ExerSaucer

This thing is so cool! It introduces cat, dog, cow and duck with a book, and a simon says type push button toy. It as a globe and sun and a dragon looking puppet for the parents. A spinning slot mechine weel and each weel makes a differnt sound, jingle tick, rattel. The part he stands on has texture so his feet will find something interesting too. The seat spins so he can turn to play with any of the toys. He is really getting the hang of it and it's fun to watch him play.

Merry Christmas!
Thank you to everyone for such a wonderful Christmas!

Christsmas #2 at the Johnson's

Another wonderful celibration! We enjoyed a great Christmas at Ben's parents house Saturday. It was really fun to see Finnley, Max's cousin, open his presents. He gets a little shy when he is really excited about a present, it's so cute. MeMike and Pop's got him a fire house that has a fire pole and everything! It made me wonder how Max will handle Christmas and the news of Santa coming to visit. Athough it is all very exhausting it is all very worth it. Max got the Learning Home, it's like one wall of a toy house. He can ring the door bell and crawl thru the door, mess with the clock, window box flower pot, send a letter in the mail box. He also got a toy gum ball mechine, toy trian, and a musical learning table, a tummy time map and tray for his bumbo and the sing-along stage from Uncle Scott. One really cool book from MeMike and Pops has Max's name in it and is personalized in the story with Max's other family memebers and ends with MeMike and Pops will always love you - so cute! We are very lucky to have such wonderful family. Thank you so much to everyone for such a wonderful Christmas! but it's not over yet!!!! We have Christmas #3 tomorrow with Grama Maggie!!! Yea!

Big Day

Max had his Dr.'s apt. today and I only cried once, ha ha. He cried for 3 seconds after his 3 shots, what a trooper! He weighs 14lbs, 7oz. He is 24 1/2 inches tall. He grew 1.6 inches in 2 months. His head circumfence (if you are interested) grew 3 cm and is now 41. His head is in the 20%, his height in 45%, and his weight in the 50%. The most exciting part is it's time to start feeding him. I kept trying to get the Dr. to tell me exactly what and how much and she wouldn't she baically said just do it. So we did. He is really cranky today and wasn't that into it but we will try again soon. Here are photo's of his 2 bandades from the shots, his feeding sesion and daddy soothing him durring a cranky moment.

Christmas #1 at the Farm in Bostwick GA

Ben, Max and I had a great time at the farm last Sunday celibrating Christmas with Grama and Grampa Olsen and the rest of the family. We ordered Chineese and kept it very casual. Max was the center of attention most of the time cause he so darn cute! It was fun to give the presents we had gotten and see how much people like them. That is always my favorite part! It's tuff having a little one and Christmas all at the same time. I feel for all those mothers before me who did it! I haven't put up very many decorations and no tree, I still have gifts to buy and I just got the last batch of card put together but not mailed yet - hope they make it before 2008!

early Christmas!

Just sitting on the sofa being cute!

As you can see lil-man is trying to decide which of his hands he likes best. It's so funny how loud he gets sometime with that fist in his mouth. Then sometimes he get's really mad at it. Some of us are wondering if he is teething. There is lot's of drool and he likes to chew sometimes. He has also started sucking his lips - sometimes the top one sometime the bottom one and always noisaly - it's very cute and make Ben and I laff. Max will be 4 months soon and have those 4 month vaccines - can you tell I'm dreading it already. I'll have to work on that - I don't want Max to pick up on my jitters. They are good for him and he will not remember them. That will be my montra.

I finally worked my first full week, Mon - Friday. It was as I expected, I got a lot done and it seemed really long. My company is going thru some stuff and everyone is a little antsy. Friday I was in at 7am (because of Max) and when an HR person is in that early it freaks people out. Whoops better not do that again. But all in all it was good and I enjoy cutting up with my co-workers. My Supervisor had a b-day and we blew up about 200 balloons and put them in his office. He was popping them for 2days - another thing not so good when a company is going thru "stuff" pow pow pow pow but it was a great stress releaver.

Holidays are coming so fast! I'm trying to do a lot of shopping on line. We have 4 Christmas's and I also have a baby shower and a retirement party coming up that i'm helping with. I hope my new mommy brain can keep it all straight and I don't accidently give the new mom the bottle of brandy and the retirment people the diapers!

Thanksgiving #3

Saturday we cooked Thanksgiving at our home. Aunt Patty & Uncle Dick drove all the way from VA to be with us and meet Max. I cooked one of those little turkey brests and all the usual stuff. It also gave Ben and I good excuse to use our wedding china. I really love having people over. I don't think I've had a real party since before I was pregnant. It was neat to think about all the special meals that have happened around our table before we got it. We inherited it from my grandparents. It was great to be able to serv Thanksgiving lunch to my Mom, Aunt and Uncle around my Grandparnets table. They reminisced about all the times they sat around that same table in VA yeas ago for Thanksgivings and Christmas's past.

Thanksgiving #2

Friday we spent the day out at my Dad's farm, F&J Ranch, with lot's of family. My Aunt Diane and Uncle Joe came all the way from CA with my cousin Keith. My cousin Greg couldn't make it but his wife Sharla and their beautiful & talented childred Kyle and Kayla were there craking us all up. It's amazing how fast the kid grow up! I got a little heat from the family because last year I brought 2 dogs for the kids to play with, bocce ball and the Kariokee mechien - this year all we brought was a baby! I totally for got all the fun stuff. I was so proud to be dresses and out the door on time. My Dad has plenty of fun stuff to play with anyway. We had a wonderful spread and great conversation. After lunch a bunch of people went out and shot skeet. A few people drove around in 4-wheelers or the golf card while the rest of us played with Max. I love these family times!

Thanksgiving #1
Ben and I have so much to be Thankful for!!!

We spent the day with Ben's Family in Duluth. Wahn and Goria and their son Adrian also joined us. It was fun to have 3 little boys in the house and they all got together great! We had a great spread as usual. Everyone brought someting special.

Mike and Ron have a little play room where we all could hang out together with the kids. I don't think they knew what to do with themselvels with all the cute little ones all around! It was great! It kinda reminded them of when they had a 2 year old and the twin babies. None of us can imagine taking care of that many kids at one time! We have our hands full with one sometimes!

Finnley, Max's cousin was so cute! He was a little shy when we first got there then he brought Ben and I our photo from a table of photographs and Max too! He told us how Santa Clause go's HO HO HO!

It was great to see Adrian again. The last time I saw him he was just one day old. He is so beautiful and such a good baby. Wahn and Gloria are such great parents and very proud of their little man!

Max turned 3 months a week ago and I still havn't done a 3 month photo shoot. Here are a few I was messing with on the computer. They look so different in blk and white - edgy!

Who's sitting up like a Big Boy!?!



Max is 3 months now so we pulled out his Bumbo (don't worry we didn't leave him alone in it on a table top or anywhere for that matter). This photo may be a little deceving, he sat up for about 3 seconds then slumped forward but it's a start! What a cutie! He is talking baby talk so much now. It really sounds like he is trying to communicate something in full baby talk sentences like... "you may not know this but I can understand everything you are saying" or "Can you not smell that? a little help here!" What a fun stage this is.

Max's Christening Hat



Grama Maggie Came to visit!



Back to work for Me!

My blogging might slow down a bit now that I'm back to work full time. I was struggeling to get all my work done in 4 hours now that I have 8 hrs. it's amazing how much I got done! (If my boss is reading this that doesn't mean I need more projects!) Getting home at 6PM now I'm strugeling to get home stuff done in a few hours. I still get to have 3-4 feedings with Max and hold him and love him all weekend! We had one tuff morning where Max wanted Mommy vs. the bottle be we all got over it.

Ben is a great stay at hom Dad they eat sleep play have tummy time and even go outside for a walk. Ben says he is still getting work done so all seems to be going really well. Ben set up a twitter account so I can check in and see what they are doing. It's really nice to know that Max is sleeping peacefully in his swing or whatever.

Max will be 3 months old tomorrow! time for more photos!

Tummy Time!




Max is growing up so fast. It's amazing how much babies change and grow in the first few months. We haven't been very good about tummy time because he seemed to hate it so much but that is changing too. Thanks to Aunt Diane's mini boppy and our persistance Max has gotten better and better at holding up the cute little head of his. This mini boppy helps him work his neck without having his face burried into the floor like flat tummy matts. Max has started working his tummy as well. He will try and sit up when he is in the seated position in his swing or car seat. It's really cute like he is doing crunches or something. All of these things are great but the best by far is the laughing. He has been siletly laughing for a while now but this new laugh has sound and is so wonderful! I've only heard two little one's. Once while he was sleeping and once in the car it was like "hu ha"! It's so amazing to here him laugh, I see why Mommies and Daddies do some crazy & silly things just to hear that sound!!!!

Happy Halloween!

As you can see Max decided to be a penguin this year because he liked the Happy Feet movie so much! He wasn't too happy about the photo shoot though. I was surprised to see that some of the pictures actually look like he is smiling! He was mostly grunty the hole time that escilated in to down right miffed! All of the picutes are cute though evern the miffed ones.

Hope everyone had a great Halloween!

Click here to see Ben and I in our Halloween Costumes

Be sure to scroll down to see all the new stuff we have been adding. I don't want you to miss a thing and we have been adding quite a lot the last few weeks.

Love you All!!!!

If you think Max's photos are cute wait till you see him in action!
Here are 2 Max iMovies I hope you enjoy.

" The Power of the Swing"
Max just can't fight the rocking power of the swing, watch as he falls asleep.




"Bouncy Chair"
Different clips of Max enjoying sitting up and interacting with us. The end of this movie has some audio of Max cooing at Ben.

Solar System Mural

Poor Max had nothing to look at when he was in his crib so Ben and I picked out a cute mural of the solar system and I spent my last few days of maternity leave painting it on the wall. It's painted on the slanted part of the wall over his crib. It took longer than I thought it would. I spent about 3 day's on it but took lot's of breaks. I would like to add some glow in the dark paint to make it look cool at night too. I showed it to Max and he seemed interested. I think it has plenty of tiny details to keep his eyes excited.

Be sure to scrolll down to make sure there isn't anything you might have missed. I have added quite a few things in the last week. Hopefully I will be able to keep it up once I'm back to work.