A better picture of Max's shiner.

Max's shiner :

Okay, so those of you who know me will look at these pictures and think, "Wow, poor child he inherited his mother's horrendous under-eye circles." or "Well, Max really must be getting up early. Learning to climb out of his crib is not agreeing with him." Seriously, the pictures don't do the bruising justice. He looks bad. I was at Pottery Barn Kids today letting Max create havoc with their displays when I made a non-thinking, side comment to Max, something like, "Oh, your poor face." One of the sales ladies over-heard and walked up to me and said, "Yeah, what happened to him?" I explained about how our family has bad luck with slides and parks, etc. Max bonked his nose trying to climb the slide last night at the Ward Picnic. He howled up a storm and then decided to try and climb a tree. After my explanation, we quickly left the store. I didn't want to be there when the CPS agents arrived if the clerk didn't believe my story. I'm just glad she couldn't see the bruises on his back from where he fell climbing down from his high chair yesterday. Whew.

Mom strikes back...

What is Max so unhappy about, you ask?

What does that pouty face mean?

It means that Max will not be able to exit the house anytime he feels like it. He will no longer force his mother to chase him down the street.

He will no longer play with the garage door opener. Open, shut, open, shut, open, shut, open, shut. It never gets old.

All in all, I'm quite pleased with m'self.

Make A Wish...

Ella's friend had the best idea for her birthday party. She had a fundraiser 1K race and then donated all the proceeds to Make A Wish Foundation. What a fabulous idea! I wish I would have thought of that before I threw two big birthday parties. Maybe next year, we'll do something similar. The kids all really loved the race and Ella came in second in the girls division! Go Ella!

Surprise!

Robert surprised me this week with a night at the new Wynn Hotel on the strip. We ate fabulous sushi at Yellow Tail in the Belagio Hotel with a famous lead singer and his wife. She wore a fabulous designer dress and I carried my Target purse and wore my H&M jacket. (I scrubbed the Max food smears off prior to dinner.) Nevertheless, it was a wonderful night even if I felt a bit out of place. I posted some pics of our view and the fabulous mirror in our hotel room. It took up the whole wall. I want one.

Ella celebrates!

The broken thumb and subsequent blue cast is all a distant memory now. We celebrated Reynolds' style--with FOOD. Ella helped me make these brownies and insisted on the "words" on the brownies. As Ella says, "Like a birthday cake, Mom." Although it was an agonizing decision for her to choose between brownies and a slurpee. She decided that she would rather have a slurpee on a warm day and that she could do chores to earn the slurpee, so it wouldn't be that hard to get one when she wanted. Robert says he is glad her cast is off because, "she can hit hard with that thing." :)

Max wins the War...I'm moving to China until he's 3.

I should have known what kind of a day it was going to be when I heard Max climb out of bed at 5:45 a.m. I took him back to bed 5 times before I gave up and grabbed a blanket and tried to crash on the chair in his room. I kept explaining to him that it was still "Night, night" time. He would open the blinds, let the 6:30 a.m sun shine in and say, "No, night-night, Mama, see." Sigh. Anyway, I gave up and we went downstairs, where he promptly opened the back door setting off our house alarm. That woke me up from my not-enough-sleep stupor. Things went fairly smoothly the rest of the day with only one tantrum (me taking away the chocolate milk he helped himself to and him objecting vigorously) and a few wrestling matches at the Dr.'s office (Ella got her cast removed today!) and only one small chase out the front door and down the street. I didn't mind too much since I had my clothes on this time.

Then 6:30p.m. rolls around. I rush out the door to get to soccer sign ups so I don't have to wait in line with 4 kids for an eternity. I even fill out my forms ahead of time. I make it out of the garage and half way there when I realize that I have to bring the kids' birth certificates so we turn around and I run and grab them. Then I wait in line only to find out that they want 2 copies of each form not one. So then I wait in another line for a computer so I can print out the extra form only to find that the computer is not working. Wait, wait, wait and wait and then the computer starts to work and 10 minutes later the printer spit out 3 forms. By this time, the kids were going crazy. I told the girls to take Max and play in the corner for a minute while I waited in yet another line. I realized as I got my wallet out that I did not have my check book (Max had dumped my purse out earlier in the day) almost the same moment Max pulled the fire alarm. Nice. I loaded the kids up in the car, drove 10 minutes to the nearest ATM to take out the requisite amount because the Soccer league only deals in checks or cash. Then drove back to pay, by the time we got home it was 7:30 and I still hadn't fed the kids. I rushed them through dinner to get them to bed on time only to discover in that Max had been up in the girls' room. He had dumped the entire contents of fish food into the tank. The water was so murky we had trouble finding the fish. While Kate was on a search and rescue mission, I decided it was time for Max to go to bed. Enough is enough! I put him down and then returned to the fun process of emptying out the fish tank and cleaning it. 15 minutes later, Max joins us in Kate and Ella's room to see what is going on. I scold him and send him back to bed. We finish the fish tank by 9p.m. and I try and get the kids to bed. I check on Max only to find that he is out of his crib and has dumped baby powder all over his room. After I clean up the mess, swat him on the bum (I know, but !!!) and put him down for bed. I go downstairs and am greeted by the mess pictured above. Is it tomorrow yet?