Local to the Max!

The entire second grade at Avril's school put on a production- a full on song and dance and play and everything. Each class did a Hawaiianized fairy tale. Avril's class did "Willi Waikula & the Three Mongooses".  (I think that was her name.) It was positively adorable. I think my favorite lines were Papa Mongoose and Baby Mongoose:

Papa: "EH! Somebody's been sittin' in mah rock-a!"

Baby: "Somebody sat in MAH rock-a and dat buggah wan' break it all up!"

Isn't she so cute?

You'll Shoot Your Eye Out, Kid!

Derek just got glasses to reduce eye strain.

He broke them two days after he got them playing soccer. Took a ball to the face. Tried to head it.

I taped 'em up myself, good as new. 

Naturally, Roman needed to try them on for size at church today. It was so cute I snapped a few pics when we got home.

I call this look "geek chic". 

Derek's dad, Wayne, just remembered that when Derek was a kid everyone told them that he looked like the kid in "A Christmas Story"... seems like Roman fits the bill, too!

Oh how I love this little boy!

Like Father, Like Son

Feasting on the Word

Yeah, I just went there. 

Apparently, when I was a young whelp, oh, say about 7-9 months old, I got a hold of my mother's scriptures. They looked similar to mine now. 

Thanks, Max. 

Just so you know, what goes around, comes around. 

Top 'O Tha Mornin' To Ya, Lass!

Happy St. Patrick's Day!

I haven't ever done much for St. Paddy's Day, but this year I really have been wanting to do some little extras for the various smaller holidays. I didn't grow up with much by way of St. Paddy's traditions, aside from wearing green and pinching, or at least I don't really remember any.... 

so thanks to Pinterest I've discovered all sorts of fun little things.

Like leprechaun traps.

We spent Friday working on our leprechaun trap, but didn't quite finish before the kids had to go to bed. We discussed how to finish and I promised I would take care of it myself. 

We were pretty excited at the prospect of catching a leprechaun and imagined all sorts things we might wish for when we got him. 

Unfortunately, our trap wasn't as secure as we thought it was. We caught a leprechaun alright-- but he made off with most of the gold and pretty much wrecked our trap in the process!

He found the box's one weakness and went to town on it, the little stinker. 

Then the little rascal went and peed in our toilet!

Avril made that discovery and called everyone to see.

All in all, though, we made off pretty well. I heard some leprechauns got really mischievous, toilet papering kitchens, leaving footprints all over, making messes. I hope we get another mild-mannered one next year.

Ours even left us green milk! That's good luck for a whole YEAR, you know.

Oh and this is my one decoration. Cute subway art I downloaded from a pin on Pinterest. Love it!

Super fun holiday. Easter's next!

Max Updates

Oh, before I forget-- Max is officially crawling! He started this week and is pretty much a pro by now. Time to get out the baby gate!

He's also figured out how to pull himself up to stand in his crib. That was terrifying when I discovered that. His bed was up pretty high, so the top of the rail was about up to his belly. He's top heavy. 

Fortunately I freaked out in time and saved him from a certain, possibly imaginary trauma. His mattress is now much, much lower. He can still pull himself up, though. And he hasn't figured out how to get back down. Bad news for naptime at our house.

Well, Baby, that's what you get for crawling. Maybe you shoulda stayed my little snuggly baby after all. I hate to say "I told you so."

Well, ok, that's not true. I love saying "I told you so".

Diamond Head Hike

Our good friends from Kirksville, the Jenks, are visiting Hawaii this week. So we were delighted to touch base with them and got to have them stay with us Sunday night. The girls were so disappointed when they got home today and found out they weren't still hanging around ready to play with them! 

The boys and I went with them to Diamond Head to do the hike this morning though... or at least that was the idea! They met up with the rest of their family so we beat them there and started a little bit before them. While it would have been fun to hike with them and chat a bit, I really relished the rare opportunity to just spend time with my little man. Max chilled the whole time, easy peasy. Except lemme tell you-- that kid has put on a few! Holy crap, I need a massage!

Roman, on the other hand, was a little chatterbox. At first he was very worried about our friends and wanted to wait for them. I didn't know how far behind us they were, but had a pretty decent idea that they would be moving a bit faster than we would anyway-- so I encouraged us to keep going. The entire hike up, he was either challenging me to run with him, to watch out for The Peoples (he's always very concerned about The Peoples. You just don't know about them.), to rest cause he was tired, to watch for Bad Guys in the tunnel, to look what he found right dere (generally speaking bits of garbage), or driving what he found right dere along the trail. Which got somewhat inconvenient for The Peoples coming and going up and down that narrow trail.  He wanted me to take pictures of him-- because The Peoples had their cameras out and it looked like a pretty good idea. I didn't bring ours, so all I had was my little camera phone- hence the subpar quality. Maybe I shoulda done some cool edits to mask that.  Meh. It's late.

He liked this thing here on one of the lookouts. Kept calling it a boat. Not sure where he got that idea, but ok. 

When we got to the top, The Peoples who had passed us on the way up congratulated him on making it, exclaiming, "Good job little guy! You made it!" At which point he threw the same over his shoulder to me, "Mom, we made it!" Such a trooper. When we got to the bunkers at the top, he naturally had to run all over and look everywhere and climb on top of everything. This is his victory dance after his best climb.

He was pretty proud of himself.

Climbing back down required pictures as well. The highest lookout has steep, almost ladder-like stairs. On the way back down them some guy offered to help Roman down. Not interested. Off he went, down those ladderstairs all on his own. I turned around in time to see the guy lifting his 6-7 year old son down. Huh.

"Mom, we can't get in it, cause it's lucky water, huh."
(Yes, he says "lucky" for "yucky". I love it so much.)

He was also carefully examining his little treasures he'd found on the trail and was decently concerned about dropping them in. I of course reinforced that concern by informing him that if they fell we'd have to leave them because the water is too lucky to get them out. 

He got down pretty quick after hearing that. 

We met Amy & Jeff & some of their family on the way back down and it was fun to chat with them briefly as well. Roman was pretty happy we got to talk to our friends, but was annoyed we couldn't ride in their car with them. (They were in a van. Like a 15-20 seater I'm guessing since they had around 18 people there. Yeah. I don't think we'll get to ride with them.)

He was ok once he remembered we got to ride in the lobster car, though. That's pretty cool. 

Poor Max was so tired-- I turned him around in the baby carrier so he was facing in about a quarter of the way back down and he went straight to sleep without hesitating at all. 

My favorite part of the hike? Having the time to enjoy going slow and letting him explore. To see what things would catch his attention. What little treasures he found or special little wonders he noticed. Like the little cave in the wall "for garbage". Or the "boat". Or his attitude towards all The Peoples. I feel like I've been so rushed lately, trying to cram so many things into our lives, so much play time or beach time or whatever that I don't have time to enjoy my kids. My goal right now is to slow down a bit. Learn to say "no". Not try to do everything or invite everyone. Not try to run faster than I have strength.

Rainstorm!

The past few days have been pretty rainy around here.

Last night it started POURING rain, it was honestly pretty crazy. In fact, it's still raining now. Hasn't let up much. Being from Idaho this seriously boggles my mind. It turned thunderstorm last night, too, there was one thunderclap that about made my heart stop-- it set off a car alarm in our neighborhood!

Anyway, before all that, the kids wanted to go watch the rainstorm from the garage. I wasn't home, I was checking out our awesome new Boston Red Hyundai Veloster (or the "VeLobster" as we've fondly dubbed it- thanks Crystal) that gets.... wait for it.... FORTY mpg on the highway. Yeah. And it's not even a hybrid. It's so new they haven't even completely prepped it for owners such as ourselves to take it home. So it's still there, but I got to go sit in it. Yay!

So... sidetracked. Back to the story at hand. Derek was in charge, just fed the kids dinner and was cleaning up, doing dishes like the amazing husband he is and okay-ed the garage venture. 

Next thing he knows.....

Ooo good idea!

Shirts are superfluous in a rainstorm.

They look pretty proud of themselves. 

In case you weren't aware of what a guttersnipe/street urchin looks like, here is a picture of four of them. 

Of course my little Avril claimed to be the mastermind behind all of the shenanigans. She looks the part, eh? 

Daddy Feeds The Baby.... and Other Stories

For a committed breastfeeding mom, solid food is somewhat of a relief. Particularly when The Baby is also a Boob Snob and turns his nose up at bottles of any kind. This boy is far too discriminating to accept anything less than The Real Thing. Why take a rubber nipple when if you scream long enough you can get the real deal? 

On the other hand, he has now happily accepted a sippy cup. Apparently, as long as you're not trying to trick him into an inferior substitute and simply giving him an alternative thirst quencher, that's permissible. 

Anyway, Derek has been spearheading the whole solids thing. It's SO nice to not be the only food source for this little ball and chain. I mean, of course the greedy mommy part of me comes out sometimes and I miss being his sole support... but mostly I enjoy the increased independence for both of us.

 Max has been super interested in People Food in general lately, he always wants to get his hands on whatever we're eating. I was snarling some BBQ potato chips the other day and he kept going for 'em, trying to grab my hand and pull it to his mouth. I had to fight the little gremlin off! But I let him lick my fingers clean after. He loved that. 

So far:

~Rice cereal- check

~Oatmeal cereal- check

~Applesauce- check

~Carrots- check

~Graham crackers- check

~Bananas- gag

~Peas- check

We'll revisit those bananas later. Peaches next I think. 

Meanwhile, other milestones:

~Rolls over both ways~

~Pushes himself up to sitting~

~Grabs hair to pull faces in for slobbery open-mouth kisses~

~Has siblings wrapped around his little finger~

~Adept at clinging to/clawing any exposed neck skin~

~Sleeps 10-12 hours every night~

~Able to communicate with/like yowling tomcats~

~Blows spit bubbles~

~EVERYTHING goes in the mouth- everything~

~Knows his momma-- and how to sucker her~

~Hand stands- but not the kind you're thinking~

~Rocks on hands and knees/feet~

~About this close to crawling any day now~

~Bouncing in his Johnny Jumper~

~Giggles uncontrollably when getting belly zerbets~

Speaking of his belly, I've recently become concerned about his lack of a shell. Maybe I shouldn't worry about it so much, I suppose my other kids have survived so far without one. But his soft little underbelly just seems so unprotected. And delicious. 

If I were a predator, I would be all over that. 

I'm just sayin'.