::found::

I was scanning really boring work stuff in my home office when I turned over a seemingly blank piece of paper and found this: I was pretty delighted to run across this intriguing piece of work, and just disappointed that there was no more to it. I'm going to have to sit down with Max and force him to finish the story.

::sandy is a new mexican::

Turns out Sandy is a true New Mexican. He really appreciates the rain and doesn't take it for granted.
Besides, as all those close to us know, he's kind of obsessed with water. His favorite thing in the world is playing in it and with it, though he didn't like falling into the deep part of the hot tub too much today. Good thing I was there to fish him out.
Anyway, these photos are from Easter sunday. We had a gentle little rainstorm blow by after our egg hunt and Sandy was in heaven. He couldn't have been happier.



We've actually had a ton of rain in the last week or two, almost every day we had a great rainstorm. One of the storms in the middle of the night had huge thunderclaps and it made the aspens outside Kris's and my bedroom window sound like waves hitting the shore.
It's been great for us. Hopefully it keeps up and we get more moisture than usual so we don't all burn up out here.
Max and I were so sick of the rain after we lived in Rhode Island, the spring before we moved was so wet that parts of the city were completely flooded. It didn't warm up and quit raining until it was time for us to leave. We were done with the rain by then. But good old Sandy hasn't ever experienced too much rain.
Funny how things can be such a blessing in one situation and really not in others. Ah, life.

::in which sandy finishes school and lucy helps with the laundry::

Sandy had a good 6 months of school. He loved it at first, then hated it for a while, then regained a grudging enthusiasm for the whole thing.
But he was super psyched about the pizza party on the last day. I went over to the school at lunchtime and we got to sit out on the grassy lawn (a treat in Santa Fe of course) and eat pizza in the sun while all the kids ran around. It was a pretty nice time. It's been a good little school and I think Sandy will be happy to go back in the fall.

When a baby girl won't let you put her down or else insists that your face is always inches away from hers you have to get creative with the household tasks.

She put up with this for a while--not enough time for me to actually get it all done, but she tried.
She's good company if a little demanding.

::lucy blessing part 2::

Lucy is blessed in so many ways, but maybe one of the greatest of these blessings is the sweet older brother who loves her so much. This scene in sacrament meeting after Lucy got blessed was too sweet for me not to capture. They're both so adorable.

::lucy's blessing day pt 1::

We blessed Lucy on the 4th of May. It was a really beautiful spring day, nice and cool in the morning. Kathy came out to for the blessing, so that was nice. I got some really adorable pictures of her and Lucy together before we went to church.


Lucy was wide awake and interactive.


I think she heard the bees in the crabapple tree in this photo. They were buzzing around like crazy.
The photos in front of the gorgeous blossoms were turning out so great we called Kris out to pose. Lucy wasn't really into it anymore at that point though, just like any regular kid.



And, in usual parental fashion we pushed it just a leetle beet further until she was really done. But we got a couple of cute photos together, and Kris and I never get photos together!


It was such a nice day. More to come.

::::

This person whose nose you're lucky enough to be looking up is my Sandy.

He is a total character. If you've spent any time at all with him you'd know that already.

For work we had a consultant visit the practice this week. She really thought Sandy was fun and cute and spent a good amount of time talking with him. The best thing he said to her, besides that he doesn't learn anything at pre-school, he just plays, was the following:

She says, "What are you going to be when you grow up?" Sandy says, "A Dad." (super cute, right?) Then he goes, "That'll be weird!" But of course when he says that it sounds like, "That'll be wehewd."

She pretty much thought he was the cutest thing ever and told everybody she saw about it the whole next day. I don't blame her, I mean he's the cutest kid ever. Even when he's a bum.

::lucy eats max::

This girl loooooves her brothers, but her brothers love her even more. Max thought it was pretty hilarious that she was eating him. But later when he looked at the photos he said, "I'm just not too sure how clean my hand was...." Yeah, like I'm shocked about that.

::one whole month old::

Today is Lucy's one month birthday! Time sometimes goes so fast, and as usual of course it's hard to imagine a time when little Lucy didn't live with us.
To celebrate her anniversary today we did a few things. First and foremost she decided there would be no naps today, and I had earlier decided there would be. So we wrestled that out ALL DAY LONG. She won. I lost.
The second thing we did is that she smiled at me. Was it gas? Probably. Did it seem like gas at the time? No. She's been making cute little faces after she finshes eating the last couple of days, and I was posing her on the bed trying to get a photo after a meal when I called her name and she made this great big smile.

I was pretty excited and it sure seemed like she smiled just for me. We'll just pretend like that's what happened. It's to make up for all the nap battling.

At one month old, Lucy's favorite things are:
Eating
Being held--all the time
Snuggling
Sleeping in our bed
Her brothers



Her dislikes?
Being put down--ever.
Sleeping in her own bed
Napping
Waiting for people to do things
Being elbowed in the head by Sandy
I think that's a pretty exhaustive list.
We love our little Lucy.

::spelling homework::

I found an ipad app to help Max practice his spelling words. It's been working well and he's had a bunch of perfect tests.
Anyway, Sandy needs to do everything that Max does right now. Everything. Max Max is the coolest person in the world to Sandy right now.
So when Max is doing his spelling practice, Sandy of course needs to do his. We have this cute little app called "Endless Alphabet" that helps little guys learn letter sounds--it takes a world, then the letters all fall off the word scrambled and the kid has to put them back together. And when he puts his finger on the letter it says it's sound over and over--"arrrr, arrrr, arrrr" etc.
Sandy loves it. And of course it's much more exciting than Max's boring spelling review. So sometimes poor Max gets a little envious.
But anyway I love seeing both the boys working on their spelling.