::before & after::

Before:

You've seen it--you know how shaggy he was.

During:

(this morning--we finally found someplace to take him and since he had the day off school we got to have a nice peaceful morning appointment.)
After:

He looked pretty happy when we got done with the cut, but then when we went to the office and all the ladies made a fuss over him he got all embarrassed and wore his hood for the rest of the day.
Then tonight he told me he hated the haircut because he looks like somebody else! I think he still looks pretty unmistakably like my Max. He'll ease into it. Besides, I don't really think he hates it.

I mean, look at his face. Could anybody take this face seriously?

::school pictures::

Here we go, fall 2010 pictures.

He's such a cute little goof.
At least we were without the hillbilly smile this time. That's probably a good thing.

::crazy halloween craziness::

Yesterday (saturday) was an insane day of halloween activities.
Having the holiday fall on a sunday is a bit of a pain because instead of just one fun day of festivities, it's basically the whole weekend. But oh well. It's just those of us whose backs get tired, and the little ones who get oversugared and overtired that suffer I guess.
Anyway, we started the day by taking Max to his karate class--a preliminary strike against the later sugar high. I was hoping a little exercise would do him good.
Then Kris and Max came home, got ready, and headed out to the school halloween carnival. I opted out of that activity and stayed home.


(yes, Max looks like he's wearing some of those hillbilly teeth--that would be a great part of his costume--but unfortunately no, that's his real mouth. He keeps making this weird nerdy smile these days.)
Luckily for me I got to find out we had a mouse in the kitchen while they were gone. I was trying to be productive and was hoping to whip up batter for our traditional cookies. I got into the utensil drawer and found that a bunch of them had been chewed up. Ewwwwwww. Then I got to clean everything in the drawer. It was really fun, and a truly lovely addition to the day.

Off they go--it really looks like they're headed off into the savannah for a safari, doesn't it?

Then after they came back from the school party we had the church trunk or treat. Our costumes were really built around this event--We were explorers in an awesome old land rover. We had africanish music playing from the car and a fun fuzzy dog that we caught on our adventures tied in the back of the car.
And the best part? Moustaches. (Except me--all I had was a hat, but it worked.)



"I say, where can I go to shoot some big game??"

Kris won 2nd place in the costume contest. It wasn't too hard, considering that he was one of three men that dressed up. Plus the mustache is awesome.

The explorer and his beast.
I think the following three photos are pretty funny--sorry if it's mustache overkill.



Max looks like he has a little mustache envy.

We bowed out of the ward party early because we had to go buy all sorts of mouse traps and stuff--the thought of a mouse running through my kitchen was not doing a lot for me.
Then we went to our last event--we have a family in our neighborhood whose kid is in Max's class, and they bring all three of their kids into our office. They're awesome people and we really like them, so we couldn't miss their party even though we were SO tired.
So we went for an hour. By the time we were done there Max was in full meltdown mode. He was a floppy, screaming, exhausted disaster. So we went home. And my back was glad to be home too.
It was a crazy day. Crazy halloweeniness. And we didn't even get our cookies made or our pumpkins carved........

::school halloween parade::

At our last school Max wasn't even supposed to wear a costume, much less did they do anything to celebrate halloweeen. Out here in the west, however, it appears entirely kosher to go all out for halloween at school.
In fact, they spent at least the whole week leading up to it making crafts, playing games and learning about halloweeny things. The halls of the school were very festive with cute holiday art.
On friday the school had it's annual halloween parade. As usual with school, nobody told me when or where it would be until the day before, and I had to change some doctor's appts around and stuff, but I made sure to be there.
Max was a jedi for school--Luke I guess.

It was cute to see all the kids in their costumes. Also, I've been able to spend a little time in his classroom, so I'm finally getting to know the kids in his class which is nice too.

They lined up out in the hall and waited for all the big kids to parade past. And wow there were tons of kids that came by. I really didn't realize how dang big the school was until I saw the parade.

They had a hard time waiting their turn.
And though Max looks like he wasn't having that much fun, I have proof that he was:

See? He smiled. I'm not sure who he was smiling at, but he smiled.
They joined up with the end of the parade as it went by and we all marched out to the athletic field. I took up the rear to make sure nobody got lost, and it was a good thing I was there, because there were at least two kids that I had to literally push most of the way so that they would keep up. Classic 6 year old stuff.

There they went onto the field where they all lined up for a while and stood around. I'm not sure why, but oh well.
We took some pictures.
Of Luke Skywalker & Luke Skywalker especially.

I don't have any idea why they look so solemn. They definitely weren't!


Now that's more like it.

I like it when they get into character.

That's Max's teacher there on the right looking pretty groovy. He was so confused on why the teacher on the left would dress up "like a boy!!"

Then we all walked back to the school into the chaos of class halloween parties. I stayed and helped out and by the time it was over I was exhausted. Luckily friday is a short school day, so we got to leave at around noon. I think the kids had a great time. It was quite the kick-off for the entire weekend of halloween activities that we had to look forward too.
As of saturday night when I'm writing this I'm all halloweened out. Fun stuff, but you can only do so much.
But anyway, the parade was so fun. Lucky sugared up kids.

::::

These pictures are from a couple of sundays ago. Those of you that have requested pictures, here you go!

I can't think of a lot to say except that I'm ready. I'm ready to hold a cute baby and I'm really ready to sleep on my stomach (whatever sleep we'll get for a while.)
I'm not exactly looking for a halloween baby--there's enough going on over halloween without having to celebrate a birthday too--might as well spread the sugar indulgence out a bit. But honestly I don't care right now. I'd take a halloween baby if that's when they wanted to come.
Really we've got another week and a half to the official due date. We'll see what happens.
We'll keep you posted, of course!

(don't you love how I'm crossing my fingers in this picture that I won't hate it?)

Now on to a zillion halloween activities. Having the holiday fall on sunday spreads it out over the entire weekend. I'm already tired!!!

::surprise::

At work yesterday, the ladies surprised me with a mini lunchtime baby shower. It was very cute because they had all coordinated with Kris to figure out the best time, and then he had pretended we were supposed to go out on a networking lunch. But instead it was a little party with a cute diaper cake:

(which is great because it's all full of useful stuff as well as being cute--including the diapers of course)
Yummy food:

(this is Frito Pie. Has anybody out there ever had Frito Pie? We hadn't even heard of it until we moved out here. Essentially it's fritos, with beans and green or red chili sauce with meat poured on top. Then you add lettuce, cheese, tomatos, whatever you want. It's delicious and the ladies at the office make it taste irresistible.)
Chocolate cake:

(yes it's as yummy as it looks)
And good company.
Kris enjoyed himself.

And here's a picture of the group--minus one of our front desk ladies who was off industriously getting things done.

(I look humongous in this picture--not just girth wise, but height wise too! Don't look too close. I was tempted not to post it at all, but there you go.

Wasn't that the nicest surprise?

**Max made the observation while driving home with the diaper cake: "This cake is funny because you don't eat it, you put it on your kid's bottom." So apt. Then he immediately appropriated the Eeyore.

::only in NM::

We were driving home from "town" the other day and came across this scene right before we were about to turn onto our little road.

Standoff between Fedex truck and cowboys with a herd of goats. (Imagine that whistling standoff music from The Good The Bad & The Ugly right here.)
Have any of the rest of youguys ever run into a situation like this?

At some point the Fedex truck made it through, and we drove a little closer to have a look. Sultan was with us in the back and he got really upset with the goats running everywhere.


I think that the goat herd is in our neighborhood in order to "organically" crop the community land. Can't think of something much more organic than a goat.


Go goats! Eat the weeds! But look out for Sultan, because he's the troll under the bridge and he'll eat you up.

::spooky box::

Max came home with a special homework assignment last week. He was supposed to come up with some sort of "spooky box" to display in his classroom during halloween week. It was supposed to be a diorama in a shoebox, using whatever materials he wanted.
So Max and I brainstormed and came up with what I think is a pretty good idea. A spooky ocean box.
We painted our shoebox last night and then this afternoon all three of us worked together to make spooky cranky ocean animals.
Then I glued everything into place.

(Max is working on some other self-directed project here. Suddenly plenty to do when there's homework!!)
Here's the box, I think it turned out super fun looking.

I like the two headed snakes slithering along the ocean floor amid Kris's seaweed.
I'm frightened of this shark--he looks like he would easily bite somebody's leg off. And you can't see the fish he's chasing very well, but that poor fish looks pretty dismayed.

An awesome group of ghostly jellyfish.

Snakes hiding behind the anemones.

Successfully (and definitely oddly) spooky I think. He turns it in tomorrow, I think his teacher will like it! She'd better anyway.

::a few events from today::

All brought to you thanks to my handy dandy iphone.

First:
Max's part in the primary program for tomorrow. The rehearsal went as well as a saturday primary program rehearsal could ever do. This is for the lovely grandparents who don't get to come and hear it in person!


Next:
A super cute little outfit Max and I found at the mall for new baby. Giraffe print is unisex, right? Can you see the adorable little hat with the giraffe horns? Max is a big fan.


Next:
The fort Max built in the living room while we were watching the BYU vs Wyoming game. Or in other words watching BYU just squeak by against the worst offense in the country. Ouch!
But it was great he was entertaining himself, because while I thought I was watching the game, in the second half I was actually sleeping. He was happy hanging out in the fort.


And last, at least for now:
Halloween costume preparations--or more like experiments. What do you think? I think the mustache needs to be black.