Max says:

Today as we took my niece to school there was a woman walking down the street bundled up for the winter weather. She was wearing bright blue snow pants and a brown coat. She had the hood on and pulled up to hide her face. The hood had a fir lining around the very edge.  As we drove by Max said: "Look mom, a monkey is walking on the sidewalk!"  "That's funny!" 

We both had a pretty good laugh about it, although I'm pretty sure it was for different reasons. 

I love when you get a little glimpse into whats going on in their head. 

Birthday Pictures

So Max's birthday was on the 22nd. I am finally getting around to showing some pictures.  He had a great day.  We had a Pirate birthday party and invited some friends/cousins.

Max's Birthday Balloon

Some Party Favors

Decoration

The Birthday Cake

Blowing out the candles (he needed a little help)

The best part of a birthday party, opening presents

getting some help from friends

More presents

This is what happens when you have 13 kids at your house

and the Adults are doing this

Fun for everyone

Well, almost everyone.

Aaaaugh!

Happy Birthday Maximillian! I love you so much!

Happy Birthday Maximillian

At the pumpkin patch

Halloween Spider

Playing with a REALLY gross grub

Today is Max's 3rd Birthday.  I just can't believe that he has been here for 3 years already.  The time has flown by.  I feel so blessed to have him.  He is such a delightful child.  He is so happy and fun. He's hilarious ( I think he gets it from daddy). He loves to sing and listen to music, he has definate taste in music to.  He'll let me know when he doesn't like something and if he finds something he likes he listens to it until he has every bit of it memorized.  One of his current favorites is Rust Monster, Nate's Pirate Band.  We both have every song memorized. Max even has the order on the C.D.'s memorized.  He'll run around the house humming pirate music into whatever he can find and pretend it is his trombone.  He currently air plays the guitar, drums, trombone and piano.  He'll play on my arm or the couch or whatever he can find.  He thinks every thing that is long and straight is a drum stick.  He is constantly singing songs or humming songs or playing songs on his instruments.  Our home is filled with music all day long.

Max loves to play with cars. He has a box of random cars that he has gotten over the years and we pull it out about every day.  He picks the cars he wants to play with and runs around the house driving his cars and carrying on conversations.  I have always been able to bring cars to church with us and they will keep him quiet for a while.  He'll pull them out, line them up, drive them all over the bench, talk to them, have them talk to each other and he'll be good during sacrament meeting. 

He also loves sticks. Those aren't as easy to take with us.  He either wants to use them as drum sticks and bang on things or use them to sword fight.  He also loves to just get a stick and drag it behind him. He calls it "vrooming".  He'll vroom his swords or his pool sticks or random sticks he finds outside.  He just likes to have a stick in his hand.

Max loves to play and laugh and get really wound up.  Some of his favorite things to play right now are the alligator game with daddy.  Nate made it up one night.  We have this blue tube, meant for crawling through, and they pretend it is an alligator that eats them up.  Before it eats them it sings "scary" music, similar to the jaws theme.  We now have an "alligator" living at our house that randomly sings scary music and eats us.  He also loves to get eaten up by myself or Nate.  We play the "I love you so much I'm going to eat you up" game.  Its pretty simple really, you just hold the person your going to eat and say; "I love you so much.....I'm going to eat you up!" and then you pretend to eat them. Max LOVES it! He laughs and then he eats me up.  He also loves to be made into a sandwich/hamburger between 2 pillows and again be eaten up. 

You'd think with all the games we play that involve eating he would eat really well.  He doesn't.  He can't be bothered with eating, he would much rather play.  He sits down twice a day and eats a reasonable meal.  I feel like that is a huge accomplishment. He seems to be growing all right so I think he's getting enough food.  He pretty much lives on chocolate milk and peanut butter and honey sandwiches although he will actually eat pretty good food if I can get him to sit down long enough.   He loves corn, peas, green beans, asparigus, cooked carrots, cooked broccoli, bananas, apples, grapes. He likes chicken and turkey, tomatoes, yogurt, toast.  He loves whole grain pancakes and has eaten as many as 4 in one sitting.  He likes juice. He doesn't love drinking out of regular cups. I think he hasn't figured out how to chug it yet so he gets frustrated that he can't drink as fast as he wants to. He's still uses sippy cups for most everything.   He can use silverware but prefers to eat with his hands. He doesn't like chocolate AT ALL. He won't swallow just plain chocolate (i.e. M&M's, candy bars, chocolate chips, etc). He likes to try it if everyone else is eating it, but he just spits it out.  He just recently started eating chocolate chip cookies, I think the cookie is enough to cover up the chocolate.  He definately loves fruity candy.  He likes to put jelly beans in his pocket and run around and snack on them.  He likes skittles, starburst, fruit snacks, sour patch kids, mike and ikes and the list goes on. Sometimes when he's being funny he'll tell me he wants some sort of candy for "dinner" (every meal is dinner, no matter what time of day it is) and then wait for me to say; "You can't have (insert candy name here) for breakfast, you silly!" Then he'll laugh. 

Max is such a good boy. He just doesn't get into stuff. I can leave him down stairs and go take a shower and I know that he'll be fine.  He'll just play or watch a show, he'll come in to the bathroom to check on me when he gets bored.  He rarely gets into trouble when I let him just play like that.  He spends most of the time singing to himself anyway.  He is getting really good about going shopping, visiting friends, whatever errands we have to run.  I've found that if he just knows where we are going and what behavior is expected of him he is an angel most of the time.  He is of course 3 and still finding his boundaries and he gets pretty grumpy when he's hungry but for the most part he is a really easy kid. 

Some more of his favorite things right now.  Bugs, all kinds of bugs but especially spiders. He was a spider for Halloween, Nate was a bumble bee and I was a lady bug. Max LOVED that! He thought it was so great that we were all bugs. He still asks where our costumes are.  He loves Mount Rushmore. We went in June with my family and Max hasn't stopped talking about it since. He still prays for it on a regular basis.  He talks about it all the time. He "sees" it everytime we get in the car and asks me if I see it to. For about 2 months after we went he would ask me if that was where we were going, everytime we got in the car.  He thinks George Washington's name is Mount Rushmore. He'll name all the presidents starting with Mount Rushmore.  He has a friend named Lincoln and he tells me whenever he talks about Lincoln, "Mom, Lincoln and Abraham Lincoln!"   Max loves Toy Story, Incredibles, Thomas the Tank Engine, Clifford the Big Red dog, Mickey Mouse, Elmo. He loves watching musicals and singing all the songs. He loves to watch youtube music videos. He loves to read and really loves going to the Library.  So many books to choose from.  He loves to do puzzles.  He loves to play with friends. He loves to go for walks, especially when he gets to decide where we go. He loves slides.  He is an energetic, smart, happy, fun boy.

I feel truly blessed to have Max in our family.  I know that he was sent to our family for a reason.  He brings us so much joy.  I treasure every day that I have with him.  I love I have been able to stay home and just be his mom.  I get to watch him grow up and discovery the world and develop his personality.  I get to play with him and teach him.  I get to hold him when he's sad and kiss his "owwies" better. I get to fly him into bed and listen to the sweet prayers that he says.  I get to be his mom for forever and I couldn't be more honored. 

I love you Maximillian Omer Peck!  Happy Birthday Kiddo!

Funny videos

Some movies from the Gangrene Film Festival this year. These two were my favorites.





I LOVE Nate. He makes me laugh!

A very busy week

So last week and this week have been pretty busy for us. Nate has been out of town for the last two weeks (home on friday and saturday) which has been pretty hard on me and Max. We have managed to cope by keeping ourselves ridiculously busy. It has been pretty fun and we have been able to do a lot. It started with last monday, Nate's band Rustmonster performed (without Nate) so Max and I went to watch. Some of our friends came and Max had a great time eating candy, playing with his friends and listening to Pirate music. He has asked to "go listen to pirate music" just about everyday since.

Then Tuesday night our friend had an Eagle Project Benefit Concert. He (the boy getting his Eagle) is in a band and he held a big concert in his backyard. Everyone who came brought canned food items to donate and they sold concessions there. All the proceeds went to the Layton Family Crisis Center. It was a lot of fun. The show was great, and the food was yummy.

Wednesday we went to the Davis County Fair with my sister in law and her kids. Max LOVES his cousins and wants to play with them ALL the time. We had a good time looking at the animals and exhibits and walking around.
That night we went to a BBQ at some friends house. There were about 7 families having a party and camping out in the backyard. We went and played for a while but opted out of the sleeping in the backyard part. Max doesn't really sleep well with other people around. I think that many people would have been way to much for him. So we just stayed and played until about 11 and then came home. It was a lot of fun. Max loves playing at "Grandpa" Nybo's.

Thursday we went hiking with some friends in the neighborhood. Its so funny to hang out with them because Max loves Ty and wants to play with him all the time but then when they get together they don't really play together at all and Ty ends up crying a lot. I'm not really sure what the deal is but they both love each other and want to play together a lot. Hopefully they grow out of this awkward stage.
After our hike we went to McDonalds with some other friends in the neighborhood and Max got to play on the slide. He really loved that. That was the first time he has associated the name of a store with something. Of course it had to be McDonalds. We NEVER go there, I'm not a big fan. They do have a playplace and its good for Max to get some energy out sometimes. So now he asks to go to McDonalds and play on the slide with Linc (his friend).
After McDonalds my brother in law and neice came over and we went to the park. Well, Amanda Max and I went to the park while Rob worked on the computer. Amanda ended up spending the night and we played games. We wrapped it up around 1 am with an intense game of Jenga. We got it so high that we couldn't stand to knock it over so we just left it on the table. Nate managed to knock it over the next day. Thanks for sleeping over Manda, I had a blast! We should definately do that more.

Friday morning Amanda went to the Temple with her parents and brother to do Baptisms for the Dead. Max and I headed back to the fair to enter Max in the cutest baby competition. He, of course, was the cutest 2 year old in the competition, but didn't win. The prizes went to 3 girls who were all dressed up in fancy dresses or cowgirl gear. A total error in judgement if you ask me. After the competition we rode the free pony ride and Max was REALLY upset when it was over. He cried for about 10 minutes. We were able to distract him with the funny chickens which he loved. He thought it was very funny when the roosters would crow (or whatever you call it). He especially loved the one with the black body and blond hair.
After the fair, NATE CAME HOME!!! Its always so good when Nate comes home. We spent the afternoon together and then Rob and Jolyn's family came over for dinner. We made them some really delicious soup and we had a good time talking. They have GREAT kids. Our house isn't exactly fun for older kids and they never complained. Just kept themselves entertained the whole time. It was a lot of fun to see them and get to spend some time with them one on one. That doesn't really happen a lot with Nate's family. We love you guys! Thanks for coming over.

Saturday we had a very restful day lounging around and talking to a good friend in the neighborhood. That night we decided to go to the Ogden Valley Balloon Festival to see them light up all the hot air balloons. We were expecting a fair that we could walk around and see stuff and there wasn't one. Just a big open field with live music and Hot air balloons. Max really liked watching them all fill up. He was a little bit afraid of the fire, but it felt great. It was pretty cold and kind of windy and I didn't bring a jacket for Max (accidentally). So we left early, we never actually saw any balloons launch but it was fun to see them all blown up. Max liked listening to the music and walking around.
It was REALLY nice to have that time together. We really needed some quality family time. We are missing Nate more and more every week.
He left again Sunday morning for the week. It was a pretty hard day for all of us. Max and I were pretty emotional all day. Nate is the best! He is such a loving husband and father. He works so hard to take care of us. He is so good about spending time with us when he's home. Max LOVES his daddy. He definately prefers Nate to me. We love you Nate! Thanks for being so great!