Our Man-Boy... oh yea, and 9 more inches of snow.

At least today was a planned holiday from school.  Otherwise it for sure would have been canceled.  More snow.  DANG.  I was so excited to step into February a few weeks ago, now I'm not so sure.  How many more weeks till Spring?  Here's the view from our front door.  The sky is white because it's been snowing at a pace of 1-2" per hour since morning.

Lucky for us, the Olympics are on... and Max is OBSESSED!  Thanks to his Mario and Sonic at the Winter Olympic Games game, he is completely enthralled with all things Olympic.  It's great!  He booked it upstairs at 11am, ran to turn it on channel 2, then I heard "OH SHEW!  It's not 1 o'clock yet".  He thought he maybe had missed some of the games!  His favorite is skiing, but he is also a fan of the "ballet", better known as figure skating.  :)

In between events Max decided to learn a manly skill... how to shave.  My mom gave him a shaving kit that was Nathan's, then became Austin's and now belongs to Max.  Chris loaded the cup with shaving cream and Max went to town.  He shaved twice in fact.  :)  Then he made Chris shave and I had to be the judge to see who smelled better and who felt smoothest.  Max won.

It's only 4:21 now though... what to do, what to do?  I believe I hear RockBand calling our name!

Official Snow Count for Our Area This Winter: 28.9"

Another day, another 2 inches of snow...  and another day off school for Max.  

As promised, we attempted a snowman today; problem was, the snow that fell all morning was light and fluffy so it wasn't good "rolling-into-a-ball" snow.  We had to pack and pack and pack that stuff to make it stay.  Our snowman (again, named "Welcome by Max due to his outstretched arms) is fragile, wide and thin but hey, he works!!!  (Don't drive by and look cause I'm a little embarrassed; our neighbors made one yesterday and it's AWWWWWESOME!)

We had lots of fun out there and it wasn't hatefully cold with temps in the mid-20s!  Our next project... making Valentine cookies for our friends!  

Whoa!

TOO MUCH SNOW!!!!!

I needed to vent.

We are being dumped on AGAIN!!!  I feel so bad cause it's Valentine's week at school and all the cute projects are going to have to be postponed.  :)  BOO!  It literally has not stopped snowing for over 24 hours and it's still coming down.  It's lovely, but enough is enough.  Today I swept, mopped, cleaned all the toilets, dusted, read a magazine, read some of a book, made lunch, made dinner, put away clean laundry, talked on the phone, made Valentine's with Max, played RockBand, did two hours of work and STILL had lots of time leftover!  I guess the only thing left to do tomorrow is build a giant snowman; Max and I have a date to do just that in the morning.  Pictures to come...  

Growing Older?

Two nights ago Max and Chris were wrestling on our bed. Now we all know Max is a sensitive soul, right? So Chris stops for a minute and tells Max "When I'm an old man and your grown up, I'll always remember we wrestled together; it's my favorite time with you." (gee, wonder where that sensitive side comes from?)

About an hour later we got Max ready for bed, tucked him in, and shut the door. His new thing is to get out of bed, crack open his door and yell that he forgot to tell us something. So on this night it was no different... we hear the door crack open only this time he's BAWLING uncontrollably. Instead of telling him he was in trouble, like we do most nights when he gets up after being tucked in, we were worried so asked him to come out. He jumped on my lap and sobbed and sobbed and said "I don't want you guys to die!!! You're going to die before me and I'll be sooooo sad!"

Max is like his mommy... he lies in bed and THINKS! It's so bad. Why did he have to inherit my "crazy"? Obviously he was lying there thinking of when Chris talked about being older and blah, blah, blah and it got him all worked up about the fact that we will get old and die. :(

After several unsuccessful minutes of trying to calm him down, Chris walked him back to his room and put his hand on Max's head. Now this is the best part of the story... Max pushed his hand off and in a fit of saddened rage yelled "DON'T TOUCH ME, DYING PERSON!"

hahahahaha...

R-E-S-P-E-C-T

Max is learning so many great things at Tae Kwon Do. I'm so glad he is interested enough to keep participating for the rest of the school year, and maybe beyond? Last week he brought home an assignment from Mr. Mershad; he had to color the picture of the dragon (they are the Lil' Dragons in class) and write across the top what he did that was respectful. See, they are learning to listen, have self-discipline, focus, etc. and now he is being taught more about respect. I love it.

And boy, he is WAY into it. For example, he was "helping" Chris play the New Super Mario Bros. game on the Wii a few days ago. When Chris "died" Max turned to him and yelled "DAAAAAAAD"... then without Chris saying a word, Max hung his head and mumbled "respect"... he knew!!! Everything he does that is obedient he asks "Mommy, was that respect?" :) "Yes, Max, it was."

Here is the homework assignment: he said he wanted to be "creative" (his word) with the dragon and make it colorful. He also chose on his own what he most remembered he did this week that was respectful and wrote it across the top (I helped with spelling, of course). Isn't it cute? I love respect!!! (almost as much as I love the tongue with fire he added)

This and that...

Combining a few different things into one post to save time... it's another snow day around here and as you can imagine, Max has no time for me to be on the computer; he wants to PLAY!

First, we spent the last few days of our Christmas vacay working on the kitchen. We painted it, and then repainted it cause I hated the color I chose, and tiled the backsplash with the help of a few friends.

The paint. Our house is all warm, earth tone colors and for the kitchen I needed something a little different yet something that would blend. I chose gray, thinking "it's neutral" so it would work, plus our countertops have gray, our appliances are steel... how could I go wrong? Well once we got the first coat on I knew; it was TOO BLUE. Gorgeous color, just looked horrible in our kitchen with the green/gold color from the great room butting up next to it. So we regrouped, made a trip to the hardware store, and got a more green/brown/gray color. LOVE.

Painting was done. Next up, tile. Chris has never tiled before. Thankfully our friend Andrew came over with his saw and helped Chris for the better part of Saturday. I bought him a case of Sam Adams for his help but man, after spending 7 hours here working, we owe him BIG! (thanks, Andrew) Our friend Rob came over after Andrew left; he made sure Chris finished the job well, gave advice, etc. After 9 hours of work, the tile was up...

Sunday was time to grout. OMG what a mess! Again, Chris spent most of the day working on this. We used natural slate tiles therefore grout gets in every nook and cranny, so cleaning the tiles afterward took up most of the day. We are finished though and YAY, we love it! Ready to tackle the kitchen in the basement next!!!!

Before... (right when we moved in.)

After... (see the paint by the plants? Should have taken pic of the nook area)

On Thursday we got dumped on by a big storm. SNOW DAY!!!! Max spent a few hours sledding, shoveling (and earning money), and playing in the snow. It's really REALLY cold outside but he doesn't care... just bundle him up and he's ready to go! We'll be heading out again this afternoon, hoping to find some major hills to sled down! Wish us luck!

Gary the Cat.

Just before Max turned 5 in November, we got a cat. Max had a taste of cat ownership this summer when our neighbors cat took up residence on our back porch for about 2 weeks. Ever since then he has BEGGED for a kitty! The biggest hurdle to getting him a cat was this, I am highly allergic. My throat itches, I sneeze, my eyes water, etc. Not pretty. But I got to thinking, now that we have all this land, why not somehow find an OUTDOOR cat for Max to call his own? Brilliant?

Lucky enough in our old neighborhood there was a stray, loving, gray cat that seemed to live by the pool. Friends watched him for about a month. Still there. My friend, Nicole, emailed the entire neighborhood to see if he belonged to anyone. No one replied. Voila! We have our cat. We gave him to Max one morning after a basketball game and he was THRILLED!!! We bought him food, put down some blankets for him, etc. (didn't wanna invest TOO much, he might not stick around) But stick around he did... so a few days later, we bought him a cushy bed and put it in our garage. There he stayed.

Gary (named after Spongebob's pet snail who meows) is super sweet and loving. He is VERY good at catching mice. I have photos to prove it, if you're into seeing bloody carcasses. :) After sticking around for a month, and seemingly loving it here, I made an appointment with the vet. He got all vaccines and tests done mid-December. Cha-ching! $$$

He seemed like the easiest pet ever! Put out some food and water, pet him several times a day, give him shelter... he's happy! Seems our little pet is getting himself into some trouble though! Gary is currently at the vet being checked for what I term a "disgusting dime-sized open wound" on his hip that he keeps licking. He also has a hurt eye and puffy cheek. Chris is soooo irritated that Gary is costing more money at the vet! But Max LOVES having him for a pet.

The verdict is in: Gary gets in too many fights. :( He has a puffy, hurt eye and the wound on the hip was an abcess that burst and is now healing with the help of antibiotics. We have two cats that come around and fight him. One is HUGE, thus we dubbed him "Puma". Meanies! Guess we need to get him neutered. Poor Gary. Here he is, post antibiotic treatment, hugging Chris's leg.