The family made an exciting trip to Southern California this month. The highlight of the trip was having the kids meet their biological Great Grandma Connie (Angela’s Mother’s Mother) and Grandpa Gary (Angela’s Dad). It took each of them a few minutes to warm up, but by the end of our morning together all three of them were playing around the house, happily eating the snacks provided by Great Grandma, and showing off their strength, beauty and intelligence to Grandpa. All three made us very proud, and made Great Grandma and Grandpa very happy. Daddy’s came away from the morning understanding a little more why these 3 kids are so special! What an incredible family of caring, smart, loving and VERY HEALTHY people they were born into! I also found out that Grandpa watches the blog for updates, so (for you Gary) I promise to be more diligent about getting stuff on here!
Evan shows his grandpa his buzz lightyear.Max takes a snack from Great Grandma
Max shows Grandpa how strong he is
Max gets a kiss from Great Grandma Connie.
take a look at this yard… the home of great grandma.. does it all herself!
Sophie, Evan and Max sitting on Grandma's step watching the kitty cat.
Christmas Day 2010. 9:00 PM and two out of three kids are still crying trying to get themselves to sleep. Seems natural enough I guess – it was an exciting and full day with presents from morning till night, large meals that were largely ignored for the candy canes and chocolates that seem to be everywhere.
Christmas for a three year old? Evan was still obsessed with Candy Canes. We considered eliminating all candy canes from Christmas this year, but instead decided to go with the flow. Evan loves candy canes – not eating them really, just collecting them, unwrapping them, and occasionally taking a lick. I have no idea why. Next to the candy canes the holiday was all about Toy Story. Evan asked Santa for 10 triggers, and by triggers he meant laser guns that he used on the Buzz Lightyear ride at Disney World. He got two and whatever time he wasn’t obsesses with candy canes he spent happily playing with his favorite Buzz Lightyear Laser. I am pretty sure that other than jelly beans, a few licks of candy canes, and two yogurt parfaits, the only thing he ate was 3 bits of steak at dinner. However he is the only one not crying at the moment, so either a three year old copes better with Christmas, or that is the perfect menu for a kids Christmas.
Christmas for a two year old was pretty much as we expected. Having discovered that she loves everything pink and princess recently, Santa delivered everything with that theme and she loved it all! Sophie had been asking for pink roller skates for weeks, and sure enough they were the favorite gift received today and she did great rollerskating around the house (with the wheels locked) whenever she could. On the way home from dinner at Lolo’s and Lola’s house, a Brittney Spears Christmas song came on the radio. As a gay man I suppose I should be horrified, but as a dad I was very proud when out of the blue Sophie said, “Dad, I don’t like this song, turn it off”. At the end of the day she screamed bloody murder and didn’t want to be left alone to fall asleep. I’ll chalk that one up to being overstimulated and out of routine, hopefully we’ll return to ‘normal’ tomorrow.
Max – 14 months and not really his first Christmas, but too young for a second Christmas. Max definitely has a cold, and despite being quite the trouper, I have a feeling he only half enjoyed the day. Evan and Sophie opened most of his presents while he wandered into the playroom and picked out toys that have been there his whole life. The bright spot of his day was seeing the cousins and having them dote on him all through the end of the day and dinner.
So I should have some lessons for next year, right? What did i learn? Probably not much. I don’t think I would change much – just let it flow, and try to enjoy each moment. Evan saying “Daddy, this is the best present ever” – Sophie’s determination to use the roller skates unassisted, and seeing her dressed up in her Christmas clothes – and Max’s smile as he toddles around the house looking for the next adventure! All priceless reminders of why I love my life!
Max, Kendra, Sophie, Dalton, Evan and Maren on Christmas Eve.
Max turned one! Max’s birthday was fun for everyone. He got a very special birthday present from the kids Mom! Mommy came and celebrated with grandparents, cousins, aunt Lisa, uncle Bob and godmother Kathy. Mommy brought gifts for the kids – light saber like things that the kids loved = and the fact that they came from Mom made them that much better! Max got lots of awesome presents including his very own chair! After a year, Max is still the same very happy baby he has been since day one! He loves to laugh and to crawl after Evan and Sophie. He says “Da” and sometimes “Dada”. His first word other than that was either “nana” (banana) or “hot”. He was crawling very quickly, but not quite walking at his first birthday.
The end of September meant that our awesome au pair, Matthias (Matthew), has been with us for a whole year and would have to go home soon. A week before he left, Nicolas arrived to take his place. It was very hard to say goodbye to Matthew. He was part of our family for a year, and the kids loved him a whole lot. Matthew came to dinner the night before he left for good. The kids got to give him a gift and play with him one last time. The kids knew that Matthew had to go back to Switzerland to see him family, but I am sure it was much harder for us to watch them say goodbye than for them, because they didn’t really understand what that meant. Hard to believe that Matthew arrived to our family before Max was even born! He was here for Max’s entire first year and through so many changes in all of their lives!
August 14th and 15th were a big weekend for Max. We spent the weekend in Fair Play with Nana and Poppy and boy did he change! After 9 1/2 months he still had no teeth, and he still didn’t crawl. He would sit happily for a very long time playing with whatever was in reach. Well sure enough towards the end of the week we thought we saw two bottom teeth about to pop through and by Saturday, sure enough, they both were there. Almost 10 months old, but also just about when Sophie got her first tooth. If that wasn’t enough, Max pretty much out of nowhere just started to crawl on the same day! On Thursday he took a few “crawl steps”, and a couple more on Friday, and by Saturday in Fair Play (probably encouraged by the carpet he was crawling all around. Evan and Sophie are completely delighted by the progress their brother is making and love to watch and “help him” at every new venture!
Evan and Sophie watch as Max takes some of his first crawls.
Max pauses his crawling to get a picture taken
Proud big sister poses with Max
Having "mastered" crawling a few minutes earlier, Sophie and Evan decide that Max should learn how to somersault as well!
"and yes.. i CAN fly"
One last note. Evan and Sophie are doing amazing together. Sharing toys and food, caring about each other when they cry, and last night, on the way to dinner, we looked in the back seat and there they were, holding hands!!
Evan and Sophie playing a game of 'ring around the rosie'
Evan turned three on Sunday. We planned a different sort of celebration for him this year. We noticed at Sophie’s 2nd birthday party that Evan didn’t seem entirely thrilled with a large group of kids in the house, and lately when we are in large groups of people he will tell us he would prefer to be somewhere quiet. There were a few things we knew however, that we wanted to incorporate into his day. The first was “Toy Story” – he is a big fan! The second was “Chuck-E-Cheese” – he has been asking to go there since he saw a commercial on TV. The third was time with his cousins.
So on his birthday morning, we sang him happy birthday with a candle in a muffin, and let him open his presents from Daddies. He was thrilled with his Buzz, his Woody, and his Slinky (as was Sophie). In the afternoon we met just two friends at Chuck-E-Cheese. Evan LOVED it and ran around the entire time, only taking time to sit for a few minutes to have pizza and a cupcake. On Monday evening, his cousins and grandparents came to our house for Pizza and birthday cake. It turned out to be a perfect 2 days for Evan – he loved every single minute of it.
On Monday, May 24th, Max became part of our family forever. His adoption day was very similar to Evan’s and Sophie’s. Early morning at the court house with our attorney (and now friend who we have been in constant contact with for 4 years!) Susan Romer, and our parents and family. It has become tradition to go to lunch and celebrate the day with family. We went back to the same restaurant (Le Mer) that we went to after Sophie’s adoption and had another great lunch!
