Why is Max being so quiet...

I can't wait until meal time with Max gets cleaner and shorter! I swear I feel like I am feeding and cleaning him all day. I even have to go to great lengths sometimes to entertain this child in his highchair. Sometimes I pull him up to the utinsil drawer so he can pull wooden spoons and spatulas out. Other times he points to everything in the kitchen and I walk around saying this? this? this???? Handing him a variety of things. Well on this particular day we were sitting by the pen drawer. I thought that he would love to play with some highlighter markers. You know the kind where they snap into each others bottoms and make long swords. I made sure that the caps were on tight and handed over a three marker sword. It kept him entertained long enough to finish breakfast. (He is way into puzzle kinds of things, making things fit together and putting one object into another...like making marker swords.) I was cleaning up...feed, clean, clean, feed...I thought to myself Max is being very quiet I wonder what he is up to. Then I turned around to see him walking into the kitchen with a marker in hand and bright yellow highlighter scribbled on his face. He pretty much wore it for the rest of the day. Isn't motherhood great! (I not being sarcastic either) I thought it was so cute!

This picture is for Aunt Charlotte...Congratulations on graduation!!

Aloha Max

We took these pictures of Max in Ben's old Aloha outfit that he wore when he was little. I think this is the last time he will wear this outfit because he growing like a weed!

Are you hurt?

Max started signing hurt a few days ago. In the signing time movie it shows babies crying with very sad faces and moms hugging and kissing them better. You can show where you are hurt by pointing your pointer fingers together over your owie. You can also ask where are you hurt by waving your pointer finger back and forth, like saying no, no. So I want to know how you teach the concept of being hurt without actually hurting? Well Max has had a little confusion when it comes to this. Max surprised me the other day when I stubbed my toe on his highchair while he was eating. While I was bending over in agony and saying owie, owie (I am G rated people) I managed to stand up and point to my owie toe. Max proceeded to wave his finger asking 'where is your owie?' I just started to laugh and showed him where it was. I was so excited that he caught on without me coaxing him. Then the next day or so I was changing his diaper and I pinched him. He cried and signed hurt. So I gave him a hug and was so excited that we could add this to our list of learned signs. Well now it has been a couple of weeks since our first incident. Now it has turned from 'ouch you pinched me' to 'you took that away from me and now I am hurt.' He signs hurt whenever he cries about anything. It is SOOO funny to see when he think he is hurt. We are working on it though...he scratched his finger on the sidewalk and so I showed him that this is an owie. I just need to be on top of it so when he hurts himself I need to stop and say 'where' and 'hurt' then kiss it better. Pretty cute.
Along the same note he learned poop yesterday! It was hilarious!! We both (Max and I) were totally laughing! He was sitting in his highchair when he started grunting. Now he knows what potty is, so I said potty. He looked like he got it. Then he just let one rip so I said 'poop'. He just busted up laughing! He just kept signing it over and over. Then today when I was telling Ben about it I asked Max so show dad what the sign for poop was. He totally started laughing and signing poop!!! What a funny little sense of humor.

A true Floridian

Max and I were on our usual morning run along the lake. We stopped to see a duck and give it a cracker. Then just as we started running again there it was just a little ways away...an ALLIGATOR!! My first sighting! I was so excited, but I didn't have anyone to show it to besides Max and he had now idea what I was talking about. I have been waiting to see one and beginning to think it was just a myth that alligators lived in the lakes. All I could see was it flared nostrils poking up out of the water followed by two bulging eyes and a few spikes. It was probably as long as I am tall. It was so cool! So now I feel like I can say I am a real Floridian!

I love being 'IT'

Ok, so I am finally going to do my tags-thanks Noelle and Loni. I have a 'husband' tag and a 'six random things' tag. Loni put it perfect when she said, "Just goes to show you how terrible I was at childhood games, when I was 'it' I was too slow to tag someone else so I remained 'it' for a long time."
So here we go...

1.How long have you been together? 8 years, 3 months, 3 weeks, 1 day, 10 hours and 5 minutes.

2.How long did you date? 4 months...oh my gosh!

3.How old is he? 30

4.Who eats more? Ben

5.Who said 'I Love You' first? Me

6.Who is taller? Ben, but I think he shrunk a couple of inches.

7.Who is smarter? I think we have to include Annabell here. She was potty trained faster than either Ben or I. Though come to think of it Ben learned how to fetch pretty quick.

8.Who does the laundry? I don't even think that Ben knows which one is the washer and which one is the dryer.

9.Who does the dishes? Both, Ben washes by hand and I use the dish washer. Ben likes to wash by hand because as soon as the rack fills up that means he is done and that the rest of the dishes 'need to soak'.

10.Who sleeps on the right side of the bed? I do and I get the soft pillow too.

11.Who pays the bills? Both of us.

12.Who mows the lawn? That is way we live in an apartment complex.

13.Who cooks dinner? That depends on your definition of cook...we both do. Ben does a little more I think.

14.Who is more stubborn? Me

15.Who kissed who first? Ben kissed me first then I kissed him back.

16.Who asked who out? Kristine. She lined us up on a blind date. Yea for Bob Dylan!

17.Who proposed? He did.1

8.Who is more sensitive? Me, but secretly I think its Ben.

19.Who has more siblings? Ben, three brothers and three sisters. I have two awesome brothers.

20.Who wears the pants in the relationship? Pants?

I think six random things is a lot harder than just answering questions but anyway...

1.Last September I did the Ogden Valley Triathlon, my first ever. I loved it! I did the Sprint distance which was::: Swim 750 meters, Bike 18 miles, Run 3.1 miles. My number was
3564, my total time was 01:50:35.33 and Max was 5 months old. My awesome sister in-law did it with me and we had so much fun. The energy that was there was so exciting, it felt like kissing Ben for the first time...hahaha! Next time I will really cut down on my transition time, I think I wasted a lot of time there. I think the most awkward thing was my wet suit (in Florida we don't need wet suits! Hooray!). I had to turn it inside out and roll it up my body. Getting a wet one off was hard...good thing that the transition area was a little ways away from the lake cause I had time to peel it off. It was a good learning experience for future triathlons...Ironman here I come!

2. My childhood movie crush was Atrau from the Neverending Story. And it wasn't just because he had white stallion. I still have a soft spot in my heart for him but now it has been replaced by Ryan Gosling. Did you know that he used to be a practicing Mormon??

3. I love to sew and be creative. My mom taught me to sew on her old machine when I was in fifth grade. I would sit upstairs in my room and make millions of little pillows. Now I have graduated into big pillows. I love to embroider things too. A few years ago I found a new passion of quilting. I joined a group that met every month and exchanged squares. I learn lots of neat tricks. I finished my first quilt a few years ago and am in the middle of one now.

4. I used to play doggie dress up, but not so long ago Annabell wore a pink princess costume for Halloween. But now I have Max as my muse. I loved to crimp and primp my pet pooch Bismark. From when I was about 2 my dog endure me dressing him up, brushing him and giving him bubble baths. I really did crimp his (yes it was a he) hair and curl it with a curling iron. I puffed it up and put hairspray on him. Poor dog! I can't believe my mom let me...or maybe she didn't know?

5. I love breakfast foods. I could eat them for every meal. I love french toast and german pancakes...and eggs and toast and pancakes. I love it all. I also can't eat lunch foods before I have breakfast. Even if it is one o'clock and I haven't eaten yet I still can't muster to eat a sandwich.

6. My first date with Ben was a blind date thanks to Kristine. Ben had tickets to a Bob Dylan concert with Paul Simon opening. We doubled with his friend Rich Green. We went to the Training Table for dinner. Ben was recovering from a car accident and was using crutches to walk. For those of you that live outside of Utah and have never been to the Training Table you order your food on a telephone and they buzz your table when it is ready to be payed for and picked up. Our buzzer went of and Ben asked me if I would mind getting the food since he obviously wouldn't be able to carry it back to the table. I said sure, paused for a second then reached for my purse and went to get the food. I paid for the food and brought it back to the table. It was so yummy! I love that place. We got in the car and turned the corner when all of the sudden Ben said 'Stop, I forgot to pay'. I said 'I got, it don't worry'. We all just laughed and Ben was so apologetic. His excuse now is that he was too doped up from all the pain meds.

Now I could tag a few people but I don't want to leave anyone out of the golden opportunity of doing their own tag. So if you read this all, TAG, your it.

new smyrna beach

Saturday we went to beach...it was fun watching Max. He thought the sand was great and he loved to pick up the sea shells. I think the water was a little to cold for his liking though. The waves were pretty good...every night on the news they say that the rip current warning is high so watch out. "If you do get suck in a rip current, don't panic and swim parallel to shore until you can get in". Friday the lifeguards rescued 17 people at Daytona Beach! Don't worry we didn't go to that beach :)

Quote of the day...

So Ben and I were hanging out sitting on a bench in the park. Max was a little ways away just walking around, he sat down to look at the grass...

" I wish I had something to throw at him. Like a tennis ball or something."

Pennsylvania

Ben and I were so excited when Allegiant Air offered Ben a job. Excited of course for obvious reasons like the free flight benefits, but most of all because Ben is able to be home EVERY night. That was one of the reasons we went to Hawaii too. It has been awesome to be a normal family and have lots of time to spend together.

This month Ben was able to hold a line instead of being on reserve. But since he was the last one on the list to be a line holder of course he got the ONLY line that had a three day trip! What do ya know huh! Ben flys three legs before ending up in Allentown PA, spends the night there and has the whole day in Allentown to sit around, spends another night and comes home the next morning. It would be awesome if you were somewhere like New York or Honolulu but Allentown?? What is there to do...Max and I went up with Ben to hang out.

It was the most fun we have had in a while. We got a ride into a little town called Bethlehem on a donkey I mean in a van. We just wondered around all day. The town was started in the mid 1700's by a German religious group called the Morovian's. There were really neat old buildings and things to look at, cute shops and yummy places to eat. There were cool old mansions and small stone houses that looked like they belonged in Europe. It reminded Ben of Finland.

Max was soooo good the whole day. He took a couple of short snoozes and was awake and happy for the trip. Bedtime was a little rocky but we got through it. Well of course I forgot the camera when we went into Bethlehem...I swear we really went though. But I did manage to get a picture of the end of the trip. Max was so excited to see plane up close! He was pounding on the window and yelling when the airplane pulled up to the gate. Little did he know that dad was the driver. It was a little to far away to see. But he totally put two and two together and figured out the the planes he sees in the sky are the one that are here on the ground. After the first flight he was pretty surprised to see dad walk out of the cockpit! It took him a second to recognized Ben. It was a lot of fun and a good mini trip!

That was too much fun

This is Max's new ride. It is lots of fun to have a new mode of transportation. This is a combination of one nap and brick paved roads...there is no hope of staying awake for more than 10 minutes. He really likes it, but the first time in the seat he did not want to wear his helmet. He screamed and pulled it off, but he finally gave in and he doesn't mind it now.

We are back in business!

Yea! Our computer is fixed! We totally thought that the computer was a gonner. Ben being that resourcful person that he is, found a inexpensive, faster and bigger hard drive and installed it all by himself! He is a man of many talents. So Ben showed me this finnish YouTube video and can I say that not only can the Finnish people dance but boy can they sing!

There is hope

My husband is so smart and resourceful! We think our computer will last a little longer, maybe. Right now our computer will run only when it is placed on its side...go figure. Anyway, our hard drive has a bad spot in it and he thinks he found a program that will reprogram our computer to work around the bad spots?? I wish that I was more computer savvy so I could explain it. I guess it means that not all is lost and mom we will now be talking on camera sideways. Oh the things we take for granted. It isn't so bad using the library computer or even the business center computer...but now I have to take Max with me and that doesn't allow for much time!

A sad day...

Well it finally happend...our computer died. Just when I was doing so good at honoring my new years resolution too. It has served us well, keep us in your prayers. Love you all. Till we meet again.