Frozen Assets

We went to this thing called the Frozen Assets Fest. It was really cool. They had a bunch of fun stuff to do at the Edgewater Hotel and on Frozen Lake Mendota. On the ice there was a Smore's station, a place to play hockey, 4-wheeler drawn carriage rides, kite flying, and even a heated bar. At the hotel they figure skaters and Irish dancers.

What's Up With Max

Max you're getting so grown up. You're so smart. You still love books and doing puzzles. You've got an alphabet puzzle and you'll grab the M and say "Max." You know so many animals and the sounds they make. We love when you ribbet like a frog. You've started to talk in sentences. You'll say "Where Momma/Dada/Oscar go?" When you don't like something you'll shake your head and say no. You're developing all these new traits. You're starting to get a little bossy. You like to tell Mom and Dad where to sit and what blankets they can use. You love Elmo. You think every screen is just a box that is supposed to play Elmo. You love sports. You can point out different sports when you see them out or on TV. You recognize specific sports by the fields, uniforms, and balls. You want to play hockey every night. It's amazing you hit the plastic ring we use for a puck straight every time. You're great about bedtime. We put you down at 8 every night. You always say goodnight to Oscar and sleep with your Gund Bear. Every vehicle is a "truck" and you love pointing every one of them out when you see one. Your car seat in dad's truck is now forward facing and you'll sit there and point out every "truck" you see. You love pushing around toy trucks. You call the "Cars" movie "Trucks". You like to strum and pick at dad's guitar so we got you a toy Mickey Mouse one. You're so excited to have a guitar of your own. 

Your daycare teachers love you! Gabby and Peggy are your current teachers and they always mention or leave notes about funny or sweet things you did during the day. Just this past week they said you were the class motivator and most laid back kid in the class. We can tell they really get a kick out of you. 

Favorite foods: bananas, peanut butter sandwiches, spaghetti pie

Favorite books: Nashville Predator Book, Poke-A-Dot books, Baby's First Word

Favorite songs: Wheels On The Bus, Itsy Bitsy Spider, anything sung by Elmo

Sports Nut

January

January felt like it was two months long. Max man has been battling ear infections for what seemed like most of the month. 

Papa's friend owns a farm where he raises goats and other animals. We were able to visit  the farm and Max got to get see the animals up close. 

Double barrel snot stream. Common Max feature for January.

Checking on Aya (Oscar)

Fun at the Madison Children's Museum.

Hanging out with Sam & Oliver. 

Sing along at the Madison Library with Scarlett.

A little Sunday afternoon bowling with the Neighbors Aaron, Becky, Harrison, & Ava. Max loved rolling the ball down the ramp. He even got a legit strike!

Helping dad with dinner.

He ate the entire 8 inch Jimmy John's sub.

First movie in a theater. We went and saw Coco. It was a great animated movie about a boy who wants to play guitar. Max was great. The only issue was Max fell asleep in the middle and his snoring got loud, especially during the quiet parts of the movie. 

Adios 2017, Hello 2018

After the hustle and bustle of the holiday season we were happy to take it easy this New Year's Eve. We treated ourselves to a nice home cooked dinner and hung out and watched the crazy people freezing in Time's Square. Cheers to 2017. Max we watched grow so much this year. We'll always remember 2017 as the year of so many firsts for you. First birthday, first steps, first plane ride, first bike ride, etc. We can't wait to continue to watch you grow into this sweet and fun boy.

Max, here's some sports stuff that happened in 2017.

The Super Bowl was a great game. It was the first one to ever go into overtime. Unfortunately the evil cheating Patriots won and did so by staging the biggest comeback in Super Bowl History. Bleh.

Clemson beat Alabama to win the College Football Championship & UNC beat Gonzaga to win the College Basketball Championship. And oh yea, Purdue won a Big Ten Regular Season Title.

Always Dreaming won the Kentucky Derby. Federer won the Australian and Wimbledon. Nadal won the French and US Open.

The Warriors were pretty much unstoppable and won the NBA.

The NHL Playoffs were very entertaining, with Nashville making a run all the way to the Stanley Cup. Pittsburgh ended up winning it all to become back-to-back champs. Once again, Uncle Ryan was very happy.

The World Series was fun. The Astros who had never won before took it! The games were very exciting, lots of runs and comebacks. It was a great win for the city of Houston after overcoming a terrible hurricane in August.

Non sports-related, the country went nuts over "The Eclipse". Dad tried really hard to see it.

Potty Training

Max is starting to get potty trained at daycare. We got him a little potty for our bathroom at home, but he's not to fond of using it.

Christmastime

We got our tree the Sunday after Thanksgiving. The whole crew, Gus, Kels, Max, & Oscar did the annual tradition of going to Hann's Tree Farm to cut down our Christmas Tree. Max got to see Santa at the farm, but was still just a little scared sit on his lap. We got the tree home, decorated, and lit it up. Max loved the tree. You could ask him where any of the particular ornaments were at and he'd be able to point them out. He loved the train running around the bottom of tree. Every morning he wanted to have his breakfast by tree.

The Christmas celebrations started early in Indiana. We drove down to Evansville mid December for Wednesday-Sunday. Mimi and Pops really enjoyed the long visit with Max. All the Small family was together for the weekend. We celebrated, ate very well, danced, opened gifts, watched home videos, played games, drank Old Fashioneds & White Russians, and had an all around great time as always. Max was a great little traveler there and back.

Max seems to be loving the season. Out of nowhere he'll start saying "Santa" over and over. He says it in a deep voice sometimes which is really funny. The Madison Zoo had a Christmas light show that Max really enjoyed. We got great news while we were at the light show when Aunt Ellie called to tell us she engaged to soon-to-be Uncle Tyler!

Kelsey had to work during the day on Christmas Eve so we had to do our Christmas Eve tradition a day early. We took Max to the capital to look at the huge tree in the rotunda. After that we went out to lunch down by the capital. Kelsey had to work most the day on Christmas Eve so Max and Gus stayed home and baked cookies. We got a Christmas Eve snowfall which was awesome because we hadn't gotten any snow yet. It was a low key night, we read books, watched Christmas movies, and put Max to bed anxious for Santa to come. Christmas morning we went out to the living room to see if the big man had come. Max didn't know what to think about the play kitchen sitting in the living room on Christmas morning. We hung out for a little bit, then headed down to Janesville. We had a great day in Janesville. We got to see everyone on both sides of the family. We played lots of games and ate lots of food. Max was again showered with love and gifts.

Breakfast by the tree.

We went to skyzone to jump around while down in Evansville. Max (& Kelsey) had a blast.

Uncle Sammy's neighbor do it up real big with the Christmas lights. We took Max to look at them and he started running through their yard.

Story time with Pops.

Couldn't believe Max sat calmly in the Polar Bear's hand. 

Watching the snow fall on Christmas Eve.