Major Post-Holiday Picture Purge

If I was bad at blogging before I had Max, I'm terrible at it now.  Turns out the little guy requires quite a bit of my time, but I'm happy to give it to him.  Max is five months old now and he's growing and changing so much.  He's really gotten pretty chubby lately and I'm anxious to see how he measures at his appointment at the end of the month.  Johnny and I are still as in love as ever with our baby boy and we feel so blessed to have him in our family.

We had a great Thanksgiving here with all of Johnny's family.  Everyone was able to make it so it was a little crazy but very fun.  Even Laura came up from Provo to join the Allred party.  Margo made a delicious feast (as usual) and of course Max woke up starving right when we sat down for dinner.  We took some family pictures from the big event:

It's so nice to be able to get together with family.  Over the break we also saw the new Hunger Games movie and went to Boondocks for go-carts, batting cages, bowling, and arcade games.  

December was a busy month for us.  As soon as Thanksgiving was over we bought a cute little five foot Christmas tree and set it up.  That was about the extent of Christmas decorating we did this year; we like to keep things simple around here.

We went to Temple Square to see the Christmas lights with Laura and our friend, Adam.  This was the third year that Johnny and I have gone to see the lights with Adam- it's kind of our thing.  

The biggest thing we did in December was a trip to Arkansas for Max's first Christmas.  We left Utah on Christmas Eve day and came back on New Year's Eve, so we were there for a week.  It was so much fun hanging out with my family! Before that trip, Max still hadn't met two of his uncles, one aunt, and four cousins, so we were anxious to bring him to Arkansas.  We stayed at my parents' house with everyone except Joseph and his family (they live about five minutes away).  All of the Drakes were together this Christmas so it was one to be remembered!  Of course we took more family pictures:

A for effort on that last one.  

My favorite thing we did in Arkansas was just taking it easy with the fam.  Being in Utah, we miss out on all the day-to-day things back home so it's nice to just relax and hang out with everyone when we get the chance.  

 

On Christmas Eve we did a reenactment of the Nativity.  Max got to play Baby Jesus, so Johnny and I were Joseph and Mary.  Then, Nanny and Papa gave all the grandkids matching pajamas.  Max has never been so snuggly in his fuzzy pjs!

Christmas Day was a blast.  Obviously Max didn't know that it was different from any other day, but it was still more special to me now that we've got a baby.  We did stockings and then opened presents with everyone.  We also had a delicious Christmas dinner and even got to see my Aunt Robin, Paul, and Trev!

My parents bought a bounce house for their basement.  They are out of control but the kids loved it! 

Sushi needed to happen, so we went out one night while we were home:

And finally, we got to see my best friends from high school. Terra and her boyfriend, Jake, and Erin and her husband, Josh, all stopped by the house for a quick visit.

Johnny, Max, and I made it back to Layton in time to ring in the New Year with all of the Allreds.  Max did pretty well on the flights but he did come down with an awful cold once we got home and I blame the germs on the plane for that one. All in all, though, the holidays treated us very well.  Here's to a brand new year and lots of fun memories in the making!

October is Fun

October is such a great month.  There are fall colors everywhere, the weather is a little chilly without being intolerable, and there are tons of fun activities to do.

We took Max to a pumpkin patch, which he obviously loved.

My favorite thing we did this October was our roadtrip to Phoenix to see Nate, Claire, Norah, and Owen.  Scott joined us for the ride and we had a blast.  I was pretty nervous to take Max on such a long drive but he handled it like a champ.  Here's a picture from my ipod of the trip down there.

I just love that little smile!

The drive down to Arizona we split into two days.  Johnny had Thursday and Friday off for fall break, so we left Wednesday after work and drove to Mesquite, Nevada.  We stayed in this sketchy casino hotel because the room was only $27/night!  We got up early the next morning and made the rest of the trip to Nate and Claire's house.  Most of our visit was spent playing with their cute kids, joking around with the adults, watching movies, eating yummy food, and the like.  I'm so glad we got to see them!  On Friday we went to the Phoenix Botanical Gardens which was pretty neat, and of course we had a trip to Last Chance for some discount shopping.  We also went swimming except I didn't get in the pool because it was freezing and someone needed to hold Max, right?  Unfortunately our visit was much too short and I did not want to come home, especially since coming home meant driving 11.5 hours straight on Sunday with a breastfeeding three month old in the car.  Surprisingly, Max didn't cry very much on the trip.  He was always thrilled to get out at every gas station for a diaper change or burping session and he was equally distressed to get back in his carseat and hit the road.  Poor little buddy. 

 

Its' so nice to have Nate and Claire back in the States!

On October 26th, Max turned 3 months old.  Time is just flying by with this little guy.  He's so much fun.  His voice is super deep (and manly, as Johnny likes to think), he loves music and he often grunts along with church hymns, he likes to stand up and stomp his feet, and he officially rolled over from his belly to his back.  What a guy.

Sharla let us borrow a cute giraffe costume for Max's first Halloween.  He wore that to the family party.  On Halloween night we just put him in this little bear suit because it's so warm and we went on a pumpkin walk down our street.  We also went trick or treating to Grandma and Grandpa's house, just for kicks.

Okay this is super long so that's all for now.  Happy October!