::more::

Having more fun with the film scanner.





They're going up on facebook. So fun.

::sultan's playdate::

I'm not so good at setting up so-called playdates for Max. It's hard because I don't want to just send him over to somebody's house that I've never been to. And other moms feel the same way of course. So it often feels like the first time the moms have to hang out too, get to know each other and keep an eye on the kids. And sometimes that's fun, sometimes not so much. And when it's a nanny or somebody watching the kids, that's just weird.

The nice thing about Max's school though, is that it's a co-op. I didn't know what a co-op school was before we moved here. Basically the parents are all very involved. We go in and clean the school a couple of times a year. We throw fund raisers. We got in once a month and act as the teachers' aid, bringing in snacks, playing with the kids and cleaning up. It's nice that I have time to be that involved in Max's world. It's fun because when you're in the classroom once a month you get a chance to get to know the other kids. And through that it's a little easier to know the other families and feel comfortable with each other.

Anyway, long story short, or short story long, I got Max a playdate. It was with one of the little girls from school whom he adores. In fact, around the time that school started she was his imaginary friend. He'd pretend she was living here too and talk about her all the time. So as I figured he would be, he was psyched.

This little girl is an extreme animal lover. All she can talk about are horses and unicorns at school. When she got to our house and discovered we had a dog she almost lost her mind. She looked at Max like he was crazy and said "you never said you had a DOG!"
She LOVED Sultan. And Sultan loved her right back. She'd let him lick her all over for as long as he wanted. She lay on him and stroked him, hugged him and chased him around. She even picked the "boogies" out of his eyes.

And because she thought he was so cool of course Max had to play along. So he showed off the "tricks" he can do with Sultan. (you know, sit, down, stay). That was pretty exciting.
But then things started to go downhill when she decided she'd rather play with Sultan than do anything that Max wanted to do. She kept saying "I think Sultan wants to spend some time with me now."
I tried to say that Sultan needed a rest and they should go do something else, but she just argued that she'd rest with him.
Max got that bummed out cranky look on his face, and I couldn't blame him. It was as if somebody came over to play and then decided they'd rather hang with your little sister instead!

But then I got them playing hide and go seek or something. Then of course Sul got tackled.


Then she really made Max's day and reinacted the Mama Fish Movie with him a couple of times. That was truly awesome. And it was awesome for me because for once I didn't have to pretend to be Kelly.

It all ended well with a viewing of Martha Speaks on PBS. And naturally they had to watch it with Sultan. I'm surprised they could even see our little TV from where they ended up sitting.

It was pretty cute. And I think everybody ended up having a great time, although things obviously didn't turn out exactly as Max had planned. Luckily he's a pretty good sport.

Now if Max only loved Sultan as much as his little friend does we'd be in business!

::thanks::

Thank goodness for the internet. Because there's no way Max would make it even two hours on a hard church bench. Thank goodness I can watch from home even though we're so far away.
Thank goodness for puzzles and toys and things that could hold attention for a few minutes at a time.
Thank goodness for a living evolving gospel and a prophet on the earth today!

(and I'm glad Kris is back too, thank goodness)

::plenty::

We're missing Kris right now. He's in California for the California Society of Pediatric Dentistry (CSPD) meeting. Whew that's a mouthful.
We're hoping he might meet some helpful people out there so we'll have a good place to end up in a year.
Anyway, to fill the emptiness of a missing daddy we went to the library. Max and I have been enjoying the library lately. He finally realized we could get fun books there that he might actually like.

Looks kind of like a book rainbow, doesn't it?
We came home with over 20 tomes. They're all good ones too. I had to read 6 stories to him at bedtime, and that was on top of the 4 or 5 I'd already read when we got home from the library.

I'm really glad he's enjoying books, and the library. Both those things have been very important to me in my life and very beneficial too. In fact I don't know what I'd do without the library right now. I'd have a very costly habit I guess.

It was so funny, I had requested a book I knew he'd want, so it was waiting for us at the check out desk. When he saw what it was he was so excited that he plopped right down there and started reading it. Cute? Yes.

About 90% of the books are about dogs too. It's pretty funny.

Anyway, if you see Kris tell him to come home soon? It's a bummer he has to miss conference weekend. It's a bummer he has to be gone at all, we miss him!

::bashful::

The other day I made Max pose for me outside against one of the cool brick walls we have in our backyard. I'm still trying to figure out how to get the best lighting for portraits outside.

Poor Max, he's so sick of getting his picture taken. He'll barely look at me anymore. And when he does it's so cheesy. And he thrusts his jaw forward all funny so he looks like he's got a big underbite. I still think he's cute though, naturally.

He at least tried to get a little creative with his poses this time, like the kung fu panda fist.

and the boogie--or something, who knows.

Anyway, then our neighbors pulled up. The other side of the backyard has a chain link fence, so we can keep good tabs on what goes on next door.
We have great neighbors. We love them. Max especially likes the little girl neighbor. She's getting close to three I think. She's shy and bashful and sweet. And she loves him. And I mean LOVES him. And he loves to make her laugh by doing goofy things.
He saw them pull up and this is what his face looked like.

Suddenly some genuine emotion!
She was pretty excited to see him too.

Her mom is a photographer, so she's used to getting her picture taken. She's a cutie, right?

I do love seeing and hearing her and Max laugh together, it's really fun. We'll miss seeing them all the time when we move, but hopefully we can still get together.

::happy april 1st!::

It's chilly here!
Thought it might be fun to celebrate the beginning of this fine hopefully springy month with some old family photos.

We sure do miss our favorite restaurant in Kansas City. Yum enchiladas poblana.



Won't it be nice when it's warm enough for short sleeves again? And wow, the grass in that last photo is super green through the window. Looks so nice.


We won't be seeing any family this month probably, but hopefully soon enough. Kelly and Lechelle might be coming to visit sometime soon, and hopefully Ken will make it out here before our two years is up!

APRIL FOOLS (about the photos--everything else is pretty much true I guess)
One last one:

Oh, wait, this one's real. Ummmmm........

(have you ever been to this site?)

Time For Your Check-up

I have a dental dilemma:  I don't like working on family members. Even though we have dental insurance (albeit sucky) I'm not about to let just anyone treat my Ginna-teeth.   And they can forget about my Max-teeth--I keep a tight eye on them. 

So, what to do when Ginna and Max are overdue???

Ginna was not excited about spending a Saturday morning in the hospital getting her teeth cleaned, but Max was pumped. We started with Max. This wasn't his first time, but he is surprisingly wiggly and not that easy to treat. I'm also surprisingly less patient with him. The infection control was not what you'd usually see at the office, but I at least used gloves.
I used some behavior management techniques I don't usually use with other people's kids also. For example: the arm hold.

I routinely treat kids much younger than Max doing things way more invasive than just a cleaning, so I was annoyed when Max was giving me a hard time just sitting in the chair. Then, I realized that if I treated him like any other scared kid, he might do fine. And he did

First I disclosed his teeth to see where the plaque was. He thought the little pink tablets were treats. Then, I let him play with the "robot toothbrush".

I washed out his teeth and let him practice using the special straw that drinks from you.

Soon, it was business time:


After I cleaned all the pink off his teeth, I gave him the old scratching, clicking, picking exam. It was refreshing to pick around and not find any cavities, unlike my typical exams that may have more cavities than teeth.

We have these really goofy Statue of Liberty sunglasses to help the kids eyes not burn away under the treatment light.

Max really liked the glasses.
We finished up with the classic bubble gum flavored fluoride treatment and it was on to Ginna. She didn't let Max use her camera to take embarrassing pictures of her getting the same treatment. But here's and idea of what she was seeing.

We finished up Ginna without Max touching too many things he shouldn't have. And the Ginna teeth had no cavities either. That's important because we have an image to uphold, right?

Before going home we spent some time in my office. I worked on some stuff while Max got to play on Brian's computer (my co-resident). Max loves the hospital. If only he could go to work in my place.

::::

::six::

Today after church we had six missionaries over for dinner. No, we didn't _eat_ the missionaries for dinner, unfortunately, we fed them. They ate a lot!
For some reason our ward has six elders right now. Two portuguese speaking and four english speaking. They're total goofballs. We had a lot of fun with them.

It stressed me out a little trying to figure out what to feed them all, and once I realized that today was fast sunday and they'd be breaking their fast at our house it was even worse. But we figured it out. There wasn't a bit of food left by the time they left, but I think they may have been full.

It was Max that had the best time though. He was playing with them non stop. Tickling, being tickled, playing games, teasing, yelling wiggling. You call it, they did it.

Magic tricks--making quarters disappear (down your sleeve.)

We took some photos so I could email them out to their moms. Max made sure he was front and center.

It was really fun to have them, makes me wish we could have Murphy and his companions come so we could feed them too!
Missionaries are so cute.