Co-Stars

Making their cinematic debut together.... MAX & EVELYN!

Story Time

Max and Evelyn joined me for story time this morning.  We (surprise!) read about fire trucks and fire men.  Max has been wearing his fire boots every. single. day. this week to Miss Reinalda's and refers to himself as the fire man.

Dino-mic Duo

Max woke up talking about dinosaurs Friday morning, so I took the kids to the Natural History Smithsonian while Ian got some work done at the house.  We had lots of fun!

We started out at the dinosaurs.  Max identified the triceratops, stegosaurus and tyrannosaurus from across the room.  Pretty impressive given that he only knows which is which from the cartoon drawing on his dinner plates and sippy cups! 

Then we went to the animals section, where we learned about 'manimals' (aka mammals).  We watched a little video about a mouse-like creature who gets to evolve into modern mammals when the dinosaurs 'have a bad day' as a meteor plummets into the earth.  Max has been talking about the dinosaurs having a bad day ever since!

Evelyn liked the animals.  She was very, very smiley in their section!

Max wrapped up his museum time by checking out the fish tank for QUITE a while.  He learned that clown fish are orange and white.

As we left the museum, Max spotted the merry-go-round across the way.  We decided it looked like fun, so all three of us hopped on to enjoy a ride.  Evelyn was a champ for her first merry-go-round experience!

 

And, because I never post pics of just us, here are Ian and I at a Washington Wizards game Saturday night.  We don't know enough about basketball to really be able to follow the game, but it DID go to double-overtime, which was exciting!

Two Love

These two are already pals.  I love how you can see how much they adore each other already.  The first picture in particular melts my heart!

Pretty as a Peacock

Here are some of my favorites of Evelyn after church yesterday 

Little Lady

Right on cue, Evelyn is becoming a little lady instead of a newborn lump.  She's smiling all the time these days and makes lots of baby talks.  

 But watch out when you put her on the bed, because you-know-who is never far off...

Thanksgiving

There's no doubt what we are thankful for this year - our two little turkeys are huge blessings and remind us of how lucky we are every morning!

 Miss Liz came over to spend the evening with us.  Max loves having her to play!

 Ian made the turkey, and I did the sides and teepee name cards.  Max really liked the cranberry chutney, which he called 'chug-chug'.  We all ate tons!

 Max couldn't resist going for some turkey while we made our way to the table.

 Daddy and the kiddos.

 Mom was there, too!

They call me... The Gobbler

This is the turkey Max made with Miss Reinalda.  

Also folks, we've reached a milestone here at EmilyAndIan.com.  Today, with post 671, we officially ran out of room on the free blogging platform.  That's right - we've shared 1 GB of pics with you in the last 2.5 years.  That's a lot!  But never fear, there's plenty more pictures to come - there's no expense too great to keep up with Max & Evelyn!

1 Fat Turkey Are We...

Max made a thankfulness turkey with us last night.  You can't see them, but he is thankful for fire trucks, garbage trucks, Bumbo sheep, and family!

Observations

• According to Max, 'Evelyn does not talk a lot, she just makes baby talks.'  He imitates anything she says, and is very attuned to her every gurgle.
• Max's polite word usage is really coming along.  Last night, when refusing to go on the potty, he said 'no thank you, I do not need to go on the potty,' as opposed to just 'nononononono.'  He also said 'thank you for turning the water on in my bubble bath and thank you for turning the water OFF in my bubble bath' when he got out of the tub.
• Max loves to say goodbye to Daddy in the morning.  He gets very irritated if he thinks Daddy forgot to give Evelyn or me a kiss, and reminds Ian about it multiple times.  He also goes downstairs to get one last hug and kiss right before Ian walks out the door.  I always tell Ian to 'make A's' as he leaves, and now Max's parting words are always 'I love you Daddy, make A's!'
• Max learned his full name is Maxton Philip Bryan.  But since I sometimes call him Maxton P-Hilip, he says his name is 'Maxton Philip Bryan P.'  Evelyn's full name, according to Max, is 'Evelyn Pevelyn.'
• Max remains convinced that in order to really be with Evelyn, he has to be able to see her mouth.  He spends much of the time before we go see Miss Reinalda's bouncing from one side of Evelyn to the other, trying to be sure her mouth is in his line of site.
• He is obsessed with hearing made up stories.  Ian has started a long story, one installment of which gets told every night.  Max is completely hooked!
• We're working on no hitting and not bothering Evelyn while she eats.  Max is so responsive to suggested 'good' behaviors.  Since we talked about stomping our feet and saying 'I'm mad' when we're mad instead of hitting, he hasn't had any hits with Miss Reinalda.  And now that he helps get Evelyn's bottles and knows he should read a book to her while she eats, meal times are smoother, too.
• Max thinks that Evelyn nurses from my tummy.  When I was feeding her earlier this week, he got a stuffed animal and stuck its mouth right up to his belly button and said 'look Mommy, I'm feeding my baby tummy milk too!'
• Evelyn loves to kick her legs and push her arms around.  It's hilarious when she taps Max - sometimes he gets just OUTRAGED that she would dare 'hurt' him.  Though when we remind him that it is just a baby doing baby things, he laughs it off pretty quickly.

Matisse

Much to Ian's dismay, Max loves to do 'crafts'!  I am thrilled :)  We'll scan in the turkey he made after Thanksgiving (it's on display with Miss Reinalda for now), but here are some of his latest works.  The second is a rainbow, the others are 'just drawings'.