Rites of Passage

Max got his first bloody nose today. He was playing with the disc swing and he didn't catch it and it hit him in the face. He had been making mud pies in the sandbox with Piper, so he was already a dirty mess. Luckily it didn't bleed too long. I put him in the bath and he was fine.

Mother's Day & Max's 3 yr stats

Max had his 3 yr well child check last week.
He stacks up like this:
33.6 lbs - 65% on the growth chart (they no longer use the specific Ds chart)
37.5 inches tall - 42% on growth chart
BMI 75%
Dr. Durham did mention for the first time, that he thought Max could use some additional speech therapy. Ha. Ya think? He says Daddy. What more do you need ;) Too bad our insurance doesn't cover a dime of speech therapy. We actually have an appointment with Shriner's Hospital this summer to check on his ankles and orthotics. Hopefully they'll have some speech therapy options. I need to look into the UofU speech clinic as well.
***

Max’s Signs {as of March 31^st, 2012}

 *Signs on his own

+Signs with verbal or visual prompt

#Signs along with Signing Time DVD but may not know what it means

*All done

*More

*Milk/Drink (uses same milk sign for both)

*Please

*Dog

*Car

*Baby

*Apple

*Shoes (similar sign to more)

*Hi

*Bye

+Go

+Socks

+French fry (we made up this sign – two index fingers pointing up and coming together)

+Ball

+Eat

+Cold

+Stop

+Thank you

+Hat

+Bath

#Cheese

#Dad

#Mama

#Flower

Words:

Daddy/Dada – says clearly

Piper – says with own word approximation, sometimes sounds like “uppuh” or “poppa”

Up – says clearly but don’t think he knows what it means (as of May, he doesn't really say this anymore)

Pop – says pretty clearly (as of May, he doesn't really say this anymore)

Ball – says “b” sound (as of May, he doesn't really say this anymore)

Num – says clearly when referring to food or drink

Bubble – says with own word approximation (as of May, he doesn't really say this anymore)

***

But overall, he's doing great. His bloodwork came back stellar. We did decide to put him on Singular for what we think is probably asthma. So we'll see how that works over the next month. Max has been getting really winded and sometimes lethargic, & a little wheezy at times, when he is outside playing in the heat. Ugh.

Next week is the last week of school for both kiddos. They made me adorable Mother's day gifts!
Piper made me a book. They have been working in it all year as they've gone through the alphabet. So cute. Here's a few pages:

 Note the 'o' page. 'O' is for 'ocean'. She was sure to draw a killer whale in the ocean, since it's my favorite animal! She couldn't wait to show me that page.

 Max gave me this cute card.

And he made me a visor too!

On Mother's Day, we did the annual brunch at the Grand America, then hit church for an hour, then headed to Vernal on our way to Moab (Steve had clients in court in Vernal Monday morning and just south of Moab Monday afternoon). Still getting to those pictures....

Yardwork & stuff

Last fall I pulled out 90% of the plants in the front flower bed. They were random, wildly growing plants that looked like crap in my opinion. So finally, this spring, I set out one Saturday and re-did the flowerbed. It literally took all day - 12 hours. It looks so much better now though. {And two weeks later, it's already time to weed - ugh.}

Before and after picture posted here.

Piper put the finishing touches on with this castle birdhouse she painted.

And a random tulip picture from before the re-do.

And my latest Pinterest project for the front door... a pebble letter "wreath"

*P.S. If you would like one of the temple pics from the post below, just leave me a message or email me the one(s) you want. I'd be happy to email you a high-res image w/o the watermark - you can have them printed in whatever size you want :) twodogfamily (at) comcast (dot) net

Salt Lake Temple

So my brother and I had this idea to buy my mom a really nice temple picture for Mother's Day... until we looked at the price on the ones at Deseret Book. So then I had the idea to attempt to take a picture myself of the Salt Lake Temple and frame it for her. I have never printed a picture that I've taken bigger than an 8x10, and mostly just 4x6's, and nothing since I've been trying to improve my photoshopping skilz. So I was kind of nervous. The first night I went out at sunset, and didn't get anything worthwhile. So then I went out after dropping Piper off at school in the morning. Got lots. Then I couldn't choose. But I was trying to copy something I'd seen of the mom statue with kids in front of the temple. So that's what I went with and had it printed as an 11x14. Only the place I sent it for printing wasn't open on Saturdays (yes, I waited til the day before Mother's Day to finish this little project). But I found a one-hour place that did a nice job, and whew, she liked it!
Here's the final product.

As previously posted on Mother's Day...

And a few others I couldn't decide on...

Water reflection:

*If you would like one, just leave me a message or email me the one(s) you want. I'd be happy to email you a high-res image w/o the watermark - you can have them printed in whatever size you want :) twodogfamily (at) comcast (dot) net

SuperMoon

A couple of shots I took with my old point and shoot a week or two ago when there was that big moon, whatever thing, people were talking about... {I need a zoom lens for my DSLR}

And still trying to get caught up on blog reading as well, which means I haven't commented much...  sorry about that. I am reading your posts. Spent a few days in Moab earlier this week. I think the laundry is finally all caught up... now back to the computer. I still have all those tulip festival pictures to edit from a month ago :)

Last Month's Playgroup

A few pics from a Ds playgroup last month...

And this is what Piper's feet looked like when we came home ;)

Spring Break - Hill Aerospace Museum

Seriously trying to get caught up on blogging... a little more of spring break - yeah, that was a month ago!
We hit the 'airplane museum' with some friends... Piper thinks this place is so cool.

Look mom - we're touching a plane!

I guess it is pretty cool that you can sit on an airplane wing.