::i'm sorry but he's just so stinking adorable::

::week 15::

Week fifteen....I'm slowly catching up here.
Kris doesn't think I should keep doing these posts because he thinks I won't be able to stop and I'll be doing them until the baby is 30. But I think I can quit anytime.

Anyway against his advice I'm continuing. I usually take his advice, but in this case this dang baby is just too cute. I can't help but share him with all you people I love that are far away.

Here's Sandy sleeping in my bed--unfortunately sleeping so soundly after I had to get up. This is sad since he's been getting me up a lot at night and I haven't been getting very good sleep. But he looks so cute. I took this picture to send to Kris who was already at work, to show how unfair life is.

And more evidence of the unfairness of life--these blowouts really only happen when I'm at home with the kids without Kris--the really big ones.
I took this to show Kris what he was missing.

Ick....anybody puking yet?

Alright, forget that poop picture. Here's the baby with his new playmat thingy. He likes it a lot except if he's kind of sleepy. If he's too sleepy anytime he bumps the jingly toys he gets very startled and unhappy.
But if he's well rested and happy he really likes the toys. I love how he's starting to be able to grab things on purpose (I love it now, I'm sure later I won't love it quite so much!). I'm so proud of him when he can grab a toy. And it's so cute to see him try to put everything he grabs into his mouth. And even cuter to see him with that look of intense concentration on his face.



He's such a darling boy. Is it any wonder we all love him so much?

::exciting::

We've been working on buying a house. It's a great house and has lots of the things we're looking for in a place to stay in for longer than a year--fenced yard, some space for kids to play--a great space for eating dinner outside--carpet in the living room--lots of space--storage, etc.
We're really excited about it and it looks like because of strange unexpected factors we'll probably be moving in sooner than expected (assuming all goes well with the closing). We're supposed to be closing April 1st and we should be able to start moving in on the 16th. Luckily it's only a couple of miles away, so moving should be easy.

Wish me luck I can finish up getting the mortgage with no (additional) snafus!

::before & after::

It's the shortest I think we've ever had his hair cut. It matches Dad. This is a fresh "do" all ready for school.
We love him with the floppy hair and with the spiky hair. He's just cute. And goofy.
He wanted his hair cut like Sandy's, but we told him that was just slightly too short.

::the fourteenth week::

This poor little week fourteen post is long long overdue. Baby is already fifteen weeks and counting! But I'm not going to give up just because I'm slow. So here you go.

We're starting with Sand all ready for church. I love little sweater vests. I love this whole little outfit. He looks so adorable and church appropriate (like babies aren't always church appropriate!).
I like dressing babies up, especially boys because the girls are always dressed in little dresses, but baby boys don't usually get dressed up too much.
So here you go.



He's been great at church. It always starts about when he's supposed to nap, and since he's a light sleeper he can't just sleep in his carseat or being switched between people's arms. I've been putting him in my Moby wrap while I do the music in primary and he tends to sleep through the whole thing. By the time we get to sacrament meeting we're both super sweaty and uncomfortable, but at least I'm able to get done what I need to with a minimum of distraction. It also helped when we first brought him to church, because less people can touch him and cough on him while he's tied to me. Hah.

Next is Sandy with his katamari.

Now, you might be wondering what a katamari is exactly, and I wouldn't blame you. Katamari is a fabulous video game we've been playing in our family for years now. You're a little character pushing a big ball around trying to roll everything up. And the balls look just like this toy of Sandy's.
Max found it for him when we were out shopping one day and he loves it. Max loves it too and wishes he had one of his own.


And lastly, a couple of phone pictures from our Phoenix trip.
Sandy fell asleep in my arms on the bed, and that just doesn't happen that much. It was so sweet I had to take a picture even though it turned out pretty dark and terrible. He's so nice to snuggle.


And here we are eating at our favorite sandwich place in all the world, Planet Sub. Turned out they had just opened one in Phoenix--it was grand opening weekend. We drove about 40 minutes to get there and it was totally worth it. If only there was one here.

Then Sandy might be able to look forward to enjoying a delicious PB&J kid sandwich. As it is, at least we're closer now.

It was a good week.

Geocache #1

Ginna has been suggesting that we try Geocaching for a while now and today we finally did it. If you don't know about Geocaching, you can read up here.
We decided to start off with one near our house. Turns out, there are a whole bunch near us.
After we found a suitable geocache, we downloaded the location and mapped it out.

The wind was really strong and cold plus Ginna was pretty tired, so we decided that just Max, Dad and Sultan would go on this first adventure. We drove down to the Galisteo Basin and began hunting for the treasure.

Fortunately, my bike GPS is pretty sensitive and we got close to the cache in no time at all. Once we were sure we were really close, we got down on our knees and Max found it under some bushes.

He was pretty bummed that the cache wasn't actually treasure, but rather a little marker in a rusty can. Still he was excited to have found something. We celebrated as if it were treasure.


It was too cold to stay for long, so we ran back to the car. Even Sultan was excited to jump back in.

The quick drive home provided us with another typically beautiful New Mexican sky. In this picture, you can see our neighborhood on the left. Pretty scenic huh?

The boys had a good time riding in the back. Next time we'll make sure everyone gets to come treasure hunting.

::working::

I love this picture of the two guys working hard to learn.
Even though I do have to force both of them to do their learning at least 75% of the time and I definitely had to do some pushing (to put it lightly) to get this to happen.
It doesn't matter, as long as it gets done, and we hopefully have fun doing it.

It's fun to look at this picture and realize how we are all at such different levels in our learning and how playing can be learning and hard work all at the same time.

Cute cute boys.

::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: