:: preparing for festivities::

Wow, I feel like I haven't posted in weeks, and it's only really been three days. Well I'm sure everybody missed me, so I'm back. Phew.
Max and I spent this week trying to get ready for Christmas.
Kris and I had brought the tree up from the basement a few days before thanksgiving because we had to rearrange our living room. Our nice big flatscreen TV that we bought back in Kansas City died. Just suddenly conked out when Max was in the middle of an important PBS show. There was still sound but no picture. We took it to a repair place and they wanted $750 to fix it. Hah.
So luckily we had a small TV we were using in our room. We moved that out to the living room and rearranged the rest of the room around the tree.

And the tree sat there as just a naked tree until a couple of days after thanksgiving. That's when I found the star and put it on top. Then it sat there as just a tree with a star for like three more days until I finally got the lights up. And of course the lights were sitting in a box at the foot of the tree all that time. At least I finally did it.

Then lighted and starred the tree was ready for some ornaments. Kris didn't mind that Max and I worked on it while he was at work, so we got started the other day.

It's so fun to open up the ornament boxes.

Sometimes I forget what fun stuff I have until I hang the stuff on top and get down to the next layer of tissue paper and ornaments. It's magical.
And yes, that's a spoon in there. It's not misplaced. It's an antique spoon from Silver City, UT. If you have questions about it just ask Kris's dad. He's the guy that gave it to us!


I have a separate box for some of the more delicate stuff. Some of it didn't come out this year. We're once again on a hard wood floor, and with a 4 yr old and a dog I just don't want anything shattered on the floor.

Last year I did a lot of after christmas shopping. I usually don't like to do that because it's kind of anti-climactic. But I loved it this time. Going through my boxes it was like I had a whole bunch of new stuff I didn't remember. And getting things at 50 or 75% didn't hurt. I'm going to do it again this year.

Max was the most concerned about finding his sock monkey ornament. Remember that guy? Kris's mom bought it for us several years ago (with amazing foresight), before the sock monkey craze at our house started. Then last year when he came out of the box Max almost lost his mind. The sock monkey had a little friend!
So he was really excited to see the baby monkey again.
Sock monkey even got to come out for the occasion, and he hasn't been out much lately.

He doesn't look that excited in this picture, but that's just because I kept telling him to hold still.

This one is much better.

I have so many fun and sentimental and awesome ornaments. I think later this month I may do a post and highlight some of them. Many of them come from my mom and are handmade. They're such treasures.
Here's one of my favorites. It's not from my mom, it's from Kris. It's Kris's valiant effort at an ornament for my parent's annual christmas party/ornament exchange.

I think it's so adorable. And he was so brave. Can you tell what it is? It's Santa orbiting a planet on a sled of course. And poor Santa is looking a little the worse for wear. It's been 8 years he's been orbiting.
Anyway, I love this little guy. It reminds me of good times and how much my husband loves me!

It was fun to decorate with Max. He's actually getting big enough to help with something like this and stick to it for a while, and big enough that I'm not worried he's going to eat or break anything I give him. I did have to do a lot of adjusting though. It seemed like he wanted to hang every single thing I gave him in the same spot. There was a huge clump of stuff down at the bottom when he got done. But we fixed it.


I'll post the a picture of the whole tree later. And maybe some individual ornaments. But how can I choose which ones?

*Happy Birthday Max*

Today is our little Max's birthday. He's four now. It's a little crazy to think he's that old, but I guess we've been out here in school for a really long time, so I guess it should make sense...
I think Max's birthday merits a look back in time, so here we go:

Here's little Mr. Max born 2/17 at 2:17PM. The face he's making in this picture is a cranky face he still uses. That cracks me up. He was a cute baby, that's for sure.

Here's Max on his first birthday. He was very upset with me for making him wear the paper crown. I haven't tried to make him wear one since. He was really fun at this age, we usually had a great time hanging out together while I worked.

Here's Max on birthday #2. He had a cold and conked out at dinner, which was unfortunate since we did go to his favorite restaurant. Luckily we like it too, and enjoyed the unexpected peace and quiet during dinner. Thanks for the b-day present Max.

Here's Max on his 3rd birthday. We drove to Denver over his birthday that year to meet up with Kris's sister Kari and her family. We had a lot of fun hanging out with them, and Kari made him a fabulous birthday cake that nobody else will ever be able to live up to. Ever. But that's another post altogether.
I have to include these next two pictures because I think they're so cute of Max and Parker (Max's cousin). It's always fun when we can get them together.



And here we are at today. Max turned four! He was amazed when I told him this morning that he was four. It made him feel really cool. We had a pretty good day today although Max and I both didn't feel well and had to stay home from church. We think Max maybe picked up strep throat from our friends he stayed with last weekend--two of their kids came down with it while he was staying there. So he and I are both going in for tests tomorrow. Yay fun.
Anyway, he still had a good day. Kris got him a little kid's digital camera which he was very excited about. It's a pretty good camera for him because it's quite tough, and he's already dropped it on the hardwood floor a good amount of times. We'll share some of his pictures here on the blog later.

He's very serious about his pictures, as you can probably see. Well, at least when he's not sitting on the camera or doing something else weird to it.

Here he is enjoying his birthday dinner.

When we asked him what he wanted to eat for his birthday he specifically requested "chicken and rice." I was cool with that because it's easy to make and it does taste good for sure. Now that I know he likes it so much I'll make it more often too.
This morning when I was getting his oatmeal ready for breakfast he looked at me very reproachfully and said "I wanted chicken and rice on my birthday!" When I explained we were having it for dinner he was pleased. Funny kid.
Lechelle made a birthday cake for Max--his special request was a chocolate "fishy" cake. She and Kelly came over this evening to eat and celebrate with us. The cake was so adorable! Take a look.



I love the eel. It reminds me of the one I had painted on the wall in Max's old room.




The little fishies are so cute!



I think Max really liked the cake although he didn't do a great job of showing it. He was acting a little wacky because he was sick--and he always acts a little crazy when everybody's attention is on him. He's doing better with that as he gets older, but he's still a little goofy at times like this.
It was so nice of Lechelle to take care of the cake for me. This was kind of a stressful week, and then on top of that I felt ill all day saturday and today, so it was a big relief for me not to have to worry about it. And I couldn't have made one that was nearly as cute.

Max loves having "Happy Birthday" sung to him. It think it makes him feel like the President of the United States or somebody else really special. He did a good job blowing out all the candles.
Then we had him open up his gifts from Kris's parents--we had them on video chat through the computer there for a few minutes. Kris's mom made him a wonderful sock monkey quilt! It's so cute. I didn't get a picture of it today, but I will soon and I'll post it. I couldn't get Max to let go of it long enough for a picture.
If you look closely at the last picture here, you'll be able to see a little of it in the background. Anyway, it's adorable and she made a matching pillowcase too. I might steal it from him.
After that he was way too overwhelmed and when to bed after he ate some cake, leaving about 5 more presents unopened on the table. Oh well, whatever works I guess.

Thanks for sticking with me through this whole long post. I'm just so proud of my Max, he's growing up into such a good boy, and sweet. Happy Birthday Max!!