Meeting our Newest Cousin

Last Thursday, our newest baby cousin, Jack Christopher, was born!  He and Auntie Jess are doing great!  We went to the hospital on Friday to visit him and I wanted to hold him the entire time.  I loved looking at all his tiny little features.  Max was a little afraid to hold him and get too close.  I'm sure he'll warm up soon, though.  We can't wait to see him again! 

Just Pictures

Maxy loves dressing up in costumes just as much as me.  Lots of times he wants to wear costumes to bed at night and the puppy one has been a favorite lately.  Then he likes to put all his puppies around him before he goes to sleep.

 Sometimes during naptime, Mommy will go upstairs to find most of the costumes in Max's costume bin in his closet strewed throughout his room and this particular day, he had fallen asleep in his Peter Pan costume on the floor. :)

Today was Iron Man/Gator fan...

 And then on Friday it was Wolverine to head to the movies.  We saw the new Disney movie, Frozen, and we all loved it.  It was awesome!  This was Max's first "real" movie... we had gone to a summer movie, Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, but this was his first movie at the theaters besides that.

I still love costumes too!  On this day, I created a knight costume with a new bow and arrow pack and (marker) "spear"...

Lately during nap/quiet time, I've been drawing on my dry erase easel.  Here are a couple of my recent drawings.

I've been cuddling in Mommy and Daddy's bed at night since having my surgery... then Daddy moves me to my bed when he and Mommy go to bed.  Might not have been the best habit to start because now I want to fall asleep in Mommy and Daddy's bed each night.  We've never had that issue before, so we'll have to work on that!

 Mommy went to a painting class with Miss Jess and Miss Natalie last week and had a blast!

Cutting Down Our Christmas Tree

For the first time ever, our family went to cut down our Christmas tree this year.  (Normally Daddy goes to Home Depot or somewhere like that to get it.)  It was a gorgeous day today, mid 50's and we had such a nice time.  We went to a nice tree farm in Eudora and the family that runs the place was so friendly.

 

 Scoping out the trees...

 Getting a dolly to haul our tree

 Here's the one I picked out!  (They were all pine trees.... we like the Douglas Fir, but apparently those aren't grown here.  If you want to cut down your own tree, the choices are pine or pine.) ;)

 Daddy using the saw to cut it down!

 By our nice little pine tree

 After we got our tree, we went home and decorated the tree and the house.  "It's beginning to feel a lot like Christmas!"  What a fun, fun weekend it's been so far!

Thanksgiving

We had such a wonderful Thanksgiving at Auntie, Uncle, Connor and Grayson's!  We got to pretty much play the whole day!  There are several "takes" of the pic below because Mommy thought they were all so cute!

 Poppy "reading" a train calendar to Maxy and Grayson

 Auntie and Mommy

 More of us boys!

 Ages 5, 4, 3 and 2 (in that order... and Baby Jack is in Auntie's tummy and about on his way!)

 Daddy fried a turkey and it was my favorite part of the whole meal.  I told him so too!

 The men...

 The mommies....

 Eating Poppy's special chocolate shakes for dessert!  We also went to the Plaza Lighting Ceremony and watched the lights turn on and fireworks from Uncle's office, but we didn't get any pics.

 And today we got to go down to Union Station with everyone to see "Twas the Night Before Christmas" and we got to see all the pretty Christmas decorations at Union Station.

 We even rode the little train at Union Station

I'm thankful for my brother and best friend and my whole family!

The Tooth Fairy Makes an Early Visit

I was such a brave boy on Tuesday.  I had to have surgery to remove two extra permanent teeth in the palette of my mouth.  We found out about the extra teeth at my first dental appointment when I was 3.  The dentist said we needed to see an oral surgeon.  We went and saw the same doctor that did Mommy's jaw surgery.  He recommended we get the teeth taken out before I started losing teeth.  So, now that I'm 5 and could be losing teeth in the next year, Mommy and Daddy decided it was time.  They told me I'd get to eat lots of ice cream and watch lots of movies.  I also got to eat breakfast in bed the night before since I couldn't eat or drink anything the morning of the surgery.

Pretty fun eating breakfast in bed at night!

 I was happy as could be to go to the actual surgery that morning with Mommy and Daddy.  I drank some "juice" that I thought was pretty good and it made me really sleepy.  I didn't start crying until I was waking up and then I was really upset because my mouth "felt really funny and puffy."  I cried most of the way home and said to Mommy and Daddy, "I thought that was going to be fun, but that was NOT awesome at all!"  When I got home, GG had a really special gift for me from her and Poppy.  It was a playdough ice cream maker!

 

And I even got to put the teeth under my pillow that night and the tooth fairy came!!  She brought me a gold dollar coin for each tooth and something extra special since I had to have surgery to get the teeth out.  The special gift was a Batman lego set that Mommy and I had a blast putting together.  Daddy and Mommy were amazed that I was already wanting to eat solid foods the night of the surgery - chicken and rice and Cheerios!  I recovered like a champ and was pretty much back to myself by the very next day!!

Catching Up on Random Stuff

Catching up on the last couple weeks... these aren't necessarily in order.

We went to see Peter Pan with Mommy last weekend while Daddy was at a work seminar all weekend.  It was at the same place where I did my Peter Pan camp last summer!  Our friend, Xavier, and his Mommy went too, but unfortunately we didn't get to sit with them.  I dressed up as Captain Hook and Maxy dressed up at Peter Pan.  It was a great show, but a little long... almost 2 1/2 hours.  We LOVE Peter Pan, though!

Max even wanted to get his picture with the REAL Captain Hook from the show.  I was a little bit afraid of him, though.  When I first saw him, I said to Mommy... "Mommy, is that the REAL Captain Hook that came all the way from Neverland?!"

 One of our favorite activities is swimming.  Quite often, we'll go play in the playroom at the gym while Mommy works out and then we get to go swimming afterward.  We are getting so good at swimming that sometimes Mommy doesn't even get in.  She just watches us from the side!

 A couple weeks ago Mommy took Max to the mall for a date and they rode the carousel and had lunch at Nordstrom Café, one of Mommy's favorites.

 During nap/quiet time last week, I drew this picture of Mommy and me on my dry erase board in my room and put this picture of us on it too.

 We've been working hard on a couple challenging things lately... Max has been working to "mind his manners" and I've been working on "Cole keeps calm"... working on being calm instead of having outbursts.  We had charts that we filled with stickers after a few weeks, so we each got a new costume.  I got a ninja costume and Max got a wolverine costume.

 Last week we went bowling with our buds, Maya and Nolan and had a blast!

 And on Friday we had Connor for an overnight and got to go get ice cream with him.  It was so much fun being with our cousin buddy.

Movie time before bed.

Today we did our annual once a year swim at Matt Ross.  We love that pool, but it always wears Mommy and Daddy out.  There are tons and tons of kids and the water is usually a bit chilly.  We had an awesome time, though!