Hay Ride

 For family night we thought it would be fun/festive to go to the big red barn in Santaquin.  They offer a hay ride out to the pumpkin patch where they have 2 big slides, a maze, a big sandbox and a lot of pumpkins.

 Max really loved our ride out and totally ditched us to get to the slide first.  He loved it!

 They had this fun old truck out in a field.  Max wanted to drive, but Kendall just wanted out.

 We found the maze (I'm sorry we didn't take any pictures of it).  It was made out of old wooden apple boxes.  Curtis and I could see over the top but the little boys had no idea.  Max lead the way.  It was amazing, he never missed a corner and took us all the way to the end without any mistakes.

 At the end if the maze, there was this tractor so Max climbed on.

 We were going to spend some time in the pumpkin patch, but as soon as Max saw the hay wagon he climbed on.

On the way back, they drove through the apple orchards.  It was beautiful!  I love spending this time with Max and Kendall....Curtis too.

4 years old

Max is turning 4! Max loves Trains but we did a train party last year. One of his favorite songs is dinosaur train (PBS show). We decided we would go along with the dinosaur theme.

 I found these awesome hats at the dollar store last month.  They were a big hit.

 We served dino nuggets (Chicken nuggets shaped like dinosaurs), hot dogs, chips, veggies and mangos.  After lunch we had a dinosaur egg hunt.

 The kids had a lot of fun finding the eggs.  We had stuffed a few with candy but most had little plastic dinosaurs in the.

 Once we found all the eggs, the kids emptied the prizes and put the eggs in a dinosaur nest.

 Curtis headed up the next activity.  He had hid some dinosaurs in some sawdust. 

 I Originally found this fun kit on line.  It is a brick of clay and sand but there are plastic pieces of a t-rex skeleton inside. The kids took turns hammering out the pieces.

We ended up buying this kit at costco.  It came with 2 other kits.  One was a volcano and the other was Triops.  Triops are ugly water creatures you do not want in your house.  I know this because we grew them in our house for two weeks.

 I totally forgot to get some candles for the cake but max was a good sport and still blew when we finished the birthday song.

Thanks to all of our friends who came to help celebrate!

We ended the party with the volcano.  Sadly, it was a bit of a let down.  Oh well, the rest of the party had been a lot of fun.

Kendall had fallen asleep at the beginning of the party so Claire kindly put him on a bed in grandma's house.  We are not sure when he woke up but Curtis found him wandering the house crying about halfway through the party.  It was really sad.

After the party was over, we were cleaning up.  Curtis had put the balloons in the car but I thought they would pop from the heat so I opened a door. I was standing right next to the car talking to Claire when Kennedy came running from the back yard telling us the balloons got away.  We looked to the sky and there they were 10 feet above our heads. Max's reaction was great.  Curtis showed him the balloons floating away and he immediately looked to where they had been tied for the party, then back to the sky.  "Uh-oh!"

The special dentist

 Max had a few cavities that needed to be filled.  The Dr decided we should take him to the surgical center and have him go under general anesthetist.  We were able to work it so Max was the fist of Dr Bowers patience's for the day.  We had to be in Orem at 6:15 this morning. He couldn't eat anything after 7pm.  It was really sad when he asked for milk and we had to tell him no.  He would just say, "uh oh".

Kendall got to sleep at grandma Kizzy's so we wouldn't need to worry about him.  He is really picky about sleeping in his bed so...we took his mattress and bedding to grandmas and got him really tired so he would care a little less.  He slept through the night!  Way to go Kendall.

Max was great to get up early and didn't complain too much.  When we arrived there was some paper work to fill out but Max found the kids nook and read some books.  I think he memorized "brown bear brown bear".  When they called him back they gave him a t-shirt to wear.  So glad it had a brown bear on it.

After talking to the Dr's, they brought around a wagon and Max left with them.  

Curtis and I were having a hard time staying awake in the peaceful lobby so he left to get us some breakfast. They have a sign that says no food or drink in the surgical center.  Good rule cause if I had to go with out food for 12 hours and someone was eating in front of me...well I might get irritable.

Curtis ate in the car then came to switch me places.  When I was out eating, I saw Curtis signal me in. 

Max was finished and was starting to wake up.  We had another meeting with the Dr and I could hear Max start to cry.  It took them a minute but they wheeled him over to us.  He cried for about a half hour before they let us go home. 

He cried the whole way home and then was happy after the thew up and dad made him a bed on the couch.  He was back asleep in less than 15 minutes.  So was I.

Curtis left to get Kendall and Max's meds.  Max woke up just after 11 and was back to our being our happy little boy.  He is curious about his new teeth and sticks his finger in his mouth regularly to check them out.  His bite must be a little off because he keeps testing it.

I'm really relieved to be done with today.   Max did great, and Kendall had his first night without his mom.

A few more party photos

Curtis's White-trash-birthday-bash

 Each year I plan a party for Curtis.  Last year was his "Roast".  This year I was searching for a cheap an easy option.  This is what I (with some help from google) came up with....The White Trash Birthday Bash.  The invites where made to look like a taped a bunch of receipts together and used a magic marker.  Then taped that to a Captin' cruch box.  I sealed most of the with duck tape.  We thought about running them over with the car to get that dirty look but never got around to it. 

Cake? Yes, mostly, this is a hostess masterpiece. A grand mixture of Twinkies, HoHo's, Zinggers, Snowballs, and other cream filled delights.  No need to cut the cake...just grab the piece you want.

 Our redneck style really shined.  Curtis wore his camo pants, Lynard Skinnard t-shirt and a nascar hat. Max got to wear his cut off jeans and white tank.  Kendall tromped around in crocks, tank and a diaper.  Too bad I had the camera, you are missing my "blue light" special I picked up at k-mart. 

Spencer and Teresa won the best dress award.  I Loved their outfits!!

 This was a family-friendly get together so the bottles are all root beer.  The kids loved it.  They got to be dirty and run around half dressed.

 All the kids got to help blow out the candles.  I believe I heard request for this cake at all of their birthday's.  Who wouldn't love this cake?

 We had a great time eating Nacho's, Hot Dogs, lil' smokies...and of course "cake".

 We left the lawn un-mowed, tied  up the dog, set up some chairs and some canopy's.  Really low maintenance.  We even drove the jeep on the grass in the front yard. I thought about filling the front window with tin foil and hanging Christmas lights...but that would be work and we were avoiding that.

After we ate we all just kicked back and had a good time.  We literally sat in our chairs and yelled at the kids. (We only yelled good things like, "watch out" or "Be Nice".)

I wish we had a excuse to do this same party over and over.  It was really nice to be with friends. And it was really nice to eat a ton of Twinkies when no one cared.

Thanks again to everyone who made it.  And a special thanks to Spencer and Teresa for being the only other people to dress up.

Happy Birthday Curtis!

Primary Program

Today Max participated in his first primary program.  The primary kids sang on mother's day and father's day but today they sang and spoke for a full 45 minutes.  Max had a small speaking part.  We were really unsure on how he would do.  Max has just started paring words.
It was his classes turn and they all rushed the mic.  Max wiggled his way to the front and stood on the stand to get close to the mic.  "Huggie" he announced as his voice carried through the church. (Max really likes hugs and usually says huggie when he wants one.) Then his teacher fed him a few words of his part.  There was a pause but Max just smiled and looked at all the people in the congregation.  She gave him the line again, " I feel close to heavenly father"... "close father",  Max said."When I"..."When I"..."Say my prayers"....."Say my prayers".  And he was done.
Christie, Jim, Curtis and I where all in tears.  Our sitter Annie, who was helping Max to be reverent on the stand, signaled that her mom was crying too.  Latter, after the meeting ended, I found out at least 5 others who love Max where crying with us. Annie told me he never says his lines when they practice so we were completely surprised when he did so well in the actual program.
Way to go Max!  We love you and we are so proud of your accomplishments.

Back to School

It's time for Max to go back to school.  He has been so excited.

 We visited with his teacher yesterday.  This is Max's second year of preschool with Mrs Rachel's class.

 Max will be attending Mrs Pam's preschool too.

 Once Max was all ready to go to school it was hard to keep him from running out the door.

 Finally the buss arrived.  You can believe he ran as fast as he can go to get on.

I guess he's grown up cause he kept telling me bye.

Love you Max!  Have fun at school.