::before & after & a bonus::

When the day finally came and we got to take possession of our new house we were very excited, and really really hoping that the prior owner was actually done and moved out--especially considering the fact that we had been to the house not too long before and there had still been lots and lots of stuff everywhere.

Anyway, we came in and happily, her stuff was all gone and the house was empty and ready for us.
But sadly we ran across this on one of the walls:

Yes, not only had somebody drilled huge holes into the wall to hang something bizarre, but they had also painted around it. Who does that? Seriously, did they hire SpongeBob or somebody to do the painting?!
Needless to say we were annoyed. That's not the kind of thing you can just overlook--and combined with the fact that she had taken a big TV mount down in the bedroom and the wall looked like a land mine had gone off inside it--we were pretty unhappy.

So luckily, later that week Kris went to Home Depot to get some supplies and serendipitously they were presenting a little wall repairing class and he got to sit in and learn a ton. So he fixed the wall--almost overfixed it in his excitement, but not quite.
Then I got brave and found the paint that matched the wall in the garage. I figured even if the paint had aged or faded, it couldn't look worse than that weird Cheshire Cat shape there on the wall.
So I painted it. Two coats. And it turned out perfect.

We were/are very proud of ourselves. It's so nice to see something repaired so darn well! Now on to all the other cracks, scrapes, holes and scratches in house. All the woodwork on the doors need help. The lady had a dog at some point and that dang dog scratched the dickens out of every doorframe and doorjam in the house. I'm going to have to experiment and see what can be done.

And the bonus?
Goofy pictures of a sweet silly and goofy boy. He was watching Kris put in towel & toilet paper holders, since somehow the guest bathroom had none.


And there ya go.

::artistic::

Have you seen those paintings by Brian Kershisnik? You know, those ones with the vomiting dogs--like this one:
I really like them, not sure why exactly.

I like them.
And I want to prove to you that I'm just as artistic as he is.

See?

Shoot, I posted that and then realized you can hardly even tell he's puking. So I found another one for you from a while ago. You can tell it's from a while ago from the green grass.

Yes, I'm artistic. No question about it.

::::

"Does anybody have a kleenex?" he asks--very seriously.


Ewwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwww.

Too bad this beloved silly putty had to go putty up the landfill after it got stuck in the carpet of the new house. Dad was not very happy about that.
I'm sure he'll figure out other uses for our kleenexes. He's creative that way.

::max's story::

Tonight Max's teacher hosted a story reading for his class. All the kids wrote and illustrated a little story. Then they got to sit up on the stool wearing a beret and read it for the crowd. The stories were so cute and the performances were sweet and hilarious. Max is lucky to have such a great teacher who has helped the kids in his class so much. Some of them couldn't even read at the beginning of the year, and here they were reading stories in front of people. It's great.

We were so proud of Max, his reading and his writing. He's a smart capable guy and it's fun to see that demonstrated for us.
Be sure to watch all the way to the end, the last couple of seconds awesome.

::sand cam: the new house::

From the little man's perspective.


Good thing we have some interesting ceilings out here, since Mr Sandy gets to look at them an awful lot.


And as a special bonus, the man himself, reaching for the camera as I tried to get the world from his perspective.

He's so cute.

::easter final part or even more bunny ears::

You won't believe how long they kept the bunny ears on for me.

Max actually likes his, and I don't think the baby had any idea he had his on.

I love how these two get along. They really do both adore each other. I hope it can continue that way.




Kris came up with an amazing baby breakthrough while we were in UT waiting to have our family picture taken. He has a secret phrase. (Shhhh, it goes like this: "Eat the pig, eat the pig. Ziggy, ziggy, ziggy zig." Have you ever watched Bill & Ted's excellent adventure?) Anyway, whenever he says this secret phrase to the baby, the baby cracks up. He thinks it's so funny. It can even sometimes bring him out of a screaming fit. Max and I use it too, all the time.
So these pictures were taken by way of the secret phrase.

So cute. Happy Easter, one and all. We're always glad to celebrate this wonderful holiday, and so much more glad this year as the idea of the atonement and resurrection becomes more and real and important to us. Love you all.

::eggs::

The second to the last of the easter posts...

We decorated some eggs saturday afternoon. I'm pretty impressed with myself that we even did it considering all that was going on. But since Kathy was here and she helped me get all packed, moved and unpacked in a really short period of time, we were able to pull off some egg boiling and decorating.
Max made some of the coolest eggs ever.

He got out his Atlas of the Universe that he earned by reading books at school and made some moons.

Titan, Saturn's biggest moon. And maybe the biggest moon of all, we're just not sure.

Pluto. Not a planet anymore, but instead an awesome easter egg.

I love them!

Hunting for them was fun, but I just enjoyed the moment and took no photos. I'm allowed to do that once in a while, right?

::happy easter pt 3::

We couldn't seem to get one where everybody looked good at once. But that's the beauty of having little kiddos, right?




Little kids making bunny faces that is....
I can't believe the baby put up with the bunny ears for so long. That's pretty amazing.
Thanks for taking the pictures Kathy. At least one of us looked cute in each, and we can't ask for much more than that!

::Happy Easter pt 2::

With Kris's mom. It was so fun to get to spend Easter with her.




I had to post this last one because of Max's face. Evidently he was working hard on making a "bunny face" with his longest front tooth stuck out over his bottom lip. It seems to have been a lot of hard work.