::house::

While at Sam's the other day we spotted the playhouse kit I'd had my eye on for while. Max and I saw it in April, but when I went back with the intent of getting the thing, they had been cleaned out. And I hadn't seen them in again. Until Saturday when we were getting all the food and snacks for Kari & Aaron's visit.

So we got the dang thing. And when we got home Kris got right to work putting it together. Bryans were due at around 3 and Kris got to work around 1. He figured he could get the things done and the kids could be happily playing by evening.

Hah. It took him ages just to get all the pieces untangled, then making sense of the instructions (which never really happened) took another forever. I think he had a couple of the bay windows put together when they arrived. He did a little more that night, but it still didn't get far.

But the kids were anxious. So he and Kari spent a bunch of time sunday afternoon working on it while the kids noodled around in the backyard and the babies napped.
Unfortunately they ran into a few snags, such as one of the roof panels being blown over by the wind and breaking into a bunch of different pieces, argh. But Kari is serious about building stuff and she didn't let Kris slack on it.


Closer, but still not done.

Then, memorial day, after we went out to lunch and had some fun, Kris manned up and finished the rest of the thing up. What a great dad, because it was a pain.

Happiness and joy ensued. Parker hollered, "This is SO AWESOME!!" and the house was chock full of kids from there on. Also, it has a working doorbell and the thing is LOUD. That thing didn't stop ringing all afternoon.



The big boys went and got Max's play food and made the house into a drive through restaurant. Such smarties.

Fun stuff!

::dinner::

Having dinner with four more kids than normal is no easy task. Not that it's not fun--just a lot more complicated. Good thing there were four of us adults vs the six crazy kids.


(KC says "I don't want what I have, I want THAT one!")

Surprisingly enough all of us adults survived the kid craziness and had a really good time visiting.
And I love that the table is outside--makes cleanup so darn easy!


Love those darling babies!

::in memoriam::

I know Memorial Day is mainly supposed to be concerned with those that have served in the armed forces. And that's super great and important and I'm very grateful for them. But when I think of memorial day I also think of loved ones that I want to always remember and how I want to be able to pass on their memory to our kids.

My paternal grandparents, Clayton R & Betty A. They've been gone for a few years now and we miss them.

This is Max at their gravesite in California when he was three. I wish he could've had an opportunity to visit their wonderful house and swim in their pool. He would've loved it.

Ken:

Kenny:

We miss them both and remember them all the time. Such losses.

And then there are those who are still here physically--but we are forced to miss them as well.

My dear Grandma Jackie hasn't recognized anyone for years now. We miss her and I know my mom misses her terribly. She still deserves to be remembered, though in some ways she's still here.

"I hold it true, whate'er befall;
I feel it, when I sorrow most;
'Tis better to have loved and lost
Than never to have loved at all."
--Tennyson In Memoriam

::bryans::

Kris's sister Kari's family is here visiting with us over the holiday weekend. We're having a lot of fun with them, but the kids are the ones really having a blast--between the screams and accidents and falls and crashes that is.

It's so fun when cousins can spend time together and have fun.
Today we went to church together and then the kids spent a bunch of time outside. When they were all worn out we watched a movie. The new living room is perfect for that sort of thing.


After that we had a fire and smores with the bigger boys. Now they're all in bed, at least for now.
Looking forward to some more fun tomorrow!

::phone photos::

I have some fun photos I took on my phone over the last couple of weeks. I thought if I posted them and told a bit about them it would remind me of what we've been up to while I've been too busy to post anything.

This is a familiar sight--Sandy in his bouncer. In this particular shot he's at work with me (which the poor guy has to do ALL the time.) He's being cool and enjoying himself. He never gets to stay in the bouncer long though, somebody always wants to hold him or see him, so it almost makes the bouncer useless.
Kelly & Lechelle came to visit for a bit in the beginning of May. We had a fun little BBQ in our courtyard and I took some phone pics to send to Kris's mom. We were enjoying ourselves even though it was a bit windy.

(Note the dog bowl water cooler thing in the bottom right of the picture. Best purchase ever for a huge dog.)

So nice to have an enclosed courtyard while there are little goofballs toddling and riding around in it.


This is Max reading (and reading and reading) Calvin and Hobbes while we were on our way to Phoenix this last weekend. A friend was saying on facebook how her boy who's close to Max's age loves reading Calvin and Hobbes and how it keeps him practicing reading. I thought it was brilliant and went and bought some Calvin right away. Max loved it of course. In fact he drove us crazy reading the same strips to us over and over during the drive.

Sandy just barely started officially and consistently eating real food. In this picture we're all out to dinner for family home evening (my favorite FHE activity.) He had just finished a big pack of squash and was feeling like a legit guy, sitting in a chair with the rest of the family. He did great and we were so proud of him sitting up big in the bumbo.


While in Phoenix we had dinner at BeniHana (or however you spell that.) It was great. The boys were both entertained by the chef and Max ate an unusually large amount of legitimate food. He also persisted with the chopsticks for quite a while. (He also said he liked the miso soup and ate a bunch of it which I think is SO weird.)

I love this picture because of Max's hat and chopsticks and because of the way Sand is reaching for him in such a proprietary manner. Like, "This is my brother and he's MINE. And all his stuff is mine too." I can just see Max's future of trying to keep Sand from grabbing everything he owns. So funny.

Last one:

Sand at work, and evidently, working.
He's sitting in the lap of one of our front desk ladies, Judy. She adores him and he adores her. He insisted on typing, there was nothing we could do to stop him. I love his little concentrated face.

So that's your grab bag for today. I like grab bags. Sometimes you get the best stuff that way.

::pink-eye::

Oh ick. Ick ick pink eye.
I don't think it's fair to get things like this as an adult. It's so frustrating and embarrassing as well. And unfortunately, just because mom is sick doesn't mean the world stops spinning. In fact often it seems that it spins faster.
Anyway, Kris got sick last week after he did an insane 12 hour bike race. I think he just wore himself out completely and then was very ready to get sick. He got a bad cold then what ended up being pink-eye, though I just thought it was part of his cold. We had to go to Phoenix for the weekend for work. We were supposed to go swimming with some friends on monday morning (we were leaving for home monday at noon.) When the baby woke up I noticed his eye was all crusty and then I knew it was the beginning of the end.

The next morning I got it and then the morning after that Max got it.
Max missed his field day at school and the last three days of the year. He didn't mind it too much of course, but I got pretty tired trying to entertain everybody.
I loved having eyes that looked like they belonged to an elephant. Plus, to make it even worse I obviously couldn't wear my contact lenses, and unfortunately my only pair of glasses got melted on a space heater at some point. They won't stay on my face very well and they make me feel claustrophobic and terrible. They're also a little outdated so everything's just a bit blurry.
So, all complaining aside, it was a pretty bad week.

See that sad weepy swollen eye?

Max the lightest case of anybody--plus his eyes are so huge that you could hardly tell they were swollen at all.

The boys did get to spend some quality time together this week though and that was nice.


But don't even get me started on the torture it is to give these boys burning eyedrops. So sad and awful and frustrating.
The things I learned this week?
1. Avoid pink-eye like the plague.
2. Get some glasses that work.
I think I'm going to go look for some tomorrow morning.

::six month comparison #2::

Sorry but I just think these are too fun.
Sweet baby two days old in his Moses Basket:


A couple of weeks later--still not quite a month old:

(ahhhhhh! he's so tiny!!)
A couple mornings ago, six months old:

Nope, he can't really stretch all the way out anymore.
Ya think we need to get him to sleep through the night soon? He needs to be doing all his sleeping in his crib--but he usually only makes it until 2 or 3AM at best and then ends up back in his basket. Poor little guy loves his basket, too bad he's so ginormous now! Well, not too bad he's so strong and big, but too bad for his comfy moses basket.

Seeing how quickly babies grow like this is just insane, isn't it? No wonder they need to sleep so much (note I said NEEDS to sleep, not actually sleeps!.)

::six month comparison::

0:

2 months:

4 months:

6 months:

Is this guy growing or what? He's still got those little worried eyebrows though.
I'm sure that eating two tubs of food per night isn't going to hurt his growth rate. I feel like I accidentally bought an Irish Wolfhound puppy thinking he was a Golden Retriever or something.
Love him.

::anniversary::

This darling little guy hit his six month mark last week. The date came and went of course, due to an extremely busy crazy week. But I didn't want to let it pass by completely without remarking on it.
In some ways I can't believe it's been six months and in some ways it feels like the last six months have been years. Of course we can't imagine our family without him--or even how life was before he was here.
He's our darling friend and brother. We're just so happy to have him around.


He finally started eating real food last week, and by today he's begging for it--veggies and a bit of fruits. When he's eating if I put down the spoon he gets very distressed and mad at me. He wants me 100% dedicated to the task at hand.

He also finally starting rolling on his own today--he's done it a few times but not consistently and mostly with a good amount of encouragement. Today he's just been going for it--from his back to his belly--over and over.
We're so proud--a little scared of how things will change when he really starts moving around--but proud nonetheless!
Happy six months to our Sand. So glad you're here with us!

::life is good::

When you're hanging around in a hammock.

We sure love this old hammock that Kelly brought home from his mission for us. We've logged a lot of good hours in it.

It's most exciting that we found a good place for it here at our new house. It's out on the back deck and the view from it is pretty darn lovely.

But I love today's contents of the hammock most of all.

::before & after & a bonus::

When the day finally came and we got to take possession of our new house we were very excited, and really really hoping that the prior owner was actually done and moved out--especially considering the fact that we had been to the house not too long before and there had still been lots and lots of stuff everywhere.

Anyway, we came in and happily, her stuff was all gone and the house was empty and ready for us.
But sadly we ran across this on one of the walls:

Yes, not only had somebody drilled huge holes into the wall to hang something bizarre, but they had also painted around it. Who does that? Seriously, did they hire SpongeBob or somebody to do the painting?!
Needless to say we were annoyed. That's not the kind of thing you can just overlook--and combined with the fact that she had taken a big TV mount down in the bedroom and the wall looked like a land mine had gone off inside it--we were pretty unhappy.

So luckily, later that week Kris went to Home Depot to get some supplies and serendipitously they were presenting a little wall repairing class and he got to sit in and learn a ton. So he fixed the wall--almost overfixed it in his excitement, but not quite.
Then I got brave and found the paint that matched the wall in the garage. I figured even if the paint had aged or faded, it couldn't look worse than that weird Cheshire Cat shape there on the wall.
So I painted it. Two coats. And it turned out perfect.

We were/are very proud of ourselves. It's so nice to see something repaired so darn well! Now on to all the other cracks, scrapes, holes and scratches in house. All the woodwork on the doors need help. The lady had a dog at some point and that dang dog scratched the dickens out of every doorframe and doorjam in the house. I'm going to have to experiment and see what can be done.

And the bonus?
Goofy pictures of a sweet silly and goofy boy. He was watching Kris put in towel & toilet paper holders, since somehow the guest bathroom had none.


And there ya go.