Party #2

I'm a little late posting this, and all I have are the same old excuses, so I'll just tell you about his 2nd party on 10/20 (official b-day). Just a small shindig with a few close friends and our buds from MortgageIT. I made way too many treats and one was purely to post on the blog. Can you guess which one? (thanks to Natalie, Mike and Marshal for helping out in a pinch!)

The spread:

Some guests:

A happy and not so happy Fallon. What sort of mother forces a party hat on her son? oops, I mean daughter.

RJ & Max . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Jean & Weston

Ciana & Sienna (that's a tong twister!)

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Trying to get photos of the 1 yr olds. They had their own ideas.

Party #1 for Max's 1st B-day

Max is having 3 parties (doesn't every 1 year old?). Today was for family and we had a nice quiet lunch, presents & cupcakes. We had to let him go to town on his own cupcake which he inhaled- literally. It didn't start off well, but its his party and he can cry if he wants too :) I didn't exactly put the party hat on right (see photo below). The only way to get him to stop crying was to force a taste of frosting in his mouth. After a quick hose down he crashed for about 3 hrs. I should have taken advantage and grabbed a nap of my own.

It's official, Max has decided to be a dog

We knew it was only a matter of time with Boo Radley & Atticus in control of our house. He already enjoys crawling around after them and playing/eating with their toys more than his own. But now he prefers their food and their door as well :)

This photo is a bit blurry, but notice the red marks on his arms, thighs and side. He's a bit chubbier than the dogs so had to squeeze through. It didn't stop him from trying several more times.

A really scary Halloween story

This is Max

This is the Black Widow Spider that leaped out of nowhere, crawled all over him looking for a place to bite and then the dogs noticed and knocked it off his arm before it attacked him... (ok, not really, you can read the true story below, but this version is better).

Here's the long winded story:

Our morning routine consists of me laying on the floor next to him from

6:30 am- 8am while he eats and plays. I can't sit on the couch because that is not close enough for him. I have to be on the floor with him. So while I wake up, he plays. Around 8 he gets cranky & tired again but I have to keep him up for at least another hour + in order to get a decent nap out of him. Most mornings we go play outside. I chase him while he rides around in his walker, or walks behind it.

He usually heads for our small planter next to the garage that has some cacti & an aloe vera plant in it. For some reason these is a small succulent that he likes to pull up and eat. So he was heading for it and I told him "that's not a good decision" (I try and say this instead of "no") so instead he pulled on the pipe coming out the side of the garage. I saw something black fall on his arm and then it fell to the ground. I didn't really think anything of it until I saw it moving. I went to look closer and it was a black widow spider. It was pretty close to dead but it was trying to walk away. I was so glad that we just had Terminex come the day before to spray for bugs and spiders. Although, come to think of it, that's probably the reason it was out during the day to begin with. Aren't they usually pretty reclusive?

So naturally I scooped it up in a cup to save for Mike. He's never seen one before. :)

Rockin' the Red Carpet

This weekend Mike, Max, my sister Krista, her husband Ryan, my friend Natalie, her husband Will and their daughter Fallon went up to good old P-town to drop in on a ragin' Rock-&-Roll party my sister Kim was having. Actually, originally it started as a business trip for Natalie and I to talk to some boutiques about stocking our Max & Magnolia gear. But then I got the invite to the party and we decided to stay and rock out.

Let me say this, they know how to throw a party. All the guests came dressed in rock and roll themed outfits. Boy George, Kiss, Axel Rose, Slash, Ozzy & Sharon Osborne, DEVO, Run DMC, and some punk rockers all made appearances.

They had a red carpet, waiters, a bartender, and a stage all set up for people to perform "rock band" on the playstation. Dinner was served and desserts (my fav) as far as the eye could see. It was big fun and hilarious to see all the costumes. Can you guess what we went as?

Garth & Bjork -----------------------------Blondie & Jim Morrison

(aka Mike and Rebecca) --------------------(aka Natalie and Will)

Punk, Bjork & Madonna

(aka the Holmes Sisters)

Wayne & Garth

(aka Ryan & Mike)

The video is just to darn embarrassing, so more pics will have to do.

What a slacker I am

It's unbelievable what a blog slacker I've been. I promise I've been doing other things and not just lounging outside while Max plays. So here's the boring catch up version. I'll try to me more clever another day.

My baby outfitter business (www.maxandmagnolia.etsy.com) that my friend Natalie and I started is doing great, we're in 2 boutiques now and getting lots of custom orders on ETSY. Here's a shot of our onesies in the boutique window :)

Plus Grandma Gail came to visit for a week & Max is learning and doing so many new things every day I can hardly keep up.

For starters, he's learned to stand in his crib and yell "mommamomma" until we go get him in the morning. He's learned to scream like HE fell over the side of his crib, when in actuality its just his pacifier which falls over the side while yelling "mommamomma".

His schedule is so out of whack I don't know whether to wind my but or scratch my watch (for all you Steel Magnolia Fans!) Some days he takes 40-60 minute naps & others he sleeps for 2-3 hrs at a time. Thankfully I hear a few moms with kids in the 9-12 month range are going through the same thing. The last few days he seems to only take 2, 2.5 hr naps. I actually prefer it over 4, 1 hr naps. 1 hr is barely enough time to even think about what has to get done let alone accomplish anything.

Max has taken to walking behind his walker instead of in it these days. We tried it at Aunt Krista's house (she has carpet) and he loved it. We caught the quick video below before he bailed, but at least he didn't freak out. Now he does it at home on the hard wood. We have to keep an eye on him, cuz he can get going pretty fast and plows into pretty much everything.

He also now does not like to army crawl and prefers that you hold his hands & walk him everywhere. It makes trying to sit at church pretty rough. First thing he does every morning is walk from his room to our room and goes up and down the 2 steps at least 10 times. He'd do it more but my back is usually killing me by then. Instead I taught him to go down on his tummy backwards so that can usually buy me about 10 minutes to check email while he goes up and down the steps. I know how you fellow moms can appreciate a free 10 minutes!

They go big in Texas

Pretty much everything in Texas is big. big mosquitoes, bigger mosquito bites, big cars, big on bbq's, big hair, & BIG news. Max had a bunch of "1sts" while we were in San Antonio for my nephew Tylers baptism.

-He flew alone on a plane with Mom (not something I look forward to doing again)

-He went to Texas

-He met some of his cousins

-He took a bath with his cousin Jaxon (who is exactly 1 month older)

-He started pulling himself up on his knees to think about really crawling instead of army crawling

-He took his 1st ride in a waterski boat

-He wore his first life jacket

-He went wakeboarding (Yup, and he helped his Uncle Chad do it too!)

-He went for a ride on the banana boat with Mom and Dad

-He started using his pointer finger and thumb to pick up every tiny thing he saw (between his army crawl & new pincher trick he will be a big help cleaning my floors)

-And finally...he got his 1st tooth!

We're exhausted and will be sleeping for the next 48 hrs :) Glad to be home in our own beds, but we miss everyone already. Thanks Chad and Jana for hosting us all. We had so much fun at Schlitterbaun, waterskiing, watching the Olympics & playing games. Is summer really almost over?