Max and Jordan continue to enjoy Chanukah gifts

I think I actually posted these out of order. This one came first, followed by "Marble Madness" below.

Marble Madness!

Here's Max, Jordan & Stephen playing with Max's new Chanukah gift (thanks, Bubbie & Zaidie!)

Max and Jordan sing

Let's see if I can successfully post a video of the kids. Testing; one, two...

My favorite picture of Jordan

Sitting in Applebees, waiting for Max and Daddy to get back from the restroom. What a smile. It's hard to believe she'll be 3 years old in October...

Fourth of July in Texas

We had a great trip to Dallas in July. The kids always love their "Texas adventures" (well, it IS like a whole other country).

On the Fourth of July, the elementary school near Myron & Marsha's house had a community picnic. It was great--they had the sprinklers on, a giant slip n' slide, and a big inflatable slide. Max had a great time on the inflatable stuff:

...and then he & Jordan took some time to play on the school playground (by the way, Max is wet because he was in the sprinklers/water games. Jordan's wet because she's REALLY sweaty):

You really can't see the sweat in these pics, but she was DRENCHED:

Later in the day, we went to a professional soccer game in Frisco (Go, Dallas!) The kids had fun, but they weren't really focusing on the game.


I think Max is pointing to the Pizza Hut in this picture. I'm not sure why he looks so serious (maybe it was the storm looming in the distance).

Did you know Max can wink? I didn't.

Here's proof:



I'll have to catch up with some pics of Jordan soon...

Max with Tree Buddy

Max's afterschool class planted a tree in front of their school a few weeks ago (Daddy helped with the digging). Here he is posing with it:



I'm going to take a picture of him (and Jordan) with it every year to see how fast it grows--and how fast the kids grow.

He calls it his "tree buddy". He also has a "wind buddy", a "sun buddy" and a "moon buddy". He cracks me up.

Well, now we lost the other tooth

Well, now Max has lost his second tooth. He took it out of the special box to show Dad, and we don't know where he put it. Those damn things are so small, it probably just got swept up as trash. Oh well. Here he is with his big gap:

We're losing teeth left and right around here!

About a month ago (April 26th, to be exact) I picked Max up from school and he was VERY excited. He said, "Mom, I lost a tooth!!". I was excited for him too, and asked to see it. He looked at me, kind of frustrated and said, "Mom, I said I LOST a tooth. I don't know where it is".

Ah...

Turns out he ate pizza for lunch and went to wiggle it afterwards, only to find an empty gap. So, Max lost the first tooth that fell out of his head. Here he is showing it off:



Tonight he lost a second tooth, and he was very happy to have NOT lost this one. I'll be sure to post a pic later.

(P.S. Max had his five-year checkup last week. He's 75th percentile in height & weight, and growing more every day!)

Breaking news!!! Everyone doing fine.

Not much to report lately, I'm afraid. The kids are getting bigger, work is very busy (spring enrollment, end of semester). At least spring is coming--it takes forever and a day to arrive this far north.

Just for a laugh, here's Jordan watching tv. I asked, "Jordan, are you comfortable?"

Jordan: "Yes, Mommy"

Me: "Are you sure???"

Jordan: "Yes, Mommy"

To each her own, I guess...

MUFFINS!

Of course, muffins go best with a nice strong latte.

Texas, Texas, yee ha!!

How about 'dem Horns, huh? I think we might have hit the limit on burnt orange clothing. We made sure the kids were decked out for the big game:



This is the new pic on my cell phone. Jordan's trying to make her fingers do "Hook 'em!", and Max is doing it but you can't tell 'cause he's moving his hand so quickly.

Jordan also has this cute outfit, so we can switch up when needed. I think this is the pic on Stephen's cell phone:

Thanksgiving at UT

Where else would anyone want to be?

The kids were great on the plane to Dallas, see?


...but we didn't stay long. The day after arriving, we drove to Austin for the majority of Thanksgiving.

We ran into several old friends in Austin. Including these beautiful girls:


To the kids, UT was one giant playground. The marble "slides" on the steps leading up to the Tower were great fun (and it didn't matter that it had just rained and everything was filthy):

Today in gymnastics class, Max was afraid to walk on the balance beam, but he showed absolutely no fear on the walls around campus, even if they were taller than Mom and Dad. Here's Max and Lilli on a small one:


We tried to calm them down long enough to eat, but that proved challenging:


We also had a chance to meet an old friend from Dobie (Willie) at an old favorite restaurant (Chuy's), who bonded quickly with Max. Max thought his muscles were bigger than Willie's though:


And even though the kids were up WAY past their bedtimes, they still had a good time.



More to come...

Happy New Year!

Here's this year's holiday pic. Sorry if we didn't get one out to you personally. I try to remind myself of this pic when the begin screaming at each other.

My Extended Absence

Well, we've had a very busy time since I last posted in October. I had my criminology conference in November in Toronto, and we spent Thanksgiving in Texas with Stephen's family. We were also lucky enough to visit some old friends (OK, many old friends) in Texas, both Dallas and Austin.

In December, we drove to New Jersey to see Chris's family, then back home again the day after Christmas to celebrate Chanukah with Stephen's family. Whew! It was a busy time, but wonderful. Shortly after Chanukah, we had some friends over for the best-college-football-championship-game EVER, and watched TX show USC a thing or two about college ball. Yeeeeeee haaaaaaa!!!

Pics from the past few months will be showing up here soon!