Where, oh, where did the time go?

I don't know how we ended up with about 6 months between posts...I guess between buying a new house (yea!), dealing with car accidents (boo!), painting and moving into the new house (yea!), and dealing with Max getting ALL of his stinkin' baby teeth in at once (double BOO!!!), it's been a liiiitttle crazy round here.

Quick recap:  Bought a house in Tigard with super duper help from awesome sister Heidi. Moved in at the end of April. Painted every single room. Many pics of that process on face book. You're not on Facebook?! Join us...we'll get you a farm! It won't hurt a bit!

Took Gabe out of preschool before the end of the school year because it would be too far a drive from the new house. Started doing the GAPS diet with him, and that requires a lot of cooking everything from scratch. I'd say (BOO!) only it's made a huge impact in his social skills. He seems a lot calmer, and he even talks to people and (gasp!) makes eye contact with people now. So now we're a low carb, gluten free family....most of the time.

 Ben is growing into the funniest little 3 year old. He asks me the silliest questions all the time. "Was that fabulous, Mom?" "Am I hilarious, Mom?" "Was that cool trick AWESOOOOME, Mom?" "I'm cross at you now, Mom." He constantly cracks me up...except he can't tell a joke to save his life.

"Knock Knock."
"Who's There."
"Tree-ee"  (because adding an ee sound to the end of any word is apparently super funny.) 
Max has gone from baby to boy in a blink of an eye. Kid teethed 20 teeth since November - count em! No, don't count em - he'll totally bite you if you try. He went from crawling to walking to climbing everything in sight in no time. Now he won't even sit in a high chair anymore. He's got to be in a big boy chair, even though he falls out close to the end of most meals. Maybe that's a compliment to the chef?

Here's a few new pics they took a couple days ago with Grandma at Portrait Innovations. More regular blog post to come...or so I hope!

Max in a hat!

 I know I already shared some of the Portrait Innovations photos from our shoot last weekend, but I was going through them again and saw a couple of shots they took right at the end where the gal plopped a hat onto Max's head. He kept taking it off, and he almost looks like he's dancing with his little black hat and kicky feet.Since he wouldn't keep the hat on, we don't have many of these. Maybe we'll have to get him his own little fedora for home, though - what a cutie!

Max's 1 year photos...only a little late!

We were so crazy at the holidays we just didn't get pics taken of Max at his first birthday. We had an appointment, then everyone got sick, we cancelled, and kept putting it off... When we finally rescheduled, the photographer told us they've had folks come in for "1 year" pics...at 18 months+! so I guess we aren't that late, lol.

We got a couple of family pics, plus a bunch of Max by himself. the boys were so giggly and funny. We bribed them to sit still with lots of M&Ms, and they got to play legos in the lobby, so it was a pretty fun morning for them. Max may be the most photogenic one - he was often the only one of the three looking directly at the camera for group shots. Here's a few of our favorites from the session:

That's our family!

Gabe

Boys

Max

Ben Eating M&Ms

M's are yummy!

Gabe

Ben

Max

Best Buddies

Thumbs up for age 1!

 

We are Queens!

Today we made paper crowns, at the behest of Take Five Highlights magazine (Thanks, Grandma Debby!). Gabe really wanted to make the chocolate ice cream project, but as we didn't have any chocolate milk...or chocolate in general..or ice, I deferred that activity to another day. I do believe Gae will hold me to that...

I gave up a couple sheets of my Zippidee scrapbooking paper for the cause, which made Gabe's day. He does like a nice, fine quality paper! They decorated the crowns with leftover free stickers and helped me cut the fringe in the top, which explains why Gabe's crown is nicely curled and Ben's is, well, kind of chewed up. Once the crowns were completed Gabe proclaimed,"I am never taking this hat off. We are Queens!"

A conversation ensued about how Boys are generally referred to as Kings, while Girls are Queens. Gabe wasn't buying it, however, and Ben almost always sides with Gabe. So all morning shouts of "We are Queens!" could be heard emanating from our home.

Unfortunately, Gabe was dethroned and de-crowned when it was time to go to school. Ben had broken his crown much earlier, trying to put a fireman's hat on top - I almost think he forgot he was wearing the crown. It's got alot of lovely decorate scotch tape on it now. Gabe's crown is safely stowed up high, "So Max can't eat it while I'm at school". So I'm sure the queens will reign supreme again this afternoon. Long live the Queens!

Max's Scrunchie Face

 For about a week now Max has been making the elusive schrunchie face. It cracks up both of his brothers and his mommy, but it comes and goes so fast I've been struggling to get a picture of it. It's sort of mischevious, with his little nose all scrunched up combined with a big toothy grin.

He does it whenever he thinks he's done or seen something funny, like making the spider motions for Itsy Bitsy Spider, or Gabe falling down and screaming "Oooof!" for Max's benefit. It's always a quick, fleeting expression, but now when he's doing it Gabe starts exclaiming, "He's making the face again! There's that scrunchie face we love!" It's a real crowd pleaser around here!

Tossed in a bonus pic of Gabe and Ben being nice to each other - so long as we're looking at hard to take pics!