The Brown Brick Road

Capturing our adventures one photo at a time...

More vacay

Continuing on with the boring family vacation iphone photos…

Friday morning I went with Robert to play golf.  He played while I mastered my cart driving skills and played Words on my iphone.  I hadn’t planned on going with him so didn’t pack a collared shirt that fit…not that I even have one…so I wore one of Robert’s Lacoste shirts that had ample room for my growing belly.  Oh yea, stylin’…

It was a great morning with enough breeze to not make things miserably hot…at least for the cart driver!  I’m glad Robert got the chance to play!

That afternoon brought another bike ride.  Happiness all around!

The next morning while Robert went to the doc in the box to get some medicine for his sinus infection, my mom and I pulled out this awesome battery powered mini Ferrari that she and my dad bought in the last year.  I wasn’t sure if Maxwell was really big enough to actually drive it but…drive it he did!  He would push his little foot down on that accelerator and GO!  He wasn’t the best steerer and we had to come to his rescue more than a few times but, if we could just keep the wheel turned he would make one giant circle…just like going around a racetrack!

Maxwell Andretti!  with his VERY serious race face on!

Two thumbs up!

We got a big laugh out it all and he thought it was pretty awesome!

Later that morning we set up the bouncy house…inside!  SO much nicer than having to be outside in the heat and humidity!  Maxwell obviously LOVED every second of it and bounced bounced bounced.

Robert and I even got in on a little of the fun!

After nap, it was raining so we went for a little treat.  Maxwell had to taste my mint chocolate chip…

and Robert’s cookie dough…

before ultimately deciding that he did indeed like the cookies and cream I had gotten for him.  Yummy and messy!

Sunday morning brought more swimming, biking and bouncing and by the time we were all packed up and ready to head to the airport, Maxwell looked like this…

He did ok on the flight home.  We’re definitely better morning travelers than afternoon travelers.  Missing that nap is just killer on him.  But, we made it home and were so glad that we got to have SUCH a fun visit with GJ and Daddo!  Wish we could do it every week!!

and just to end on a laugh…here’s one more of us in the awesome hats I mentioned yesterday!  🙂

ha!  See you tomorrow!

 

Vacay

Robert, Maxwell and I took a little vacation last week to visit my parents in Naples, FL.  It was a great escape – the beach, bike rides, ice cream and even a bouncy house!  Maxwell loooooved getting to spend time with GJ and Daddo.  Every morning when he would wake up, the first question out of his mouth was “Where Daddo?” and it would continue all day long!  He loved to know where Daddo was…I’m sure that had nothing to do with the M&Ms that Daddo would slip him every time he saw him!  🙂

The only damper on the trip was the bits of sickness that spoiled some fun.  Robert woke up with a sinus infection Saturday morning but he got a Zpack and was feeling better pretty quickly.  Sickness also caused us to not get to see Keath, Jen, Delaney and Nate.  boo!  They were supposed to drive over Saturday to spend the night but Delaney was running a fever so no go.  Don’t know when we’ll get to see them next and I hate that.

Other than that, we had a GREAT time!  I took my camera down there with me and got it out the first day to snap some pics in the pool but that was it.  The rest of the weekend was captured on my iphone and, I have to say, it was really kind of nice not dealing with the camera all week long!  But, that means I’ve got a LOT of iphone pics to get through.  I’ll try to cut them down to a reasonable amount but no promises.

Don’t you just love looking at other people’s vacation photos??!  🙂  On with the show…

Someone was dressed in his red, white and blue on the 4th ready to get to the airport!

I’ll do a full travel post later but we took a car seat for the plane this time and it was a fantastic decision.  That along with my new ipad full of Grover movies and Maxwell was one happy camper!

When we got there, GJ had an awesome surprise for my hat-loving boy…a full selection of hero hats!  Fireman, hard hat, police…everything a little boy could want!  They were so funny to play with all weekend.  Maxwell kept pulling the visor down on the police one so it covered his eyes and nose and then saying “Where’d I go?”  funny boy.

The next morning we strapped Maxwell in for his first bike ride to the beach.  He LOVED this bike seat.  He kept saying “weeeee” as we were riding and was talking about riding the bikes all week long.

Doesn’t get much better!

This trip to the beach was much more successful than our last (and just as cute as our first!) Maxwell immediately walked to the water and wanted to get into the big “pool.”  He was playing in the sand and just loving every second.  Hooray!

I think that’s enough boring vacation photos for today.  Don’t worry – more boring vacation photos to come tomorrow!!  See you then!

Outta his way!

Happy Monday!  We had a great Easter and I hope you all did too.  Ours was great for 2 big reasons.  The first reason is that Maxwell can walk in his boot!  On Friday he totally mastered a leg stuck out to the side, peg-leg pirate like walk and he didn’t stop all weekend long!  It made egg hunting much more fun since we didn’t have to carry him around!

Here he is in action on Friday…

He was so good he was even spinning circles!

The second reason our Easter was great is because Maxwell went to sleep in Montgomery in his pack-n-play after only two minutes of crying!  If you’ll remember our history of trying to get Maxwell to sleep away from home then you’ll know this is cause for major celebration!  Hooray!!  We were able to enjoy dinner with Robert’s family and not worry about Maxwell screaming upstairs.  He slept all night and woke up happy as could be.  His naps on Saturday and Sunday were a different story but we’ll save that for tomorrow!  🙂

I took tons of pictures that I’ll get to asap but, for now, he’s a little sneak peak of him in his Easter finest!

See you tomorrow!

Hot-lanta part two

So, after a great lunch and a fun visit with the firetruck, we headed back to Liz and Patrick’s house to let these two boys “nap”…yea, that didn’t happen for one of them at least!

They sure had fun playing with each other though!

Sweet Henry is 15 months old.  It kind of surprised me what a difference there was between Henry and Maxwell in many ways – mainly mobility!  Maxwell is running with the best of them while Henry is still toddling around a little unsteady.  That didn’t stop him from making sure Maxwell didn’t steal his toys though!

After nap-time we went over to see our other friends, William and Garman, and their brand new baby girl Kline.  Such a sweet little baby.  We hung out in their awesome backyard and enjoyed the pretty weather.

Maxwell and Henry had fun exploring…

I guess Maxwell was exploring what it felt like to fall on the rocks!

Henry was such a big help when Maxwell started stacking the shuffleboard discs…

Quite the team, these two!

William and Garman have two labs and they were having a great time following Maxwell around and snatching crackers out of his hand…

Despite what this picture implies…

Maxwell was really not too fond of dogs by the time the weekend was over.  Between William and Garman’s dogs and Patrick and Liz’s dog, he had enough of these pooches sniffing all over him.  Every time one would come near him, he’d just start yelling “mama!” and stick his arms up in the air.  Don’t worry – I scooped him up as fast as I could each time.  Guess he’s just like his Momma – I think dogs are great to look at from a distance!

Henry loves dogs, especially his dog, Shadow.  Of course, his mom is a vet so you’d hope he’d be an animal lover!

It was a fantastic afternoon and I’m so glad these 3 guys got the chance to catch up and meet all the respective babies…

Check out that baby yawn that Kline is giving us!  Guess we wore her out!

One more because I think it’s funny…

Maxwell clearly wants down and his face is cracking me up and Henry is clearly way more interested in baby Kline than smiling for the camera!

That night we left the babies with a sitter and had a really good dinner at Floataway Cafe.  Cool atmosphere, great food and impeccable company!

Of course, we had to actually get out of the house before we could have that lovely dinner and, well, let’s just say that didn’t go so well.  I’m going to tell the whole story because I want to remember and would love to see if anyone has advice.  If you’ve been reading a while, you know that Maxwell has a history of not sleeping well outside of our house. (mentioned here, here, here, here and here)   The only place he will sleep outside of our house is my parent’s house in Naples…strange.  Every other place – hotels, Robert’s parents, friend’s houses – he screams bloody murder when we try to put him to bed.  Now, I can do a “cry it out” with the best of them but this is different.  For one, he has a tendency to cry so hard and work himself up so much that he throws up.  Second, this isn’t a normal “cry it out” situation because he NEVER cries at home when going to sleep.  So, we put him in the pack-n-play Saturday night (mind you, we had 3 of his stuffed animals and his sleep machine to try and make it soothing) and he immediately started wailing.  We waited and listened to him go ballistic for about 15 minutes and then Robert went in to calm him down.  He did calm down but as soon as Robert put him back down, he started wailing again.  We finally just had to leave for dinner with him screaming his head off (and me in tears) with a promise by the sitter that she could handle it.  About 20 minutes into dinner we got a text from the sitter saying that she had gotten him up, he had a stinker diaper and he threw up but he was finally asleep in her arms.  That poor, sweet baby boy.  And that wonderful, sweet sitter!  She got him back in the pack-n-play and he, thankfully, slept all night.  He was a cranky mess the next day though because of the missed sleep.

Does anyone have suggestions of what we can do to get him to sleep outside of the house?  We feel like we’re trapped at home and can’t travel with him anywhere until he outgrows this!

Despite the sleeping issues it was still a super fun weekend visiting some old friends…and meeting some new little friends!  🙂  Let’s do it again soon! (and by soon I mean once Maxwell starts sleeping outside of the house!)

 

Little boy heaven

Boo.  We’re sick around here.  We’ve got a pukey pitiful little boy with a low-grade fever.  No fun at all.  But, on with the weekend recap…

As I mentioned yesterday, we went to Atlanta this past weekend to visit some friends.  We met them at a great burger joint, George’s, in Virginia Highland.  When we got out of the car, this is the first thing we saw…

Needless to say, the trip definitely started off on the right foot for Maxwell!  and he was in his firetruck overalls too!

Lots of pictures tomorrow of Maxwell with his new best bud, Henry!