::old but yet quite amusing::

I just realized I never posted these photos back in December!

Kris and I got to go out on a date one night. We found a babysitter out here in our neighborhood that's a grandma who loves kids, it's great. Anyway, this was one of her first nights.
When we came home she was knitting in the kitchen. We asked her why she was there instead of in the living room on the couch. Well, she said, Max is in his cabinet.
Cabinet? What?
We went in there and there we found Max, in his cabinet.

We had just finished listening/reading to the first Harry Potter. He found the cupboard under the stairs pretty inspiring I guess. He said he was being Harry.

These pictures are from the next day while we were watching a PBS show.

He used the cabinet for a while and then we never heard a bit about it again. He's a character, isn't he?

::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!

::::

This is the kind of thing that happens when a young boy basically lives in a dental office.

I thought this pile was so hilarious when I found it. Silly boy.

::::

Imagine this face all contorted with glee over Winnie the Pooh's Cottleston Pie poem.

"Cottleston, cottleston, cottleston pie,
a fly can't bird, but a bird can fly.
Ask me a riddle and I reply
cottleston, cottleston, cottleston pie.

Cottleston, cottleston, cottleston pie,
a fish can't whistle and neither can I.
Ask me a riddle and I reply
cottleston, cottleston, cottleston pie.

Cottleston, cottleston, cottleston pie,
Why does a chicken? I don't know why.
Ask me a riddle and I reply
cottleston, cottleston, cottleston pie."

--A.A. Milne

Pretty good stuff right? I enjoyed listening to Kris read this to Max before bed tonight and him laughing uncontrollably--almost hysterically really--but it was nice.

::many happy returns::

It's Kris's birthday!  His thirty-second, to be exact.  This seems crazy to me, but it's true.
He had to work most of the day, so we all came in to work to keep him company.  We do this lots of days anyway, but we definitely wanted to keep him company today.  We had pizza for lunch with the staff and then finished up with the patients a bit early and closed up shop.

After that we went downtown to do a bit of window shopping in the galleries and eat dinner.  We ended up at a restaurant overlooking the plaza in the middle of town.
The view was nice, and there was a little mariachi fiddle group playing down on the green.  Max really enjoyed watching and listening to them during dinner.


And here are some photos of my goofy menfolk--we were waiting for our dinner at this point, so they were a little hungry and silly.


Bet you can't guess who's the goofiest around here.


Oy.

After that we went home for some cake and presents. (Max got Kris some curry ketchup, one of his favorite things. I was so impressed with him for thinking of it all by himself!)
We had cream cake with berries on it. (From the store, since I was at work all day.)
Then we played pool together for a bit before bed.



It was as close to a perfect day as a work day can get I think--and I hope Kris thought so too.

Happy birthday to my man amoung men! I LOVE YOU!!

::::

"Does anybody have a kleenex?" he asks--very seriously.


Ewwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwww.

Too bad this beloved silly putty had to go putty up the landfill after it got stuck in the carpet of the new house. Dad was not very happy about that.
I'm sure he'll figure out other uses for our kleenexes. He's creative that way.

::before & after::

It's the shortest I think we've ever had his hair cut. It matches Dad. This is a fresh "do" all ready for school.
We love him with the floppy hair and with the spiky hair. He's just cute. And goofy.
He wanted his hair cut like Sandy's, but we told him that was just slightly too short.

::freezing::

Luckily for us it's not freezing anymore right now--well, at least not the way it was.
The week of my birthday had some crazy weather. My birthday was nice and temperate, but the next day a storm blew in. My parents were flying out that afternoon, and it was truly questionable whether they were going to make it out or not. Lucky for me since Kris was flying out to see his parents that weekend they drove our car down there and parked it in long term parking. It was very nice that I didn't have to drive down and back with the boys, since it was terrible driving conditions and seemed very unsafe.
Max had a two hour delay for school and it was so darn cold I decided to just keep him home so I didn't have to take the baby out in the freezing.

Anyway, they made it luckily--though I think there was some white-knuckle driving in there.
That night it got freezing freezing cold, like well below zero, which is unusual for out here. School was cancelled the next day and we discovered that our pilot light had gone out. We have radiant floor heating and it takes a long time to cool down and a long time to warm up. By the time we realized the furnace wasn't running it was way cold in the house and it took forever and a day to warm up.
We spent a lot of time in the living room by the fire and we dressed Sand really warmly.


Max got out every toy he owned in an effort to entertain himself. He did well, but we were getting pretty tired of the still cold house by the end of the day. We braved the snow that night to go and grab a couple of burgers at a new place with FRY SAUCE!

The next day there was another two hour school delay. I ran into work after I dropped Max off and I got a automated phone call from the school district saying that all the students were warm and safe, but there was a statewide gas shortage and that they were going to close up school as soon as all classes were over. Turned out there was a true shortage and several cities in the state were completely without gas and some without power for days that week! Luckily we were fine. We did close the office friday though, in order to contribute to saving gas for cold homes. School was cancelled too.

It was just a crazy winter week. Kind of fun to have such crazy stuff going on, and lucky that we were warm, but I did feel bad for all the cold people without working heaters. Things like that make us grateful for what we have, and inspire us to make sure we have enough wood to stay warm if we happen to be left with only our fireplace for heat!

Can't wait for spring!

::suggestions::

Here are a few of Max's baby name suggestions. (Besides Sam & Sammy--his favorite so far.)

Eris--you know, like the dwarf planet.
Rico--just an awesome name he came up with (I'm sure not inspired at all by uncle Rico I'm sure. "My friends and clients call me UNCLE Rico.")
Max 2--that' pretty self explanatory, right? This is really one of his original and most persistent sugguestions. Two Maxes. Call me crazy, but I think yelling at one Max at a time is enough.

We'll see what else he comes up with.

::bow to your sensai::

BOW TO YOUR SENSAI!!!!!

Max has been begging me for karate lessons for a long time. At least a year now. So when I saw that there was a little karate studio very close to our house (and believe me, there's not much very close to our house) we had to check it out.
And of course, checking it out led to signing up. The awesomeness of month-to-month membership didn't hurt.
He started yesterday. Today was his second class, and he felt very very cool.

I had nothing to do with these poses--I just held the camera. He's hilariously serious about this stuff.

Look out. His body is a lethal weapon. And once he develops some coordination, he might even figure out how to use it. In the meantime he's just concentrating on as many illegal ninja moves as he can.

::intruder::

We were getting ready to leave the house yesterday evening for a night on the town when Kris spotted this little intruder.

See him?
He's the first lizard I've seen out here, though Kris and Max claim to have seen more--Kris claims to have seen big ones. He's going to have to prove it to me before I believe it though!

He wasn't very fast, so Kris was able to nab him with a cup and some paper and put him outside.
I guess that's the price we pay for keeping the doors open for the lovely cool air to flow in.
But I don't mind that little guy. I thought he was pretty cute. Now, a big snake? That I would mind.

Then this morning Max caught a lizard in his room.

Yes, the lizard was made out of stretchy rubber, but he was a lizard nonetheless.

Silly.

::mail boy::

Our mailbox is way down at the end of our curvy dirt driveway.
So these days, if we want the mailbox checked we have to call the mailboy.
If you "call" him on the pretend phone, he will check the box for you. He does it on his bike, helmeted of course, and usually takes his awesome green backpack to carry all the mail.
He's good at his job.
And he's very serious about it.
And it occupies him for at least a couple of minutes, and right now that's very nice.




He's too big for his bike now, isn't he? When we bought that bike I thought it would fit him forever. Time files as they say!

::dog day::

A couple of weeks ago we sat down with the calendar to talk over May. Out of nowhere Max declared today, 5/22, DOG DAY. You know, like mother's day or father's day. Dogs are important too. He also said it started at 7:50AM.
So last night he suddenly freaked out because we didn't have any dog day presents, and it was going to start so early! I told him we'd take care of dog day on the day itself, and he could just start it out by being very nice to Sultan.

Sul got to eat 3 times today. This is impressive because normally he eats once a day (not by his choice of course). We bought two different types of dog treats which Max dispensed liberally throughout the day. We got him a wool bone at Trader Joe's that I thought he'd hate, but he seems to like it a lot.
Max asked if we could go mini golfing for dog day. I said that sounded a little unfair, considering the dog couldn't come with us, so instead Kris and Max took Sul to the dog park (really out here the dog park is just a great big dirt patch, so it wasn't that fun. I didn't go. But oh well, it's the thought that counts. I'm sure Sultan didn't mind the dirt.)

After the dirt, I mean dog park, Sultan got a bath. I'm sure this wouldn't be his #1 pick for a dog day activity, but too bad for him.


If you think that Max looks like he's having WAY too much fun here, you'd be right. He was way too delighted to be spraying Sultan against his will.


Max told Kris in the afternoon that Sultan told him that "today was the best day of his life." Pretty great. Then, shortly after that he asked Kris when MAX DAY was going to be. Kris told him that Max day is also known as Max's birthday, and it already happened. I guess that made enough sense to Max. It's a good thing he didn't ask me or else I would probably have started talking about how it seems like EVERY day is Max day. He probably wouldn't have appreciated that explanation quite as much.

Happy DOG DAY to all you dogs out there!

::time travel::

It seems like we're slipping backwards in time somehow.
This was May:

(at least the end of it)

Warm sun, sweaty boys, popsicles, pink cheeks, blue skies.

Panting dogs.

But June? So far June has been really disappointing. I don't even have any photos to illustrate my point. It seems to have been raining pretty much the whole month, and I don't think it's gotten warmer than about 75 degrees. Even on the sunny days (like when we got the tramp) it's rained either at the beginning or the end of the day! It's been grey and soggy and sometimes chilly.

We're not sure if summer is ever going to actually get here. And I'm worried that once it's here I'll want it to go away again. I like heat in small doses.

Really we've just been hoping it would be nice enough that we could go to the beach with our friends before they graduate and move away in a week. It's not looking good for that though.
Remind me in August that I was wishing for heat and sun now!

(for some reason lately when Max is out playing hard and gets hot and sweaty he comes in panting and says "there's one dead animal looking for a popsicle" I'm not sure where he got it, but it happens all the time. Dead animals keep showing up, and they want popsicles morning and night.)