Mr. Three and a Half

Meet Mr. Three and a Half!
McKaden wanted to plan a special party for her brother and boy did she do a great job. She picked out balloons, cupcakes, candles, wrapped presents and suggested we have his favorite food - PIZZA! She hand made him a couple of cards and kept it all a surprise until the right time. We have a junior Martha Stewart on our hands! Happy Half Birthday Max!
and Happy Birthday Aunt Linda too!

Best Friends

Max and Jack became the best of friends on our beach trip. It was so much fun for us to watch these two interact. We hope that they are friends for life! They were kind enough to left McKaden join in on the fun ... some of the time.

Beach Bums

What a wonderful few days at the beach! We met up with some friends and hit the beach hard. Max, Mac and Jack - ALL THREE - had a great time. You might ask what a vacation with 3- three year olds looks like - well, here you go.


beach,sand,
swings, slides,
kites,
bonfires, hot dogs, hikes and time with mama and daddy's

Four months with Max

Right now Max is sitting next to me having a cup of hot tea. He keeps asking me "what was that noise?", for every single thing he hears. He is so inquisitive and now that his language has developed, he has a lot of questions. I cannot believe that four months have gone since we first met this little guy. He has really changed a lot and does not even look like the same child. He has grown a lot - all over! I was looking at his sandals yesterday - the same ones we brought to China with us and were huge - and they are starting to look small! He is a fun kid and loves to be in the water. My mom has squirt bottles at her house and both of the kids LOVED them - so I got some too. The pictures are of Max squirting Daddy - you can almost hear him laugh by looking at the pictures. He has the most infectious laugh. He and McKaden and doing better at playing together - I think a lot of it was language struggle for him. We are still encouraging him to start and finish his words and hope that will improve. He is a great eater and we have found little he won't eat. We have a rule in our family that our kids what we eat - rarely if ever do they get different food than us. We have found that our kids will eat about anything and LOVE spicy food. Max seems to enjoy everything that McKaden has and really wants to be just like her. We find them playing ponies together and building lego's. We are so grateful for this little guy and what he has added to our family!

God Bless America

My new identity

And this one here is changing before our very eyes. Over the weekend she changed from calling us Mama and Daddy ... we are now just known as Mom and Dad. What?!?! She is only three years old and sounds like a teenager! I do prefer Mom over Mommy so I am glad it is that - but Mom sounds so old [for me and her!]

A long lost friend

Ok, get your kleenex out for this one. We found out the one of Max's friends from his orphanage lives not too far from us. Both A and I knew that we wanted to get the kids together before they forgot each other. We planned a fun playdate and brought the kids together again. Max was so excited to see his friend - he calls her YenYen- and is still talking about it. The kids embraced right away and played the afternoon away ... together. I kept telling and showing Max that YenYen had a mama and daddy now too - it seemed to make him feel better about leaving at the end of the day. These two - Max has been here 3 months and YenYen has been here 1 month - spoke english to each other too! Kids learn so fast. We want to keep in touch with this special family and hope that we can get the kids together again soon.