::today::

Kris is gone on business which stinks. He'll be back very soon, but I don't like it when he's gone at all.
It finally feels like fall here, today was pretty cold. In fact I've been overly warm ever since we moved so I've tried to avoid wearing coats and sweaters because I just have to take them off. Today I wore elbow sleeves and I was freezing picking up Max from school.
I had a dr's appointment today and she said things look great but not like they're happening right away. Kind of a bummer, but we can always hope for next week. We're three weeks out from the official due date and I just don't want to be late!
I'm also getting pretty impatient to find out WHAT kind of baby this is.
Having to come up with a boy & a girl name and buying a few specifically boy & girl outfits has been making me think I'm having one of both.
Obviously that's not happening, but it's starting to get confusing. It would be nice to have it all cleared up.

We're all set up so that we can network to the office from home, now Kris can see his schedule and we can access all the accounts so I can get work done when not in the office. That was one of the most important things for us to get done before baby, and luckily Kris's dad helped him set it up this week. We'd struggled with it several times before and never made it work. So THANKS Ken for helping Kris finally figure it out. It's working great and it's definitely a weight off my mind.

We've been having such busy days lately that I think poor Max is getting worn out. We get him up for school before seven and then rush to school. After school we usually have to rush to karate or guitar lessons. I don't know why the karate teacher did it, but he scheduled his white belt class 30 min after school ends. So we have to rush home and get him to change his clothes and get back to class and it's just tough. Unfortunately it sometimes involves a good amount of yelling. We're working on that. The yelling and the disobedience both.
After that he's got homework and guitar practicing and chores. He basically goes until bedtime.
So anyway I think he's tired of the intensity. I know I am! But so far everything we're doing is valuable, so we'll have to figure out how to ease up a bit without losing out.

And then to the point of this post.
I wanted to do something fun and halloweeny with poor "overworked" Maxwell. Fridays are his short days at school, he gets out right after lunch. Usually we'll go up and work at the office, but it's closed today since Kris is gone. So we went home and as soon as he finished his chores (which took AGES) we started on our little activity.


We really enjoyed ourselves making these adorable Nutter Butter ghosts. Max liked it a lot. (By the way, I didn't think these guys up, I got them from here. Such smart girlies on in the interweb.)

Look how cute they turned out!
Not as cute though, as my little boy, whom I had a very difficult time getting to stop making goofy toothless faces.


Ah, there we go. Isn't he adorable?

I felt like a good mom for actually doing something fun, seasonal and festive with him. And it really didn't take much time or too much standing up. (my back is killing me this week.)

So good for us. And I just put Max to bed at 7:30 and he had nary a complaint. I think he'll sleep well tonight. Now if only I can do the same.....

::round the horn::

Anybody out there ever watch the show on ESPN called "Round the Horn"?
Kris likes to watch it. There's a host and a bunch of sports writers on video monitors. They talk about current sports issues and events and debate. It's fast moving and silly.
Max decided he loves it too. Especially the sports writer from Denver, Woody Page. He's super silly and on the first episode Max ever watched for some reason somebody dumped about 10 pounds of confetti on Mr. Page and it went into his mouth and everywhere. Max was instantly hooked.

Anyway, this morning when I was getting ready for the day Max came into me with a card he'd drawn. For me. I love the cards he makes for me.
This was a special one--an Around the Horn card.

Max and I are on the left. Then he drew the other guys from the show on the right. I'm glad it's just pretend though, because I don't think Max and I are up to speed on enough sports stats and trivia to survive.

The mysterious part though is that on the left hand side it says (I had to have some help translating the acronyms and mixed up letters)
Do Not go Around the Horn.
So I won't.

It's getting colder around here! We're wearing coats and gearing up for it to get really cold--remembering last winter. Dark long and cold.
I got a new fleece jacket I really love last night and I've already worn it twice.
It really feels like fall when I'm wearing brown corduroy pants. Which I am.
I tried to get a picture of me wearing them, but it's dark and gloomy in the house and our mirror situation is not so good.
So here's a substitute. Me in a corduroy hat instead. My hair was still wet when I took Max to school this morning so the hat got pressed into service, keeping me from freezing.


Alright, now I'm off to pick up Maxles from school and to mail a little birthday package for my october siblings.
Later.

::thoughts::

I've never seen more people wearing polar fleece type vests than when we were in Vermont. It was amazing. At least every other person was wearing one. We felt very out of place. And yes, it could've been mostly the Canadian tourists sporting them, but I doubt it.

Our house is being insulated as we speak. Our landlord is a great guy--very responsible, and he's making sure our place is nice. I'm excited. It hopefully means our heating bills will be low(ish) and we won't freeze all winter like we did in our last place. That would be so nice.

All I can think about today is muffins.

It's getting colder, but it's not really cold yet. The sun has been out the last few days and that's a really nice combination with the brisk cool air. It makes me want to go pick apples and pumpkins and cook spicy cobblers with lots of crunchy sugary stuff on top.

Kris's mom is coming to visit us soon--in about a week and a half and we're so exciting. Having visitors out here is so fun. We really feel starved for family, even though we get to see ours more than a lot of people that live so far away do.

Max seems to like school right now. When he first started he was not a fan at all. I think the main reason is because they were making him color. He does NOT like to color. One of the teachers told him not to be so "scribbly dibbly" and he took great offense to that.
But we stuck with it, and I tried to help and encourage him a bit with the coloring. It was hard because he's very stubborn, and when he decides he "can't" do something it's hard to change his mind.
But now he's coloring a lot better, and seems to be enjoying his short little school days. That makes me happy because I hate making him go when he doesn't want to. It just doesn't feel right, especially with kindergarten. It should be fun!

October is the birthday month for my family. Both Cammon and Char have b-days within two weeks of each other. It was the best month growing up. Cakes twice, maybe some parties. We'd also go out to dinner to the b-day dude's favorite place and often do a fun family activity that day, like bowling or something.
It's such a bummer to be so far away and to miss out on the b-day going out and the cakes and the present giving. Boo hoo. So just know I miss you all. And Murphy.
And in closing, here's a great old photo of the said birthday brother and sister wrestling. Cammon is having fun, but is Charlotta?

She doesn't look exactly prepared for wrestling with her purse and scarf...

::yesterday::

Being out east makes conference days really strange. Instead of the sessions starting at 10AM and 2PM with the priesthood session at 6PM we're the day starts with the first session at noon. Then the second doesn't start until 4PM. Priesthood is at 8PM!! It sort of ruins the boys night out for ice cream afterwards. Good thing there's nobody out here to try to take Kris out anyway.

I was inspired by Marilyn--she and her family had a muffin day and ate a bunch of different delicious muffins. I was thinking that would be a fun tradition to attach to conference--at least the October session.
Is there a little boy out there that wouldn't look forward to 8 hours of church meetings as long as there were a lot of yummy muffins involved?

Unfortunately this time I planned a whole bunch of other delicious food too--like chocolate croissants, french toast, apple dumplings, etc. etc. A whole bunch of sugary, delicious, filling foods. So we only got to try two different kinds of muffins during the weekend. (I know, it hardly counts to say "only" on top of all that other food, but muffins are important!)
We had a mix from trader joe's that I didn't like much. It was too healthyish tasting for me really--too much fiber and smushy blueberries and cranberries.
But on sunday I made this recipe--strawberry vanilla muffins. And they were delish. Yum.

Enough about delicious food (for now).

In between sessions yesterday we went over to a little lake in our city so that Kris and Max could try to catch some little fish. They went a couple of weeks ago and caught a bunch while I was taking a nap.

Looks like a pretty nice place from this view, right?
How about this one?

Erg, blech. Yuck.
Remember, the industrial revolution did start around here somewhere. Who knows what's in that lake.

The color of the water didn't stop Max from having fun--or trying to get in the water--or from sitting down in the mud a zillion times.

Kris tried to catch fish.
Max found a groaty spoon.

Kris tried to catch fish.
Max threw muddy sand into the lake and scared all the fish away.

Kris tried to catch fish but,
he caught a tree instead.

Kris tried to catch fish.
Max caught a long long twisty branch (by pulling it down out of a tree.)
and then he threw it in the lake.
So if there were any fish left at that point they ran away!

So at the end, Kris didn't catch any fish, but Max succeeded in catching some time in the time out chair for not listening. Lucky him!

Isn't this a crazy beautiful spiderweb I found in the yucky icky lake mud? It looks like a gorgeous necklace. I keep learning that if I keep my eyes open there are beautiful things to see.
And hear--conference was great too.

October is for visits

This has the potential to be a nice long post with lots of pictures, so beware!
In my family when I was growing up, my mom's parents always came to visit in the fall, and in my memory it was always in October. October was one of my favorite months anyway, but the excitement of having them come to visit always made the month really special.




Here's a picture of my mom's mom, Grandma Jackie, in the kitchen.

Here's Grandad and Murphy having a deep conversation of some kind. This is one of my all time favorite pictures of Grandad.
We really loved having them visit, it was always tons of fun.


So it seems that our little family now is continuing the tradition of October visiting. We moved out here to Kansas City in June of 2004.That following October my grandparents came to town to visit Grandad's sister. They came and had dinner at our new house. It was nice to have everyone there.
Max and his greatgrandparents!
Later that month Max and I flew out to Utah for a family visit. That was really fun. Here are a couple of pictures of that visit, just for fun. Max was soooo cute!














We also saw Kris's family, and took some fun pictures of Parker and Max together, but I couldn't get any of them to upload, so I guess we'll have to do without. Here's a picture of my parents and I at the airport just before Max and I flew home. Look how huge Max is compared to my cute little mom!
In October 2005 the Hendricks came to visit for a few days and brought Kelly with them. We had a good time taking them to some fun restaurants and playing tunes.


























The next October Kathy came to visit and helped me sew halloween costumes (ok, ok she sewed them for me) we didn't get to wear them on halloween because Max threw a big halloween fit (more details on that later), but we'll use them this year.
Here's Max the only time he let us put the costume on. Isn't it fun?
This year was the real October of many visits though. I had to fly to Utah for some work meetings and Max came with me. We had a blast visiting both my family and Kris's family. We got about two days for each family. Parker and Max had such a great time playing together. They shared and ate together and even pooped together. Well at the same time I guess. It's really fun to see them talking and relating to each other. Cousins are so much fun!
It was fun to see Cammon and Lorri since we don't see much of them, Max enjoyed that, and of course loved seeing his lovely Aunty Char and his silly Uncle Miffy.
I LOVE this picture with all the smiles!
Couldn't be sillier!
After we got back from Utah and Kris took another school trip Ken and Kathy came to visit us for the weekend (just so you know, that trip was planned long before my work trip came up, if you're wondering why everything was so close together)
We had a great weekend and got to hang out with Kelly and Lechelle a lot, which was nice, they've been so busy lately we haven't seen them a lot. We ended the visit with a big Karaoke Revolution party, which was really fun. It's Max's favorite game, so he loved it.
So we're hoping to continue the awesome October visiting tradition next year. We're a little tired this October though, and we're ready to stay home for a while. Oh and I almost for got! My Uncle Mike (my mom's brother) came into town for a business trip while Kris was gone, so Max and I got to hang out with him and we went to dinner at our favorite Mexican place. That was really fun because I haven't seen him in ages. I just don't have any pictures of us, we'll have to do better next time.
Thanks for all the visits everybody, it was so fun to see you all!