happy easter...

we finalized our easter preparations last night.

max loved decorating the eggs.  

after a good night's rest he successfully found his easter basket and was more than pleased with the loot left for him by the easter bunny...an imaginext dinosaur, zebra snuggle buddy, new toothbrushes, a chocolate bunny, and jelly belly beans!

happy easter everyone!

yikes...

i have no idea how almost a month went by without a post.
yikes.  well, hopefully this makes up for the lack of max pictures! :)

just a bunch of random fun...

playing with the greatest little pirate!

apparently i wasn't being "mean" enough...so we had to take another picture.

during our latest snow day - we had some superhero fun.

libby was pretty happy that we got her a new bed!

she plopped herself on this thing at about 5pm and layed there until the next morning! :)

grammi and grampa ken came to visit for a weekend.

we went to outback and aunt jessie and baby ethan joined us.

i love my family!

zombie love...

drew got me two tickets to "the walking sea" cast and crew q&a panel for christmas.

can you believe it, i love this ridiculous zombie show.

i only watched parts of the first season and watched it with my hands covering my eyes.

but then something happened and i got hooked.

so, finally the night came and we made our way to milwuakee.

waiting patiently for the evening to begin.

there was a moderator asking questions and we got to learn a lot about the actors, the characters they play and some of the ins and outs of the production of the show.

"maggie" and "glen"

greg, one of the producers, and "daryl"

what a fun night and an interesting way to spend valentines weekend! :)

thanks for a great gift drew!

valentine prep...

valentines day is now another day that is more fun because of max.

we looked at some ideas for valentines on a few crafting blogs and this is the one he liked best.

so, we got to work.  

he wrote his name on all 18 valentines.

look how good he is getting.

then we put the fish bowl in the bag, added 5 swedish fish and tied it with valentine ribbon.

max enjoyed a valentine party with all of his friends!

and i was pretty proud of our completed project!

random fun at home...

we've been keeping ourselves busy but have spent most of our time hanging out at the house.  

here is a little bit of this and that...

max giving a thumbs up for an afternoon movie on a snow day!

libby soaking in some snuggles from her favorite person!

me getting some snuggles from my favorite little guy!

we moved his trains by the table and he has been playing with them much more!

i picked up these little stuffed mice for max.  

i think they are great but they creep out grama! :)

i got this great rug for max's room.  

now the pirate room is just about perfect!

i love this kid's facial expressions.

he cracks us up!

we went to toys r us to spend max's gift card from christmas from gramps and gg!

he picked out an imaginext dinosaur!

girls weekend...

lindsay and i decided we were long overdue for a girls weekend!

we decided to meet right in the middle somewhere and chose schaumburg.

first stop...IKEA!!!

i could spend all day there but for the sake of sensory overload and our bank account, i had made a list.

we decided on lunch at the cheesecake factory would be next on our list.  

now, before i left for this trip, drew asked me what we had planned.

my response was not much, except i wanted to have a drink with lunch!

i enjoyed a delicious mojito!

next we did some serious shopping!

i sure have missed this girl!!!!

and i might have splurged on this shirt...and i'm so glad i did!

next, we checked into our hotel.

our room smelled like moldy towels. we opened the window for some fresh air, but that didn't help.

after switching to a new, better smelling room, we relaxed and just talked.

then, it was time for dinner.

we decided on a microbrewery and since this one had my brother's initials, we thought i'd be a good choice.  it was! our dinner was awesome!!!

and i enjoyed a "buttface ale."  it was too hilarious not to order and was pretty tasty too!

it was so great to get away and spend some time with one of my favorite people. 

blocks, games, and tears...

many of our weekend nights consist of things like this.

there's lots of imaginative play, building things together, and playing games.

max decided he wanted to build me a tower.

nice work buddy!

then we switched gears and played some board games.

candyland, uno moo, dominoes, and hungry, hungry hippos are his favorites.

he loves playing games...but he loves winning even more!

this was the reaction after losing a game.

ahhh, the life of a 3 year old.  :)