Christmas 2011

Jalen and I spent many hours covering this entire gingerbread house with icing and candy. I had an ulterior motive, to get rid of all of the candy that has been sitting around since Valentine's Day (hence the candy hearts). It was so much fun spending time with Jalen this way. He even came up with the idea of using the white M&M's as gloves.

Here is Christmas morning and it was hard to get both kids look at the camera at the same time and smile. This is one of those moments where I wish I had the Microsoft "to the cloud" thing where you can swap out faces of the picture.


Jalen and Max playing with their new Christmas presents.

Sometimes Jalen pushes Max around in a laundry basket and plays choo choo. Max loves it and giggles while I brace for a bad crash.

The Darn Things Kids Say

I don't know when it happened but all of a sudden, Jalen is starting to say grown up sounding things:

• [after I made him waffle for breakfast] "Thank you for making me waffles mommy, they are the best waffles I've ever tasted!"
• [after I put on makeup to go out, he looks at me] "Your eyes look beautiful!"
• [on Christmas] Gracie says "I got the Cars 2 DVD from grandma!", Jalen says "yeah, we have the BLU-RAY!"
• [after I took a picture of the "birthday cake" he made me] "Thank you mommy for taking a picture of the cake so I can remember to make it for you every year".
  

Halloween

We had a fun Halloween this year with Jalen as a fireman and Max as an adorable monkey. Jalen was nice and warm in his fireman gear and went out into the neighborhood with his cousins.

October Pictures

One day, I went to pick up Max at daycare and found him wearing this tutu. His teacher said that the kids love the texture and they usually try to take them off the boys before the parents pick up. I just had to snap some photos -- for future black mail purposes.

Here is Max striking a pose when I whipped out my phone. He is with his best bud Cordell. Cordell doesn't look amused however.

September Pictures

Here is Jalen at American Eagle Outfitters. He styled himself by picking out this tie, glasses and both watches.

Jalen and Grace spent all afternoon on the beach at Newcastle Beach Park playing with sand. I think if we let them, they could have played there all day.


Here we are at the Olive Garden to celebrate Grandpa's birthday. It was the never-ending pasta and salad bowls special!

Sharing is caring

Jalen has been a great big brother to Max including sharing his favorite things like desserts. Here they are eating a fudge pop and making a big mess of their faces. It's also been nice to be able to hang out on the deck after dinner while the weather is nice. Our house is west facing and usually the kids love being outside because it's much cooler.

Oldie but goodies

I was cleaning up my laptop and found these great old videos of Jalen and Max. It's hard to remember how little Jalen was and how he sounded as a baby. They really grow up so fast.


Here's a video of Jalen at 23 months. He was really into a lot of pop songs at that age. Some of his favorites were Low by Flo Rida, Right Now by Akon and (Like a cop car) Mrs. Office by Lil Wayne. Here Rick is trying to get Jalen to sing Like a Cop Car and Jalen wasn't having it.



This is the morning after Max was born and Jalen meeting his little brother for the first time. Apparently, Grandma had a hard time seeing that Max's tiny newborn eyes were wide open for the occasion.



Max is almost 3 months here cooing away and Jalen marveling at his baby brother finally being able to interact with us. This was the beginning of my two boys bonding and becoming playmates.