At Paty's for breakfast, ie fries and sweet potatoes.
Maya, awaiting the pleasure that is a stack of Paty's pancakes.
Next, a little park time with Todd doing double duty at the top of the slide.
And the back of the swing.
Kearsley manned son #1, and in this pix also looked oddly related to him.
And when it was time to go home, some big girl love.
With BFF Maya who borrowed Taisie for some story time.
She came to LA in the company of her folks, Todd and Kearsley who were also meeting Max for the first time.
But this time with Grandpa Toby, who had flown in last night. 
Flamingos, a close second.
There was a new exhibit that Maddie was also fascinated by - an empty habitat being swept by a zoo employee. She complained when we made her leave.
Grandparents make the zoo just that much better.
The morning started early, Max thrilled that he had finally found someone who would walk him everywhere.
Even in preschool class while his sister blew bubbles.
He practiced standing alone, balancing while his sister bounced.
Once removed, Maddie was able to impress Taisie by her continuous and constant spinning.
And after Taisie offered up her hands as sticker holders, Maddie decided she had earned a title, and added "Taisie" into her personal nouns, along with Rocky, Oscar, Dada, Ellie, and Mama.
Once Dad got home, Max found something new and exciting to grab onto.
Oh yes, it's Dad's spiky hair.
Katie is now 7 weeks old, and spent some time hanging out at ELF's with her mom, Megan. Megan, Aarin and Jess spent time discussing how actually having a baby, changes all the plans you had made for that baby, ie no tv, they will sleep in their own room, they will not eat french fries for lunch, etc. As Megan put it, "I was a great mother before I had children."
With Brian and some sausage and peppers, homemade potato salad and coleslaw.
Maddie brought her own mac and cheese to enjoy with a nice red.
Sam remained in the living room riveted to the Canada vs. USA Olympic hockey game. Max was riveted by the carpet.
Best attraction - the ducks.
Maddie is just old enough now to understand and enjoy spending a little time looking at each animal - here are the giraffes. To the left, is ELF and her friends, Summer and Chloe - also equally as entertaining.
Just when you think it's all over, one more box arrives from Panama, home to Gwen Wren and fam, filled with present after present. Max loved the wrapping paper the best, followed by the tasty plastic insects - yummy. Maddie was partial to the "shooooes" and the porcupine puppet.
Max has had these 2 ferocious teeth for about a month now, and it was time for some documentation with the 'ol ring flash (see it's last appearance here).
Opposite to his sister's response (see here), Max thought the attention, the camera, and the finger to lick were all awesome.
With some time at the park. Max tried out the swings for the first time, and enjoyed them.
Even though his sister got way better air.
Next came some tandem sliding. Max was indifferent; Maddie, thrilled.
Most exciting for Max, however, was practicing his walking. Now that he has realized that he can move himself, he no longer wants to sit down and will keep his back stiff if you try to make him.
And fails. With 2 hour lines to get in, we had to abort our plan, and look for other sustenance. We ended up at Johnny Rockets. And were sad.
For Maddie however, it was the perfect lunch. She rocked out to some fine tunes, had PB&J with french fries, milk with a straw and watched birds (pigeons) up close. Oh yeah.
Max also found the bright side of the meal.
Which made Jess enjoy it more as well.
After the meal, we ran thru the streets of downtown, burning off the grease from earlier.
Along with her posse to Drew, or as ELF knows him, "Dada." Drew is out on tour so the little girls gathered for some fine skyping.
After dinner at ELF's, a bath was in order - a super awesome bath because not only were there friends in it but there were also so many toys.
Then some matching dry time.
At home something was happening on the living room floor.
After watching Mom feed a very excited Max food, Maddie has been desperate to get in on the action. A plum was her chance. They shared like this for half the plum.
Big sisters rock!
It began with fake Valentine's Day at Pre-Preschool. The kids had to walk around the circle and drop valentine's into the other kids bags. At first, Maddie protested as her valentines came with a lollipop, and she did not want to part with them. Then as she got into it, she began to enjoy putting them into bags. When she got back to her seat, she decided the fun should continue and took out all the valentines in her own bag, and placed them into Isabella's bag.
Next came baby gym class, which Maddie LOVES. This thing is up on a trampoline, which means climbing and then bouncing fun.
How Max spends baby gym class.
A first for these two, as up till now Max has been fully reclined in his section of the stroller. Maddie loved looking over at her bro, and her bro was interested in being able to see the world vs. facing up at orange vinyl.
Maddie had her first Superbowl Sunday at AK's - that's her in the purple - Annual Fiesta, and now it was time for Max to be introduced to the party.
As you can see, he was riveted by the game.
As was Maddie, if by game, you mean stickers or Doritos - the Doritos got a dance every time she picked up one.
