::youch & cinnamon rolls::

Yesterday when Max was out adventuring he had an unfortunate incident. He had a brush with death (i.e. a bumblebee). The bumblebee was flying at him as he was riding his bike on the trail behind our house. This bumblebee may or may not have existed, and it may or may not have stung him on the cheek (it didn't.) But this supposed bumblebee startled him enough that he ran into a cactus. YOUCH.
This really isn't surprising because the man NEVER watches where he's going while riding his bike. It drives me crazy. He's talking and swerving and having close calls all the time he's riding.

So anyway, he was out for just a few minutes riding by himself when the horrific event happened. I heard him come in and I said, "How was your ride, Max?" He said, "BAD!" But since he's the little stoic, he couldn't just tell us what had happened. Instead he lay down on the floor and pulled his pants down and there were the spikes.

(Post spike removal.)
He really didn't get spiked too bad--not as many spikes as he could've ended up with. But the big one in the middle must've really hurt. It left a big purple bruise.
Kris got his loupes and tweezers and a headlamp, and I held his head while we pulled them out.
Once they were out he was pretty cool about it. He got a long warm bath and then all was ok.
Would you like to run into one of these?

I don't want to, but I'm sure I'll have my turn at some point. These spikey things are everywhere!! There's even a story involving the Land Rover and cactuses that I'll save for Kris to tell another day. It's just too good to waste.

(Dramatic re-inactment. This one is right on our driveway!)

And the next item here in today's post is cinnamon rolls.
I figure it's always fun to have something yummy to eat during conference, and on conference sunday sometimes I actually have time to do something like make food, which doesn't happen a lot.
So anyway, I decided to make real cinnamon rolls from scratch for the first time in my life. They turned out really good!

I was pretty worried the dough wouldn't rise at first, but after I waited a bit (left the room, took a shower, stopped checking on it) it did fine.

Cute little rolls.


Done!
It took forever, that was the only problem. I started on them at probably about 8AM and they were finally ready to eat at about 11:30. Max almost didn't have enough patience to survive. He was asking me if he could "have one" before I had even finished mixing the yeast into the dough!

And he was very happy when he finally got to eat one. Picture him whispering reverently "From scratch..." as he munched.

And Sandy insisted on heating most of mine, though I tried hard to convinve him that cheerios were a better idea.

And that's all for now. Happy conference sunday. Wish it would come more often that twice a year. How about once a month?

::new tiger & max takes the bus::

We have a lot of fun toys at the office, but some of the funnest have got to be the big lion and tiger that live in the back operatories. They're gigantic. One of our little four years even asked recently if the lion was real or not. It was awesome.
So when I found a new and different great big tiger online of course I had to add him to our menagerie.
He came in the mail today, in a gigantic box, and Sandy and I got to check him out since we were working at the time.
This really isn't that newsworthy, but the baby is so so darn cute. And the tiger almost looks real...



Sandy wasn't sure about riding the tiger, but after a bit he felt pretty darn cool.


I didn't realize quite how realistic looking the tiger was until I saw these picture. He's almost a bit scary!
So that's all our tiger news.

In other news, Max took the bus home from school for the first time today. It was rather heavenly and he seemed to really enjoy it.
I didn't realize that the bus would stop as close to our house as it does--it's just a few houses away at the intersection. Once I realized that, and that a couple of boys from the ward ride home often, I thought we should give it a try.
It was so nice today that I could leave the baby snoozing and go up in the driveway and watch out for Max's bus to arrive. So much nicer than waking poor Sand right in the middle of his afternoon nap (which is what has happened every other school day of his life) and dragging him to the school.

The only goofy part was when Max started walking in the opposite direction from our house--I think the way the bus came got him turned around. But finally he saw me waving and calling and headed the right direction.


(The car behind him belongs to our friends from the ward.)

Here he is, once again caught in a moment with no feet touching the ground. Maybe he floats in real life and I just don't realize it?


Gooooooooooooooooofy.
I think we'll be doing bus rides any days we don't have lessons or karate right after school. It takes a little pressure off of my day's schedule, which is awesome, and it gives Max a small measure of independence, which he desperately craves. It's nice because he can feel independent in such a controlled safe way.
So anyway, it was a great thing to have happen today and I'm so glad it went well.
That's all for now, good night!

::it's gone!!::

Yesterday, as I was posting about his tooth being loose, it suddenly fell out of Max's mouth!!
I think we figured out the most efficient way to remove loose teeth. Ideally the child could throw a major fit about something--something totally insignificant. The child could then repeat over at over that he's "the king" so his mother should "do what I say!!!!" Then at some point the loose tooth will just come out.

Look at that tiny teeny little tooth! (Or don't look if you're like me and teeth kind of gross you out.)

(please try to overlook the chapped lips and possible blood crust around the mouth, ICK.)

I have to say that the tooth popping out completely changed his demeanor. He was not having a good day at all. In fact it was pretty terrible. But after the tooth came out we had a great evening. Straight from tears to enthusiastic grins. It should happen more often.


The tooth fairy did come last night, and she brought a couple of cars instead of a couple of quarters. It went over well. I think he's pretty happy.

Yay for Max!

::bravery::

About a week or so ago Max and I got to go swim with some friends from church. Thanks to the Doutres for making it happen, by the way!

We got there and the pool was huge with two big old diving boards and two huge slides.
The first thing Max did was hurry over and jump off a big diving board straight into the cold water. Brrrr. In some things he's seriously fearless. Water seems to be one of them. He's so confident it's scary. He really thinks he can swim, though without the water wings he really can't. All he can do is barely tread water. So I have to keep a tight eye on him and make sure he doesn't overstretch himself. At least he likes his water wings. That's a good thing.

Anyway, he did lots of jumping off the boards, but there was this monster slide down at the deep end that Max had his eye on. It was really really tall and steep. Tall and steep enough that I definitely didn't want to go on it.
But Max did. So he went for it.

He climbed up to the top then froze. For like 5 minutes with this scared look on his face. I started to get worried about him, but he snapped out of it, got up to the top and went for it. He looked really scared all the way down. Then when he came back up out of the water he was like, "That was AWESOME!!".

He went down a million more times--making me nervous every time.
He loved it.


Sometimes it's really fun to have a fearless kid--in situations like this where there are fun challenging things to do. Not so fun when he likes to run away from us in any situation though, and he's not scared he'll ever get lost or get in trouble. Argh.
But he's such an adventurous swimmer and we're super proud of him. Go Max!