you speak to him he just beams his chubby little face at you. And most of the time we can't even feed him because he can't stop smiling! We love that adorable guy!

Look closely and you can see his little dimples (and his three chins!).

Water Day #2

Yesterday was the last official day of our "Staycation" and Max and I almost ruined it by sleeping in!

Thursday night Austin and I stayed up until 10:30 watching Project Runway on the computer (why yes, I just found out you can do that! And why yes, I am now a happy camper!). By the time we read scriptures and had prayers, it was already 11:00. And then Max got up... So it was almost midnight before I finally got into bed. And as you know, I am a VERY grumpy mommy when I stay up that late! Anyway, so Max wasn't sleeping very well and got up at 3:30 to eat. Austin fed him and put him back down. Ah, sleep again... But no... No sleep for this mommy... Baby Max decided at 5:00 he was tired of sleeping and up for the day. And it was my turn... so after less than 5 hours of sleep I was having to get up with Max. I tried putting him in his swing and he fussed. So I put him in his bouncy seat. He seemed to be doing good so I curled up on the couch thinking I would finally get some zzz's. And Max had a dirty diaper... Augh! By the time I got him back in bed it was 6:23. I climbed into bed so tired... and Makenna walked into our room at 6:27. No! Luckily Austin got up with her and Max and I slept in until after 8. And after feeding him, playing with him a little, and putting him back to bed, we slept until 11 (don't worry, Makenna was napping too. I didn't make Austin babysit twice in one day)! The point of this long story is that we wasted almost a whole day by sleeping and it was supposed to be Day 2 of Water Days! Oh no!

Luckily we still managed to get some water in. After meeting with a real estate agent and viewing some houses and after giving the kids a nap and having lunch, we FINALLY headed to the pool! We had the Reagan family over and spent some fun time swimming in the pool. Makenna had a blast. And we let little Max dip his toes in as well (he didn't care at all. He acted like he didn't even notice!). Why haven't we been doing this all summer?


Later that night we babysat cute baby Joel and just relaxed. It was a nice little ending to our wonderful week! Back to school and normal life : ( Oh well, I guess vacations can't last forever! (Oh wait, that's retirement!)

Collage

Oh by the way, you can click on the collages and pictures to see them a bit better! When I tried to enlarge them on the blog, they just came out blurry... oh well...

Water Day!

Monday was Shopping Day, Tuesday was Museum Day, Wednesday was Park Day, and today is Water Day!

This morning we went to play at the Spash Pad. Poor little Max, a drop of water landed on him and he cried like crazy! And even though the water was very warm (it's 108 right now!), Makenna did NOT want to play in the water. Instead, she spent the whole time playing with shoes (of course) and climbing on the bench and a big rock! Oh well. After nap time we have a few more water activities planned for today and tomorrow. Hopefully the babies will enjoy the water a bit more!

Sahuaro Ranch Park

Yesterday, Wednesday, we decided to go to Sahuaro Ranch Park for a picnic lunch and to let Makenna play in the park. As you can tell, Makenna loved having a picnic-- especially the cookies she had for dessert!

It was actually a very fun time. Max loved to watch Makenna play and enjoyed the sunshine and being outside. Makenna, for the very first time, played all by herself on the equipment! She loves to climb the stairs to the slide and then slide down. Her mommy had a heart attack each time, but Makenna saw no problem with it! It was hot, 98, while we were there. But everything was very shaded so it really didn't seem so bad. This was a very fun park and we virtually had it all to ourselves! Just goes to prove, you can have a lot of fun with your family for free!

Candy Factory

Monday we just spent the day relaxing and playing at the mall. On Tuesday we decided to take a tour of the Cerrata Candy Factory (is that spelled correctly?). Max pretty much slept the whole time and Makenna just ran up and down the store. Something we all loved though? Samples! Mmm! Totally worth it all! : )

The Zoo

On Saturday we were going to go to the waterpark with the Larsons. But at 10 am it was only 77 degrees! Much too cold for the waterpark! So we talked to them and decided it would be a nice day to go to the zoo instead.

We had not been to the zoo in about a year. Our last time was actually right when we first moved to Arizona and Makenna was only about 6 months old. We thought now she would finally be old enough to enjoy herself. Well, it ended up not being as fun as we thought. Even though the temperatures were only in the 90s, it was very very humid and we got so wet and sweaty! Not only that, Makenna was having some issues. She didn't want to ride in the stroller, but she didn't want to wear shoes. Austin said, "Absolutely not!" to her walking around a zoo bare foot. So she was pretty upset with us the whole time. And no, she still wasn't very interested in animals. Maybe it isn't an age thing with her, maybe she just doesn't like animals! Ha ha. Max, on the other hand, loved it! He refused to sit in the stroller and instead wanted held so he could look around at everything. Silly babies, why did we even bring the stroller?!? Ha ha. But it was still fun to be together with family and friends, even though it was miserably hot!

Staycation

This week is Austin's break between quarters. We kind of threw ideas around about what to do for the week, and we ended up deciding to have a little "Staycation." There are several things around here to do that we have never done before. So we thought it would be fun to spend a lot of quality time together as a family right here in Glendale! (Also, it's MUCH easier to do baby nap times and feeding times at home rather than in a hotel somewhere else!). This is how we got the break started:

Max watching Elmo from his swing (yes, Makenna is already corrupting him with Elmo!)

Makenna watching Elmo. She is OBSESSED!!!

Max "The Big Boy" Matthews

As you can see... we were really boring! Luckily, the week got better! : )

Crafts and Cute Babies

So I have been doing a few fun crafts lately that I just thought I would share!

Today I made Makenna a little tutu. As you can see by the pictures she is not impressed:



I think she looks like a cute little princess! But I think maybe it itches... If I make another one, I will use darker tulle so the tutu is not see through. Other than that, this was so super easy and I think it turned out pretty adorable!



I also made the diaper and wipe holder/changing pad that I saw on Lisa's blog. This first one is the one that I made for Max:

Next project, I made a crayon roll up for Makenna to bring her crayons to church:

The crayon roll up from the outside (or in other words, "rolled up, " ha):

My mom bought me a laminater for Christmas (we got our Christmas presents early while they were here because we are staying here for Christmas). So I printed off some little books from the nursery manual and from the Friend magazine, colored them, and laminated them to make little books for Makenna to bring to Church.

Some how my pictures got out of order. But this is the diaper and wipe holder/changing pad that I made for Makenna (I did a bow instead of her name on hers):

I also made some paper dolls for Makenna. She actually really likes these and played a while with them! I just printed them off the computer, colored them, laminated them, cut them out, and put Velcro on them so Makenna can easily stick the clothes on them. This is just one set that I made (I also have a big sister, brother, and teenager dolls with all of their clothes):

Fun stuff, huh? I really like to craft, can you tell? : ) I have a few embroidery projects going on now, but I haven't finished them yet. This next picture is just an adorable picture of Makenna and Max. Yesterday for some reason I asked Makenna if she wanted to hold Max. She has only held him once since he has been born and he will be 10 weeks this week!

He is almost as big as she is! She thought he was really, really heavy so after a few minutes she gave him back!

Austin and Pam- the Drawings

Tonight, after the kids went to bed, Austin and I watched the show "Dating in the Dark." This is a tv show where guys and girls date each other in the complete dark and never get to see what the other looks like until the very end. At the end, they talked to a sketch artist and described what they thought the other person looked like. Austin suggested that it would be fun if we drew each other's portrait. Okay, so neither Austin and I are a sketch artist. In fact, I think it's safe to say neither one of us is even a good draw-er. But we gave it a shot and the results are pretty hilarious!

This is my take on Austin. Notice the short haircut, big dimples, and beautiful dark eyes. I'm not a very good artist, but still, not too horribly scary:



So next we have Austin's take:



Holy Hannah! I am a scary, big eyed monster! Sad, huh, that that is how my husband sees me!!! Ha ha. But yet he married me anyway... Hmm... what does that say for him? : )

Oh man, fun times... try it with your own significant other! I have never laughed so hard!

Goofy little Babies!

Oh man. Our little babies have been so, so goofy lately!

Max is now sleeping less and less. He wakes up between 5:30 and 6:30 and just will not go back to sleep! When he first gets up he is pretty smiley and makes little sweet cooing noises. But then he gets tired and really whiney and it is sooo hard to get him back to sleep! He also now will only sleep in a crib. He will not sleep in his car seat, bouncy seat, our bed, etc. Just a bed for babies! So silly!

I have been trying to get him to touch/hold toys. After a little work today, this is what we ended up with:


Cute, huh? He only held it for a few seconds, but it is a start! Yea Max! : )

He is also starting to smile quite a bit. He still mostly only smiles late at night and first thing in the morning, but once again a start. This isn't the best picture (our camera is pretty old and crappy and we just can't get it to snap fast enough to catch a smile- but you can kind of see that it was once there!).

He is becoming a real little person and we love it! Now if we could just get him to start sleeping more and not crying like crazy when he is tired...

Makenna is being so, so fun and silly lately! We absolutely think it is so much fun! We have been checking out movies from the library. Last week we got, "Sesame Sings Karaoke." Makenna wants to watch this pretty much on repeat. This morning she got up from her nap and turned on the tv and then handed me the DVD remote for me to push play to start the video! While she was watching it, Max was crying and fussy so I was rocking him in our room. She came in saying, "Elmo! Uh Oh! Elmo! Uh Oh!" and handing me the remote. I came in the living room and sure enough, the movie was over and she wanted me to restart it!

She has been talking up a storm lately. It seems like she can say whatever she wants now! It's in her cute little baby girl voice and is sometimes hard to understand but sometimes she can say the biggest words so plainly! Some of her recent words:

~Coming into our room first thing in the morning, "Mom is sleeping!" (Why yes, our little baby said SLEEPING!)

~Right before breakfast:

Mom: "Are you hungry?"

Makenna: "No, thirsty."

Ha ha, what the heck? Thirsty? Really? Ha

~Yesterday at church Austin and I had talks in Sacrament meeting. We had went to Maejae's baby blessing right before our church, so both babies were so whiney and tired. So we were glad our friends were out in the hall with their own sad babies so they could help us with ours! Makenna was holding Brooklyn's babydoll and playing Pat a Cake with it. So I started singing,

Mom: "Pat a cake, pat a cake, baker's man. Bake me a cake as fast as you can..."

Makenna: "Roll!"

Mom: "...it..."

Makenna: "Pat it!"

Mom: "Mark it with a..."

Makenna: "A, B, C!"

Ha ha, how funny! I thought that was ridiculously cute! Do all parents have this much fun when their kids begin to talk? Because I am loving it! Here are some funny pictures of Makenna lately:

Apparently swim diapers make great hats!

She is sitting in her toy box. What better place to play with toys than in a toy box?!?

Oh silly kids. We love these goofy guys!

Two Babies

Because we now have Max's blessing pictures, we just thought it would be fun to compare Makenna and Max as babies!

Baby Max

Baby Makenna

Baby Max

Baby Makenna

They really look tons alike! We are just sad that we didn't get a family picture today! We completely forgot and then things were so crazy after church... sad! : (

Max's Big Day

Today was Max's Blessing Day!

We were so excited about today! All day long we (well I guess mostly me) kept telling him, "Max, why won't you go to sleep? Why are you cranky? It's your big day!" Finally, it was time to get ready for church. We were extra excited because Max was wearing the same blessing outfit Austin wore! How cute is that? Max is 7 weeks old now and it's a good thing we didn't wait another day to get him blessed or his outfit would have been too small! It just fit!

We were a little nervous at first because this is the Max we had this morning (I'm sorry but that is such a cute sad face!):



But he ended up just fine! He didn't make a peep during the blessing and was just fine all during church!

Look at those big, dark eyes and dark hair! This is the same little blanket that Makenna used for her blessing. We can't remember exactly, but we think it is a blanket that Austin's grandmother made (is that right, Becky?). It's something like that.

So cute! The little outfit was a white one piece with buttons up the back and a collar and a little vest. Then he had on just plain white socks and cute little white shoes. Much simplier than dressing a little girl for her blessing!

The blessing went really well. We were lucky to have our great friends come for the blessing because we did not have family here. In the circle were Austin, JJ, Nate Judd, Nate Larson, Daniel, Scott, Bishop Hall, and Brother Lowe (the first counselor). I, however, could not hear the blessing because of this person:

(She is wearing a dress my mom made. I LOVE this dress!) She wasn't really crying or anything, she was just talking really, REALLY loudly in my ear the whole time! I did catch the part where Austin said something about, "We bless you to listen to your parents and your big sister." WHAT?!? No way! Don't listen to big sister! She will have you jumping off the roof! : ) But everyone said it was a nice blessing (Austin can't remember what he said to tell me!).

Afterwards everyone gathered at our house for some treats. Our friends the Blooms just moved here today from Idaho and they came as well (how nice is that? They haven't even moved anything in their house yet and they came to our little get together!). Thanks for coming everyone! I do apologize for our tiny little house, but it was still really fun to have everyone over and to have so much support and love from our friends! All in all, a nice day for "Max's Big Day!"