::Hah::

The microwave that my dad helped me pick out when Kris and I first moved to Kansas City pooped out the other day. It started to make a really funny noise and smell bad when I was trying to steam some vegetables. So we retired it.

We went and found this really fun red microwave at Sears, and after much deliberation and driving back and forth to the mall a couple of times we bought it. It's fun because I have some other red stuff in the kitchen and it fits right in. The color is really happy.

Unhappily though it appeared to be slightly possessed and would randomly beep sometimes, when nobody was anywhere near it. It would also add and subtract time randomly while we were trying to cook, and would change levels. Beeping all the while. Oh, and it would just randomly stop cooking and freeze up too.

So we took it back on saturday. The Sears isn't really that close to us, so it's kind of a pain. We got a new one.

We plugged the new one in yesterday and went to turn it on--the light inside turns on quite nicely, but it appears whoever built it left the motor out. No cooking, no motor, no sounds.

Luck of the draw, or just a really horrible product?

In the mail today I got the following letter from Sears:

All I can say to that is HAH! Good thing I have a sense of humor!

I'm not sure what we're going to do now. Get another one of these duds or go for something different?

Another not so funny thing that happened was yesterday. The three of us went over to visit our friends Chad, Melissa and baby Grant. Max and Chad were playing a little game of hide and seek while the rest of us chatted and played with the baby.
It was getting late so we told Max he could hide one more time. He ran off to hide and Chad went to look for him.

Chad couldn't find him. Anywhere. So Kris went to help him. Melissa and I were talking when I realized it was really quiet in the house, and that Chad and Kris were STILL walking around looking for Max and calling for him. That was weird. So Melissa and I started looking for him too. Their house isn't that big. It's kind of like ours. One floor with a couple of bedrooms. Melissa and I couldn't find him. We went around looking in laundry hampers, under beds, behind couches. Everywhere. That's when it started to get worrying. It was just SO quiet. He's not good at hiding without giggling when people get too close! So we were worried that maybe he'd gone outside when we weren't looking or something. That was a scary thought. Everybody but me went out to see if they could see anything outside. I gathered my wits about me for a moment, then went into the middle of the house and yelled his whole name as loud as I could and told him he was dead meat if he didn't come out NOW. I started counting to three. On one I suddenly heard some bumping sounds. On two I heard his little voice saying, "Don't count!!"
He was in the bedroom closet that we had all looked in several times. Quiet as a little mouse. He was so proud of himself for hiding so well. And since he came out when I called him seriously we couldn't even yell at him.

We taught him about "Olly olly in free." Maybe we should've done that earlier!

Now the thought of four adults running around a house looking for a little stinker of a four year old is funny. At the time it was a little freaky.


And now I leave you with this last question. Is anybody else sick of watching beach volleyball every night? I'm really wishing we could see something else--something different. There are so many sports played during the olympics and we're stuck in bikini land all the time! Arrgh. Can you tell I'm tired of it?

::Update::

How did I end up with a son that loves fruit so much?
The other day we ran out of bread so he couldn't eat his standard PB&J for lunch. He requested to eat this can of fruit cocktail I had in the pantry. It was for him, but I was thinking he'd eat it a few different times, like maybe four. Nope. He ate the entire can full for lunch.

I can't really stand fruit cocktail. The slimy grapes, the yucky peaches. The only thing I really like in there is the pears, and sometimes a pineapple fools you into thinking it's a pear.

Anyway, I'm not a fruit cocktail fan. But my son is. And it's just crazy to me.

It's great. I'm glad he loves food that's actually good for him. (Along with plenty of foods that aren't good for him.)

Speaking of eating and the dining room, Kris did something nice for us today.
There was a chandelier in the dining room that we didn't like. It's just like a chandelier that was in the dining room at our first house in Missouri. Gold, not very pretty. We replaced the one at our old house as soon as we could.

I realized yesterday that we had a box of hanging lights down in the basement that we'd gotten a couple of years ago as a really good deal from some hardware store. We didn't have a place for them at the time. So Kris went for it to see if we could use those to replace the unfortunate chandelier.

I'm glad he's handy because I sure wouldn't know how to do this.

Max was very distressed when he took the chandelier down though. He couldn't figure out why we didn't like it. He had all these reasons why he liked it. Like the ring at the bottom and some other funny stuff. In fact, by the end of his plea for it he was saying he LOVED it.
Who knew the man had such a strong opinion on the lights in the dining room?
Here's how they turned out.

I think they're lovely. They hang a little ways above the table. The blue is really nice.
They're SO much better.

And what did Max say about them? He LOVED them. I was relieved.

We went clothes shopping for Max this afternoon. He's pretty much grown out of everything he has. His pants are all too short, and his shorts keep creeping shorter up his legs. The shirts he's been wearing all summer are starting to look short and some of them are so stained and nasty I can hardly look at them. So we thought it was about time for some new threads, especially since he starts his school in a couple of weeks.
We ended up going to Old Navy and found a bunch of cute stuff for pretty cheap. He looks so cute in the clothes. I'm so envious. I wish I could go to the store and get a whole bunch of cute stuff that I know will look perfect on me! The little stinker.

See look at those adorable little jeans! So cute.
He's playing with Kris's tape measure in this photo. He has a thing for it. It drives me crazy.

I'm glad he can start looking cute again. He was starting to get a little ratty looking.
Can you see the giraffe skin on the floor in those pictures? We went to the zoo yesterday (and I forgot my memory card, so sorry no photos) We saw some really cool giraffes and so he was inspired to get out his Halloween costume from last year. He does make a cute giraffe.

More measuring tape antics.

This soccer jersey that my siblings got for him in England is one of his favorites. It's getting so short and tight and has so many old stains....it's going to have to be sneaked off into some sort of memory box.


Kris has been on call this week for the first time, but hasn't been called in once so far. We're wondering if all the emergencies are waiting for tomorrow or something. Luckily Max and I already arranged a ride home from church in case he has to ditch us.
Maybe he'll get off easy and won't get called in at all for the whole two weeks...we'll see!

And last item for the update.
Here's my burned arm.

This can happen when one actually cooks dinner. I was trying to keep myself between the dog, the boy and the oven door when I removed the cooked dinner from the oven yesterday and I paid the price. Way to sacrifice my body, right?

Later.

::He's Like Bigfoot::

Anybody know what this is?
Yep, it's bigfoot hair I gathered off my rug.
NO. Just kidding.
It's a bag full of hair that I brushed off Sultan.

It's so much hair! And Kris had just brushed him not too long ago.
Here's a before and after:
before:

after:

Hah. I'm funny today I know. Obviously this is the same photo. But when I got done collecting all of that hair from him he looked exactly the same! Maybe his back looked a little bit glossier, but that was it.
If you took that much hair off me I'd be bald and then some!

He seems to be shedding more than usual right now. I'm not sure why, since it's actually seeming to cool down out here. Seems to me he should be building up his coat for the winter, but whatever!

Look at my poor carpet:

The vacuum and I are good friends these days.
And my poor jeans:

Hopefully I won't have to stay this hairy all day. We can't find the lint roller thing. Maybe I'll have to ask the vacuum for an extra favor.

Well, that's our Sultan for you. Anybody think I should just shave him?

PS. I forgot my funniest line. I was going to say that if I was Martha Stewart I'd just make a sweater out of all the discarded hair. But I forgot. And I'm not Martha Stewart. So I won't.
But don't worry Mom, we won't really shave him!!!!

.::Pizza Skills::.

Kris and I have been honing our pizza making skills for quite a long time. Some wonderful person gave us a pizza stone for our wedding, and it's probably been our favorite thing to cook ever since.
Kris is the one who's really good at it. He has a few tricks up his sleeve.

A couple of weeks ago I broke the pizza stone by accidentally putting it on a hot burner. It was scary and I was really sad.
Look how sad this is:

Can you see the lines of oil and deliciousness that had seeped into the middle of the stone. It had it's own delicious flavor that was transferred to all our pizzas.

But anyway, it was a sunk cost. So once I got over feeling really bad about it we went and bought a new stone. It's bigger, which is good because our family is a little bigger now than it was back in the day.

When we were in New York we went to this delicious pizza place under the Brooklyn bridge. They used fresh mozzarella and put the cheese under the sauce, which looked so weird. But oh it tasted SO good!
Kris thought we needed to try it. So we went all out and got some real pepperoni too, instead of that stuff in a bag at the grocery store.
And mmmmm, boy is it delicious. Ready to start drooling?

We made this one last week. It also has fresh basil on it from the plant our neighbor gave me. I'm trying to keep it alive. The fresh basil is really tasty.

Max is saying "But I didn't want mushrooms! I just wanted pepperoni on my pizza!"
It's a tough life, isn't it?

He tried to use his big eyes on me but it didn't work. He had to eat the mushrooms.

And he did. And somehow I kept him from dumping the whole pizza on the ground here.

We've been doing really well so far with cooking. We've eaten dinner at home almost every single night since we officially moved in. That's a really big deal for us because for about the last four years we were both way too busy to cook consistently. It was really a struggle.
So we're hoping we'll gain a little health and maybe a little extra cash flow if we can keep it up. It makes me feel good to finally have time to actually take care of my family.

Here's Max waiting for the pizza. He's got his friend the "robot flashlight" there on the table beside him. He's a goof.

We

love

the

beach.

("For ME?" "For you mommy")


We're going back tomorrow morning and we get to take Kris with us this time. Max deserves some fun after going to the doctor today for his 4 yr old visit and receiving FOUR shots. Two in each arm. He was really brave. Well, as brave as a 4 yr old can possibly be.
The beach will wash it all away. Yay.

::"Our" Children's Museum::

Max has been dying to go and visit the Providence Children's Museum ever since I let it slip to him that there was one in existence. So finally the other day we talked our friends into picking us up, and we went to check it out.

For some reason they give out free tickets to the museum at the library. Since we basically live right across the street from the library I went over and picked up free tickets for all of us.

It was pretty fun. It wasn't as nice as the Manhattan one though, and didn't come anywhere near the one in SLC. So far that one has been by far the best we've seen.
But he did have a lot of fun. And his three year old friend that we were with had a great time too.

For some reason the first exhibit you see is this huge hideous set of teeth (you probably can't see it, but the teeth have a little body with legs. Super weird). Max practiced his bass technique.

I find it a little creepy myself, but I guess this museum isn't all about me.


There was a big room filled with water stuff, faucets and floating things and currents and stuff, kind of standard kid's museum fare. Max liked it, but was ready to move on pretty quickly. His friend loved it and so we had to split up for a while. Max charged ahead to see what else there was. I could hardly keep up. As usual.


They had a big exhibit that was supposed to educate the kids about different periods in RI history, and the immigrants and all that. Max didn't quite get the point of it, but he did like driving the pretend boat.

And being the cashier in the super old little store.

But of course, he can't hold still for too long in a place like this. What if he missed something?

I think it was ingenious that they had a little area filled with fake rocks and Tonka trucks. That was a winner with Max and his friend. Probably if that'd been all there was at the museum the boys would've all been happy.

Another cool thing was this little road smushing machine. What are those called? Steam rollers maybe? Anyway there were little boys crawling all over this thing like ants. It was a big hit.

Can anybody tell me what the man of a thousand faces is thinking here?

Another exhibit was all about bones. Max thought he'd check out some x-rays. But of course the light didn't work.

They did have Kris's collarbone on display, which I thought was pretty cool.

They had a cool skeleton riding a bike. His bike was attached to a bike on the outside for the kids to ride. When Max pedaled the skeleton pedaled with him so we could see the way the bones all worked together. Max just couldn't figure out why the guy didn't have any skin. I don't think the bone articulations did much for him. But he was psyched there was a bike to ride.

He must've thought it was pretty cool because he stayed there longer than like 3 seconds.


My friend and I eventually got tired of chasing the kids through the museum, so we made them go outside into the garden. It seemed like a great idea until the three year old climbed up into the little fountain and got soaked. Then he climbed into a tunnel and got covered with dirt. So fun!
But they did have this really cool thing out there that was like a whole bunch of trash cans and different things that the kids could play with drumsticks. I think it was a really good idea, and it kept them busy for a little while.

I think this is one of the only pictures where I was able to get Max and his friend in the same shot. They're two very busy little dudes.


All in all it was fun. I'm sure we'll go back. I'm glad we got to go with my friend Bonnie though, it made it all so much more fun and less boring for me.
Max liked it a lot, but he was bummed there weren't a whole bunch of little cars like in the SLC museum. Oh well. There're reasons why they call it Zion I guess...

.::Big Haircut(s)::.

Pre:


Post:


We have a barbershop one door down from our house. It's a father son place and they've been there for 30 years. Kris needed a haircut, and Max was starting be blinded by his bangs, so Saturday morning we thought we'd give the barber(s) a try. Max was done by the dad and Kris was done by the son. The dad is probably like 80 and the son is probably around 60.

They give old school barber type haircuts, obviously!!
It was fun, they were super nice and Max was SO good. They used the clippers on him, and the vacumn and he hardly even flinched. He got a tootsie pop afterwards too, which made everything worth it.

Actually, the haircuts look good when they're not combed in quite such an extreme way. If I could've gotten a picture today or yesterday of the two boys I would've. They both look cute.

Kris looks super cranky in the first picture because the brake sensor switch or something like that decided to wear out in our only car. Which means it wouldn't shift out of park. He ordered the new part on thursday night--overnight, but of course turns out it wasn't going to be delivered until monday (today). We wanted to go have fun on saturday, but were stuck home. No beach. Bummer.
But luckily we live within walking distance of lots of stuff. So we still had a fun day. We walked a whole bunch around our area and got some lunch and did a little grocery shopping at a local market (not really local to us, but local to the area).

We got the part for the car today and Kris fixed the problem in about 10 minutes. It was amazing. It's nice to have something small and fixable go wrong once in a while. Hopefully I don't speak too soon!

::He's A Reader::

My boy is a reader!
He started to read a little bit just about when we left Kansas City.
We got some little reading books for him (which are much harder to find than they should be, by the way) and started working on it in April I guess.
He was making good progress. My mom made an adorable book using Blurb which really inspired him to read. He learned a ton of words working on that book. I think it really laid the foundation he's using now.
When we were in UT I borrowed the set of readers my mom used to teach us to read. While in UT I read through the first one with him. He did great.
His preschool teacher recommended that I get a little set of books called "Bob books" from the bookstore. It's a little box with about 12 or so tiny books that each have a short simple story. They build on each other, so with every book the child becomes a little more comfortable with longer words or different letter sounds.
Anyway, the whole point of this is that he finally read through the whole set.
I'm happy!


Not without a little coercion, let me tell you. I've found that the best way to get him to read to me is to make it a condition of doing something he wants. Like playing on the computer or watching a movie or having a cookie or something like that.
If I do that I can get him to read. It's not something he does often just for fun.
But hopefully that will change down the road.
And I've been rewarding him sometimes when he finishes a book or a reader with a toy or something else he's interested in. I think that's ok. It keeps him going.
That's the only reason why I work--so I can get the $ which is the reward at the end of it! Hopefully someday the reading will be it's own reward.

A couple of nights ago he read most of Hop on Pop to Kris and really did great.
I'd like to take complete credit for the reading, but I think his teacher at school last year probably deserves most of it. They went through every single letter in the alphabet and learned how they work phonetically. He had such a strong basis to start with it was almost impossible for him not to be super good at sounding things out.

I'm really excited at the world of possibilities that open up to him with reading! It's still one of my favorite activities, so I'm thrilled to see him get started.