Norman Christmas Parade 2009

The chilly temps couldn’t keep us from attending Norman’s Christmas parade. (which is pretty impressive considering how Adam and I feel about cold temperatures…) In true “Christmas Story” style, Max was bundled in an obscene number of layers and armed with handwarmers in his pockets (for the record his mittens fell off halfway through the parade and when I checked his hands after they were borderline hot- he had plenty of layers on).

Max especially loved all of the dogs (“dugs”) and buses (“bups”). Believe it or not we left the parade after an hour and it was still going strong…. granted some of the floats were cars with homemade sharpie signs duct-taped to the side… but we loved it nonetheless.

Willy Wonka

Enough Said.

Busy Boy- Busy Week

If you asked Max what we did on Wednesday night he would probably tell you that we went into a big arena and were almost attacked by big nay nays. But here is what really happened- we took Max to his first OU basketball game. As you can imagine, the first few minutes in a big arena with music, basketball players, lights, and people can be a bit overwhelming. But then a huge horse snuck up on Max and sent him over the edge. Once the “nay nay” left, he settled down and I was surprised at how into the game he was… never took his eyes off the court. But then I noticed that his head wasn’t always looking down at the action. Instead- for the entire game- he had been tracking the “nay nays” through the arena. Max knew where both Boomer and Sooner were from the jump ball to the final horn.

“Huh huh huh” from Max

For a little guy that cannot get enough of the great outdoors… nothing beats bringing a LIVE tree into the house. The Millers purchased their first family Christmas tree this year. We hunted down “the” one in the tree lot wilderness next to Panera (sorry dad, we didn’t handsaw our own tree out of a “friends” field in a foot of snow like we used to).

After re-situating our cozy living room, we created a nook for our little tree. Max was in charge of carrying the ornaments around the living room and launching them at Adam while he tried to secure the tree in the tree stand. Max encouraged us throughout the process with his cute little “oooh oooh oooh” everytime something new went on the tree. We got a pretty sharp tree which has bitten Max a couple times- and conveniently kept him from taking down the ornaments (nothing wrong with a little conditioning, right?)

Now when Max sees a Santa he says “Huh huh huh”- not sure if that will be his response to a real, live Santa- we shall see… Stay tuned!

Hallie Keller is AMAZING!

Max had his school pictures a few weeks ago. Now to me “school pictures” means the creepy Lifetouch photographer sets up an 80s’-esque, gray/blue backdrop, pulls a string from the camera to your nose (I guess to make sure you are positioned correctly, but it always wierded me out), and snaps. Lifetouch photographers were always really good at catching me in very awkward poses.

Well, Max’s school pics were much different. Hallie Keller came and did mini-photo shoots with each kiddo. Max must have really liked her and she was able to catch a part of his personality that we haven’t captured yet!  She agreed to share these images for his blog so that everyone could enjoy!

Kudos to Hallie Keller (www.halliekeller.com)

Max as Max

We decided that Max should be “Max” from “where the wild things are”. Now for those of you who don’t read 5-10 children’s books per night, this book is about a little boy named Max whose room turns into a forest filled with monsters. He wears his wolf suit on his adventure and is crowned king of the imaginary world. (The details are a bit fuzzy- Max usually goes into rapid-fire page-turning about 2/3 of the way through each book)  ”Where the wild things are” was made into a movie and it premiered last week (we wanted his costume to be as relevant and cutting edge as possible).

There are a few times that breaking your rules as a parent are encouraged. We don’t usually give Max sweets- but when a thrown crown is at stake I was willing to fork over the Tootsie Pop. Max kept his costume on in full for our tour of the neighborhood…. and proceeded to run around the house like a wild man when we returned.

The Orr Family Farm

Max has cool friends. One of them (Caleb Sisney) celebrated his first birthday at the Orr Family Farm. One of the highlights was a tour through the farm animal house- a barn filled with chickens, rabbits, goats, sheep, and a hug pot-bellied pig….oh- and the smell of the monkey house at the zoo. Max is all about farm animals when they are cartoon-images in a book… but he wasn’t too sure about farm animals that moved. We had the “privilege” of getting into the pig cage. I am not sure if you can see it in the picture, but he had two snaggle teeth coming out of each side of his mouth, his belly dragged on the ground, and I am pretty sure he had been eating his neighbor’s droppings. I was reminded why we buy turkey bacon. Max was much more fond of the rabbits… and the pumpkin patch. The pumpkins don’t move.

HAIRCUT!

You can only hear “oh my – she is such a cutie” so many time before you break down and schedule a haircut. Adam and I proved that we were incapable of doing it ourselves when we did Max’s homemade, Lloyd Christmas cut several months ago. Honestly it wasn’t the gender confusion that made us break- Max just couldn’t see through his bangs. Heading into the appt we were armed with lots of snacks and distracting toys. Max was all smiles in the beginning… then he started to catch on… and eventually did everything he could to bail. I don’t blame him- you can’t expect a little guy to enjoy having sharp blades really close to his eyes.

In the end – he left with a fresh do- looking like a cute little girl with a great trim

Fun weekend…

Max has enjoyed spending the past couple weekends with Meme and Papa. We took a road trip a couple weekends ago to celebrate three birthdays- my Grandma’s, my dad’s, and my mom’s aunt Veda’s 90th birthday. In true Grandpa form, Papa spent an inappropriate amount of time trying to teach Max how to blow bubbles in his drink…. I recall getting in trouble for a milk glass full of bubbles about 20 years ago….

Then this past weekend, the three amigos came to Norman to visit. Max really loved taking Meme and Papa to the “ss-ss” (swings) across the street. Papa even let him swing by himself (ranks right up there with blowing bubbles, crawling into lake Eufaula, etc etc

50% Mom, 50% Dad, 100% boy.

Max never passes up an opportunity to play in the sprinklers (see pics), confirm that mud *still* tastes bad, or stick a dead locust in his mouth (or at least very close- I have catlike reflexes). Papa (Marty) taught Max how to drink from a hose/sprinkler (pic 2). Adam won’t tell you, but Max also loves jewelry and makeup brushes