Hi...

The older Tessa gets, the more she and Max play together. Max is so sweet with her, and has never been rough to her. They can get each other laughing so hard. And Tessa's heart breaks if Max ever goes somewhere without her. I get a little taste of girl dramatics then.

This is when I was deathly ill and quite certain I had the swine flu (or, to be PC, H1N1). Max took it upon himself to make sure that Tessa was well fed. He found an old baby biscuit, grabbed a bowl of cinnamon and sugar, and proceeded to feed Tessa. Tessa, of course, loved it. Then he found some raisins and a couple of mixing spoons and they "cooked" some sugar raisins. I laid on the floor and let them eat the full bowl of cinnamon and sugar. Like I said, I was deathly ill.

I take a ton of pictures, but I usually forget to get pictures of them together. Could they pass as siblings? They're pretty different, but both adorable, of course.

Tessa gives some great hugs. Sometimes Max likes it, sometimes he doesn't.

Tessa has suddenly grown up on me. No more pretending she is still a little baby...toddler phase is here to stay. Her vocabulary is finally expanding, she insists on feeding herself, she tends to mother anyone her age or younger whether or not they are already bigger than her, and she will even fold her arms during prayers.

Oh, how lucky was the day my friend mentioned that I should try to get Max into her son's preschool class because they had just split it into two classes. It was different from the preschool I had Max on the waiting list for, but I figured something was better than nothing. I called, took a tour, and signed Max up that day. My friend's kid had been on the waiting list nearly a year.
Max's teachers were fantastic, and Ms. Liz even had a lovely English accent. Max really loved them, and always looked forward to going to school to tell them about something exciting that happened. I'm not sure if he ever did tell them these stories, but he was always saying how he was going to. Max learned some very catchy religious songs during chapel such as "ABCDEFG, thank you God for feeding me!" and "If Satan's in the way we will roll right over him." It was so fun trying to figure out what in the world he was singing. One day he came home singing, "patri-patri-arc-arc-arc" over and over. I looked up his chapel schedule and realized they were learning about Jacob, and my guess is they learned a song about Jacob being the patriarch. Anyway, it will be fun to go back there in the fall, but until then I fully plan on us having a summer of fun!

I have a private blog and I still feel the need to take out the name of Max's school. Does that make me paranoid?


Max's school picture last fall. Ah, my aging heart...it's just so precious...


I was so impressed that they got him to actually put on cowboy clothes and pose for a picture. At one point that would have been too much for him to handle. See, he really has grown from this school experience.


Once again, so impressed that he got up in front of the crowd and spoke into a microphone. He said something like, "I'm an owl!" The kid has talent, that's for sure. Oh, and Max made a pink bracelet for the cute little redhead behind him. She's seriously considering marrying him now. Max just needs to grow 3-4 more inches before that could happen.


However, on occasion Max has been spotted holding hands with little Emily (on Max's left). I asked him once if he held hands with any of the other girls in his class. He said, "No, because I'm not going to marry them."
"Oh, so who are you going to marry?"
"Emily, but not until I get a little bigger...like daddy."


Max was insistent that he bring flowers to Ms. Karen and Ms. Liz on the last day. He thought it would be a good idea to buy some seeds, dig a hole in the dirt and put them in, then cover it and put water, water, water on it, and then they would grow really big, and we could give the flowers to them. I wasn't sure we could find any seeds that could grow really big in 8 hours, so I ran over to Central Market and picked up some flowers there. They have really beautiful flowers, and absolutely gorgeous breads and cheese. Seriously.


Ms. Liz


Ms. Karen

The other morning Max came running down the hall yelling, "Mommy, hurry and come look, Tessa's head is like a gorilla!" I guess that's one way to describe her morning hair. (Whenever she wears these pajamas she has to unzip them. It's her rule.)



A month or two ago (I really am that far behind) we met a gorilla up close and personal. Or as personal as you can get with 3 inches of glass in between. They are amazing animals, but sometimes their eyes just break my heart.

After months of trying to be frugal and buy a secondhand bike we broke down and went for the sweetest bike we could find at Toys 'R Us, a Tony Hawk huckjam series "climber", etc., etc.. Watching Max ride through the aisles of the store to go buy this bike will, I'm sure, remain one of the highlights of Ty's life. Max was SOOO happy to get a new bike and he loves riding it. He even thinks his helmet is great and likes to crash on his bike and jump up exclaiming, "It didn't even hurt my head!"

take a look at Max's face...


then enlarge this photo and take a look at Tessa...