Max 18 Month Update

 This little cutie turned 18 months in May!  He is such a sweet sweet boy!  Seriously I have never had a child that gives out so many hugs, kisses, sweet faces, and snuggles - mostly for me.  He loves his momma!!

About 3 weeks ago, Max started to have some major bowel issues, and they weren't resolving, so we took him to the doctor, everything checked out normal.  That's when he started to vomit every time he drank milk!  Ahh…food allergies are something that I just don't think I could handle, but we went 10 days without milk for Max, and started to look up a bit, at least not vomiting anymore.  We decided to get allergy tests to rule out a celiac allergy.  The day, I'm not kidding, the day we got the blood test done, Max all of sudden got better!  They think he probably had a bad virus, that stripped his stomach and intestines of the good bacteria that helps you digest foods, like milk.  So he was "dairy intolerant" but it was only a temporary case while his digestive track got back to normal.  Seriously it was the most nerve wracking 2 1/2 weeks of my life trying to figure out what foods were making him sick, or if they were!  So he's back on milk again, and doing well. But I am extremely grateful that there were no further issues with allergies.

Max thinks he is a pretty big boy, and he tries his best to keep up with the olders.  He loves being outdoors, jumping on the trampoline, playing in the sandbox, running away from me - that's right, down the street - away from me!  He has a lot of Jackism, which is a little scary.  Case in point:

The one in the orange is Max, the one in the blue is Jack - twiners! I about died when I saw that he had crawled in the dryer! Talk about deja vu!

He loves Frozen right now, intact his first real words besides the usual is Elsa!  He even "sings" Let It Go - and you can recognize it when he does.  He is such a good player and will play with whatever is at hand - DVD's, scissors, rocks, my shoes, toothbrushes, etc.  Again, a lot like Jack!  BUT - he does play with real toys as well, so that is a positive. 

One Happy Momma

I had a great Mother's Day and felt extremely blessed to be able to be mother.  It is such a blessing to learn each day from my four kids how to be a better person.  I wouldn't trade any of them (at least not permanently) for the world.

Lyv had her first haircut ever last week!  I just couldn't bring myself to cut off the baby curls, but they were so snarly and ratty all the time, it just had to be done.  We only cut off about 3 inches - so not much a difference in the way it looks, but a lot of difference when I comb it out.  Lyv is almost finished with ballet until after summer.  She is continuing to love being beautiful with her friends.

 I went on my first field trip with Sam and his 2nd grade class to the Capital Theatre.  I was so happy that he was excited to have me there.  He even sat by me!  I love his classmates photo bomb!)

As we are approaching a year in Yakima, we are so grateful for this wonderful neighborhood we moved into, that helped make Yakima home.  Our kids have great friends, and we are never short on buddies to spend the day with.

Eye Candy

The latest joke amongst our medical friends here is that Shawn is the new eye candy at the hospital.  A few of the nurses commented on how good looking Dr. Summers is.  Well, they are right!  Shawn is especially fetching the past few months - due to a lot of hard work, and a lot of cottage cheese!)  I have always thought he was a good looking piece of of wool, but he wanted to loose a few pounds, and by a few he meant 40!  He looks great.  Watch out nurses - he's spoken for!

Outside Fun

We have been blessed with incredible weather the past few weeks, and the kids have been taking full advantage of it.  We decided to convert the box garden in our backyard into a sandbox since it was a losing battle trying to keep the kids from digging in anyway.  They have been loving it!

Sam and Jack's baseball seasons are in full swing.  Sam is starting to his his groove and his last game was 3 for 3 at bat and keeps moving up the batting order!  He still has a lot to learn, but I am glad he has the great coaches and team he has this year.  They are all very encouraging and know what they are doing, so Sam gets see how it should be done (instead of rolling his eyes at me try to tell how it's done!)

Jack has been a constant form of entertainment for everyone at the games.  He either slides into every base, wears his hat backwards, even at bat (so he looks like a catcher), and falling down at every other step.  He really enjoyed baseball and was sad to have his last game on Saturday.  He is still determined to throw with his right hand, and bat lefty.

Two Christmases ago Sam got a butterfly kit from his cousin.  Between the packing - moving - etc. we had forgotten about it, until now!  For three weeks we watched the butterfly cycle and the kids thought it was pretty amazing to watch the butterflies emerge.