A few England Photos

Mommy and Max on Tower Bridge with some of London and the Thames behind us.

Max at the Royal Observatory, very close to the Prime Meridan.

Max and Margaret at Nandos (where we ate dinner with Rob Vignerot) apparently demanding their food. This was the first time they got to sit in high chairs next to each other since Margaret doesn't really sit in a high chair yet.

Max is looking a little worried as we ride the tube during rush hour to go to Covent Garden to meet Rob for dinner. He was in his buggy, but he still felt like he needed to hold on.

Max is saying "Cheese!"

Preview of things to come...

Here is a picture of Max, in England, wearing the shirt Uncle Michael and Auntie Sheena got for him. He's also wearing a silly hat, because sometimes that is how a Max needs to be...

He's still working on lots of new words. He's saying "la la" for llama but it using the word milk along with the sign for milk and the word more with the sign for more. He's also saying carry and help and up. And he used the word up to signify he wanted to have a box of toys lifted up two steps, in addition to using it to mean he wants to be lifted up into his chair.

Max is also pretty fascinated by the baby's bed. He took a nap in her bed on Saturday, and last night he wanted her blanket in addition to his own blanket. She's still too young to have a blanket in her bed, so I let him have both. Unfortuantely he is also all too willing to scream when the baby is sleeping just so that she will be awake. This is not ideal. He isn't doing it at night, but he is interrupting many of her naps. Especially in the car.

Reading leads to Talking...

Last night I was reading Max one of his library books -- Hello Kitty Hello Shapes. He had me read it to him over and over and over again. And for the last couple of times he wasn't just saying ball (for circle), star, and moon. He also said the word shapes! Yay Max!

More of the Official Photos

I put all the photos of just Meg on her blog, so Max can be the one to host all of the multi-person photos...
When Mark and I saw this one in black and white we decided we liked it, other than it not being in color. We had gone past it as a color picture initally, but we went back and purchased it. :)

Margaret doesn't look too comfy, but this is otherwise a pretty good photo of us...

Max is pulling on my shirt while standing on Mark's foot. Shows you the pecking order... everyone is here to serve Max!

Here Margaret is TRYING to play with Max but he isn't very excited about sharing with her. This is slightly different from the top photo where he looks like he likes having a sister...

If they had been looking at the camera this one would have been better...

Here they look a little startled..

Mark hugging his family.

Max and Margaret each have a toy now, but they still don't know quite where to look...

Closeup of Mark hugging his family.

This is the family picture we purchased. Me hugging the kids. I think Margaret's little expression is sweet. And I love how tiny her little hands are compared to Mark's.

Similar photo but with more of our bodies showing and less of the smiling baby face...

If Max hadn't been totally done with the whole picture taking experience this one could have been a winner... But he was DONE!

Official Photos

We took the babies to do pictures yesterday. It was time for Margaret's 6 month picture. Happily she is now very good at sitting up and posed beautifully. That picture will arrive after we get back from our vacation since it is a special order. In the meantime I have these two pictures to share...

Max and Margaret (in big brother and baby sister shirts) playing with a toy.

The family together. :)

Busy Max is Busy

Max has been very busy in the last month. Those toys aren't going to play by themselves...

Max has now learned about the exciting world of playdoh. He is a big big fan of playdoh. He likes to put on his smock before he plays and definitely needs to wash his hands afterwards. And the time in the middle is just pure joy for him.

Max has a new toy kitchen and he is LOVING it! He loves to put the little dishes in the toy sink or stack up the play food or talk on the play phone. I picked up the play spaghetti and asked him where the sauce was and he picked up the bottle of parsley and gave that to me. I'm going to give him full points for that.

Max is also very excited about playing with his sister. He wants to pick her up and carry her around, which is not so exciting for us. Once we can convince him to leave her where she is, he is pretty happy to play lego or blocks or Mr Potato Head or kitchen with her. He definitely tries to get her to play with him. He's engaging her.

At night he still has to read Colors, Thomas, Chicka Chicka ABC, and then Good Night Moon. He will sometimes read them to Margaret. He turns the book around so that she can see the pages.

Max is still adding words to his vocabulary. He now sometimes points at himself and says "me" especially when he wants to go whereever Mommy is trying to go without him. He also says "carry" when he wants to be picked up. We are still working with him to add more and more words. He's being observed on the 29th so we should have a better idea then of how things are going with his language development.

And now on to a few photos...

Max is a very busy and happy boy

Here Max is posing for me. He alternates between refusing to have his picture taken and wanting me to take his picture. I guess that is all part of being 2!

Max had his first experiences with playdoh last Friday when I was home with him. It was very serious stuff, but he really seemed to like it. He wasn't very interested in squeezing the playdoh with his hands but he did like to use the fun factory toy to extrude the playdoh. Being Max, he had to wear his smock!

Max definitely still loves his sister very much. And wants me to sit her next to him and take a picture. All the time. He is getting to be more jealous of her now, but he is learning to deal with sharing mommy and nannyjo. Max is also very interested in using his potty so that he can be praised for that. He has been doing very well and now asks to use the potty and can take of his own pants and underwear/diaper. He definitely asks to wear underwear when we are at home and wants to run over to where we keep his underwear so that he can pick out the ones he is going to wear.

We went to Cabin John Regional Park last weekend for a birthday party. Max had a great time running around and playing on the playground.

This is Max, saying "cheese" and trying on a hat to see if it will fit on his giant pumpkin hat. Happily it fit! But it was super hot and not super sunny when we got to the park so we skipped the hat.

You can always tell when Max has been "helping" Margaret find something to play with. He firmly believes she should have every single baby toy at her fingertips.