Christmas Day

This is the first year that Jalen, at 3 and a half, really got excited about Christmas. He knew that it was the day he got to open presents. And he knew there were lots of presents waiting for him! On Christmas morning, he came into our bed and managed to wait until about 9am before we started opening presents. We opened presents from friends at home then went over to Grandma and Grandpa's to open the rest of the presents.




This Toy Story 3 Lego set was on Jalen's wish list. He says "the Claw! the Claw!"

Here is Max with his classic Eeyore look with cousin Taylor.


Jalen was so excited to finally get his lady bug Pillow Pet. He has seen the TV commercial every morning. After making it into a pillow, he asked "Mommy, can you help me turn this into a cozy animal?"

Max and the Christmas Tree

It's hard to remember what Jalen's first Christmas was like... He was 7 months old and was sitting up but not yet crawling... So he probably was pretty contained and not getting into the ornaments. Max is now 10 months and fully mobile. His favorite ornament is this little Christmas book. He loves to pull on it. We just cross our fingers and hope that he doesn't pull the tree down with it.

This is a guilty look if I ever saw one...

OK, you caught me but I'm cute!

Gingerbread House

And we're back on Blogger! I like the sequential flow of this blog and with the kids I need to have things in order for me to remember what's what!

The week before Christmas, Jalen and I put together a gingerbread house. I put the icing on and he carefully placed the candies onto the house. It's so interesting to see how orderly he placed the candies (see the perfect row of dots on the spine of the roof).

Carefully picking up a dot...

then placing it just so...

Tada! The finished product. Daddy helped to make the Santa and the tree in front of the house. So cute!

New home on tumbler

Max and Jalen have a new home on the internet: http://maxandjalen.tumblr.com. Tumblr is a little easier to use and now that I have a good camera on my phone, I can start taking and sharing more pictures and videos of the kids.

Bath time accident

Max is 8 months old!

Our little Max is 8 months old! He is now on 3 meals of solid foods per day: breakfast, lunch and dinner. He eats green beans, sweet potatoes, oatmeal and rice cereal. He also drinks about 24 oz of milk/formula per day. He wakes up every morning around 7am for his morning feeding then goes back to sleep until almost 10am. He takes an afternoon nap around 1pm. He goes to bed each night around 8:30pm after I feed him in the evening. I nurse him just in the morning and evening and I must say I really enjoy that cuddle time with my Max.

It took Max quite a while to sit up independently. In fact, he's still not that good at it. He really prefers crawling. If you put a toy in front of him, he will wiggle out of his Bumbo and drag his body towards it. In fact, we can entertain him for quite a while just making him crawl and roll around the floor for his toys.

Fun with finger foods! Max can grab these little star shaped snacks but he doesn't quite know how to get it into his mouth yet. He has one bottom tooth that just popped up last weekend.

Yummy sweet potato and rice cereal for lunch! He's pretty fast at eating solids now.

Jalen hugging his little brother while they both stare at the TV.

Check out my Chucks!

Uh oh, did I undo my shoe laces?

Do the Puyallup

Last Saturday we took Jalen to the Puyallup Fair. It was a gorgeous summer-like day and the Fair was unusually crowded. It took us over an hour to get to the Fair but the good news was that Jalen slept the whole time. By the time we got there, he was ready to go. He really loved the rides. We all had a good time. It's so much fun being able to enjoy the Fair with Jalen. I just can't wait until the day that we can take him to Disneyland! See more pictures in this album on Facebook.

Recent Max and Jalen

Max is 7 months old!

Our little Max is 7 months old! He still doesn't know how to sit by himself yet. He still has no teeth. He also is not that excited about eating solids. But he loves to smile and laugh and he loves to bounce in his Jumperoo.

Max's daily schedule goes something like this:

7am - first feeding of the morning, I put Max back to bed
10am - bottle of formula, possible morning nap
12pm - rice cereal
1pm - bottle of formula, then nap
4pm - bottle of formula
6:30pm - I get home and feed Max
8:30pm - I feed Max putting him to bed

We're trying to fit solid foods into this schedule. The goal is to get him on 3 feedings of solids by the time he's 9 months. Last week, we just introduced sweet potatoes. I think he prefers it over just plain old rice cereal!

The Fair at the PNE

Rick and I both have fond memories of the PNE Fair in Vancouver. It's the annual affair that signals the last hurrah before school starts again. This year was extra special because it was the 100th anniversary of the Fair. Last Saturday, we celebrated our 6th wedding anniversary by taking Jalen with us to the Fair. He was a little cranky and overwhelmed at first but some french fries and BBQ'ed chicken warmed him up. Then after the Superdogs show he was exhausted and passed out in his stroller for about an hour. He woke up groggy but then warmed back up for some kiddy rides. All in all, a good time was had by both kiddy and parents.


A real Canadian army truck... wait, we have an army?

A Canadian pilot and fighter plane!

Watching real cowboys herd cows, man they were fast and amazing!

The helicopter ride!

too much fun...

We couldn't have asked for a better day to go to the PNE. Apparently, thousands of other people thought so too.

Max's 6 month check up

On Aug. 10 I took Max to his 6 months check up. He was 17lb 15 oz(50 - 75%) and 26.75" (50-75%). He's growing proportionally and doing great. He does have some eczema on the back of his head so I was told to start putting hydrocortizone cream on his head until it clears up.

We started giving him rice cereal on his 6 months birthday once a day. More accurately the nanny gives it to him once a day. She says it took him about 3 days to get the hang of it. I've been so busy between work and the kids that I haven't had the energy to experiment with any new foods. The last week Max and Jalen have both been under the weather. Max hasn't been eating so well, so the solid food experiment is slightly on hold. He sleeps great though. I usually put him down around 8:30pm and he sleeps until 9am. I typically wake him up at 7am to feed him then put him back down to sleep. I'm so thankful that Max is easy in the morning because I have to feed Jalen and get him ready for school. At least lately, Jalen hasn't been throwing as many tantrums about going to school. I have Jalen on a routine of get dressed, breakfast and a little TV. I tell him that he can watch 1 episode (one of Thomas, Bob the Builder, Dora, Ni Hao Kai Lan or Diego) and he turns off the TV when it's done by himself.

Amazon company picnic

Last Sunday we went to the annual Amazon company picnic at the Mountain Meadow Farm in North Bend, WA about 30 miles outside of Seattle. It was 90 degrees with very little breeze. Although they had lots of fun activities for kids to do, Jalen wasn't really in the mood for it. So we pretty much just ate in the shade then left.

Here we are, camped out under the shade. Jalen is sitting on the grass and eating ice cold fruit after eating a hot dog.

I brought a towel for Jalen thinking that he'd want to play on the water activities. Instead I used it as mat for Max to spread out on.

These guys are called "Seattle Knights". They did a jousting show that we didn't bother to watch. I was getting hot just thinking about how hot these guys must be feeling.

Here's Jalen and daddy on the "train" ride. It was the only activity that he was interested in.

Jumping Max

Max is 6 months old!

At 6 months, Max is rolling around but not sitting or crawling yet. He is sleeping through the night (yay!!). He is not very interested in solid food yet. We have his 6 months check up next week where we'll find out how he's growing.

Here's a picture of me and Jalen when he was around 6 months old. Max and Jalen definitely look like brothers when they're smiling!

Max playing on his tummy

Day in the life of a working mom of 2

6am - first feeding of the day for Max, put him back down to sleep, me stumble back to bed
7am - get up, get dressed for work
7:30am - Jalen wakes up. I get him to pee, wash hands, eat breakfast and dressed for school. then he gets to watch some TV
8am - Rick leave with Jalen to drop him off to school
8:30am - nanny arrives for Max. We debrief about how Max was yesterday,
then plan for dinner (she cooks for me!!)
8:45am - leave for work. I drive to the park and ride then take the bus to work down town
9:30am - arrive at the office. sometimes I grab breakfast
5:30pm - leave the office, take the bus to the park and ride
6:15pm - arrive at Jalen's daycare for pick up
6:30pm - arrive at home with Jalen. Rick usually picks up Max from Betsy's house. I feed Max.
6:45pm - the rest of us eats dinner. it's so nice to have the nanny cook for us. it saves so much time and stress
7 - 8:30pm - keep the kids entertained, sometimes run errands like going to the store
8:30pm - I feed Max and put him to sleep. Meantime, Rick tries his best to put Jalen down.
9pm - finally able to have some quiet. I might catch up on work, watch some TV, do laundry
11:30pm - bed time

This is the approximate schedule. Having Max sleep through until 6am is a recent victory. Before, he'd need a 4am feeding, then again around 7:30am. Lately, Jalen has been a huge challenge. Every morning he complains about going to school. Last Friday, I was planning to leave the house at 8am for a 9am meeting at work and have Rick wait for the nanny. Well, Jalen whined and kicked until 8:30am before Rick and I finally wrestled him into the car seat. Then Jalen screamed and kicked all the way to school. When we got to school, I carried him by the waist and brought him inside. I had to spend time with him in the office to help calm him down before they took him to his class. I completely missed my 9am meeting. On other nights, we put Jalen down around 8:30pm and he will say that he's not tired. He will come up with ways to stall, including going to the bathroom multiple times. Sometimes, he doesn't actually fall asleep until past 10pm. On those nights, my evening is really compressed. We just try to take things day by day. Some days, the feeling of getting on the bus and going to work is such a relief because I made it through the morning hustle and bustle.

Brothers