Max Goes to Nursery!!!

Today was a momentous day in my parenting career. Max attended nursery at church for the first time. Sitting in my meetings toddler-free I remembered why people go to church. When you can hear what people are saying, sometimes you actually learn stuff. Anyway, Max seemed to take pretty well to the whole nursery idea. He colored a page about clothes and picked out some stickers of the food he's thankful for (apparently, cheese, tortillas, rice, and meat were his top picks). And he also really seemed to enjoy the paper cup full of water they gave him. All in all, it was a successful day at church.

Before church.

After church.

North Carolina Trip

We had a great Labor Day Weekend with Ephraim's family. We drove up to his brother and sister-in-law's house in Fayetteville and met up with his parents, brother Jacob, sister-in-law Sara and new nephew Jensen. Paula and baby Isabella were so kind to let us overwhelm their house for the weekend! It was so fun to see everyone and we were sad to leave.

Max loved seeing his grandparents again.

Here's Grandpa with the whole crew of grandkids.

Max giving hugs to Isabella.

As you can see, Max got over his initial fear of dogs. By the end of the weekend he was chasing them and giving them smooches. Here he is with Kiki.

Max's Aunt Sara and cousin Jensen.

Max and Aunt Paula.

Ephraim and his mom.

Grandma, Max, Fox, and Kiki.

Max reading books with Uncle Jake.

I think these two cute babies could be twins. Can you believe Isabella is 2 months older?

Max giving cousin Jence a smooch.

Callaway Gardens

Last Saturday we spent the day at Callaway Gardens and had a great time. Military families get in free so that was a major perk. We saw a bird show with a hawk, owl, and vulture, fed a hungry group of turtles in a pond, visited the butterfly house, then spent the rest of the afternoon at the beach area swimming in the lake. I would have posted these pictures sooner but seeing as how our internet mysteriously stopped working the day Ephraim left for the field for a week, I had to wait for him to get home to fix it (by fixing it, I mean he had to push one measly button that fixed everything.)

Max and Tyson

This is Max and his friend Tyson. They play together almost every day. They're both really silly and have a lot of fun (as long as sharing isn't required). Tyson is learning to walk so he loves pushing Max on his tractor.

A Message from Max...

Here's what he typed today:

bvvbv
tzxgzxytyy3g5 g53h, m,vu vaavvv u uc n 0phnmop

Max is going a mile a minute.........

These days Max is busier than ever. He loves to play the piano but only if he can turn the pages of the music. He also loves to color but only with markers. Good thing marker washes off our government tile floors so easily.

Max is wearing his parents out.

Baby Boy Cousins

This is from June but I couldn't resist posting it.
Lyndy took this cute picture of Max, Joshua, Calvin, Alex, and Logan.

We can take pictures again!!!

We're so excited to have a new camera!!! Max will even pose and say "cheese" when we take his picture.

So, here's a random shot of a car at Wal-Mart. We see these kinds of cars EVERYWHERE. Apparently, its all the rage to spend thousands of dollars on huge wheels for really crappy old cars painted in loud colors. Anybody understand this? We don't.

Our House

Here are a few shots of our house (the downstairs at least since we need to clean upstairs). We also made a little video tour that you can look forward to seeing in a day or so.

Here's a shot from the outside of our townhouse.

Entryway

Living Room

Dining Room (notice the refinished table...I'm very proud of Ephraim's tile work!)

Kitchen/Laundry

Machine Guns!!!

Ephraim's company is in the field and today they invited all the wives to come visit the range and try firing the machine guns. Before today, I'd never fired any kind of gun so Ephraim thought this was a great way to break me in. In case you're wondering, this was live fire, not blanks. I'm not sure if I hit any targets but it was an adventure (wearing the body armor , eye protection, ear plugs and kevlar helmet was an adventure in and of itself!) It was fun to experience what work is like for Ephraim everyday. By the way, no new camera yet but our good friends the Powells took some great pictures for us. Thanks you guys!

Here's the rambo pose.

All I had to do was pull the trigger and stay out of the way of the burning brass!

Ephraim had to make sure my oversized helmet didn't fall off.

Not sure you can see the smoke really well but we had to 'cease-fire' for a while after this fire started nearby. Luckily, I didn't cause it.

Ephraim and his friend Steve posing as Infantrymen.