::more st george pt 1::

Here's some more fun from our St George weekend.

First, a photo of Sandy on the way there. He's such a good sport. He and Max (and Sultan) all do a great job in the car. And poor Sandy has nothing to entertain him really, except the mirror and whatever toys I think to hand him. At least Max has movies and books and stuff.
Anyway, he's a great little guy.


One of the beloved things about staying in St. George is the pool. And the fact that it's usually warm enough for swimming to be tolerable. Sadly, the day we took Sandy to the pool it seemed way colder than usual, so he had to get into the hot tub, which was also cooler than usual. Still too hot for him to stay in for long. Too bad because he was having a blast.

He was splashing and giggling and getting very startled when he accidentally splashed himself right in the face.

He's not a serious as he looks.

But the bigger kids, of course, got to have the best time. They don't have to quit and go home for nap because the pool is too warm/cold. They play and play and play.
Here's Max and Parker comparing heights. We're not exactly sure how Max is suddenly a head taller.



These guys basically have WAY too much fun together.
And KC looks on, as usual. I'm sure he'll get over there and start pinching somebody at any minute.

And some launching:


What else are dads good for really?

In other news, we got to eat at In & Out Burger and Cafe Rio. We went to a movie with all six of the kids and survived. We put them all to bed every night and they stayed and there was actually some grownup time had. It was rather amazing--probably a blessing that we all needed!

More to follow--the drive home has some rather interesting events worth reporting!

::bryan wrap-up::

A couple of things I didn't get to post.
10,000 little boys:

(There are six boys in this picture--you can hardly notice Clayton on the far right for some reason, and Quin is hiding in his car seat. But they're there for sure!)
This was the morning they left. Max didn't want them to go. He was pretty bummed for the rest of the day.

Best park ever:

(I stole this picture from Kari.)
Can you believe the size of this slide? Our friends in the ward told us there was a two-storey slide park in town that their kids would beg to go to--we thought they were exaggerating. But no. It's HUGE.
The boys loved it. Too bad it was super windy (springs tend to be out here.) It was so windy that the babies couldn't catch their breath. So we'll have to hit the park again next visit. Twenty minutes probably wasn't satisfying enough for the dudes.

To wrap it up, we had a great time. We're so glad that Kari & her family came even though they all ended up sick with pink eye and colds a couple of days after they got home--they were forewarned though, so it was a known risk. Thanks for driving all the way out and risking the dreaded pink eye guys! Come back soon!

::more cousins::

At some point Gram had purchased the same shirt for both Max and Scooter. Scooter loves his and brought it along on his visit (well, really it was Lorri that brought it I'm sure, but anyway) and Max loves his, so was more than happy to wear it.
Since they wanted to wear that one shirt every day, I thought it might be fun to make a Target run and see if we could find them another matching shirt set so we'd have some more options.

It was tough though, considering that Max is so huge and Scooter so small. I can't shop for Max in the little kid section anymore.
So we found quasi-matching shirts. I think they both really liked them though. In fact, Max has worn his several times since, and I heard that Scooter refused to take his off at bedtime one day at home and ended up sleeping in it or something cool like that. Success!!!!
So here you go--please try to ignore the goofy shadows from the super bright sun pouring through the holes in the blinds.

Posing these goofballs is no easy task.

I love the opposing mouth positions on this one.

And then we went outside to try some more.



Finally, a good one! And aren't they cute?
And yes, Max needs a haircut. BAD. But he doesn't want to go. I'll get it done soon hopefully. Maybe this weekend if I don't run out of energy......

::cousins::

We have Kelly, Lechelle and Boston visiting us for the weekend and we're having a blast. Max is enjoying his little cousin when he's not busy trying to tear Kelly's attention away from his baby.


Boston thinks Max is super cool, and I was excited when Max wanted to hold him.
He's a good big cousin.

We're really enjoying their visit so far. It's so nice to get to spend time with the new cute babies in the family! And the big people in the family too of course.


Two boys "taking a nap" and snuggling this morning. Fun times!

::highland fling::

On saturday we got to go with Kris's family to the Highland Fling. It started with a parade. There was a lot of candy thrown from the floats, which the kids loved of course.

They were pretty excited to be at a parade--the big fleet of police motorcycles that came by first thing doing formations and flashing lights and sirens didn't hurt the excitement.

Parker.

Here are the boys waiting for the candy train to come along.

They dumped all their spoils into one bag and we farmed it out to them later. They were really cute.

Then we got to go into the park and listen to Grandpa Ken's band perform on the big stage. It was fun.


Max was way into the music and was dancing like a crazy man. He was so serious about his dance moves. It was hilarious to watch. Still photos don't really capture it, but I tried.



Here he is dancing up at the front. He especially liked Sweet Home Alamaba.

And then to top it all off, some karate studio came along offering free "light sabers". Does it get much better than that? Luckily we got one for each of the three boys, so that helped to stave off any big problems.

It's so fun to see cousins have a blast together. So fun to hang out with everybody!

::cousins::

My dad's cousin with his wife and kids happened to be visiting Cape Cod last week. (Thank goodness for facebook, or else how would any of us know where each other is??)
It was only a couple of hours drive away, so Max and I decided we would have an adventure and went out to see them while poor Kris was stuck working.

But here's the bummer. I brought my camera but I didn't bring my memory card. Tragic. The cape was beautiful, the kids are adorable and Max was having a blast.
My phone just doesn't measure up. But I tried anyway.

Look at Max's face. Isn't he having the best time? The kids are such good friends with each other, they're really enjoyable to watch together. And they were so nice to him. They just sucked him into their little world.


Moral of the story? If you vaycay in Cape Cod we'll come see you. That's all there is to it. Oh, and Max loves his cousins.

::today--a year ago::

Last year on this day we were in Utah, and we had a little party up American Fork canyon with the Hendricks side of the fam.

I miss the mountains, and the canyons, and the fam. Both sides of it.

I also miss the skin crackingly dry air, and the chilly high desert nights. Oh yeah, and the fam.

I wish we got to spend a whole month visiting, like we did last summer. That was great.
Last summer was really crazy, now that I think about it. We traveled so much, and so much happened all at once.


It's always exciting when these guys get together:

They're much bigger now, but just as silly.

I'm thinking we might need to enter them into some sort of synchronized eating competition, what do you think?





Is there such a thing as synchronized eating? If not, there certainly should be.

So, I wish we were getting together tonight for a big Hendricks/Randle family weinie** roast up the canyon. It would make me happy.


**weinie is easterner speak for hotdog. Just in case anybody was confused. It confuses me. Why would anyone want to use the word weinie when there are other, less gross names for a thing?

::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.