picturas de iFono

i'm just gonna put a hodge podge of happiness/pictures in this post :)

a. trying out a little banana
b. snow on may 2...ugh
c. family cuddle time
d. pretty baby eyelashes. he actually wasn't born with any eyelashes so we are proud of their growth

indiana:
a. driving out to indiana, listened to the book the power of habit, way fascinating, people
b. always stopping at subway for our roadtrip meals, i wish they had some kind of a frequent flier card there because we'd have gotten so many free subs in our lives
c./d. playing in the backyard in indiana with camille, brielle, and jaden

the few from 3 feet tall yet again, compliments of jaden or "jarrrrrr" in casey's words

a. first time sitting up by himself for a long time, go maxson!
b. nom nom nom, spoons
c. he went through this phase in indiana to grab his toes, suck his bottom lip, and  moan/whimper
d. batman playing on the iPad

wyoming:
a. our very windy walk
b. graduation for tayli! some parts were a little loud for maximus
c. graduation again, but that's my baby holding his own bottle! when did this happen????
d. more cuddling in the equality state (that's the nickname for wyoming, casey just told me. that i would not have guessed)

post traveling around the country:
a. more big boy bottle holding :(
b. walking in the driveway, a daily activity here in nebraska now
c. some rough nights around here ended up with a baby in our bed...
d. busy with blocks

a. all the little boys while in wyoming!
b. outside with our neighbors, grace and katie
c. memorial day bbq with friends
d. goodbye hangout for our neighbors across the street, the bennions.

this last set of 4 pictures makes me so happy because we love all our friends so so so so much!

happy half birthday maxson!

so last saturday, mr maxson turned 6 months old!

 whaaaaaaaaaat? a whole year???????

yes, i know, absurd.

and because we're first time parents, we celebrated with half birthday cake for him.

if it had been up to casey, maxson probably would have gotten to actually taste the frosting, but no, the mama was around and that got shot down real quick, touching the frosting was good enough in my book.

baby steps to the 1 year cake smash, baby steps.

so the cake ended up being just more yummy sweets for casey and i to eat.

ps- this was the first day of maxson's ultra crabby/moaniness and this was the only picture he wasn't crying,
poor baby.
hopefully he can return to happy max soon so we can get some 6 month pictures!

from happy to sad

not going to lie, maxson has been having a pretty rough life/time since saturday which has been wearing on the whole house.

saturday and sunday he had a fever and runny nose and was fussy/moany all day long.

we decided it was teething since my neighbor, who's a PA (hi, tasha!) checked to make sure it wasn't an ear infection, which it was not.

poor max was seriously just having the roughest of days (and nights...ooy), i felt so bad for him.

then monday he had his 6 month check up and seemed a little fussy but nothing compared to the previous 2 days so i was thinking it was going away.

then he got he got his shots and the day followed in suit of the previous.

i just want happy, content, smiley maxson back :(

on a happier note,

some cute pictures from the days leading up to the not so happy days

wyoming graduation

the weekend before we took our trip to indiana, casey decided we should go to wyoming the week after arizona for his sister's high school graduation.

problem: school started up again that week :/

so while i stayed in arizona a little while longer, casey flew back to go to school for a couple days and then drove to wyoming.

i flew to utah (by myself with max!!!!!!!!!!! turned out not to be a big deal because he slept before take off until we got to the car, good little baby) where casey's mom picked me up and we drove the next 3 hours to his home in wyoming (one of the worst car rides ever for max and myself, i don't think either of us were feeling very good).

so casey drove and i flew and we both ended up in wyoming the same night.

the following day was tayli's graduation!

she seemed so happy and we were glad we got to be there for her.

because casey's dad, brad, is on the school board he got to give her her diploma, so tender :)

as per tradition, we just hung out with the family,

watched the children play,

and went to a little graduation party the next day for tayli.

congrats again, miss tayliann!
that little doll is headed to utah state to begin her college career!

sidenote: somehow brad and nan were able to get maxson to smile so easily!
2 proud parents over here for our non-smiley-for-others baby :)

tids and bits from AZ

oh arizona, how i have missed you!

we've been quite busy yet very relaxed here.

i think the quite busy part is a combination from the mr 5 month old who requires lots of attention/activities these days mixed with a mr 5 month old who has decided the month of may to be officially named naps-from-hell month.

though still such a happy baby when he's awake, HOW?!?!

visiting every US time zone over the course of a month isn't helping our case either.

the first morning we woke up in AZ, maxson decided wake up call was at FOUR AM!!!

definitely not my most favorite thing to do at 4 am.

we got in the water somehow nearly everyday we've been here,

it's been vundervul.

we ate lots of yummy food.

we played with all the fun cousins.

we went to a diamond backs game.

we went to a dance recital.

we went to the temple.

we got a new daddy that has no hair on his face!

and lots of other fun things.

this was maxson's activity every morning  we were in az:

bringing the walker out to the big patio in the backyard and just scooting around for a long time.

it was a nice big area for him to just go!

and since it's such nice weather between 6-8 am, we spent a lot of time out there in the morning.
ya heard right 6 am! this little baby didn't adjust his time zone waking up too much for us :/
his walking/pushing with his legs skill got real good with these walkers in indiana and arizona
we three like these walkers so much, we found ourselves our own once we got back in nebraska pronto!

we played lots and lots and lots with cousins
do you see evolett's hilarious unibrow looking thang? ha, it's just the increase on her forehead when she brings up her eyebrows, so funny though

we just had to get a picture of the 2012 babies together (britton is missing though)

they're all relatively the same size and all straight up blondies!
left ruthie // 14 months // just started walking (and looked like a very wobbly frankenstein)
middle maxson // 5 months // just started sitting up
right evolett // 11 months // just started walking (and looked like a very stiff football player/person from the movie walle) (and a wee bit bigger than the other two:)

went on a bike ride around the neighborhood with granny.
as always with my son, no emotion.
he didn't look like he enjoyed the bike ride nor did he not like.
he just kinda stared the whole time at everything or when i looked at him on my bike, he was just starring at me.
i like to think he's just analyzing it all, taking it all in.


we had a dinner at my brother's house with his cool new grill that smokes stuff too,
way yummy!
the night was perfect weather.
we all hung out in the backyard as the kids ran everywhere,
maxson slept in granny's arms (pictured 4th picture down),
and food was eaten.
probably my favorite night while we were there.
no special ocassion of everyone getting together other than to get together.



on another ocassion we celebrated megan's birthday (with more oreo cake:)
and had the first watermeleon for us of the season,
and maxson's first taste of watermelon ever, he loved it i'd say.


papa introduced maxson to ear muffs, max thought it was a hoot hearing and then not hearing granny's voice.

we ended the week with a spectacular sunset out the backyard.
this is the same sky about 3 minutes apart,
i love how the colors can change so quickly.
i'd say 5 nights out of 7, the sunsets are amazing in the valley, i love it.



other activities (that i'll hopefully share later from phone pictures):
diamondbacks game,
a nieces dance recital,
tia rosas,
meeting up with another friend's cute baby,
bahama bucks,
and the first time tasting watermelon, a lemon, and bahama bucks!

tids and bits from indiana

so remember when we left town for 3 weeks traveling what seemed like everywhere to go visit family?

well how about we talk about that.

so first stop was indiana to visit casey's brother's family and be there for his dental school graduation!

as always, we have the best time with them.

played games,

had yummy food all the time,

watched the children play,
played games,
and celebrated with cody in graduating from dental school!

just had a grand time together.

and this time the grandparents visited at the end of the week too!

it was so fun to them in their element of being solely grandparents without the cares of jobs, callings, and real life to deal with.

the main reason we went:
GRADUATION!
their 4 years went by so quick and it gave casey a glimpse into the future.
we're so happy cody (and camille) made it :)
apparently jaden was too...



maxson learned how to sit up while we were there and i was one proud momma.
seeing your baby learn these new things is just the best.
it felt like he just started doing it one day by himself,
all in an instant!
no falls or anything.
(the first picture was maxson and casey during the graduation ceremony, i thought it was funny)


grammy is just the funnest, she got out there with jaden (3) and played their own very intense game of baseball.
the rest of us adults couldn't help but join in on the fun.

when cody and casey are with their father, i think it's just a riot.
add in our 3 hooligans and it's even better


we got to have a mini celebration of miss brielle's one year birthday!
she is just a little sweetie pie.
by the end she was finally comfortable with both casey and myself and would crawl over to our legs to hold her, made my heart melt!
and as i mentioned in another post, she too began taking her first steps while we were there,
so fun to see


more of these 3 cuties


and more of grammy playing with the littles,
she rocks


so glad we made the trek,
thanks for having us, cutlers!

and i forewarn you, there'll probably be a phone picture post from this trip too, since i haven't downloaded that yet

this (messy) face kills me.

that's it :)

throwback thursday

so i've never done the throwback thursday pictures on instagram,

BUT it just so happens that today is thursday and i finally have pictures gathered to compare maxson to cute baby casey/kimber!

the majority of people who meet maxson immediately rave at how much he looks like casey.
always.
i have yet to hear once that he looks like me
(i take that back, they FIRST say how much he looks like casey and then follow up with a "but i can see the woodruff side in him too!)
but i don't mind at all, i think it's true.
max // casey

max // kimber

max // kimber

casey // max

although everyone says maxson is the spitting image of casey, which i totally agree, i was so surprised (and happy) to see that maxson DOES resemble pictures of me as a baby as well!
it's not as fair comparing casey's baby pics to maxson's because casey was one large baby
example:
maxson at 2 months: 12# 2 oz
casey at 2 months: 15 # 2 oz
....
but i think the older (and chunkier) maxson gets, the more pictures of little casey and max will resemble each other.
even until then, in person, maxson looks just like his daddy.

other things to note:
it has been mentioned quite a few times that when casey was a baby, he too was very difficult to get smiles from.
like father like son...