Category: Uncategorized

Despite our hopes, our oldest two children are growing up to be terribly predictable. Evan can’t stand pink, will only eat from blue plates, won’t touch a barbie, etc. Sophie loves pink, hello kitty, barbies, etc. Our last hope for a child who bucks the trend just a little is our Maxwell. Perhaps it is because he is the third, and because he has an older brother and an older sister to look up to and emulate, but he does seem to be a little less concerned about gender specific roles.

Max loves cars, trucks, and trains, even more than Evan ever has.  He can spend hours lining up his matchbox cars and racing them down the orange tracks. However, we are very happy that he also loves to spend time with Sophie playing “Barbie”. His favorite is his “Princess and the Pop Star Barbie” that Santa gave him for Christmas. Actually, Max picked this particular Barbie out as a Christmas present for Sophie. A week before Christmas, however, Sophie made it quite clear she did not want this gift from Max. It seems that Max’s obsession with this Barbie (and Barbie movie) had made Sophie not like it. So Max picked a new gift for Sophie and that Barbie ended up in Max’s pile from Santa. Max loves this Barbie.

He seems to be slightly aware that perhaps it isn’t a typical boy toy because sometimes he will play with her in his room, and if we come into the room, he will act shy and ask up to leave. Why does he thinks we would care? We have no idea. I don’t think we have ever said anything that would make him think we would disapprove. This is a concern for us though. We have tried to say more positive things around all three kids when they want to do something that might be considered less typical for their gender.

Max also loves to dress up… as all kids do. His dress up tends to be less gender specific than the older two, but does seem to act a little more shy when he puts on a dress. Most often he won’t pose a picture in a dress… though this time he was happy to!

We are in the middle of saying goodbye to our beloved au pair Nicolas. Can’t believe a year is over already! We made the decision  to not have another au pair. Mainly because the house was getting so small and we really wanted Sophie to have her own room. Below are some pictures of changes we made to the house – but it changed the feel of the entire house so dramatically, it really makes the house feels twice as big. The kids having toys in their rooms, and a TV room separate from the adult space and living room, combined with Max being able to navigate the stairs freely have us feeling like we live in a large house!!

Max is talking up a storm these days! Some of it very comprehensible and clear. The one thing he really hasn’t grasped saying (or doesn’t want to) is “Blanket”. He is the first of the kids to be attached to a blanket, and carries his most of the morning and night. Thank goodness he hasn’t started to want to cart it around during the day. His word for his blanket is “mickey”. We think it is a shortened version of “my blankie”  – but we love it and hope it sticks around for a while!

Evan counted to “60” today with no help (except he said 50 wrong at first). Max can count to “10” and correctly identify up to 2 objects.  Sophie is counting 10 objects now, and can stop when she runs out of objects. Up until recently she use to continue counting even after she ran out of things to count.

Evan had his fourth birthday at “pump it up”. He went to two birthday parties there before his, and really wanted his there as well. He had a great time. Almost every kid from his preschool class came, as well as a ton of family and friends. He got so many gifts, and handled himself well the whole day.

In this photo, taken March 19, 2011, all three kids were standing against the refrigerator holding hands. I don’t remember why, but i thought it was a good chance to get them all in a picture and remember how they compare in height. This is during the month that Evan and Sophie are both 3 years old.

Through the very wet month of March, we found some new and fun things to do in the house. One thing that all three kids began to enjoy – was building forts in the living room. As Max is more able to pretend like he is one of the big kids, all three would go into the fort for a pretty good period of time and watch a movie on “Sophie’s computer”. Sophie loves to use the little DVD player we have and watch movies on it. She’ll take a stack of movies, and just watch one or more.  She calls the DVD player her computer.

Sophie turned 3 on April 30, 2011. We had a small party with family and neighbors to celebrate.

A great weekend in Fair Play. Bittersweet because we decided to rent out our Fair Play house to our friend Sarah and her family for at least the next year. With Daddy David doing real estate in the city, it means we will have to spend more time at home on the weekends, and going to Fair Play just won’t happen all that much. We had a great time in some great weather.  Eating outside, Playing in the yard, visiting Fitzpatrick’s for lunch and the beautiful new Skinner Winery.   Evan and Sophie seem to enjoy the time up there, but there are also the times they don’t want to go outside because of bugs! We’ll try not going for a year, and see what happens. We’ll probably have to go up anyway to visit – there is just too much up there that has become part of our lives not to visit for Pizza night, Boccanato, and Wineries.

St Philips Preschool had the annual “trike-a-thon” this week -raising money for St Jude’s. Evan raised over $200 for the kids, and was very proud. Of course Sophie wanted to ride her tri-cycle too!  Evan and Sophie both rode their trikes around the track set up in the schoolyard for over 30 minutes, and loved every minute of it.  Once Evan found out that there was a pitstop with lemonade, he stopped every few times around. Sophie, for her part, figured out she could make much better time if she cut through the middle of the track half way around! Fun morning – looking forward to next year when Max can be there too!