::happy 4th::

We're having fun, hope you are too!

::crazy rain::

If anybody runs into Noah in his ark, send him our way. We're getting drenched right now! And we're getting close to 40 straight days of rain, so I have reason to be making escape plans!



Kris's parents are coming to see us today and we're going to officially celebrate Kris's birthday tonight--on his real b-day we were being soaked in Maine while he couldn't get a fire started in the 100% humidity! Not cool. And plus we didn't have a coconut chocolate layer cake to eat out there. So today should be fun.

Hopefully the fourth will be sunny. It looks like it could be, so far so good!

::fathers day::

Just a quick father's day report. We had a good day--I'm hoping Kris felt special!
We had some fun gifts for him, including a new church shirt. The poor guy hasn't gotten new clothes for a long time, since he wears scrubs most of the time these days.

The best gift Kris got though was an awesome tie that Max made in primary at church. It's adorable.

Sultan found it very interesting, especially the feathers. He had to make sure it wasn't going to attack anybody.

I really enjoyed seeing Max singing the father's day songs in sacrament meeting. It was super cute the way he kept looking over at us, all proud of himself.

We had a super yummy dinner of watermelon and chicken roll-ups and relaxed together all afternoon while it rained.
If only we could get some sun, a rainy afternoon would be a welcome change. Maybe someday.

We sure love the daddy of this house!!

::time travel::

It seems like we're slipping backwards in time somehow.
This was May:

(at least the end of it)

Warm sun, sweaty boys, popsicles, pink cheeks, blue skies.

Panting dogs.

But June? So far June has been really disappointing. I don't even have any photos to illustrate my point. It seems to have been raining pretty much the whole month, and I don't think it's gotten warmer than about 75 degrees. Even on the sunny days (like when we got the tramp) it's rained either at the beginning or the end of the day! It's been grey and soggy and sometimes chilly.

We're not sure if summer is ever going to actually get here. And I'm worried that once it's here I'll want it to go away again. I like heat in small doses.

Really we've just been hoping it would be nice enough that we could go to the beach with our friends before they graduate and move away in a week. It's not looking good for that though.
Remind me in August that I was wishing for heat and sun now!

(for some reason lately when Max is out playing hard and gets hot and sweaty he comes in panting and says "there's one dead animal looking for a popsicle" I'm not sure where he got it, but it happens all the time. Dead animals keep showing up, and they want popsicles morning and night.)

::ups and downs::

Yesterday was kind of an intense day for Max.  He started it out well (at least in my opinion), by sleeping in until after 7.  This is unusual for him these days, and I really like it.  Even though he does a pretty good job entertaining himself if I'm trying to sleep in, there's something about a happy quiet morning house that just speaks to me.

We took a trip to the grocery store and I ended up with one too many of those clear plastic produce bags.  Max lovingly adopted it and played with it for the remainder of the trip as he rode in the basket of the cart.  I didn't realize quite how strong the attachment between them had become until he dropped it through the bottom of the cart while we were in line.  I was too busy trying to make sure that all the bags of food fit around him without squashing food or little boys to remember that I had promised him I would retrieve it.

We were halfway through the door when he realized it was still on the floor.  It was just too late.  He cried as if his heart had just been broken in two.  And he didn't want just any bag, he wanted THAT bag.

It took a while to calm him down.

After that he got to spend a lot of time in the backyard blowing bubbles, shooting squirt guns and playing with Sultan.  That always makes for a good day.

At the end of the day we met Kris at the movie theater so we could se UP, Pixar's new movie.  Max loved it, and Kris and I enjoyed it too.  (3d movies are pretty cool, who knew?)

But it was after that things really started to go downhill.  We had driven separately to the theater, so Max rode home with Dad, as he does whenever he can.

At home, in the driveway, Max's elbow got closed in the window.  (No big damage, just a scrape or two) It broke him though.  He was a wet noodle.  He couldn't walk or talk.  Just tears.

THEN, while getting his teeth brushed, someone who will remain nameless, missed and brushed Max's left eyeball.  Yes, there was toothpaste on the brush.  No, it didn't go over well.  It was like a cherry on the top of an already traumatic day.

BUT!  After that when I was putting him to bed, he whistled for the first time ever.  That was very exciting.  

Life can be tough when you're five.  I asked him today if yesterday was a good day.  He said yes.

::oldie but goodie::

Today I was working on some semi-old photos that have been languishing while waiting for me to have a little extra time.
They're from our trip to California this last Feb. The trip was so fast, and things were so crazy I hardly got a chance to post anything about it, so I'll probably be posting some of it soon--maybe backdated, maybe not. We'll see.
But here's something awesome.
Taken in the redwood forest in northern CA. (The GIANT redwood forest that is.)

I put together I think about 9 photos to make this composite. It's obviously not totally true to life because the tree looks like it's curving funny, but it gives you a better feel for the immensity of the old trees than any of my other photos.

Kris is there at the bottom, could you see him?
If you click here you can see a larger version of the composite.
Crazy, isn't it?
If you want to feel insignificant, I can tell you where to go....

::happy memorial day::

**we're just hoping the rest of our celebration doesn't include Kris getting called into the hospital again. He had to go in at 3:30 last night, and he's TIRED!

::cousins+cookies=awesome::

When Max and I were visiting in Utah we thought it would be fun to get the cousins together so they could decorate valentines cookies. So we did. These photos are from the same day as the others I posted a couple days ago, just in case anybody was wondering.
Kathy was fabulous and mixed up the cookie dough in advance, then she and I cooked them up that morning so that when the Parker and KC got there the boys could just go for it.
They were pretty excited.

To go along with the varied personalities of the boys come varied cookie decorating methods.
Parker is very serious, methodical and pretty precise.

He outlined all his hearts with frosting really carefully.

Then we have Max.

He's never done this before, so he's definitely a newbie. I loved eating the cookies he decorated because of the three inch piles of frosting.
It's funny because this is kind of like how he draws. He's not careful and he's not precise. He just likes to scribble. Unless he's writing something. So this didn't surprise me.


I'm not sure what KC's technique was. He's still kind of little for things like this. He did a good job and he got a lot of help.

I love his almost cross-eyed concentration there. And his little tongue sticking out.


Then they sprinkled.

There were lots of sprinkle options, so picking out the exact right ones was kind of complicated.

At one point Max opened up all the little spigots on that big one and tried to pour them all out at once. I intercepted it though, luckily.

And then the finished product.

And the taste test.

I have to tell you, they were extremely delicious. In fact I wish I was eating one now.



I think they turned out very cute. Impressive for a bunch of little hooligan boys! It's not just any boy that can frost a heart so beautifully.

Then Grandma took over and frosted the rest, and they were gorgeous.

I think we should do it again next year.

::cute cousins::

One of the many reasons that we love to visit Utah is because Max gets to spend time with his cousins. Cousins were (and are) super important to Kris and I growing up. We'd like Max to have the same close relationships with his that we had with ours.

Max and Scooter (Cammon & Lorri's little guy) don't have a ton in common yet, but I think they enjoyed hanging out together a bit.
Max and Parker (Kari's oldest), however, have quite a bit in common. In fact, so much in common that we weren't sure they were going to have any fun together at all this time.

They both seem to think they're the boss of the world. As soon as they started to try to play together it was evident that neither one was going to listen to the other. One yelled, another grabbed stuff. One pulled another's shirt. One came running up to us and said "so and so won't OBEY me!"

But the good news is, they worked things out after a bit and then had a really great time playing together.

This is so good for Max because being currently an only child, he doesn't have to compromise too much. It's different with friends. Cousins are as close to sibilingish relationship as you can get I think.

Now KC (Kari's youngest currently) has a completely different attitude than either Max or Parker. He's the kind of guy that just goes with the flow. He's a sweet little guy for sure.

He's pretty shy, and up until this visit I really hadn't gotten him to warm up to me at all. Happily, we got along well this visit and I even got a couple of hugs!

KC really loves his Grandpa though.

A lot.

So cute!

Anyway, it's really funny to see the differences in personality between the cousins. There are myriad.
Like Parker really likes to build stuff. Give him tinkertoys or lincoln logs or constructs and he's a happy man. Max wouldn't know what to do with a lincoln log if it bit him on the rear end. Building things does pretty much nothing for him.
This was evident because Parker built this cool gadget when they were playing.

And this cool gadget.

I told Max to go and make one really quick so that I could take pictures of them together with their gadgets.
Parker had to make one for him. It was pretty funny.

But that's why we have different talents and abilities, right? So we can share the love and take care of each other!

Just look at these goofballs.

They couldn't be cuter. Cousins are great, even if they do make you compromise sometimes!

::yum::

Do you want to eat something delicious and not at all nutritious?
Try whipping up a batch of these brownies.

They're from my favorite foody blog, Baking Bites. I like to read it all the time and daydream about the yummy delicious food. I try to only make treats from it quarterly. They're just too delicious not to eat every crumb of them once they're made.

These brownies have a layer of oatmeal cookie crust at the bottom. The brownie part is really chocolatey in a dark delicious way. (all you dark chocolate lovers out there would love them--mom and dad!!).

Luckily I had a good excuse to make these tonight because I've been dying to! Kris met a kid at church who is applying to a master's program at RISD. He was here for interviews and had taken a cab to church. He was nice and Kris recognized the lost traveller feeling that he's had a lot during interviews. Kris invited him to dinner and gave him a ride home from church.
After we fed him a yummy spaghetti dinner and he left, I started thinking about all the people that were so kind to us when we first went out to Kansas City, that made us feel welcome and at home right when we got there. And the friends who have done the same here. We're just so lucky to have our church, to have a built in support system with great friends no matter where we have to go.

Anyway, we're grateful when we think back on it, and it was nice to share the love a little bit today with somebody who needed it.
And Max liked the brownies of course.



Tomorrow's a new week, and I'm going to blog more, yay! Another week closer to spring. We'll make it there eventually.