::grandma & boys::

Now it feels like forever ago, but just before Kathy left for home after Christmas we took a few pictures of her with the little boys.
And the little boys were even semi cooperative.


The littlest one even likes pictures. I get out the camera and he smiles SO big. Then he looks away of course.

These boys love their Grandma! And at this point she hadn't yet stayed with them alone for a long long weekend. Love was tested and it won out.

Here is a fun little series.


Max looks like his head might be flat.

If Grandma is going to pat Max's head then Sandy is going to too.

And then Sandy gets a head pat.

Inspiring yet another reciprocal head pat.

Awwwwwww.

Cuteness. That's all I can say.

::suit::

Kathy got Max a suit for his birthday. It's appropriate since he's so dang old now. He looks old and mature in the suit--deceptively so.

I had a hard time finding a good spot to take a picture of these two for some reason. Some mornings the sun pouring in is just so bright and almost harsh!

I'm definitely not sure that standing them in front of the huge TV and the green on green color scheme was the right idea, but oh well.
You get the picture.
Two matching Hendricks dudes in pinstriped suits.
I was pretty proud to take these two guys to church with me.

Mostly!

::::

Just playin' some tunes.


It's a group activity.

Sandy is obsessed with the string bass. And who wouldn't be, really.

::morning buddies::

Kris and I have been trying to train ourselves into runners. It's not that easy. We're training for DisneyWorld's marathon weekend in early Jan. I'm going to do the half marathon and Kris will do the full. We're hoping that next Sept we'll get to do the Berlin Marathon with Kris's Uncle Richard, if all goes well. (I'm still not committing to ever really running a marathon, but I can at least train for it!)

So this entails running (or run/walking in my case) at least three times a week. Most times Kris and I end up switching off days and going out first thing in the morning--about 6:15 is when we have to go in order to get kids to school and people to work on time.

The other morning Max happened to be awake when Kris was getting ready to go. This is so very unusual, most of the time we're dragging him kicking and screaming (figuratively--usually) out of bed at seven or later.

But he was awake, and he begged Kris to let him ride along on his bike. Kris is already a good dad and has been taking Sultan along. Poor Sultan is just dying for exercise and fun and loves to go. It makes things way too complicated for me, but Kris is sweet and takes him along.
So there he was, with a boy on a bike and a dog on a leash, both ready for fun and adventure. And he was supposed to be actually getting a workout in.

It went alright, so I hear. It's happened three times since I think. Today Max had a rough time getting up, but he still did it. And Kris took some documentary style pictures as they trundled along.

(It's cold and dark in the morning!!)

(Fabulous cactus flowers.)

I think they make look a bit speedier than they truly are in this photo. They look like they're just zooming along the trails.

Kris says he's not really getting too good of a work out, but the guys are way too excited and enthused about it and he would feel terrible just sneaking out without them.
Isn't he a sweet dad?
I love that Max is excited to go with him and work hard, and I love that he's seeing how we're working and trying hard to be fit and have fun. Hopefully it'll all rub off well on him and he'll be able to see that anything (well, almost anything) is possible if you work hard enough!

::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!

::pink-eye::

Oh ick. Ick ick pink eye.
I don't think it's fair to get things like this as an adult. It's so frustrating and embarrassing as well. And unfortunately, just because mom is sick doesn't mean the world stops spinning. In fact often it seems that it spins faster.
Anyway, Kris got sick last week after he did an insane 12 hour bike race. I think he just wore himself out completely and then was very ready to get sick. He got a bad cold then what ended up being pink-eye, though I just thought it was part of his cold. We had to go to Phoenix for the weekend for work. We were supposed to go swimming with some friends on monday morning (we were leaving for home monday at noon.) When the baby woke up I noticed his eye was all crusty and then I knew it was the beginning of the end.

The next morning I got it and then the morning after that Max got it.
Max missed his field day at school and the last three days of the year. He didn't mind it too much of course, but I got pretty tired trying to entertain everybody.
I loved having eyes that looked like they belonged to an elephant. Plus, to make it even worse I obviously couldn't wear my contact lenses, and unfortunately my only pair of glasses got melted on a space heater at some point. They won't stay on my face very well and they make me feel claustrophobic and terrible. They're also a little outdated so everything's just a bit blurry.
So, all complaining aside, it was a pretty bad week.

See that sad weepy swollen eye?

Max the lightest case of anybody--plus his eyes are so huge that you could hardly tell they were swollen at all.

The boys did get to spend some quality time together this week though and that was nice.


But don't even get me started on the torture it is to give these boys burning eyedrops. So sad and awful and frustrating.
The things I learned this week?
1. Avoid pink-eye like the plague.
2. Get some glasses that work.
I think I'm going to go look for some tomorrow morning.

::easter final part or even more bunny ears::

You won't believe how long they kept the bunny ears on for me.

Max actually likes his, and I don't think the baby had any idea he had his on.

I love how these two get along. They really do both adore each other. I hope it can continue that way.




Kris came up with an amazing baby breakthrough while we were in UT waiting to have our family picture taken. He has a secret phrase. (Shhhh, it goes like this: "Eat the pig, eat the pig. Ziggy, ziggy, ziggy zig." Have you ever watched Bill & Ted's excellent adventure?) Anyway, whenever he says this secret phrase to the baby, the baby cracks up. He thinks it's so funny. It can even sometimes bring him out of a screaming fit. Max and I use it too, all the time.
So these pictures were taken by way of the secret phrase.

So cute. Happy Easter, one and all. We're always glad to celebrate this wonderful holiday, and so much more glad this year as the idea of the atonement and resurrection becomes more and real and important to us. Love you all.

::happy easter pt 1::

Obviously I should've used a different f stop setting so both of my boys would've been in focus, but oh well. They're cute anyway. I can't get enough of the bunny ears.
Happy Easter day!!

::phoenix in january pt 3::

It's about time I finish telling you about this trip! It's been a bit of a crazy week this week, and the baby hasn't let me sit down to edit photos for days.
Anyway, the trip was great. We were able to do a little shopping at stores we don't have in Santa Fe. We ate some Jimmy John's and some In'N'Out Burger. Kris and Max swam. Max and I watched a movie in the hotel room together on the computer Kris brought to do his course work on. We got to visit our friends the Baboias from residency. Sandy got a little travel swing and really loved it. We goofed around in the hotel room plenty.

The best part though, was wearing short sleeves and sandals. It wasn't too warm, but it was nice and we took advantage of it. Sandy got to feel the breeze on his arms for the first time ever!
Max goes around that hotel like he owns the place. He's stayed there three times now because of the course and he loves it. It is a pretty fun place, weird but fun and the breakfast is quite good. We can handle going back one more time.

We left on saturday night to head towards home. The office was open monday because of Martin Luther King Day (trying to take advantage of the school holidays to get kids in!) so we needed to get home.
Saturday night we stayed in the Wigwam Motel. Ever heard of it? Well, it's pretty darn awesome. It's in Holbrook AZ on old Route 66. It's a big group of concrete teepees, and you sleep in them. In fact, ours had two "queen" beds, a tiny TV and a tiny little bathroom with a very short shower.

The temperature in the wigwams was surprisingly ok, considering it was freezing cold outside. BUT if you went into the bathroom with bare feet it was awful. Just frigid.

Max was so excited when we got there he was bouncing off the walls. He was rolling around on the bed driving me nuts and I told him to stop. He said "My body just won't let me relax!!!" He finally fell asleep at about 10.
There are a bunch of old classic cars parked outside of the wigwams. They were really fun to look at.

So I thought you might want to see some of them too.




We're pretty sure that this is the place that inspired the Cozy Cone motel in the Pixar movie Cars. And almost every one of the cars in the parking lot can be identified as a character in the movie. Like...Mater of course!

It's a fun place. We'd definitely recommend it if you don't want to spend too much money, have a small boy or girl that will get psyched out of their mind, don't want to shower in the morning and want your feet to hang off the end of the bed.

It was a fun trip. Luckily we get to do it one more time in February!

::christmas report pt 1::

The best thing I ever did was make Max use an alarm clock a few Christmasses ago. Not so much to wake him up, but to show him when he was allowed to leave his room and come get us. It's worked awesomely for us each year since and we've never been waked up at 4AM (yet anyway). I told Max this year that 7:30 was his time. When the baby got me up at 7, or was it 6:30? He was still out. I fed the baby and showered. I went into his room and checked on him at 7:25 and he was SO asleep. 5 minutes later we heard the alarm go off and seriously 30 seconds later he was in our room, wide awake. It was hilarious. And just proved that all those school mornings where we have to drag him out of bed by his toenails are preposterous!

Boys in the morning, all stripey and sleepy. I can't tell if Sandy's begging me to save him from his big brother with his eyes or not. He actually loves Max and I think it's only going to get better as he gets bigger.

We headed into the living room to see the goodies. It was nice to hear Max's extremely delighted noises as he saw the half size electric guitar we got him and the fun bits of things that Santa left. He was very satisfyingly excited about it all.

I realized the other day that it is just SO darn light here compared to other places we've lived. Even in the winter the sun comes up before 7AM. I was surprised that it wasn't dark when we went out to the living room. It may be the first Christmas I remember where we didn't see the tree lights glowing because of the sun!


Here's Max with his awesome guitar. The half-sizedness of it is very cute, and seeing Max play it is even cuter.

I'm sure I'll have to post more pictures/video of him playing it soon enough.
Here are Kris and Max with matching bracelets made out of bike chains. Max had purchased the bracelet for himself a few weeks ago, and he was dead set on getting Kris one for Christmas. Luckily there were still some left when we made it to the bike store. It is a lucky bracelet after all--or at least so says Max.

Sandy got worn out very quickly and was ready for his first nap. We brought his bed out into the living room so he could still be with us. I don't think he got very good quality sleep, but at least he slept a bit and it wasn't in my lap the whole time.

Plus, he's adorable. I love seeing little ones sleeping with their hands above their heads like that.

And Sultan? Well of course he had to be in on the action. He came right into the middle of the little space on the rug we'd cleared and he lay down. He got himself all comfy on Max's new sleeping bad and fell asleep. It wasn't very convenient for us, but cute anyway.


That's all for now--more tomorrow. I'm regathering my energy after the weekend. Max wished on a star tonight that it would be Christmas every day. I remember wishing that myself when I was little. I don't wish it now though. Once is enough even though I'm always sad it's over.