that space....

what's up with that space??? couldn't get rid of it sorry!!

christmas bells are ringing....

max was a little sheepish the first time he rode the carousel a few weeks ago. the ride didn't even start and he said "all done mama". this time he was much more into it. chris rode because as my sister likes to say "i just get hot" on those kinds of rides. so i took some pictures.

he also begs to ride the "santa train" and then when he's on...he looks like this....

1st annual bovard/sansone family christmas party

today was the day...we had a big family only christmas party. it was a great day. francine, chris's mom made great food and we exchanged a few gifts. chris has been saving, pining, lusting for an apple laptop for over a year. they are very expensive so we couldn't afford it right away. however, working at a school you can get great deals so when the opportunity presented itself...i jumped on it. all of us chipped in and we got it for chris as a surprise. boy was he in shock. he didn't even open it for over an hour. we were all so delighted to give it to him and he was so grateful. several times throughout the past two years he has saved money or sold things to get this laptop and we had to use the money for family stuff when we were in desperate need while i wasn't working during grad school so seeing him excited made me feel so thrilled inside. i have some great pictures that i'll post later of the big day....so cute....

it is a wonderful life...

my dad and i have always loved this movie. a few weeks ago i saw that a one man show was playing in pittsburgh called "this wonderful life." i asked my dad if he wanted to go with me. my mom said that it sounded "dumb". she never talks that way so i was shocked at that reaction. they love theatre but this seemed like a lousy idea to them. long story short, chris surprised me with tickets on saturday night. i had no idea. we went to dinner with my parents and they told me that they wanted to look at the lights downtown. i was tired because we worked on the house alllll day in preparation for a HOPEFUL move soon. anyways, i just wanted to go home but didn't want to spoil my parent's dream of seeing the icerink. we parked in a garage and chris pulled out a bag of dress clothes. i finally thought perhaps something was up....we walked about 10 yards and chris turned into the theatre. i almost passed out!! merry christmas to me!! the show was AMAZING. i laughed so hard that i cried. it was hilarious because i remembered my mom saying that comment and she said that she was nervous so she overreacted. so funny...what a great day.

first snow

max and i played outside today. there was a lot of snow on the ground and it continues to fall. he loves the snow soo much. he eats it, he kicks it (??), everything you can do to it. super sweet. it's so fun to see him growing up and enjoying so many things around him.

i got a surprise early Christmas gift from my in laws. i have been longing for a new camera and they got me one. it's really nice and we already have 8,000,000 pictures because i got a 2GB memory card. i almost bought one on black friday, thank goodness i'm so forgetful because it wouldn't have fit in the new one. merry christmas to me!!

indoor playground

max loves the playground but since it's been snowing and cold, we couldn't play outside very long. we resumed our mall playground site. while we were there, max found these glasses and played with them on his face for about 15 min. i laughed so hard.

some firsts...

first time on the potty. he requested the gameboy. just like daddy.













sasha's so big!










olya's mom made this outfit


first snow of the season. he stood in the window for a looonnng time.

whatta weekend...

as we approach this weekend, i look back at last weekend as one of my best ever. max had his first overnight away from us and did great. (i did cry when he left!) saturday, we went to the zoo, saw a new baby, and hung out with good friends. sunday was a great day too. very relaxing weekend. we definitely needed it. now as we come to a busy weekend, i really appreciate that time even more and look forward to more of the same.

watching the sea lions
resting kangaroos
lucy jane bindewald and mama
daddy and his girls
max and his pal Phin

pumpkin patch and SASHA's home...

we finally made it to the pumpkin patch with chris' parents. it was a fun, fun day. it was overcast but still turned out to be super fun. i was shocked to see $20 pumpkins at the end of the month with 1000's left but hey, even a farmers gotta make his way.

love those wispy "bangs"

my two handsome boys

everyone else was doing it...

sweet pea in the pumpkinsHALLELUJAH THEY'RE HOME!!!
wow. what a month. olg and sasha left at the beginning of october and now they are home. christian whipped their new house into shape. he painted, bought furniture, cleaned things out...wow. so great. she was shocked when she got home. sasha is HUGE!!! max has a very small waist so all three babies wear the same size diaper now! 21 months, 16 months, and 5 months. sash isn't really chubby but she did grow a lot!!

she looks perpetually perplexed...

a new member of the family

we all attended a wedding last weekend in johnstown. my awesome parents thought that it would be fun to stay in the hotel that all of our out of town family was staying in. so we had a really fun time. we didn't drink a lot but we didn't have to worry about driving home tired. we didn't even have to go outside to get to our room!! it was really nice. max however, was SICK!! i carried him around for 3 days. he didn't want anyone else. endearing but exhausting. we had gone to the doctors the day before and he told us that max sounded like he could be developing pneumonia. we were supposed to watch him and see if he improved. he did!! he would get better every time we gave him tylenol. he was not up to dancing but boy nina sure was. the first non-kenny g song that came on and she hit the floor running. i have to upload the video because it was hilarious. unfortunately i don't have any pictures of my cousin amanda who got married. so wierd. i don't know why....:)

all my cousin's children...and nina

dancing queen

this is my nene's boyfriend. seven years after my uncle joe died she rekindled her highschool flame with this really nice guy. it's weird for us but it's great for her....she's really happy.

the great race...

you can barely see it but his cheeks read "922" and "923" depicting their numbers.

this is really dark but it's a cute picture...
at the right of the screen is a time clock. to the immediate left is chris. his dad is being blocked by another runner. he's wearing grey shorts, a black shirt, and a white t-shirt sleeve on his head.

maxi and i rose early last week to go and see dada and bop bop run in a 10k. they did great finishing in 46:08. we were sooo proud!! max yelled "dada" for a long time. the people around probably thought "does this kid even know who his dad is?" incidently max has been talking sooo much lately. if you ask him "where's daddy?" he says "wook" (work). if you say he's not working. where is he? he says "a run". so he fully understands dada's two most likely places. so cute.

october in review

"hey, nice beard"




here are some fun pictures of the month so far. the earlier part of the month was spent complaining about the "inconvienent truth" of a horrible heat wave. now we are freezing our tookus' off. it's not so much that it's cold but the sharp contrast makes it feel like we're living on an iceberg. we've been bundled up in sweats and have broken out the throw blankets.

what a year...

november 2006
september 2007

i can't help but be amazed about the past year of our lives! i look through our pictures and i can name the place, age, outfit, etc from each one! the top picture was from a time my mom and dad were visiting and max was crawling all over the place. he was starting to take steps and he was laughing all the time. the one below was last week at the steelers game at the bindewald's house. max was running, playing, and laughing his head off. it has been such a terrific year.

tonite i was walking about ten steps behing max. he was walking into a restaurant with his granny and aunt erin. i was behind because i had forgotten his bag. he had been giggling and talking as he walked into the restaurant and i heard a young couple say "i love seeing happy kids". i wanted to cry. all the failures and shortcomings you see in your parenting are all blown away when you hear a stranger compliment your child. and what a compliment!

fun weekend...

searching for treasure
so sweet...
his new pal ben
ben meyer...so adorable!!

what a fun weekend. shane and karrie came to visit. he and chris went out friday night and i had a night of quiet, sitting in front of the tv and watching a movie chris would have hated. it was great but i missed chris! i love friday nights with just us...then saturday we went to ohiopyle. i was still really coughing a lot so i couldn't ride my bike and i was wheezing the whole time but it was fun. chris ran 11 miles. he is training for a 10k next weekend and he really pushed himself to see what he could do...after he recovered, chris went out again that night with his dad to the pitt game. alone again...another dumb movie again. a little bit lonely this night. should have made plans myself!! sunday, we skipped church because our pastor is away (we don't like the subs) and went to the playground. after max's nap, we met ben, shane and karrie's adorable son!! we all watched the football game together and i squeezed the life outta this kid. max was a little bit jealous but not too much. what a fun weekend! max and i had a lot of fun. we read 800 stories, colored lots of pictures, and played lots of games. the house is a mess surprisingly since he goes to bed at 730 and i was alone both nights til 11 but hey, it was worth it. i never relax.



also, mr max wellington is talking. he is labeling everything. he rubbed the wall and said "wall". he asks for his shoes, he specifies what he wants to eat (sorta), drink, etc... he is talking. still one word at a time, but the words are definitely there....what a sweetpea!!

picture catch up...

the family tradition continues with max
nina turns one
a boy and his trike
my mom and max walking to skip stones
sasha and olg are leaving for a month to go to russia. we will miss them a lot!!

off with the diaper...

nina has a shirt that says "pacificist". this truly should belong to max. he always desires peace. if chris and i raise our voices ever so slightly...he tries to make us laugh. he does not handle it well during time-out when someone is upset with him...and always after he bites he follows it up with a kiss.

so having him show some rebellion with this new act of diaper removal if he doesn't have shorts/pants on, is surprising. we've been lucky so far. no accidents without the diapers. however tonite, i went to check on him in his crib...his diaper was off. **it's surprisingly warm in pgh (tomorrow is supposed to be 86--is there a degrees circle on the keyboard??) so we have the air on but his room is always a little warm. so without thinking....no pants. we've been terribly sick all week...i can't stop coughing (people look at me like i have TB) so mind is not in the game.**anyways, his bed was soaked. i just bought some new sheets for his crib yesterday but they aren't washed yet and this was his last sheet. i removed him from his bed and placed him in our bed. he was still asleep. chris went in to lay with him--i was struggling with a shrunken sheet and asked for help. chris left max to aid in my struggle and max followed in right behind him. he looked so sweet and sleepy eyed and warm. after 50 kisses, he went back to sleep very easily and we are crawling into bed at 1130. yikes!! i love this age!!

problems with the internet...

i'm sorry that it's been so long since i posted anything...i (used to) get so upset when people weren't posting often because i LOVE seeing new pictures and things...well, i was the guilty party this time....nada since aug 22...we started experiencing internet issues. two cable guys later, we have a new modem. i don't have any new pictures on the desktop, (the one i'm using) they are all saved on my laptop...which is suffering without our wireless router...how did we survive without these things? i'm not being sarcastic....

so i thought i would share two pictures. one from the steelers game before i had maxwellington (i think a week before) and the other from when alicia and carolynn came to visit and the announcement of carolynn's pregnancy was announced!! how exciting!! now callahan is here so that tells you how long ago the picture is from...

as for my little babe...wow! even since my last post he started to do some really great things...he continues to sign a lot, he still says some basic words that he's always used but now he says wat (water), rock, bek, bob, pee (peepaw-chris' dad), bug, book, ball, blue, gee (green), pik (pink), dobe (chris' sister erin's fiance), nnnna (nina), and many more that i forget...oops car too

we joined gymkhana with tink and ella. max had a meltdown the first week because it starts at 11 and that is his everyday nap time...no go...we switched to 915 and he did well after two meltdowns with the corny song where you jiggle your body. (frankly i hate that part so having to comfort him is such a great exit!) he is an amazing jumper! he loves the trampoline! so dang cute.

i really miss swimming but having something like this is so exciting and we love it. we have a fun breakfast and then get dressed to go. when we get back, we sit and read or color pages in his book then soon it's time for nap and is he ready! he's pooped...

nothing really going on here--some things but general prayers cover it (focus on my sister--she's alright she just needs extra guidance right now)

thanks for all the support through my transition back to work!