::boston adventure pt 3::

And here's the last little bit of our Boston adventure.
On the side of the church was a really cool little brick courtyard.

And on the left side of the courtyard there was this really pretty old gate.

I tried googling this gate to see if I could learn anything about it, but it appears to be unimportant--or so google thinks. I think it's cool. The gate led into this little square garden, walled with bricks. The bricks were all covered in ivy.

Max said he thought it was probably just like the Garden of Eden used to be. I told him I didn't agree, but it was a good observation.
Then I asked Kris to take a couple of pictures.


There aren't a lot of pictures of Max and I where I'm not holding the camera myself, so these are fun.

It was just such a cool area. It seemed like there were little secret places everywhere.

(yes, Kris is holding my purse, not his own)
Then we found one more little nook, down a little set of stairs from the original courtyard. And it was just too perfect for pictures. It cried out to be posed in. So we did.



(think max was done with posing yet?)

After that we headed home, since these late fall days have started getting dark pretty darn early.
And on the way home, like a gift, was the most gorgeous sunset I've seen in a while. I took so many photos trying to capture it that I had a really hard time picking just a couple to post. So here are three.



Amazing, right?
The end of this adventure, at least for now.

::mr studious::

We've been keeping Max's little desk in our storage room since we moved. It used to live in the front room and had his little computer on it, but we didn't have room for it in the new place. So a month or so ago Kris reorganized the storage room so that he could exercise out there. In the process the little desk got moved into Max's room. It was well received.
Last week Max suddenly realized that desks are used to write and draw and do stuff on. He announced that he was going to ALWAYS do his homework on his desk. Forever.
He had homework to do, so I asked him if he wanted to go and do some now. And why yes, he did!
So off he went. And when I walked by the hall, there he was, homeworking away.

Working hard. And yeah, there's silly little stuff covering every surface in his room. Oh well, we've been teaching him to keep the floor clean at least. We've got to start somewhere.
He's been doing great with his homework. They send some home a couple of times a week, and it's mostly coloring. He hated it at first, since he had a mental block about coloring, but we somehow got through that and now he's doing fine, which is nice because nagging a 5 year old to do his homework is not my idea of a good time. (Nor does it really seem that necessary in the long run.)

His little friend Frankie was supervising the work. Frankie came from Wendy's in a kid's meal one day. I thought he was weird, but he suddenly became Max's new best friend. He's been around for months.

That Frankie is a lucky guy to have a buddy like Max.

::more little guys::

Green eyed kitty:

Little blue hippo:


These guys are fun because they're such small projects that I can actually get them done. It feels good to finish a project once in a while!

::boston adventure pt 2::

Tthis is long overdue.
When Kris's mom was here we went up to Boston to see a cool historical cemetery--as you might remember since I posted about it forever ago.

When we got there we realized that the cemetery was on the Freedom Trail, which is a walking path through Boston that takes you by historical sites.

So we kept on walkin'!

Right up the hill from the cemetery is the famous church where Paul Revere hung his lanterns (you know, one if by land, two if by sea). The Old North Church.


Isn't that a pretty steeple? The church has been refurbished relatively recently I think.


The inside was really interesting. There are all these little compartments down on the main floor. Each family I guess had their own little compartment and could set it up however they wanted. The guide telling us about it said that some people would decorate their spot like a little living room.
Sounds pretty comfy to me. I'm about ready to adopt the practice in our church! It would make things a lot easier.


We enjoyed looking around until Max started making himself a little too much at home--opening and closing all those little doors was way too much fun.

Since Kris's mom was there we actually have a photo with all three of us in it! Yay.

Small part three to come eventually.....

Monsters Inc

Last time Ginna and Max were at Walt Disney World they ran into a saxophone quartet. They really liked it and Ginna got to talk to one of the players. Somehow she ended up with a copy of the the theme to Monsters Inc arranged for saxophone quartet.

This weekend Ginna decided to record the arrangement so Max and I could hear it. Max had been dying to get the microphone out anyway and record himself singing some of this songs. (Maybe they'll get posted sometime)

I like it when Ginna plays music because it reminds me so much of when we were first together. Besides, she's awesome. So, here are some pictures of the process and an opportunity to hear the finished project with an introduction from Max C.

As a side note, Max has split himself into two different people: Max C and Max H. I'm not always sure of the difference and I'm not sure I know when he's one or the other.

Untitled from Ginna Hendricks on Vimeo.

::you never know::

A year or so ago Kris gave a talk in sacrament meeting.  He told a story having something to do with the fact that dirty socks on the floor gross him out. I think he was illustrating a point about how dads can develop goofy soapboxes--you know, like wet towels on the floor, sliming the couch and having a clean garage.

Max was listening super close to this talk (somehow) and when Kris told this story he thought it was hilarious. Super funny. And he laughed like crazy, really loud.

Ever since that day Max has left dirty socks on the floor--for the express purpose of grossing Kris out. And it drives us nuts. We'll forget about the whole thing. The joke completely slips our minds and one of us will be yelling at Max about leaving his dirty laundry out on the floor of the house AGAIN. And he'll say sadly, "But I wanted to gross dad out with the socks!" (except he says he wants to "stink" him out. I assume it means the same thing, since his socks don't actually stink--usually anyway.)

It happened tonight again.

You never know what might come back to bite you. I wonder how long this will go on.

::serious question::

Why does my son make such weird faces?

::halloween night::

Max didn't feel so hot on halloween. He's been a little sick for a while, and he had a cough that was definitely plaguing him. We had plans to halloween party it with our friends, but unfortunately the cough kept us home.
I had been hoping to get us over to one of the local farms for some pumpkin patch time sometime during October. I was hoping to get our jack o lantern pumpkins that way. But the later into October it got, the more I realized that we were not going to make it. The day before halloween I went searching for a pumpkin or two. In vain. No pumpkins to be found.
So on halloween afternoon, after we took advantage of the $1 chicken dinner coupon at boston market, we went questing after pumpkins again.
But no luck! It's hard to believe, but there wasn't a pumpkin to be found here in our town. No grocery stores, no nurseries, nothing.
So luckily Max had brought a pumpkin back from his school field trip. And we had purchased a really small one at Trader Joe's a while back just for fun. So we had had a little something to work with.

Max was all tired and a little sick, so we rented a couple of cheesy halloween kid's movies and let him relax on the couch with a cookie or two.


Then when nighttime came we worked on the jack-o-lanterns.

Max designed the face on his.


And I cut it out for him.
In the meantime Kris was working on the teeny one. It took him forever just to cut the top open. I don't think this little guy was meant for carving. He was HARD.
So Kris got out his dremmel to see if he could make something happen.


Max's turned out really cute.


the backside:

And we went and lit Max's up while Kris was still struggling with the baby one.


Kris finally got out his drill with a great big circular bit on it and got down to business with the little one.
The finished product? Pretty good I think:


We ate some dinner and then took Max out for a little trick or treating. Our neighborhood is great because the streets are small and twisty with lots of little houses--not many through streets either. The night was really nice, not too cold. There weren't a ton of kids out, but there were lots of nice people handing out candy and some fun decorated houses.
We had a fun time taking him around. He was dressed as Dash from the Incredibles, by the way in case you couldn't tell from the photos in this post.
He started telling everyone "Happy Halloween" after he had thanked them for the candy. It was so funny how surprised some of the people were that he was so polite. One old lady even called her husband over to see him. It was amusing.
After about 45 minutes Max ran out of steam. Kris had to carry him home. He had a total haul. So much candy. I don't know what we're going to do with all of it.

It was a fun halloween.

::a glimpse::

Max's little jack-o-latern:

100 pieces of candy:

counted painstakingly when we got home from trick or treating.
Fun stuff.
More to come.