::misc::

Looks like we're going to get the house I wanted most after my long week of searching. One house (in the area we were most interested in) stuck out from the rest in price and size and quality. I only found it because I went to the ward on sunday and asked around to see if anybody had heard of places coming available. This place, oddly enough already had some dentists in it, and they were moving on to their next life step. The house was perfect. I knew the second I walked into it.
After a lot of stress and waiting to hear from the landlord who not only was in England, but also on vacation it looks like we're good to go and he's sending us a lease to sign. I'm very relieved. I'm so glad we could find something that will be comfortable and that's at a reasonable price. Hooray!
You want a couple of photos? I don't have much worth showing because I didn't take very good pictures, and the current tenants were in the midst of moving chaos, but what I have I'll show.

My mom took this one. Its' a picture from the sitting room kind of space back towards the kitchen. It's an open concept place with high ceilings, skylights and and a nice airy feeling to it.
From here on out, I'll mostly just show you the yard. (And take the word "yard" with a grain of salt, I mean this is New Mexico, people!!)


Personally I'm happy to have a wall that will keep little boys and big dogs from escaping out into the desert.
We're happy there's a garage. We're happy there's a guest room and more than one bathroom. This will be great.

And how can you go wrong with sunsets like this?
Now I'm able to get excited about moving instead of being worried about it, yay!

Next. I have to speak in church on sunday, and they didn't give me a topic. I'm just supposed to "pick something." I think I've got it picked now, but I've been racking my brains trying to figure out something good. Argh. Like speaking isn't stressful enough?!

It was so hot here yesterday that I just wanted to go to Antarctica. Though I've liked it here, I will NOT be sad to leave the humidity behind. It gets old really fast. And a high 90s day at the end of May is a bit of an unexpected unpleasant surprise, unless you're smart enough to make it to the beach. We weren't.

School goes until June 23rd out here. Can you say cruel & unusual punishment for the poor kids? I think Max will be enjoying some hookey beach days in the next month.

I wish I could write. Go here and read this entry by a girl I went to high school with. She writes so nicely.
An excerpt: "Why do we go to bed only to find another day has slipped through our fingers breaking into a million tiny pieces? A little lump of it lodged in our throat, a little in our heart, a tiny amount in the trash, some settling in our stomachs, and more down the drain, bits and pieces piled in prayer, and specks stuck in beads of sweat."
How lovely is that?
I love the internet and how we can share and read and appreciate each other's thoughts. It's so inspiring and humbling too.

That's all for now. Maybe now that we actually have the house lined up I can remember how to blog again. I've been remiss, and I've been missing it.

.::Visual Proof::.

I just think these are so cute that I can't resist posting them!

Here's the page where he wrote his name for the first time. You can see down at the bottom the one where I wrote the first line in black and he finished in blue. Above that is his second successful attempt. (yeah, I realize now it looks a little like he's writing MAT, but keep in mind his Xs are on a bit of an upwards curve....)

Here's another page we did right then. You can see all the different words we worked on. I had to remind him what a lot of the letters were shaped like, but I didn't help him any more than that. I especially love how the word fish looks, and the E with like 7 legs. My letters are at the top, all the rest are his.

And then here's a letter to Parker he wrote last week. I helped him spell and reminded him what letters looked like on a separate piece of paper. It's so cute!

Now that I have it scanned maybe I'll actually mail it one of these days. We'll see...
Here's a picture that went with the letter. This is the first thing I've ever seen him draw that wasn't just scribbles. I told him to draw a face and he just did. I couldn't believe it. There's a guy, a couple of hearts, a tree, grass and the sun in this picture.

I'm just thrilled to have a child that actually drew something!!! (as you can probably tell). Yay for Max!

::He can WRITE! Who knew??::

A little background here. Up until this point Max has hated to color, and didn't ever care to draw. I got all sorts of fun coloring books to try to tempt him and would always offer to draw with him, but no dice. He's been doing better with coloring at school lately (he was terrible when he first started), but it's still much more of a chore than a pleasure.
Alright, on to the news.
A couple of days ago Max decided he wanted to write his name on some paper. Which really meant he wanted ME to write his name. So I did. A couple of times. Then I asked him if he could do it. He said he couldn't, and that it was just too hard.
I made the first line for the M and then had to go and answer the phone or something. When I came back, he had written his whole name, starting off the line that I had made.
I was basically flabbergasted. He was so proud he looked like he could've floated away. Then he wrote his name again right away. Just as well. Then again.

He proceeded to write his name a zillion times, for about the next two hours. (and yes, his paper was upside down for this picture, because he was making Ws, otherwise known as upside-down Ms!)

I helped him write a few other words, you know, dad, mom, fish, mama, love. He did really well.
It was a little tough to get him to take a break for dinner.

I knew he could do it. Sometimes it's so funny that all it takes is finding out you can actually do something to do it! He's such a smart guy, he's reading a lot and has known his alphabet backwards and forwards for a couple of years. So I'm not surprised he can write like a champ--I'm just surprised at the suddenness of it. It's so funny.

He's very serious about it. Obviously. When I picked him up from school the next day his coloring page was covered with cute little MAXes. Oh yeah, and AXM and XAM. He's experimental.
We're proud of him and his adorable chubby little arms!