why it takes 30 extra minutes to vacuum...every. single. room.

having conquered his fear of the vacuum, pace now insists on helping me vacuum.  and max tags along, having never been afraid of it--only curious.  hey, what's this red button do?...max, turn it back on, please.

on occasion i can convince pace to get the popper toy and use it like a vacuum, so i only have to battle max with my vacuum, but most of the time pace insists he "do it myself!"

"say yes, please" scrunchy face

max has two scrunchy faces: his mad scrunchy face, and his "say yes, please" scrunchy face.  when he really wants something, max points at it, flashes you a dimpled grin, and then scrunches his nose.  as if we'll give him whatever he wants because he's really cute.  ok, maybe that really is how it works, and he's figured it out.  

max has also decided to expand his vocabulary!  thinking single-syllable words or "mama" and "dada"* are below him, he has jumped head first into 2+ syllable words!  although he does sometimes sound like scooby doo in his pronunciation...

i am pretty sure his first word was yellow, and then he proceeded to point to every yellow item on the abc rug we have in the play room.  he quickly followed that up with banana, umbrella, bubble, and just yesterday he whipped out purple, and a couple single-syllable words: blue, ball, bug.

he signs all done, more, prayer, no, wash hands, bird, and makes a jet noise and makes his hand go around in a circle for both fan and airplane, uses his hand to imitate a bug crawling over him, and says, "whoo whoo" for an owl.  

he's quite the little character!

*he does babble mama and dada, but i've never heard him use them in context (other than pointing to us in photos when i ask), whereas he always uses his other words in context

putting that grader to use

our chiropractor's office has an annual 8k run at the end of september.  the route is along the provo canyon river trail, and it's always gorgeous with the leaves changing.  this year, however, it was probably 40 degrees when we woke up, so we knew that would mean a windy 30 degrees in the canyon.  as we were both running, we bundled up the boys in lots of layers, their hats, coats, and mittens, and 3 blankets each...and took off running.  boy was it cold!  i think the boys were snug little bugs, though--they both fell asleep toward the end of the run because they were so warm.  

david and i started running together, having decided ahead of time we would do this run at a fun, comfortable pace to stay together.  when another guy pushing a stroller passed us, though...david couldn't take it and took off.  he kept a 6.30 mile pace while pushing the boys in the stroller!  i maintained my 9.30 mile pace, and was very satisfied.

when we crossed the finish line, pace saw the volleyball court and wanted to get to work with his grader!  (since opening it, the grader has accompanied us everywhere--the bank, the grocery store, nap time, bed time...each time pace exclaiming, "it's my favorite!")

david took him to retrieve the grader from the car, and pace got to work while waiting for me to cross the finish line.  that happy boy would have frozen to death had we let him!  we finally convinced him it was too cold to grade comfortably and we came home.

birthday grader

pace knows his trucks.  their technical names, their jobs, and how to use them.  he is quite the connoisseur.  bishka sent a grader to pace for his birthday.  she warned me, and i could have hidden the box had our ups driver come at his normal time and delivered the box in the normal hiding place in the back, but the one day he came at 11am, and then the 10 minutes we were outside collecting green tomatoes to make tomatillo sauce, the ups guy drove up and handed the box to pace to carry inside.  pace knows that all good things come in boxes, so when i told him it was a special present for his birthday and we were going to wait until his birthday to open it, he was very upset.  very.  so i decided to help him open it early.  (we have since printed out an october calendar to cross off days until his birthday, and he knows that all presents wait to be openeduntil the day with a star on it)

"look, muh, it's a grader!" pace exclaimed very happily.

thanks, bishka, for making a little boy big happy!

random iphone and iPad things from david

david does some pretty elaborate truck drawings for pace on his iPad.  i LOVE the style david did these trucks!--and, of course, the delivery bunny.

david and the boys at the park, when i was "doing something", as david says.  

this was when we were hiking in snow canyon in st. george.  pace complained there was sand in his shoe.  both his shoes were full to the brim!

the real masterpiece: cousin asher

congratulations, christian and robin!  we are so excited about our new cousin, asher christian markanich!  hopefully we'll be able to get together soon with the express purpose of scooping dirt with all these boys!

you are like a star shining brightly

as an expectant mama nothing is better than welcoming your new baby into your arms.  especially a much-wanted and long-awaited baby!  i wanted to help christian and robin welcome their little guy with a special painting for the nursery.  robin said she wanted the phrase "you are like a star shining brightly" from the primary song.  i thought for a good 3-4 months about what exactly to paint, how to incorporate that phrase, etc.  and then i woke up one morning, knowing exactly what i wanted to do, and seeing the finished painting in my head.  so even though a magician never reveal his secrets, here were the steps to this special painting:

1.  first order of business:  get david to take a photo of me holding a star.  i told david i wanted a shot from the side, with me cupping the star in my hands.  this took A LOT of shots...and patience.  i think at one point i said, "hello, can't you see what i want in my head, from my angle?  do you need to chop off my head and put the camera there?"  good old david, ever patient.  we finally got the shot.  and then i played with the lighting on the computer until it looked just right...and star-like. 

2.  next: sketch the hands with water color pencils and the words with a "masque pen".  i found that thing on clearance when a craft store went out of business a year+ ago (i think i was actually still pregnant with max, now that i think about it!), and knew i'd want it for a project.  it was just patiently waiting for the right project.  this stuff is really cool--you "write" with it as a liquid, it dries as a gel, you paint over it, then rub it off when you are done!  voila!  

3. painting the hands, glowy effect included.

4. painting the background and throwing salt down.  salt absorbs water, and water adheres to the water color paint pigment, so when you sprinkle it on a water color painting, it absorbs both the water and the pigment, turning the painted paper into a really cool stippled effect.  i used so much salt it looked like a salt flat...it took a long time (and a palette knife) to get the salt off.  a lot of it ended up staying on, which i actually ended up liking--it make the painting have a sparkly, star-like effect.

(before rubbing off the salt)

after rubbing off the salt, sprinkling white paint with a toothbrush, and then finally rubbing off the gel

close-ups of cool areas

after taking pictures, i realized i didn't like how the water dried to the left of the arms, making a line in blue paint, and the weird curved finger-like projection to the right of the hands.  solution?  paint brush with water, a little rub here, a little rub there, and it looked a little better.  finished product (exactly as i saw it in my head!):

a few tricks up his sleeve

hey max, wanna do some tricks?

where are your teeth?

how about your nose?

head?

tummy?...yeah, down there somewhere, huh?

where are your eyes?

mouth?

max has always used and preferred his left hand over right, and always points with his left middle finger...kind of good for a laugh, right?...