Miss Congeniality

When we go to church on Sunday it's difficult to hold Ava for long. That's not because of her fusiness, her wiggliness, or her innate capability to project fluid on you from Jimmer-type distances, the truth is that she's just an adorable and good baby and every female in the ward lines up for a turn to hold her. (She obviously gets her remarkable cuteness from her mother.)

For those who may, at present, be unable to wait in the queue or to pounce on an opening to hold her while I'm walking laps with her in the church halls during gospel doctrine class, we thought posting a few fairly recent pictures might help to hold you over:

(Yes, those are leg warmers!)

(We liked the dress. She didn't.)

When Max Gets A Hold of The Camera (Or Things on Our Countertop)

A couple of Christmases ago, we invested in a nice SLR camera to try to improve the quality of the pictures, photos, images, stills and portraits we uploaded on the blog. However, despite our reading and re-reading the manual several times it seems that the improvement has only been marginal at best (at least for the shots I've taken!).

Maxwell, however, seems to be an aspiring photographic artist. At some point in the last several weeks (since we last downloaded the pictures from the camera), Max began what must be his early attempt to give Ansel Adams a run for his money. The photos below are from his "Scenes from a Countertop" collection:

Photo #1:

• Notice how the center of the picture is in focus while the outer edges are out of focus. He used a low F-stop setting to make sure that the letters E-I-J-E were in focus as if to beg the question: "How is that that the word Meijer is pronouced exactly the same way as Meyer?" He included his glasses laid across the paper to be sure to add emphasis that this is truly an intellectual question.

Photo #2:

• Using a technique similar to the above, Max directs our attention to the phrase, "Benny will need the help of Dora, Boots and a super explorer like you!" Surely this is to communicate to the viewer that his photographs are his form of being a super explorer as he explores the true meaning of the back of DVD cases.

Photo #3:

• Here the focus of the image is not the DVD case, and not the iPhone, but rather the fact that it is plugged in. Clearly Max is pointing out our dependence on power and energy in an increasingly connected world. A subtle call for simplicity? I don't know. I'll have to ask Max what his intention was with this one...but he's in bed now.

Photo #4:

• Probably a continuation of the message from the previous picture--"Your camera (notice the strap in the foreground) is nothing without this precious missing battery (followed by sinister laugh)."

Photo #5:

• I'm not exactly sure what this is. It's either a new and conclusive photo proving the existence of the Loch Ness Monster or it's a picture of the lens cap of the camera--a subtle way of Max's proclaiming his photographic excellence: he's so good with the camera that he can take a picture of the lens cap of while it's still on!

In short, keep your expensive camera out of the reach of a 3-year old.

Daddy-Daughter Dance

A few weeks ago the girls' school hosted a "Daddy-Daughter Dance" on a Friday night. I asked the girls if they wanted to go on a date with me to that dance. Kaitlyn's answer was representative of the response I got from both of them:

"My friend Rebecca is probably going to be there so, I'll be able to play with her, so...sure."

There was no "Dad, I would love to spend time with you and bond with you." There was no "you are the best dad ever for asking us on a special daddy daughter date." Fortunately, they at least agreed to go and we're not to the age yet where they asked me to enter the building via a separate door!

(Max wanted to be in the picture even though he understood that he wasn't invited on this date, but that we'd have a Father/Son outting another time where we'd pick up a basketball jersey and or sports cap for him. You know...something manly.)

The dance was published as a luau theme, so the girls dug out their grass skirts from the dress-up bin upstairs in their closet. Kaitlyn also inquired as to whether or not we had any coconut bras that she could wear; Alison actually consented to wear a flower in her hair instead of just the usual ponytail. So, at least they both thought it was a special occasion of some sort!

When we got there Ali and I did our best to hoard what we could from the cookie and punch table while trying to appease Kaitlyn as she pulled on my pant leg trying to get me out on the dance floor. Once I convinced Ali to come out to the dance floor, we did our best to remember all of the dance moves we had learned from our extensive playing of Just Dance on the Wii at home.

Unfortunately, none of the songs from Just Dance were featured as the DJ just played a perpetual loop of Hannah Montana, Taylor Swift, Justin Bieber and songs sung by stars on various and sundry Disney Channel shows. That left us doing our very best to improvise our best dance moves--as the 50% of the dads that were teaching their daughters how to be chicken / wall flowers looked on in amazement.

All in all, I think the girls had a fun time and we were still able to get home not too long after bedtime.

What Kids Must Think

During FHE on Monday, we were having a lesson on eating healthy / Word of Wisdom and how Daniel and his friends refused to eat the king's meat (from Daniel 1). To start off the lesson, Megan showed the kids the illustration of this story and asked them who it was in the picture.



"Jesus? John the Baptist?" said Alison. Nope.

"Peter? James?! John?!?" Alison tried with increasing urgency. Sorry player, you're incorrect.

Then the light looked like it went off in Kaitlyn's head and she blurted out what seemed like the obvious answer to her: "Aladdin!" she exclaimed.

I've read the Old Testament a couple of times but I don't remember Aladdin being in there. Maybe it's in the Jive version of the Bible?

Shortly thereafter, Megan tried to explain that these principles of eating the right things has been around for a long, long time--even a long time ago when Daniel was on the earth. Kaitlyn asked, "A long time ago...you mean like 1998?"

Then, yesterday as we were pulling into Wal-Mart to get a Colts cap for Max (he needed more male / sports influence in his life after suffering a brutal and gruesome toenail painting at the hands of his 4-year cousin Gabrielle), Alison asked Max where he wanted to work when he grew up.

His answer? "Work in the basement like Nathan."

(Although he later amended his answer to "doctor", and I'm not sure why he said "Nathan" instead of "Dad" or "Mr. Awesome" I can tell that I need to explain more to the kids what it is that I actually do besides make pretty PowerPoint slides and that my current situation working in the basement in my Snuggie and slippers is only temporary until we sell the house.)

Make A Huge Giant Mess--The Game

Tonight I inno-vented a new game with the kids, aptly named the "Make a Huge Giant Mess Game."

I went down in the basement to play with Alison, Kaitlyn and Max for a little bit before our hometeachers were scheduled to come over. When I went downstairs, I remembered / discovered that the basement was fairly 'trashed' with toys all over the place. There were a select few bins of toys that still had their contents in place; everything else was on the floor. So, I said to the kids, "Let's play a game! It's called Make a Huge Giant Mess!" Then I took one of the remaining buckets of toys and turned it completely upside down and dumped the whole thing onto the floor. I can't remember if I did or didn't laugh maniacally.

At first, they looked at me in a very puzzled, almost confused way with eyebrows raised. However, being the quick learners they are, they quickly caught on. Within nano-seconds, they were marching around the room 'destroying' everything they could get their hands on while chanting "Make a Huge Giant Mess!" Alison really took it to the next level and made sure to empty the Nerf bullets one-by-one from all 3 of her 18-bullet Nerf gun clips and threw each and every bullet onto the floor (or at me) to ensure that the whole mess was literally as big as it could be--leaving no piece unthrown, no play table or Smart Shopper unturned. Kaitlyn found the bin that was full of empty Easter eggs and proudly walked out to the middle of the room and dumped the whole thing. For the next several minutes we had a blast throwing eggs (and more Nerf bullets) at each other while dodging these projectiles incoming.

Max, however, was appalled by the whole thing and fell to the floor sobbing "I don't want to make a big huge mess!"--which seemed strange because he never seemed to have a problem before.

(A Clearly Distraught Maxwell)

Once the basement looked like aftermath of one of the official 52 F5-level tornados, I let Kaitlyn choose an alarm sound from my iPhone and we guessed how quickly we could clean the whole thing up. We guessed 10 minutes. (It actually took us about 12 or 14 minutes.) Then we started a new game called "Super Speedy Clean Up Game!"--also aptly named. We lined one wall with the now-empty buckets and put a placeholder item in each one (i.e. a lone Easter egg half, a single Nerf bullet, one Barbie head, one Lego, etc.) Then, we counted down and started running around like chicken sans-heads picking up items by categories. First, we attacked the Easter eggs, followed by anything having to do with Nerf. By the time we got to the Lego's Max didn't want to miss out on the fun we were having and starting pitching in and saying, "I found a Lego. Ha ha!" By the time we were done, I think we had the whole basement toy collection much more organized than it was before the whole ordeal even started--and we had a blast doing it to boot.

(12-14 Minutes Later)

In other news, Alison and I today started a Book of Mormon Challenge--reading 2 pages per day until the end of the year to finish by the end of the year. Yesterday at her Stake Activity Girls event they gave the girls a Book of Mormon reading chart and said they could do it with their families. Since Megan was already pre-occupied herself with the 7-Page-per-Day Challenge (to read the entire standard works--Old Testament, New Testament, Book of Mormon, Doctrine and Covenants, and Pearl of Great Price--by the end of the year), I decided that it fell to me to support Ali in the challenge. Unfortunately, I'm already getting smoked! She's several chapters ahead of me.

Also, He's Handsome Max--Now Featuring New Glasses

A few weeks ago we finally found a resolution for Max's looking at us cross-eyed all the time. It turns he couldn't see and was going cross-eyed just trying to get us into focus. At first we thought he was just playing around so we'd tell him, rather sternly, not to cross his eyes (which he would repeat back to us at random moments, whether our eyes were crossed or not). But, as he never seemed to stop doing it, we decided an opthamologist appointment was in order.

Since he's still only learning his ABC's, the traditional eye chart was of only limited use. Instead, they had him read on a more age appropriate chart:

They dilated his eyes and were able to look into them with the magic eye scope thingy which is also used to examine diamonds and a clear ruler of some kind and discern what his prescription needed to be since the traditional "Which is better #1 or #2?" was also of limited value on a nervous, and silent, 3-year-old.

He's going to have to wear his glasses for several years, but they say that he may grow out of needing to wear them when his super vision kicks in...or something like that.

Here are some nice pics of Mr. Max and how handsome he looks with his new glasses:

(By the way, this counts as my blog post for next Sunday, so I'm taking the week off!)

Baby Blessing

Back in December, we had Avery's baby blessing. Megan's parents traveled all the way from 3.7 miles away to be able to attend. My parents, on the other hand, had a slightly longer distance to travel and made the 1,749 mile journey from Tucson to be able to meet the newest grand-baby.

On Ava's big Sunday, she deliberated long and hard, but wisely elected to wear her new white, long blessing dress, complete with white headband and honkin' flower bow (for which her mother was very grateful). She looked absolutely precious!

Dad was only able to stay for the weekend, so we did our best to entertain at all times by putting him to work, with activities such as:

• changing the lightbulbs 18+ feet off the ground in our family room
• figuring out why the closet doors in the scrapbook room kept skipping off the track
• replacing the broken guide from the closet doors that skipped off the track
• figuring out how to put the doors back on once we had taken them off
• buying a new floor guide for the closet doors (which I have yet to install). (Megan, do you know where I put that thing?)

We also challenged Dad and Mary Lee to a contest on Wii Sports Resort. Naturally, we assumed that their inquisitions on the proper pronunciation of "Wii" were indicative of their skill level, and, counting on our prior Wii experience, we assumed that their inexperience would be no match for our virtual sport prowess. We made sure to encourage them before the games even started with comments and phrases like, "It sometimes takes a little bit of getting used to" and "we've been able to play quite a bit" so that they wouldn't feel upset by the trouncing we were about to administer.

Unfortunately, we were wrong. Dad's 3-point shooting technique set an amazing record--which we still haven't broken--and Mary Lee found something "very satisfying" about the Speed Slice game and the ninja-like reflexes she unleashed on us.

Mary Lee was able to stay for a week after Dad left and was a wonderful help, taking the baby, making bread, cooking dinners, playing with the kids and hanging out.

Ava loved every minute of the whole experience...

...except for 2-seconds later when she didn't.

We're so lucky to have Avery in our home. For days and weeks after she was born, each of the other children would say in their prayers, "...we're so grateful that Ava was able to join our family."

We agree.

Now...if we could just do something about that sleeping through the night...