10, 9, 8, 7...

It's 8:00!  Time for bed!  Happy New Year tomorrow.  I never thought my life would come to this.  

BTW, I made one of Melanie's recipes tonight and it was delicious.   Really, Abram and I couldn't stop eating it.  Thanks Mel.  

Another Reason to Love Abram

We were in charge of Sharing Time last Sunday.  Abram had prepared the lesson, but got sick and couldn't make it.  The photo to the left is Abram, despite his infirmities, painstakingly cutting and pasting these little ornaments for me to use for our lesson.  I watched him do this Saturday night and it just brought a big smile to my face so I had to take a photo to remember.     

Incidentally, Abram promised our class an end of the year party with whatever treat they most desired.  I asked the two kids who were there this week what we should bring.  Here were the answers:

Gracie:  Gaterade

Ryan: Does it have to be food?

Kristin:  Why, what do you want?

Ryan: A goodie bag.

So there you have it.  The only preparation our special year end party will require is a visit to Party Depot followed by a stop at 7-11.  

Happy Birthday Mommy

Yesterday, we celebrated Kristin's birthday. And I think it's telling that the thing she really wanted for her 30th birthday was a panini-maker. As you all know food (and the passion, of course) brought us together. But we've stayed together for more reasons than just the food. Below, the top 10 reasons I love KQ:

1. Other than Delsa, no one laughs better at my jokes
2. Max and V are extremely happy people, true reflections of their mother
   
3. Kristin experiments in the kitchen like a young Marie Curie, with similar results
4. She lives her beliefs so naturally and fully
5. Have you seen her wicked cross-over? Yeah, I needed that gene to match the "hustle" gene I provide.
6. Have you seen our kids? Not bragging, but they are SOOOO CUTE. She is, and don't read this the wrong way, a fine-tuned baby-making machine.
   
7. She is my angel
   
8. When she's gone, I'm sad and can't sleep
9. She loves me for who I am
   
10. She's absolutely without a doubt, the most perfect BFF for me in whole wide world (sorry Garrett).
    

Merry Christmas

We spent Christmas with Dan and Misty's family and Mimi and Grandpa in their new house in Maryland.  They were wonderful hosts, especially since they just barely moved in.  I can't imagine how hard they worked to get everything ready in time.  
Unfortunately, our family were not equally good guests.  Considering all the new sleep issues, Max was a disaster, and Abram was sick as a dog.  Here is a picture of Max halfway through the nativity story when he has apparently decided to stop the senseless charade.And here he is Christmas morning when he refused to open any presents for the first 45 minutes.  He didn't moved from this position on his dad's lap.
I guess he finally figured his cousins might just keep opening presents and there wouldn't be any left for him so he joined in.  
On Christmas Eve we opened one Christmas present each - Mickey Mouse pajamas!  I've since realized that the problem with getting a child an article of clothing that they love is that they won't take it off.  

There were some highlights however.  Namely, watching Walt kick everyone's butt at 80's, 90's & Pop Culture Trivial Pursuit, seeing Dan overcome his ham aversion and prepare a delicious dinner with Claire, watching Max follow some random girl around the playground saying "Hi Katie" and looking confused as to why she wasn't responding, and seeing the cousins sit right next to each other despite the fact that they were sitting on the biggest couch I have ever seen in  my life.  

Recipe Blog

All right people.  Sorry I got a little ahead of myself posting the list without the links to the recipes, but I'm all caught up.  You can find the recipes here.  Let me know which ones you try.  Enjoy!

A Chicken and a Grape

A few posts ago KA requested a list of my meal rotation.  I should say however, that since Abram doesn't get home until 9:00, I only make about 3 meals a week.  The other nights are dinners I know I don't have to fight Max on - pasta with red sauce, turkey and cheese sandwiches, frozen pizza, mac-n-cheese, and hot dogs.  Don't judge me.  

Compiling this list made me think about one of my favorites gifts Shauri gave me.  She had a graphic designer at work put together a cookbook called Delsa's Delights.  At the beginning of each chapter she put a funny family story involving food.  One that was cracking me up today is about Kerry Ebert (Shawn's friend) and Jeneral Bruce (Travis's friend), both of whom spent an inordinate amount of time at our house.  I suppose that is why their story made it to the family stories.  

Anyway, Kerry had this stupid joke he would sometimes tell that went like this:

"What do a chicken and a grape have in common?" When the person finally gave up he'd say, "They're both purple except for the chicken." 

One day he asked Jeneral, "What do a chicken and a grape have in common?"  Jeneral paused and replied in all seriousness, "They bof juicy."

Now there's a genius who slipped through the cracks if I ever did see one. 

I put these in approximate order of how often I make them (a combination of easiness and tastiness).

• Stacked Enchiladas
• Fiesta Salad
• Taco Soup
• Lemon Alfredo Pasta w/ Asparagus
• California Chicken marinade
• Brown Sugar Pork Loin
• Roast (I use leftovers for beef tacos)
• Chicken Cordon Bleu
• Paula Dean's Spaghetti Sauce
• Chicken Cashew
• Crock Pot Chicken Continental
• Buschetta Chicken
• Sundried Tomato Artichoke Pasta
• Barbeque Spareribs
• Flank Steak Marinade
• Chicken Florentine (or as Abram lovingly refers to it, Amy's Delight)
• Southwestern Chicken Pockets and Black Bean Salsa
• BBQ Chicken Salad
• Chinese Chicken Salad
• Peanut Chicken Kabobs
• BBQ Beef Brisket
• Goat Cheese Chicken Breasts
• Chicken Pot Pie
• Honey Chicken
• Beef Brocolli
• Chili
• Butternut Squash Soup
• Beef Stroganoff

Good Morning Mary Sunshine

I was awakened this morning by Max handing me his dirty diaper.  I won't go into the details that go along with this lovely story, but just so you know, I reserve the right not to post anything today.  We'll see how the rest of the day goes. 

Aunt Shauri

If there is one thing Shauri takes seriously it is Aunthood.  All of her nieces and nephews adore her because they know when she's around there's going to be a party.  Lots of teasing, chasing, kissing, and hugging.  Max had a ball with her this weekend and so did we.  She took me to get a massage as an early birthday present and it was fantastic.  I haven't been that relaxed in at least a year.  So here's to Shauri - the best aunt and sister you could want. 

sf

Ellis Family Goals Update

1.  Max - to go to go to sleep by himself in a "big boy bed"

• Progress - We've had limited success over the last five days, but tonight we hit the jackpot.  Abram told him he would leave the door open, but if he got out of his bed he would close it for the rest of the night.  Max stayed put and fell asleep.  Hallelujah! 

2.  Kristin - to learn to like seafood.

• Progress - I tried Halibut last weekend and while I didn't like it enough to have a second bite, it was the first thing I've tried that I thought, "if I tried that enough times I could see myself eventually liking it. 

3.  Abram - for our home to rival Chevy Chase's in Christmas     Vacation

• Progress - There are 3 strands of lights up, one of which only has 5 bulbs that work.

4.  Aviva - to look like her mother

• Progress - She is failing miserably.  Much to her mother's chagrin, Abram's genes have dominated again. 

Sleep Training

Max learned how to climb out of his crib last week.  

We went back and forth on whether or not to move him to a toddler bed and finally decided not to when we read this response to the worry that a child might hurt himself climbing out of his crib: "This is a common worry and often used as an excuse to go to your child or buy a "big kid's" bed.  But the truth is that serious injuries rarely occur when the child bumps on the floor as he lets himself down."  

I beg to differ Dr. Weissbluth.  Not when your kid's MO is his head.  Most kids don't climb out of the crib until they can figure out how to get their legs over the side.  Not Max.  He throws the top half of his body over, counting on his massive head to pull the rest of his body out along with it.  After hurling himself out of the crib more than a few times and looking  up at me with big sad eyes, pointing to his head and saying, "Mama, hurt" we decided to go with the toddler bed.  

So last night began sleep training.  I put him to bed and every time he came out I didn't look at him, I didn't talk to him, I just picked him up and put him back in his bed.  I actually didn't have to do very much heavy lifting since every time he heard me coming he'd jump up yelling a terrified "uh oh!" through his tears, run back to his room and barrel roll onto his bed.  Anyway, who knows how many times we had to do it before he fell asleep, but he finally did.   At about 2:30 am he woke up and every half hour after that Abram had to get up and put him back in bed.  Should be an interesting couple of days, I'll keep you posted. 

Funny Face

Bruschetta Chicken Bake

Emily Scarborough recently gathered a bunch of friends' recipes and sent them back out to everyone. She didn't put people's names with the recipes, so I don't know to whom I should give this credit, but the other day I may Bruschetta Chicken Bake and people, I am telling you, this recipe is for you. And by people I mean you Kristen. It is very rare that I find a recipe that is both easy enough and tasty enough to make it into my weekday meals rotation, but this baby is a winner. No complicated ingredients, no marinating ahead of time, lots of cheese... it's got everything. So here it is. Make it tonight.
P.S. Abram told me that this recipe should be called Baked Chicken Bruschetta because Bruschetta Chicken Bake sounds like it should be wrapped in a bread pouch and sold at Costco.

BRUSCHETTA CHICKEN BAKE
1 can (14-1/2 oz.) diced tomatoes, undrained
1 pkg. (6 oz.) STOVE TOP Stuffing Mix for Chicken
1/2 cup water or chicken broth
2 cloves garlic, minced
1 ½ lb. chicken breasts, cut into bite-size pieces
1 tsp. dried basil leaves
2 cup Shredded Mozzarella Cheese

PREHEAT oven to 400°F. Place tomatoes in medium bowl. Add stuffing mix, water and garlic; stir just until stuffing mix is moistened. Set aside.
PLACE chicken (I brown my chicken first) in 13x9-inch baking dish; sprinkle with the basil and cheese. Top with stuffing mixture.
BAKE 30 min. or until chicken is cooked through.

My Conversion

We finally bought a laptop and, drum roll please......... it's a MacBook. There were 3 special people in my life that were good examples for me and who played key roles in my conversion.

1. Alyson Oldham. Well, the whole Oldham family really. While I don't remember any ranting or raving (or blogs dedicated to other's conversion - Larissa), she was the first purest I knew. And I feel like I should mention here how one time I walked into Don's office to chat and asked what he was doing. His reply: "Emailing Steve Jobs." So there you go.
2. Kristen Allen nee Razy. Now here is a girl who never partially commits to anything. We're talking email, blogs, christmas letters, everything. And since I have never been disappointed with a recommendation from KA, it only seems right to follow in her footsteps.
   
3. Larissa Kindred. I mentioned Larissa's blog, but this particular post really got me. And let's be honest, I am a sucker for funny advertising and Larissa had a link on her blog to the Mac commercials.

So good work girls. It took awhile, but you got me.

For Shauri

Max and I are having relationship problems stemming from our lack of communication. He has been sick for about three days. Fever, throwing up, stuffed up nose, you name it. Luckily we seem to be over the fever and throwing up stage. However, the snot remains. I challenge any of you to understand a toddler just learning to speak with a stuffy nose, a scratchy throat from a screaming tantrum after I offered him a glass of water (yup, that's it, just offered him water and he proceeded to scream for the next 40 minutes), while he is crying. Oh man, talk about frustration. But it's okay, I've come up with a plan. I'm going to teach him how to text.

Early Christmas

I asked Santa for an iPod classic this year. We were putting up Christmas decorations on Saturday and "Santa" decided we needed some Christmas music, so to make a long story short: I'm the proud owner of an iPod with approximately 50 Christmas carols on it. That's right, this is my first mp3 player ever. I have no music. I suppose I could upload my CDs, but since I haven't bought a new one in about 7 years, I doubt it will be very fruitful. Which brings me to my latest request: What are your favorite songs to work out to? That is going to be my next play list - I'm trying to prioritize here.

Maxisms

Here are a couple of Maxisms I wanted to document so I don't forget about them.

1. Max has some sort of mental block about his ability to climb stairs. When he is playing with his friends he will go up and down a hundred times squealing with laughter. However, when it is just him and me, you would swear I was the most neglectful mom alive to see his reaction when I won't carrying him up the stairs. A couple times when I have just left him at the bottom of the stairs screaming, it will finally get quiet 15 minutes later and when I come to check on him, he is laying spread eagle on the floor at the base of the stairs, like he has given up on life.
   
2. Max calls Aviva B for baby. The cutest thing in the world is when Aviva sneezes and he says in his cute little voice, "Bless you B." Sometimes when I sneeze he says, "Bless you B, Mama."
3. Max has gotten really good at playing by himself. At times he realizes I'm not around and we yell the following conversation across the house:
   

Max: Mama?
Kristin: Yes Max?
Max: Wha you do-ing?
Kristin: Cleaning. What are you doing?
Max: Paying wif toys.

And then we both go back to our business.

Thanksgiving Photos and Videos

Here are some videos of the kids playing. You'll notice in the first one what a gentleman Max is when the car breaks down.

And the Winner is...

85% of my readers will be glad to know that I told Lisa "dead as a doornail" was in fact a more common expression than "dumb as a doorknob." And at least one reader will be glad to know that I promise not to pick on Lisa any more on my blog. For a while anyway.

Rockin' Around the Christmas Tree

Christmas is upon us and I need to get into the Spirit. Will all y'all let me know what your favorite Christmas carol is and who's version you like best so I can download them? Thanks!

Perfect Arches

Here is an unexpected and quite funny exclamation I just heard:

"Shawn, get up and go to bed! Do you want me to tweeze your eyebrows first?"

I immediately signed into my blog so that I wouldn't forget to record it and Lisa let me know I was the only one who would find it funny. I beg to differ. Shauri, can I get a witness?

Thanksgiving Game Night 2007

Here were the parameters:

1. Create a commercial selling a product of your chosing
2. The commercial has to involve the random object you are given
3. The commercial has to involve the holiday season

And here was the result of group 1's efforts:




Abram's commercial wasn't that funny (No offense Group 3) so I'm posting his dance from Duck Beach Game Night 2007, which is in fact, very funny. The theme that night was So You Think You Can Dance? The answer: a resounding yes.

Rock the Vote

You may have noticed my new poll. This is a result of a heated discussion with Lisa about a insignificant topic (surprise surprise). Left without any social scientists to tell us what they think, we are leaving it up to our blog readers to decide who wins this argument.

Lil' C Ain't Got Nothin' on These Kids

For the SYTYCD fans: click here

Please, Thank You and Sorry

We have been diligently teaching Max to be a gentleman. To that end, we have consistently required that he say please before he get anything from us, thank you after receiving something from us, and sorry whenever he has hit someone or spoken meanly to his parents. We are proud to say that Max would pass for the finest of southern gentleman. But we're not sure he completely understands.

For example, whenever he plays with other children he thinks "please" means give me whatever you have and if you don't I will scream. "Thank you" means I'm very happy that I now have what I want, leave me alone. And "sorry," -- we're still not sure. He says it all the time. It makes us think we've required that he apologize too often because now we'll tell him to put his shoe on his other foot and he'll say "sorry" as if he were consciously trying to bug us by putting the left shoe on his right foot, or we'll tell him to please give his mommy kisses and he'll say "sorry," as if he should have thought of this idea all on his own.

We're not sure how to deal with his politeness, but we'll let it work itself out.

Lil' C Ain't Got Nothin' on These Kids

For the So You Think You Can Dance? fans: click here

Saturday Pants

Many of you know about Abram's blue Adidas pants. He named them his Saturday pants for obvious reasons. Every Saturday (and Sunday really) he slips those babies on to start his weekend right. Today I remembered something I haven't thought of in a very long time: Dad's yellow sweat pants. Suddenly I realized that in a few years, Abram and I are going to have some major issues to deal with.

For about ten years of my life my dad wore the same yellow sweat pants every Saturday (along with his Blacktops, but that's another story for another time). As you can imagine, after 10 years they were paper thin and had several holes in them. My mom would frequently tell him it was time to get rid of the yellow sweats, but he refused. So finally she did what she had to and stole the pants and put them out in the garage to send away with the garbage man. The next Saturday, out comes my dad in his yellow sweats. Shocked, my mom asked, "Where did you get those?!" Equally bewildered he responded, "Someone put them out in the garage!"

I'll make sure to post about it when that Saturday comes for us.

There's a Witch!

I know we write a lot about Max and his fascination with sharks and witches, but I couldn't resist posting this video. Check out his face at the end when I tell him there's a witch in the room.



I'll just put a little disclaimer here. I swear I'm not being mean, he always wants to play hide from the witch, but I think I surprised him here since he hadn't just told me to do it.

Little Delsa

Abram likes to call me Delsa when I do something that reminds him of her. Usually it's very flattering because you all know how I hold my mom in high regard. Well, unfortunately I may gotten just a smidgen of absentmindedness from my dear mother.
Case in point, today. I took Aviva to the doctor for her 2 month appointment and shots. They weighed and measured her, the doc came in and talked to me about her developmental progress, and then she said goodbye and that the nurse would be right in to give her shots.
Somehow in the short time between receiving this directive and watching the door close, I went from thinking, "time to wait for the nurse," to "time to go home." So I proceed to get the baby dressed, pack her up, take her out to the car, look at the clock and think to myself, "Wow, that appointment went so fast!" (really, I remember having that thought), drive halfway home, and hear my cell phone ring. I pick it up and hear Dr. Palmer, "Mrs. Ellis, this is Dr. Palmer."
"Yes?
"I think you forgot to get Aviva's shots."
You can imagine the rest of the conversation. Of course for some reason instead of keeping these follies to myself, I immediately call Marianne to tell her what I've done. Somehow I feel like the way to get rid of embarrassment is to share it with as many people as possible. Doesn't make a lot of sense, I know. Of course the person I really wanted to call was my mom, but since she was sound asleep in Australia, I made a couple of other calls. And obviously I'm not completely over it since I'm now letting the wide world know about it as I blog.

Aviva's Baby Blessing

Today was Aviva's baby blessing. It was beautiful. Abram and I both felt so close to her and so blessed to have her be a part of our family.

Photos courtesy of Amy

Aviva and Daddy

Friday Night Lights

Are any of you Friday Night Lights fans? Abram bought the first season on DVD and I love it. Love it, love it, love it. I think I cried through all 21 episodes. What I've seen of season two isn't as good as season one, but it doesn't matter. Season one can stand on it's own. I don't even need it to go on. Though I'm glad it does.

Apparently the critics love it, but it hasn't gotten the fan base it needs and no one's sure how long it will stay on the air. So here is my grass roots effort to increase the viewership. It's on NBC on Friday night at 9:00. But don't just start watching now, watch last year's season first. You can watch it for free at: http://www.nbc.com/Friday_Night_Lights/video/episodes.shtml

P.S. I love the relationship between the coach and his wife. She is played by Connie Britton and she is fantastic. Best crier I've ever seen.

Photos of Aviva and Max

Max calls Aviva "B" for baby.

The Last Time They Won

In honor of the Red Sox I thought I'd post a photo from 2003. I don't think it's too hard to guess who this superfan is. The only question left is whether he was watching game four this year on a couch in Australia with a big red B on his head.

Sunday Night

Aviva slept for 7 hours straight last night. It's been a beautiful day.

Sunday School

I'll tell you what I hate. Playing hangman with a bunch of 7 year olds that can't spell. "Johnny, are you sure there are no vowels in this word?"

Max's Dancing Debuet

Check out Max's dance performance in Mary's blog. For those in the know, when you see his solo at the end, am I crazy or do you get a distinct Grandma Brown vibe too?

Lucky Duck

A couple months ago at work, Abram won a night out on the firm. So tonight we went to The Capital Grille with the Hales and the Virays. It was beautiful. I had a few moments of food ecstasy, fantastic adult conversation, and an extra hour of sleep tonight. Who could ask for more?

P.S. Check out that chocolate cake. That was after I ate half of it.

P.P.S. I had few bites of calamari (completely edible and of course deep fat fried) and a bite of a crab cake (gagged twice).

Yes, the Ears Are Crocheted

I've never claimed to be crafty. I've never even secretly thought it. So why I thought if I attempted to create Max's Mickey Mouse costume it would turn out better than the costumes I found online, I'll never know. Luckily, he's so stinkin' cute he can pretty much make any goofy thing he wears a hit.

One of Max's favorite things to do is pretend there are sharks or witches coming, and then hiding from them with us. Then we shake our finger at them and tell them to go home and leave us alone. Well, you can imagine Max's shock when we were trick or treating and he looked up to see a real life 10 year old witch standing next to him. He nearly wet himself (actually, he probably did for all I know) and leaped over to my leg, clinging to me for dear life. I kept trying to tell him it was okay, but he didn't get brave until we parted ways on the sidewalk and he screamed ferociously over my shoulder, "GO HOME WITCH!"

Everything's Better Fried

Here's the Birthday Boy and his two best friends. We went to The Carlyle last night for Abram's birthday (of course) and it was delicious as always. Which leads me to some very big news. I have decided to learn to like seafood. They say that kids have to eat a new food 10 times before they learn to like it. So I told Abram that from now on, when he orders seafood at a restaurant I am going to try a bite of it. Last night was my first time. We ordered Firecracker Shrimp for an appetizer and I had two bites. I am proud to say that I didn't even gag. I'm sure it helped that it had been deep fat fried. That helps everything.

The other big news is that Vivi has started sleeping for 3-4 hours at a time. Just in time too, I've been doing pretty well with no sleep, but yesterday was the first day I felt tired all day. I remember a while ago we were all asking my parents questions about how they parented us when we were really little and they kept saying they couldn't remember. My dad said that that whole period is just a blur in his memory. That sounds about right. Just last week feels like a blur to me!

The Office

Abram's birthday is this Saturday and while Sherry was here she gave him a calender titled: "The Office: A 2008 inspirational wall calender" It gave us a few good laughs since it is our FAVORITE show. However, I was a little disappointed it didn't include one of my favorite quotes from Dwight:

Jim: Dwight, if you could travel anywhere in the world, where would you go?
Dwight: I can travel anywhere, except Cuba, and I will travel to New Zealand and walk the Lord of the Rings trail to Mordor and I will hike Mount Doom.

My favorite line last week was from Creed in the middle of that brilliant sequence of dialogue about the use of the word "whomever":

Ryan: What I really want, honestly, Michael is for you to know it so that you can communicate it to the people here, to your clients, whomever.
Michael: Oh okay.
Ryan: What?
Michael: It's whoever, not whomever.
Ryan: It's whomever.
Michael: No, whomever is never acutally right.
Jim: Nope, sometimes it's right.
Creed: Michael is right. It's a made up word used to trick students

To trick students! Creed kills me. Definitely my favorite character. So on that note, I'm about to go watch this week's episode and go to bed happy.

More From This Weekend With Preston

Get Off My Back Lisa

All right, all right, I'm back. Here are a few highlights since Abram has gone back to "I'm too busy to blog" mode.

1. Adam came to town and met Aviva. He quickly won Max over with a Diego megaphone. Just what Max needed, a megaphone.

2. Sherry came to visit with Preston to begin his best friendship with Max. We spent Friday and Saturday with all the Ellis cousins, and I'm telling you there is nothing that makes Max happier than playing with cousins. I can't believe how my heart just fills up when I see it. This part of parenting has been totally unexpected. I never even thought of it before. It's the same way when he's with his Quinn cousins and I love it.

3. Staying home with two hasn't been nearly as bad as I had convinced myself it would be. Here are some updated photos of Aviva. I swear every time I pick her up she's gotten bigger. Last night she only woke up one time! I'm sure we'll go straight back to twice a night, but you gotta love those flukes.

The Coin Collector

Max LOVES collecting coins. Yesterday, Max and I went to Panera to get out of the house and to get mommy a surprise breakfast treat. When the cashier gave us change for our purchase, Max gobbled up the coins and hoarded them while we ate breakfast. But this wasn't enough. He wanted to put the coins in his pocket -- a game that some times provides him hours of entertainment and practice with fine motor skills (I mean, have you tried to put a coin in a kid's pocket before? Those pockets are like lock-boxes they're so tight.).

So there he was in Panera, putting coins in his "pocket." The whole store was watching, mostly because his PJs have no pockets. Instead, Max would drop his pants to his ankles, place the coin in the crotch area of the pants, then pull the pants up and scream "Coins pocket!" to the delight of the whole store. And so, of course, he spent the rest of our visit to Panera picking up and dropping his pants, all the while looking for his coin.

Things I'll miss about paternity leave and things I won't

Things I'll miss about paternity leave:

1. Watching Kristin parent
2. Watching Max put on his shoes by himself
3. Hearing Max calling for Daddy after his naps and the hugs I get when getting him from the crib
4. Naps
5. Panini Monday

Things I won't miss about paternity leave:

1. Nothing

More Aviva

Some more pics from this weekend.

Weekend Fun

Ryan, Amy and their kids came up Friday night and spent Saturday morning with the family fawning over Aviva. To get the kids out of the house that morning, we all went down to Art on the Avenue, a small art fair in a neighborhood just adjacent to our own. There were lots of fun kid activities, balloons, live music, and of course hot dogs. Max didn't want the hot dogs though. Instead, he literally just walked into a Mexican place we frequent -- Los Tios -- and grabbed a server by the hand. He looked at us questioningly, wondering if we would be joining him for lunch. We had to oblige.

One of the toys he picked up at the fair was his first piggy bank. He loves honing his fine motor skills by putting pennies into his piggy bank, breaking it open, and then putting the pennies back into the bank. (Yes, he only has pennies. He doesn't know the difference and none of you should tell him.)

Max also played his first violin, instructed and aided by local high school students. Shy at first, he loved the experience and eagerly thanked the girl helping him. He also enjoyed the live music, but it was too loud for his taste (luckily, otherwise we would have been there for hours).

On Sunday, Grandpa and Mimi came down to visit and watch Conference. Aviva provided plenty of glamor shots and good looks.