::max is seven!!::

Our sweet big monstrous Max is now seven. It's such a crazy thing that I can't really wrap my mind around it.
He turned seven last week while on our trip to Phoenix.
Poor guy, we drove half the way the night before his birthday and drove the rest of the way on his birthday morn. Unfortunately for him, he came down with a cold just as we left town. So he slept awfully and he had stuffed up ears and a yucky cough. Driving down from the mountains into the Phoenix valley just about killed him. I think he felt like his ear was going to explode. At one point, about an hour outside of town we got stuck in construction. Max was bawling, Sandy was screaming and I thought I was going to die. If there had been a cliff handy I would've gone off it. Luckily everybody settled down and we made it to our hotel.

Oh, but it was before that the festivities started. Max had requested a couple of weeks ago if we could put a little present under his pillow and say to him "Good Morning Sunshine!" or something to that effect to wake him up. So we did it. But we forgot what we were supposed to say and so we said "Rise and shine Buckaroo!!" It worked just as well though and he was excited to wake up to a little gift. We got him a watch with Pluto on it. It reminded me of the Mickey Mouse watch my parents gave me when I was about his age.

Once we got to the hotel took the boys swimming right away because it looked like that day was going to be our only swim worthy weather. Sadly again for the Max, the little water slide at the hotel was closed. But he had fun anyway. Sandy did awesome swimming even though it wasn't really that nice out. It was kind of breezy and cool. But he was way into it. I can't wait until the next time was can take him swimming. Whenever that may be!

Then we went back and he opened his presents. He was psyched about them, thank goodness. Then we headed out and picked up some Jimmy John's sandwiches for dinner along with a yummy b-day cake from Trader Joe's. After that we put the poor boy to bed and it took him hours and hours to wind down enough to fall asleep.

I think all-in-all it turned out to be a pretty good day. I hope so anyway, we only turn seven once!

::get ready::

and the one from Max:

::week thirteen::

Week thirteen was busy busy--like they all are really with a 6 (almost 7!) year old, a business to run and a little guy.
Here's the best picture I took of Sandy the whole week:

Sandy is in his bouncer, concentrating fiercely on his toys.
When we first got the toys at Christmas, he thought they were relatively interesting. But not THAT great. However, this week he realized that they're really cool. And he's actually playing with them. He grabs them and whacks at them and spins them. It's really fun to watch and we're all so proud of him! It's so fun to see him realize that he's a real person that can do stuff.

And a couple of bonus phone pictures:
Kris was in UT over the first few days of week 13 to visit his parents, and I was alone with Thing 1 and Thing 2. I sent him this picture at about 6:30AM to show him what was going on here, while he was sawing logs in Highland.


And here's the boy in an impulse purchase from Target. Good old Carter's makes some pretty adorable baby boy stuff. I couldn't pass up the dino onesie with the coordinating jacket (not pictured, unfortunately).

But cuter than the clothes is the little one filling them out. He's adorable!

::happy::

Happy Valentine's day to all those we love. Just a few fun photos from the day to celebrate.





(He's happier than he looks--a LOT happier)
Here's hoping everybody had as generous of a day as our Max enjoyed. Goodnight!

::freezing::

Luckily for us it's not freezing anymore right now--well, at least not the way it was.
The week of my birthday had some crazy weather. My birthday was nice and temperate, but the next day a storm blew in. My parents were flying out that afternoon, and it was truly questionable whether they were going to make it out or not. Lucky for me since Kris was flying out to see his parents that weekend they drove our car down there and parked it in long term parking. It was very nice that I didn't have to drive down and back with the boys, since it was terrible driving conditions and seemed very unsafe.
Max had a two hour delay for school and it was so darn cold I decided to just keep him home so I didn't have to take the baby out in the freezing.

Anyway, they made it luckily--though I think there was some white-knuckle driving in there.
That night it got freezing freezing cold, like well below zero, which is unusual for out here. School was cancelled the next day and we discovered that our pilot light had gone out. We have radiant floor heating and it takes a long time to cool down and a long time to warm up. By the time we realized the furnace wasn't running it was way cold in the house and it took forever and a day to warm up.
We spent a lot of time in the living room by the fire and we dressed Sand really warmly.


Max got out every toy he owned in an effort to entertain himself. He did well, but we were getting pretty tired of the still cold house by the end of the day. We braved the snow that night to go and grab a couple of burgers at a new place with FRY SAUCE!

The next day there was another two hour school delay. I ran into work after I dropped Max off and I got a automated phone call from the school district saying that all the students were warm and safe, but there was a statewide gas shortage and that they were going to close up school as soon as all classes were over. Turned out there was a true shortage and several cities in the state were completely without gas and some without power for days that week! Luckily we were fine. We did close the office friday though, in order to contribute to saving gas for cold homes. School was cancelled too.

It was just a crazy winter week. Kind of fun to have such crazy stuff going on, and lucky that we were warm, but I did feel bad for all the cold people without working heaters. Things like that make us grateful for what we have, and inspire us to make sure we have enough wood to stay warm if we happen to be left with only our fireplace for heat!

Can't wait for spring!

::12::

These first three are a cheat. They really belong to week 11. I'm not sure how they slipped past my radar. I'm going to blame it on fun visits from my parents--way too much fun to think straight.
But these photos are way too adorable to leave off the interweb!
Baby entertaining himself in his little bouncer while we did stuff in the kitchen.

Shades of cross-eyed-ness, but not truly cross eyed. It's amazing I caught him staring straight at the camera!

Here he is demonstrating his best skill. Bubbly bubbles. He's very excellent at it and does it ALL the time.

I LOVE this one. So cute.

Alright so here's official week 12. And how CRAZY is it that he's been here for 3 months already? I think I've said this 20 times already just on this blog, but time goes too darn fast. He's growing and changing too fast for me. I wish all his little stages would last twice as long.

We had lots of fun with my parents when they were here, and the baby especially enjoyed his one on one time and tons of attention and cuddling.

I love this action shot here, my mom is all blurry and actiony.

And that baby is loving it. And I'm loving the sideways smile with his little bow mouth.


Here he is enjoying one of his favorite pastimes--the gas massage. He's such a gassy baby sometimes, he just loves to be squished. It doesn't make much sense to me.

And lastly here he is again in his full body sweater sitting on the couch. I just can't resist a couched baby in a red sweater. How many different pictures do you think I have of him like this? A lot!

It's because he's adorable and he looks different every day and I just can't help it.

And there you go.
Slow these darn weeks down, dang it!

::science part 1::

We got Max a cool science kit for Christmas. I thought he would really like it and I was right. In fact, he wanted to start working on it the second it was unwrapped and he tormented me every single day until I had a chance to work on it with him.
Finally one day things settled down a bit and we got to do a couple of experiments.

The first one we did was definitely the coolest. It was a color changing volcano that involved baking soda and citric acid and some other crazy stuff.

He felt so cool with this "pipette" and his little scoops and his chemicals. A cool and awesome scientist making things change colors. It was very cute.

Keeping him and the house clean though was a big task, and obviously a kit like this cannot be worked with alone by a six year old. So it required heavy parental involvement, which is good and bad, bad when little brothers need lots of attention too.
Anyway we had fun working on it together. After the little bubbly volcano we made large jiggly crystals.

That was all the science energy I had in me and so we packed up the kit and put it away, much to Max's chagrin.
He's asked me to work on it with him almost every day since........
Part two to follow......

::blessing day::

So first thing, I had the toughest time ever picking which pictures to put up in this post. So I just picked a bunch.



A week ago today we were able to bless our sweet Sandy in church. If you'd like to know more about that please follow this link and read the section titled "naming and blessing children."
Kris gave Sandy the blessing and he did a beautiful job. He said so many sweet and precious things. I wish I had a recording of it so I could listen to it 100 times in a row and memorize it. We had lots of good friends from the ward standing in the circle, as well as my dad. I was so glad my dad could be there, and we missed the rest of our family, but we knew they were there in spirit. I'm glad that we have so much support from the ward though, since we can't live minutes away from the family. It's nice to know that a lot of the men standing in the blessing circle will be the same men supporting, helping and teaching Sandy (and Max) for a long time. That's special.


(I think this picture is so funny--just the angle of his head, his chubby mushy cheeks and the bubbles.)

Afterwards we gathered at our house with a few friends from the ward for snacks and chatting. Sand didn't even know the party was in his honor, but he had a good time.

(preparing for his party--he didn't even poop on his clothes!)


Speaking of Sandy, he was absolutely perfect at church, didn't make a squeak during the blessing. After his blessing he was held by Mrs. Evans, the wife of the dentist we bought the practice from (they came to the blessing, wasn't that nice?) and then he fell quietly and serenely asleep in her arms. That never happens these days!
What a great kid.

It was so nice to have my parents there. It was fun that they got to meet and chat with some of our friends and just be around for just general help and support. Kris and I are so blessed in the parent department. We have four of the best.
Anyway, my dad spent a lot of time with Sand, entertaining and snuggling him. Sandy loved it.


My dad also got a few giggles out of him during the visit. Some of his very first.

I just want to eat him up with that adorable little smile.


It was a wonderful day. I was probably too stressed out with making sure everything was ready and clean and all was going to run smooth, but I survived. Thanks to everybody for their help and love. We are so greatly blessed with friends and family (whether you were able to attend the blessing or not) I can hardly think about it without being overcome. We love you all. Thank you for loving us.


oh, and if you would like to see a few more pictures, including a couple of me, go here to my mom's blog.

::::

As the manager of the dental office, one of my official duties is picking out and ordering the little toy favors that kids get after their appointments. I really enjoy this. It's just a fun thing to do. And it reminds me of how I used to love going to the dentist because of the fun little toys they would give us. And that's really funny too because I had a darn lot of work done over the years. You'd think I would be traumatized. But no, the toys saved me. I think the only thing that was traumatized was my parents' pocketbook, unfortunately.

Anyway, picking the toys is fun. Sometimes I have Max help me go through the catalogues and tell me what he thinks other kids will like. Of course it usually ends up with him circling what HE would like, then us having a big long discussion about why I can't just GIVE him one of each toy we order, and how much he'll have to pay me for the ones he wants.

Anyway again, the other day I had him go through one of the catalogues at home. He stuck to the dask with diligence and dedication. When I went back through it to make my orders I was highly amused. I asked him to circle the toys that he thought would be good for us to get.

Sometimes he did just that, and nicely.


Sometimes there was just too much awesomeness on one page, and he ended up circling essentially everything.


It gets even better from here.
Sometimes the awesomeness of the page was just overwhelming and he had to use special means to express how cool it all was.

I mean, who wouldn't bust out with an "OH YA" when they see those sweet Sponge Bob tatoos?

And my ultimate favorite, the "silly band" page.

I laughed so hard when I found this: "Ah ya, OH ya, YES YES!!"

I hope you appreciate all that as much as I do, because it still cracks me up while I'm writing about it. Funny funny kids. They're worth all the hard work. Especially when they're in bed.