::baptism day part 2::

So for part two!
I was so stressed out with getting this whole event planned and figured out. More stressed out than I really should've been.
But that aside, we were able to do it right after stake conference so a bunch of our friends could come straight over to it before going home. So we had a really nice turnout.

Max was excited.

And a little nervous I think!

Kris gave a talk--one of our friends said that he thought it had to have been one of the first times that somebody gave a talk in bare feet while reading from an ipad. It was pretty great.
I played a flute duet with a friend from the ward. My mom gave a nice talk about the Holy Ghost. It was a great lineup.

My friend Renatha shot a couple of quick pictures for me before it all actually happened. I love the crowd of kids up around the font.

Max had to go under twice because of an errant hand--great story to tell later.

It was a lovely little event. I enjoyed it and I was relieved that it went smoothly.

Afterwards we zoomed home and had friends over for sandwiches and a little birthday cake for my dad.
It was such a nice day.


I think Max realized the import of what he was doing (as much as an eight year old can). He was mature, excited and very focused all day. We're so proud of the boy! So glad he's ours!

::max is a yellow belt::

Max has been going to his karate school since the summer we moved to Santa Fe. At first when he started he was just silly and crazy. He was enjoying himself and was excited to be doing karate, but really not that serious. He even got into trouble a few times for giggling too much.
But after he took a test and passed up into the next belt he suddenly became serious.
He was so excited and serious about karate that he could've gone every day.
Over the summer the sensai offered week long "summer camps" where groups of the kids would practice karate, play games and hang out. Max did a couple of these and loved them.

He was karate man all summer, and would try to wear his belts out of the house over his normal clothes.


But, the frustrating thing was that when it came time to take the next test--in October, finally! He didn't remember the stuff he needed for the test. So we had to do a private lesson or two and go to every class offered (which is like four per week) for a couple of weeks.
It was a huge pain.
But it paid off. He passed his test and is SO SO proud of himself.

It's exciting to see him so excited and involved in something.

Luckily (for him) he's proved to us that he's serious about it. Because the dojo just barely moved from right by our house to twenty minutes across town. If he wasn't so excited about it we'd be OUT. But as it is I can't take this away from him, so he gets to keep ninjafying himself.
We'll keep you posted on his progress. For now he's a big yellow belt and he couldn't be prouder.

::adventures::

My Max likes adventures.

For the first week of school his new teacher sent home a brown paper lunch sack and asked the kids to bring it back the next day containing five things that they felt defined them as people. They were supposed to share and explain these things to the class.
When I saw this assignment I started to brainstorm of course, so I could give Max some good ideas. I started to talk about it and he told me he already knew what he was going to put in there.
"I love adventures," he said "so I'm going to put my geodes in there and a Matchbox Land Rover. I'm also going to put a little yellow bike that looks like my Scott Bike and my stick that I found in the desert that looks like a gun."

I thought it was very very interesting that he defined himself that way. I hadn't realized that about him up to that point--in fact I don't think it was true up to very recently.

I'm happy to have a boy that defines himself as an adventurous outdoors guy. There are so much worse and more boring things to want to be at this age.

And what it really comes down to is that I thought it was awfully cute.
I suggested he include a family picture in his bag and off he went to school. I think it went well for him.

(No, I don't know why Max is wearing a bike jersey backwards.)
When my parents were here last week Max invited my dad into his special club--the club I didn't know existed. It's called the "Explorers Bike Club" they had a secret handshake, a secret meeting location and they went on all sorts of cool bike rides. Adventurous and fun. And active.
Pretty cool, right?

:sssssssssurprise::

Can you see it?

How about now?
(Rachel R. you may just want to stop reading now.)

This is a special friend that Max spied this afternoon. He was just looking out the window I guess, randomly and he spied this little snake. It amazes me really because the snake is brown just like everything else outside. Max was pretty delighted to find him, and I was delighted that my dad was here to tell us that he's a harmless gopher snake. Phew.

It was really pretty nifty that he had climbed all the way up the fountain grill work. (The "fountain" that we've never actually run water in yet. We inherited it with the house.)

Also cool was to watch his little muscular body as he crawled up the wall.


Gopher snakes can come around here whenever they want as long as the eat mice and stuff. And I hope that they tell all the scary snakes to stay away. We'll see.
This one is pretty cute--for a snake.

::new bike::

If you think he's pretty proud and excited about this bike you'd be right. And who wouldn't be proud of this blazing yellow fancy thing?

::max is seven!!::

Our sweet big monstrous Max is now seven. It's such a crazy thing that I can't really wrap my mind around it.
He turned seven last week while on our trip to Phoenix.
Poor guy, we drove half the way the night before his birthday and drove the rest of the way on his birthday morn. Unfortunately for him, he came down with a cold just as we left town. So he slept awfully and he had stuffed up ears and a yucky cough. Driving down from the mountains into the Phoenix valley just about killed him. I think he felt like his ear was going to explode. At one point, about an hour outside of town we got stuck in construction. Max was bawling, Sandy was screaming and I thought I was going to die. If there had been a cliff handy I would've gone off it. Luckily everybody settled down and we made it to our hotel.

Oh, but it was before that the festivities started. Max had requested a couple of weeks ago if we could put a little present under his pillow and say to him "Good Morning Sunshine!" or something to that effect to wake him up. So we did it. But we forgot what we were supposed to say and so we said "Rise and shine Buckaroo!!" It worked just as well though and he was excited to wake up to a little gift. We got him a watch with Pluto on it. It reminded me of the Mickey Mouse watch my parents gave me when I was about his age.

Once we got to the hotel took the boys swimming right away because it looked like that day was going to be our only swim worthy weather. Sadly again for the Max, the little water slide at the hotel was closed. But he had fun anyway. Sandy did awesome swimming even though it wasn't really that nice out. It was kind of breezy and cool. But he was way into it. I can't wait until the next time was can take him swimming. Whenever that may be!

Then we went back and he opened his presents. He was psyched about them, thank goodness. Then we headed out and picked up some Jimmy John's sandwiches for dinner along with a yummy b-day cake from Trader Joe's. After that we put the poor boy to bed and it took him hours and hours to wind down enough to fall asleep.

I think all-in-all it turned out to be a pretty good day. I hope so anyway, we only turn seven once!

::go max!!::

Max is doing awesome at karate.
A while back he was awarded a little "most improved" patch for his uniform (we haven't put it on his uniform yet, much to his annoyance). Technically he's not the MOST improved because there are other kids with the same patch, but oh well. He really has improved since he started though, and we're really proud of him. I think the patch applies quite well.

Then yesterday he came out of class with another patch. An exciting one!

I like the dragons. Evidently this is a promotion patch and it means he's making progress towards the next belt!

Isn't this so classic karate--"Here's a patch for you! That'll be $10 mom and dad!!"

We're very proud of him though, and I can't wait until he learns enough to test up to the next belt. It's nice to see him learning something physically challenging and especially we like to see him learning discipline. Now if only it was less complicated to get him to karate after school now that there's the little Sandy. We'll get the logistics figured out though. Eventually!


Go Max!!!