::today::

Today a rather interesting and awful thing happened. It was a work day for me, so our cute babysitter Victoria was watching the boys for the afternoon. I was dropping by the bank on my way home when I got a call from Victoria--always a concern, especially since she usually texts me. A call is a little scary!
She sounded a little distressed when she told me that Max had put a ring of hers on his finger a bit ago and now it was seriously stuck. Oh dearie me. That Max. Always getting into scrapes. Anyway, I told her I'd be home shortly and that they should keep his finger in cold water and not tug at the ring too much.
This morning when she came in I had noticed on her hand a rather large and alarming ring that looked kind of like brass knuckles, only it was a cross. Pretty intense. I was hoping it wasn't THAT ring that he was stuck with.
When I got home there he was, with the cross ring as stuck as could be. We tried butter, oil, cold water, all of it and the thing wasn't budging. Kris is out of town today, so he couldn't help, but I figured it was probably time to get the ring cut off considering that Mr. Dorky's finger was getting fatter and redder by the minute.
Luckily, not only do I know somebody who's good at cutting things up, but I also employ several of them. We ran as quickly as we could back over to the office and barely made it just before Dr. Patterson was leaving for the day. He was kind and gracious enough to sit Max down and cut the dang ring off. Max was completely fine, not distressed at all the whole time until he got into the office and started to see people he knew. Then he started to get embarrassed. He didn't want anybody to see his hand, and when I tried to take a few documentary photos he almost ran out of the place.

NO!! NOOOO!! I don't want this posted on facebook!!!!!


Anyway, it took all of five minutes to get the thing cut off, and Dr Patterson was happy because he got to use a few tools that hadn't even left their original packaging yet (grown up tooth tools).
Max's finger was fine, none the worse for the wear, and the babystitter's ring was ruined, but she was just so happy to have Max's finger free that it didn't matter. The poor thing was feeling so bad about the whole situation; "I'll never wear a ring when I'm watching kids again!!!"

The end and goodnight--there's your laugh for the day.

::school decorations::

Max's class decorated the sidewalk and walls in front of the school today. I was very pleased to see this adorable guy as I walked in to pick Max up.

Max's little characters are the best. I love them so much.

::::

I was working the other day and looked up to see this rather touching scene playing out in front of me--Max using his new playing cards he'd gotten for his birthday to play something with Sandy. He had made up some sort of simple game that Sandy could follow, which I thought was really sweet, and they played for quite a while.

These guys really do play together so great sometimes. I love to see it, and it's so sweet to hear Sandy try to be like Max and to hear them interact.
Then there are the other times where Sandy smashes a lego creation, or whacks somebody on the head with a Jake & a Neverland Pirates sword. Or when they're having a dance party/wrestle fight and Sandy takes it too far and bites Max's shoulder blad hard enough to draw blood. Or when Max won't let Sandy in his room or Max takes something away...you know the drill. It's all the same old classic stuff.
But other times they'll play together for hours racing cars or making up play scenarios. They've even been known to play with legos together for extended periods of time. It's a blessing all around.

This day they had just realized that in their toy car stash there were matching parent and baby orange mazzaratis. That was awesome and they were very proud.

And I'm proud of them.

::bonked again::

The Sunday after Christmas we were all getting ready for church (and by that I mean that Kris and I were getting everybody ready for church). I was in the laundry room doing something important, and Sandy came running to me with his arms full of toys. He tripped and met up with the door jamb of the laundry room very solidly. It was sad times. Sad times indeed. Especially considering we were trying to leave the house five minutes later AND it was his first time going to primary.
He immediately grew this large and colorful unicorn horn.

And then we had to go to church. I had to explain his head to everybody of course.
It took forever to heal of course, and it didn't help that a few weeks later he was playing with Max and bonked the spot again--on the counter somehow, Max couldn't seem to give me details.
Just yesterday I was feeling his head and thinking the bump was finally going down and his head would finally go back to normal, and then today he ran smack into the wall--WITH HIS HEAD--in that same spot!
Is it somehow like when a person bites their cheek and it sticks out and so it gets bitten over and over again after that? Does this bump just stick out too far and it runs into things?
Who knows, but it was once again a sad day, and I was so bummed because I want that bump gone.


It really does look lots better than last time. I'm sure it'll heal eventually, poor little noggin!

::of disguises::

Our boys get up to some of the goofiest things sometimes. If Max is in a good mood when he gets home from school he'll summon Sandy back into his room and they'll be back there messing around and giggling and making me very nervous.
This particular day I think was taking advantage of the quiet(ish) time to do a little work. Then suddenly they popped out into the living room.


They were disguised as "weird guys". Max had redone both of their hair to look different than usual. He was dressed up as a sporty guy and Sandy was just a weird guy in Kris's nice sweater and his headlamp. (Or was he supposed to be Kris? Now suddenly I can't remember...)

They were pretty pleased with themselves, and of course I had to pretend not to recognize them.

Then they left again and a few minutes later reappeared as even different folks.

Look, it's Kris and Ginna!

The shirt of mine that Sandy is wearing is doing double duty as a Ginna shirt and dress for him--he kept spinning around to make it flare out.

They thought they were pretty funny, and truly, they were.
Silly silly boys.
And yes, I found my shirt all wadded up in a ball in the back of my closet later--along with all the other clothes they pulled down and decided not to use.
Oh well.

::preschool tough guy::

Sandy started preschool in early Jan, and was pretty darn excited about it. It's just a tiny little school at a little Lutheran church in town. A few of our friends have had kids there and liked it, so we decided to go with it. It's just two mornings a week. Anyway, we had visited there in the fall, and Sandy really liked the look of the place--all the toys and the playground outside. So he was pretty pumped up about going.
But the thing he was most pumped up about? His STAR WARS lunchbox. He felt like the oldest toughest guy ever, going to school just like Max and with a STAR WARS lunchbox.
I couldn't pick a single photo to leave out because these are all so funny. And not coached--please don't think I requested any of these faces, except maybe the last one. I kept asking for smiles. Haha, yeah right. Tough guys don't smile.



The tough guy effect is definitely heightened by the big red bump on his head from his toy accident a few days before.



And when I took him in he was just as happy as could be to go and hardly even said goodbye to me. It just took a week or two for him to decide he didn't want to go anymore and start the clingy crying thing. I think we're through that now--maybe.
He's just such a goofball. He makes us laugh all the time.

::mazzles the artist::

Max draws the best stuff. I'm going to have to sit down with his journal and take some selective photos of his little comics he puts in there, they're so cute and the little characters he makes have such great expressions.
Here are the Monster's University characters he drew for me for some reason. Yes they're adorable.
In December he actaully got to have a painting in a little show at a gallery way out in the middle of nowhere outside of Santa Fe. His art teacher is some sort of a patron at this gallery and so had an in. We had to pay a fee too of course. But it doesn't really matter. He was so excited to paint his piece and then to have it hanging!


It's the one above the ugly cats, of course.

Scott and Rick are his little characters that he likes to draw comics about--shades of Calvin & Hobbes of course. Like I say, I'll have to find some more stuff and post it here. The stuff is so cute and he's done pages and pages. We're very proud of him.

::?::

::christmas eve part 2::

So we went to a late lunch at the Cowgirl Grill. We hadn't been there for a while and Max suggested it. It was a good choice.

But of course Sandy was in a cranky mood. Don't ask me why, but since he's a 3 yr old I just chalk it up to his age and the fact that he's realized the world doesn't _totally_ revolve around him. It was all things like I didn't have the right hot wheels car in my purse, Max was touching him, and the fact that Max's transformer belongs to Max, not him. That sort of stuff.

We had good food, and Kris and I only had to pinch people a few times.



Yikes. It was fun even though those guys wear us out sometimes.

After lunch we had an hour or so before we needed to head out again to see the lights on Canyon Road. Everybody busied themselves in different ways. Max put bows on some presents and Kris practiced some Christmas music on his guitar.
Sandy was probably cranky somewhere, I don't remember. I had to hurry and wrap up the PJs for bedtime, I almost totally forgot.



It appears I also took pictures too before we headed out. I love our tree this year, I will be so sad to see it go.

And what's so funny is that our ceilings are so high they make the tree look small. Let me tell you, as the one who lit the top of the tree, it's NOT small.

I liked this photo because not only does it show you the whole area, but on the far left you can see the little mistletoe hanging from the doorframe, and on the right you can see the big cheery poinsettia plant that a friend brought us.
Here's my sad admission about the tree--not all the ornaments went up. And by not all the ornaments I mean only about one quarter of them were up. After all the moving into the new house and Christmas setup and Thanksgiving and all that I just ran out of energy and never got the other ones up.
Sad, but at least there's a tree, and I did lots of other stuff.

Anyway, we headed out to Canyon Road at about five, got there just in time to snag a stellar parking spot (last time we went we walked about a mile from where we parked) and were on the Road just in time for the daylight to disappear. Just in time to shoot one good photo before it was too late.

And it's a great one--besides the fact that I'm not in it. Oh well.

I didn't take many photos of the lights and etc, but here's a little taste:


It was cold, but not terribly cold. The lights were beautiful and we had enough time to walk all the way down the road and back, so we saw it all twice.
We also saw Santa Claus--or an old man dressed up JUST like him--not sure which. He gave the kids some candy. Then we headed home to get excited and crazy kids ready for bed.

Cute boys by the fire in the low light. They opened PJs (Max and Sandy matched, but we have no photos because they were just too psyched up and moving too fast) and we read our Christmas book.

Then Sandy was just too exhausted and had to go to bed. After he was asleep we read Luke 2 with Max and watched Mr Kruegar's Christmas. It was nice. Max went to bed to try his best to sleep and Kris and I did the standard grown up Christmas eve stuff. We were smart and did lots of prep earlier in the week, so the evening wasn't too work intensive.

Take a peek at the letter Max wrote to Santa from Sandy and himself. It's adorable. (He did write it on like Dec 1st, but it was kept carefully and set out for Santa at just the right time.)

And to finish up, here's our pretty tree. Like I said in the last post, Christmas eve is the best and I just want to revel in it. But I know at least one kid--if not both--will be up at 2AM, and both up before 7, so bed is important. That's ok too.  Sleep is awesome when it works.