Dinner With the Petersons

We've been traveling up a storm lately and decided to stay in Kemmerer this weekend. By Saturday night we were pretty bored...luckily, we ran into the Petersons and they pitied us and invited us over for dinner. You might remember them as paper and plastic from our Halloween party.

Have you ever seen a cuter girl?!

Eric kept taunting Gabriel with comments about his Princess scooter.

Landon was born just a few days after Max's due date...so, we always compare the two guys...and he has always been the bane of our existence! He sat up before Max, always weighs more than Max, drank from a sippy cup before Max...after dinner he ate an entire piece of pumpkin pie...we always joke that he shames Max into doing things because after seeing Landon sit, drink and crawl, Max would follow suit. You can see from the progression of pictures, all Landon wanted was a little hug and Max was SO not having it!

...but Max practically malled Shae...that's my lady's man!!! We had such a great time with the Petersons and hope they know how much we appreciated the invite!!

Strolling Through The Century...with Calri's Kids!

O.k., the title of the blog totally sounds like a fundraiser for some charity, 'Carli's Kids.'
Anyway, one of the many perks of being a stay-at-home-mom is that I get to go to fun things like Carli's 5th grade performance! We got to see her classroom and meet her students. As I suspected, all of the kids adored Carli!

This is one of my favorite kids...if someone told me that the little boy, Russell, in Disney Pixar's Up was based on this boy, I would TOTALLY believe it. Carli said he even had a personality like Russell!

Here is Carli's (Mrs. Jarvis') entire class. It's difficult articulating the feelings I experienced that night...part of me felt SO old... looking at those kids and how they dressed and spoke and how literate they were with computers, digital camera's, cell phones, texting...I felt like it had been centuries since I had been that age,..but trying to imagine my own child at age seemed, simultaneously, so far away.

How cute are they?! I can hear it in the background...Oh, Sandy...summer lovin, had me a blast!!

Afterwards, we went to a Pizza Factory where they had these amazing bread twists.

Max is SO cute...look at that goofy face! The restaurant was great and we ran into Annie's mother-in-law.

I rarely get pictures with Max. I was happy that Chuck was there to take one for us.
Laughing on Carli's bed. He always thinks he's one of the adults!
I thought this picture was super cute.

Super cute doesn't begin to describe Carli and Chuck's cute, cute, cute apartment. They were nice enough to let us stay the night and we enjoyed the accommodations! We didn't judge you, Chuck!

Los Altos and Hot Pot City

Eric, Max and I got to go see our Uncle George and Aunt Joan...here we are walking in downtown Los Altos. Is this not the cutest picture, EVER? I think it really captures the essence of childhood happiness.

Joan, Max and George.

Aren't they a cute pair?!

I was so worried about Max breaking Joan's beautiful necklace...the words, 'you break it, you bought it' kept running through my mind.

They treated us to a wonderful lunch and even better company. George heckled our waiter in his charming way and got us some free soup! One of my favorite parts of the visit was hearing a few of his Navy stories.

We walked around Los Altos after lunch and Max found a friend.
Earlier, while in See's candy picking up some chocolate for George and Joan, I also picked up a lollipop for myself. I decided to let Max try a lick...he really took to it, as you can see! It almost looked like he was going to gag himself on it. He's going to be a candy lover like his mother!

Later that day, my parents treated me, Eric, Peter and Kristina to Eric's favorite type of restaurant, an all-you-can-eat hot pot.

We also celebrated Eric's belated birthday with a Chinatown sponge cake. It was a quick visit, but we'll be back in a few months for my brother's wedding.

Santa Barbara, the beach & Davy Crockett

My parents treated me and Max to a nice little retreat in Santa Barbara. This is the beach across the street from the hotel. We've been staying at the Fess Parker hotel...ironically, he passed away today...who is Fess Parker...aside from being a real wine enthusiast, he starred in Disney's Davy Crockett.

Here's Max enjoying some sun and Pocky Sticks.
I know every mother thinks so...but, he's so stinkin' cute!We had the pool to ourselves....and the hot tub...the sad part is that the ocean is about a hundred feet from us...but we chose the heated pool instead...we're wimpy.

...but we're not wimpy with food...here's Max eating some ji-jiao...mmMMMmmmMmmmm!!

Shopping on State street.

Don Pedro and the antics of Maxwell Daniel

Max looking bothered that I made him halt his balloon playing to take a picture...

We went to Don Pedro the other night with Jim and Julie...

Jim, tormenting Max's soul!!

Max will pretty much mimic anything you say...here, he's saying Pua-Pua (which means maternal grandmother in Chinese)...Mom, this is for you!!!

While he'll repeat almost anything you say, certain words just stick...as we found out with, "ugly"...here's one of his new ones, he'll crawl around the house saying it over and over...it boggles the mind...this is for you, Aunt Carless...

Becky's Shower

Becky had her shower last week and it was great. I got to make the diaper cake (and the torch is passed)! It was so much fun...Becky's nursery colors are the same as Max's and she had a monkey theme...so, the theme of the cake was easy.

I don't know if you can see the favors on the side of the picture...Wendy made them and they looked so FABULOUSLY adorable!!!

Great minds think alike...Julie, Carli and I showed up wearing matching outfits...what can I say, it's hard being trend setters!

The lovely parents to be!

Me, Max, Meradith and Lucy! (Who supplied me with all of these pics- thank you, Mer!)

The three mommy's to be! Being pregnant shouldn't look this good!

Max update!

So, Max is developing up a storm, lately. He can practically mimic any word you say and has about a dozen that he actually understands the meaning of and uses properly...mama, dada, up, more, nose, earring, hat, cup, go away, bath...while we were in Cairo we took this shot...

Max has always loved the phone...and his new favorite thing to say when the phone rings is...