Merry Christmas! Max went to see Santa for the first time yesterday... From this picture, you'd never know that Max was clinging to me for dear life as I tried to hand him to Santa :) It took about 10 minutes and lots of jumping around and playing peek-a-boo to get this photo, but luckily it was the middle of the day on Monday and nobody else was waiting (or watching me and the photo lady acting like complete lunatics).
Here is the wish list that Max gave to Santa:
1. my own playground in my backyard so I can climb and play all day 2. a backyard to put the playground in 3. new books that aren't all chewed up 4. my own cell phone 5. a refrigerator that I can open and close the door as much as I want 5. a sled for when I get back to America
Last weekend, Colin and I went to Byron Bay to celebrate our 4th wedding anniversary. We had a wonderful time visiting the place we had our wedding. We stayed at a beautiful resort and mostly just relaxed and enjoyed some alone time together. Max got to spend the weekend with his Nanny and Poppy, but we brought him along with us on Friday before we dropped him off at their house. Our first stop...the beach! (of course :)
Not a great picture, but it's the only one we took
It's so much fun at the beach with Max now that he's walking and the water is warm enough to swim...
After the beach, we had some lunch in the park and Max had fun climbing a tree like the monkey he is :)
And then we were off to the park...Thanks for the cute shirt Auntie Kristin!
Max is much more interested in climbing up the slide than he is in going down. Of course, these days, he's interested in climbing ANYTHING!
Second favorite thing at the park...chasing birds. He has just scared them all away.
Look at me! I just walked up all of the stairs all by myself, just like a grown-up. Forget this crawling up the stairs business...
One more thing that Max loves at the park, but I didn't get a picture of, is kicking things that are on the ground - leaves, sticks, anything. He mostly loves watching me kick things - he cracks up laughing like it's the funniest thing he's ever seen. And then he tries to do it himself, and he completely understands the concept of kicking, and tries his hardest, but unfortunately his coordination hasn't quite caught up yet. He usually ends up stepping on it or running past it and then wondering where it went. It's so cute! It is such an amazing thing to get to witness the learning process of a young child. I'm sure he'll be playing soccer (and any other sport that Colin can think of that involves kicking) in no time!
While Kristin and the girls were here, we also went to the Currumbin Wildlife Sanctuary. It was the first time Max got to see most of the Australian animals in person :) We started with the koala, and at first, he loved it! The staff member was holding the koala and Max was laughing, smiling and patting it, but as soon as she handed it to me, he burst into tears. This was the best picture we could get (where he is crying the least)...
After the koala, we moved on to the wombats, and Max got to see the animal his birthday cake was modeled from. Unfortunately, you're not allowed to touch the wombats, so Max was fairly unimpressed with them and we quickly moved on to the kangaroos and wallabies. You'd think, especially based on the koala performance, that Max would be afraid of the roos, but instead, he was utterly amused... There were a couple of emu's mixed in with the kangaroos, and although Kristin and her friends were TERRIFIED of them (the staff had a great time watching the emus "chase" Kristin around), Max was unphased...
My favorite part was watching Max - he thought the kangaroos were hilarious...
In no time, Max wanted to wrestle with the kangaroos. Luckily, this one went easy on him (watch the very end)...
I know it's not funny - he could have been seriously hurt if the kangaroo had been more annoyed, but since he wasn't, I can't help but laugh when I watch that video :)
We all loved the day and I'm so happy Kristin was here to share it with us.
My sister and her 2 friends Devina and Christina came to visit at the beginning of November, and we had the best time! Max loved showing them around the Gold Coast. Since it's one of his favorite places, we spent lots of time at the beach. Here we are at Currumbin Beach after a picnic...
Devina, Christina, Kristin, Max, Me, and Colin
And here's Max and Auntie Kristin on Nobby Beach... Max also loved just hanging out with the ladies. He is talking lots now, and his favorite conversations with the girls were "Golly, golly, golly, golly," and "hi, hi hi, hi, hi!"
Max also spent lots of time doing some of his other favorite things like:
hiding things - his sippy cup has been MIA for 2 days and counting, luckily there is only water in it; another favorite thing to hide is his puzzle pieces inside the cassette player on of our stereo
playing peek-a-boo, especially inside his giraffe tent
putting anything on his head as a hat and thinking it is the most hilarious thing ever
throwing and kicking balls
emptying and filling things - for example emptying the entire basket of clean/folded laundry onto the floor or filling all of the kitchen cabinets with his toys
Max loved all of the attention, and we were all very sad to say goodbye at the airport after only 4 days :( But, the girls were off to Cairns and Sydney for the rest of their vacation. We're very excited to see Auntie Kristin again in January when we move back home :)
Halloween was, sadly, pretty non-eventful for little Max. Unfortunately, Australians don't really celebrate Halloween, so we didn't have many options. We could find only 3 costumes that were small enough to fit Max, and all of them would have been perfect for Halloween in Denver after their 2 feet of snow - they were made of wool with long sleeves, etc. It's been about 85 degrees here lately, so no chance we could make Max wear one of them. So, all I could find was this little bib. And instead of trick-or-treating, we went to the beach, thus the bib and diaper :) Later that night, Max was really missing Uncle Eric, so he decided to call him on his imaginary phone, and then he bought some stock :)
Next year will have to be a huge Halloween to make up for missing it this year!
