Whoa...

We were sitting in the living room this afternoon with Miller fussing and talking in his room instead of taking a nap. Maxwell was being especially rambunctious and running around the living room with a extra long skinny white balloon (think balloons that are used to make animals) that he got from HEB after church today. He ran into the kitchen using his balloon as a sword when we heard a loud crash. Apparently he had run into the trash can and knocked it over. The only thing we heard from him, in his best California surfer dude accent, was "Whoa..."

When I grow up...

Today was "Occupation Day" at Kingdom Kids and everyone was supposed to dress up as what they want to be when they grow up. This was part of the Occupation unit that they have been studying for the past few weeks. Several of the parents had come to the class to share about what their occupation was. They had a doctor, a veterinarian, a cowboy/rancher, a police officer, a helicopter pilot, and "someone who blows up things underground to find oil and gas." All in all Maxwell really enjoyed this unit, especially learning about the helicopter pilot who told them he flew over the sea and the "walls of Nineveh" (Maxwell's favorite story is Jonah).

When we asked Maxwell what he wanted to be he did not hesitate to tell us that he wanted to be a scuba diver like the one in Finding Nemo. Rather than pick something easy to dress up as, he HAD to pick something we had to be creative in dressing him as. Where do you get a wet suit for a 4 year old that doesn't cost an arm and a leg? Thanks to the help of Jenny Petter who found online instructions for making a costume and loaned us some black T-ball pants and Carla Hilland for loaning us some flippers, Maxwell's wish came true. Maxwell the scuba diver was a hit! As soon as he got home from school he had to put his costume back on and we "played" Nemo until Nemo (Maria) got tired of being caught.

Don't honk shoe daddy and other random thoughts

So Maria keeps reminding me that part of the purpose of a blog is to record different moments in our life. She also keeps reminding me that every post doesn't have to have accompanying pictures...so in honor of our friend Brian Miller and his "random thoughts" posts, here goes:

When I put Maxwell down at night I pray, he prays for someone, and we sing a couple of songs before saying our final good night and turning out the lights. After I turn out the lights he asks for a hug and says, "You're gonna stay in here forever!" to which I often reply, "Oh, I am?!" He then either asks me to make an animal sound (I have no idea why) or to pretend that I fall asleep on him (I did that one time and it became a tradition). A few weeks ago I pretended to fall asleep and also started to pretend to snore. A few nights later he asked me to pretend to fall asleep again, but this time he said, "Daddy, don't honk shoe when you fall asleep on me...okay?!"

I had Monday off of work for the MLK Holiday and finally got on the roof to take the Christmas lights down. Maxwell was in the yard playing and when he saw me on the roof he came over and asked, "Watcha doin' up there little fella?" Needless to say, it is a good thing I was sitting down by that point because if I hadn't been I might have fallen off the roof laughing.

We came home from Kindermusik on Monday night and Maxwell promptly sat down at his desk and said, "I'm thinking...I'm sitting at my desk and thinking". While I captured the moment on megapixel, (is that what you say when you take a digital picture? I didn't capture the moment on film so I'm guessing that is right), I'm determined not to include a picture on this post.

One final story--this one about Miller. After I got off work today we decided that I should meet Maria and the boys at Wal-Mart for some errands. I knew they would be in the kid's clothing area so I just walked back there and hid around a shelf of items. I then peaked out from behind the shelf and Miller caught my eye. I thought it might be fun to play peak-a-boo with him. When he didn't respond to that, I started walking toward him like I was going to tickle him (something we do at home all the time). Rather than smile and get excited, he promptly looked at me like I was a stranger, puckered his bottom lip out, and started wailing! Once I picked him up, he quickly calmed down though and from then on kept smiling at me as we walked around the store.

Enough randomness from me for one post. Have a great day!

Merry Christmas from the Uptons!

A little Christmas song for your enjoyment--Merry Christmas from our family to you!

My baby's blue eyes

These days Miller is too busy crawling to let us get too many pictures of him. Usually he is trying to crawl to us, wanting to get the camera from us and put it in his mouth. Really, have you seen him lately? I don't think he needs to eat our camera. Looks to me like he is getting plenty to eat.

Here he is trying to eat Maxwell's jingle bells. I am glad Maxwell was out with daddy during this photo shoot!

We have spent two weeks trying to get a picture of both boys together for our Christmas card, but since our camera is somewhat slow, we haven't captured anything, but today, I got him. Nothing Christmas card worthy, but look at those baby blues! And those lashes...I am so jealous!

This last picture I actually got as he was trying to crawl up my lap to get the camera. Little stinker...cute, but a stinker nonetheless.

Squishy Eyes

Today I sent Maxwell outside to play because he needed to burn off some energy and was driving me crazy inside. After being outside for barely 5 minutes, he came to the door and said, "Mommy, I have to come inside" to which I asked, "Why?"

With all seriousness, he looked at me, pointed to his squinted eyes and said, "The sun's so bright it's making my eyes squishy." I tried to find his sunglasses to keep him outside, but couldn't find them. Within a few minutes of me starting to feed Miller, he was back inside with his shoes off. Blasted squishy eyes!

Ummm, George, It's Snowing Outside

For those of you who live in the Bryan/College Station area, you are probably tired of hearing about the surprise weather we had today, but for those of you who don't live here, read on!

This morning we woke up and Maria said, "It's cold in here". For whatever reason, that made me think to look out the window and much to my surprise, we had snow/sleet on the ground. We quickly got Maxwell bundled up, I threw on jeans and a jacket, and we ran outside to play in the light dusting of snow we received in the early morning hours. Maxwell loved throwing snowballs and even said, "Daddy, I'm throwing snowballs like Curious George!" and "Now I want to go sledding like Curious George". I told him we couldn't go sledding because there wasn't enough snow and we don't have a sled. Here is a picture of our early morning fun that we thought was over when everything melted. Then about 3 PM, Maria woke Maxwell up from his nap because it was snowing (enough to see that it was snowing) and that began our 5 hour playday in the snow! Since snow is such a rarity around here, I even came home early from work so we could all play together. Rae Rae also came over (she finished finals today AND it was her 21st birthday) and played with Maxwell in the backyard. While we were playing, the flakes just kept getting bigger and bigger, and the snow actually started accumulating on the ground. We ate dinner, went for a drive to see Christmas lights in the snow, and then came home to build Maxwell's first snowman. Our friends Sherman and Rachel Watters also stopped by and Sherman helped Maxwell and me build the snowman and a baby snowman to go with it. The slideshow below gives a snapshot of the 5 hours of fun in the snow!