::easter saturday::

On saturday Kris woke up early and went fishing. He didn't catch anything and he fell in a really dirty stinky river, but he didn't let it ruin his weekend.
When he got back we decorated eggs with crayons and markers.



Max was very serious about it and for some reason very motivated to get all the eggs done as quickly as possible. By special request Kris had to make a Bill Nye the Science Guy egg as well as a Guitar Hero egg. Don't ask me about the last one, he's never gotten to play it!

I love eggs decorated by little boys because they always remind me of Cammon.

Cracked and black or brown or blue. And kind of yucky and smeary. I think Max's were quite good and traditional.

After that we headed over to our friends the Nielsons to have an egg hunt. Sadly, very sadly, it was cold and really rainy. So our plans for an outdoor egg hunt were foiled. But the Nielsons have a big basement, so we had the hunt down there. It was too dark for pictures, but I did get a few good ones of egg dying before the hunt.







And some bad pictures of me eating bunny food.

I'm honestly not sure which of those photos is worse. Should we take a vote?

The kids got huge hauls of eggs, considering that everybody brought some stuffed eggs and there were only four kids old enough to hunt! It was really fun.



After this we went and had a delicious burger for dinner. I was really full. Really really full. It was a good day.

::adieu (maybe)::

I had these nice photos that I'd never blogged about. Well--they're nice if you're a big fan of snow and winter. Which I only am for a short time in like December.

Anyway, I had this bright idea that I was going to do a farewell to winter and snow, sing the "so long, farewell, aufweidersehen adieu" song from the Sound of Music and celebrate spring and green grass.

Then it snowed yesterday. And I almost cried.
None of it stuck to the ground, but it was soppy and yucky and NOT springy at all.

(once there was a snowman....tall tall tall.....in the sun he melted......small small small)

Oh well, at least I don't have to worry that I'm cursing us to the longest winter ever by posting an adieu to snow. We're already there!

Could somebody tell spring we're waiting??!?

::thoughts::

Sometimes I feel like all I put up here is pictures. That's generally ok with me, because it's fun, they're pretty, and I think they may communicate better than I do what's happening in our lives. But then sometimes I read the things that friends and family write, and the writing is so good, and so introspective. I feel like I should be writing more. Then I try. Then I put up more photos.

Spring is a bigtime tease here in New England. We keep thinking it's close, and then it might be here--it comes and tickles our toes, and warms our noses. Then it runs off again. One day I'll be wearing a sweater and it's just too warm. So the next day I wear a t shirt and a cardigan and I'm freezing. There's no rhyme or reason to this. Yesterday and the day before were really beautiful. Lots of sun, cool breezes, green grass. Today is rainy and cold.
Will spring ever actually show up? We're in suspense.

We're moving to the new place at the end of the month.
Did I show you a picture of it yet? No? Well then.

It's cute enough. The neighborhood is nice. We're told there are some church members living in the area which is fun.
The new house part is exciting, but the moving part is not. We're going to have to start packing and cleaning pretty soon here.
I'm sick of moving. This will be the third move in three years. And for sure we'll be moving next year too. Blah.

Hmmmm. I know I had some other thoughts, but what are they? See, this is why I do pictures. The pictures always remind me what to talk about.

Oh yeah. I have a bunch of oldish pictures I need to post here. Like birthday parties and such. I think I'm going to post them and date them back where they belong. So if you see those coming through that's what's going on. That's more of a maintenance update than a thought, but oh well.

I'm sick of being a grown up. Sometimes I wish I could just call my mom and have her take care of my big problems. Like how we figured out that the car that was sold to us with supposedly 120,000 miles on it really had more like 195,000. That was a big problem. A nasty one. I wasn't excited to have to deal with it. But I did, and now we have a one year warranty from the dealer which is really what we needed--a cheap car that could last this next year and not cost us a bunch in repairs.
What's going to come up next for me to deal with? Who knows. I've been through the wringer with tax problems, car problems, finding a new house problems, etc. etc.

And finally, we're excited about easter.

Everyone likes easter, even the mama fish. (that's the blackboard in our kitchen. it's been mama fish themed for a while)
Today we're going over to our good friends' from church to have a fun easter egg hunt. Tonight/this afternoon we'll be decorating some eggs. Tomorrow we're hopefully going to have some more family festivities, we're going to relax, and not freeze. Should be fun.
Oh, and if you come over, I'll give you some of these.


Happy easter saturday!

::deja vu::

Please see this post.

::more::

Having more fun with the film scanner.





They're going up on facebook. So fun.

::sultan's playdate::

I'm not so good at setting up so-called playdates for Max. It's hard because I don't want to just send him over to somebody's house that I've never been to. And other moms feel the same way of course. So it often feels like the first time the moms have to hang out too, get to know each other and keep an eye on the kids. And sometimes that's fun, sometimes not so much. And when it's a nanny or somebody watching the kids, that's just weird.

The nice thing about Max's school though, is that it's a co-op. I didn't know what a co-op school was before we moved here. Basically the parents are all very involved. We go in and clean the school a couple of times a year. We throw fund raisers. We got in once a month and act as the teachers' aid, bringing in snacks, playing with the kids and cleaning up. It's nice that I have time to be that involved in Max's world. It's fun because when you're in the classroom once a month you get a chance to get to know the other kids. And through that it's a little easier to know the other families and feel comfortable with each other.

Anyway, long story short, or short story long, I got Max a playdate. It was with one of the little girls from school whom he adores. In fact, around the time that school started she was his imaginary friend. He'd pretend she was living here too and talk about her all the time. So as I figured he would be, he was psyched.

This little girl is an extreme animal lover. All she can talk about are horses and unicorns at school. When she got to our house and discovered we had a dog she almost lost her mind. She looked at Max like he was crazy and said "you never said you had a DOG!"
She LOVED Sultan. And Sultan loved her right back. She'd let him lick her all over for as long as he wanted. She lay on him and stroked him, hugged him and chased him around. She even picked the "boogies" out of his eyes.

And because she thought he was so cool of course Max had to play along. So he showed off the "tricks" he can do with Sultan. (you know, sit, down, stay). That was pretty exciting.
But then things started to go downhill when she decided she'd rather play with Sultan than do anything that Max wanted to do. She kept saying "I think Sultan wants to spend some time with me now."
I tried to say that Sultan needed a rest and they should go do something else, but she just argued that she'd rest with him.
Max got that bummed out cranky look on his face, and I couldn't blame him. It was as if somebody came over to play and then decided they'd rather hang with your little sister instead!

But then I got them playing hide and go seek or something. Then of course Sul got tackled.


Then she really made Max's day and reinacted the Mama Fish Movie with him a couple of times. That was truly awesome. And it was awesome for me because for once I didn't have to pretend to be Kelly.

It all ended well with a viewing of Martha Speaks on PBS. And naturally they had to watch it with Sultan. I'm surprised they could even see our little TV from where they ended up sitting.

It was pretty cute. And I think everybody ended up having a great time, although things obviously didn't turn out exactly as Max had planned. Luckily he's a pretty good sport.

Now if Max only loved Sultan as much as his little friend does we'd be in business!

::thanks::

Thank goodness for the internet. Because there's no way Max would make it even two hours on a hard church bench. Thank goodness I can watch from home even though we're so far away.
Thank goodness for puzzles and toys and things that could hold attention for a few minutes at a time.
Thank goodness for a living evolving gospel and a prophet on the earth today!

(and I'm glad Kris is back too, thank goodness)

::plenty::

We're missing Kris right now. He's in California for the California Society of Pediatric Dentistry (CSPD) meeting. Whew that's a mouthful.
We're hoping he might meet some helpful people out there so we'll have a good place to end up in a year.
Anyway, to fill the emptiness of a missing daddy we went to the library. Max and I have been enjoying the library lately. He finally realized we could get fun books there that he might actually like.

Looks kind of like a book rainbow, doesn't it?
We came home with over 20 tomes. They're all good ones too. I had to read 6 stories to him at bedtime, and that was on top of the 4 or 5 I'd already read when we got home from the library.

I'm really glad he's enjoying books, and the library. Both those things have been very important to me in my life and very beneficial too. In fact I don't know what I'd do without the library right now. I'd have a very costly habit I guess.

It was so funny, I had requested a book I knew he'd want, so it was waiting for us at the check out desk. When he saw what it was he was so excited that he plopped right down there and started reading it. Cute? Yes.

About 90% of the books are about dogs too. It's pretty funny.

Anyway, if you see Kris tell him to come home soon? It's a bummer he has to miss conference weekend. It's a bummer he has to be gone at all, we miss him!

::bashful::

The other day I made Max pose for me outside against one of the cool brick walls we have in our backyard. I'm still trying to figure out how to get the best lighting for portraits outside.

Poor Max, he's so sick of getting his picture taken. He'll barely look at me anymore. And when he does it's so cheesy. And he thrusts his jaw forward all funny so he looks like he's got a big underbite. I still think he's cute though, naturally.

He at least tried to get a little creative with his poses this time, like the kung fu panda fist.

and the boogie--or something, who knows.

Anyway, then our neighbors pulled up. The other side of the backyard has a chain link fence, so we can keep good tabs on what goes on next door.
We have great neighbors. We love them. Max especially likes the little girl neighbor. She's getting close to three I think. She's shy and bashful and sweet. And she loves him. And I mean LOVES him. And he loves to make her laugh by doing goofy things.
He saw them pull up and this is what his face looked like.

Suddenly some genuine emotion!
She was pretty excited to see him too.

Her mom is a photographer, so she's used to getting her picture taken. She's a cutie, right?

I do love seeing and hearing her and Max laugh together, it's really fun. We'll miss seeing them all the time when we move, but hopefully we can still get together.