C- Her

Saturday, May 15, 2010
Dear Max,
Tonight we were able to see Cher. We had planned the evening a few weeks ago. Tanier, and her friend Tyson, Stacha and Neal, Mommy and Daddy and Grammie and Grampie all got tickets to go to the show. It was so fun to spend time together with our extended family. This is the first time we have gotten together, and we all really enjoyed each others company. I think we all agreed that we would like to do it again! We went to dinner at PF Changs before the show and then went to the Bellagio gardens, fountain show and Eiffel tower after the show. It was a beautiful night out and a great night to walk down town. The only thing we were missing was... Grampie, he got stranded in his diesel truck and missed the entire night! You had an eventful night at home with the babysitter too! Apparently you got your finger caught in the piano, when the babysitter went to get some ice to put on your finger, you decided to put the chunk of ice in your mouth, and choked on it. Luckily the quick response of the sitter, hit you on the back, ice came flying out, you started crying and I said to your daddy "I hope you enjoyed our last night out" I love you Max!

Tanier's friend Tyson, and your new best friend. You just buddied right up!

Daddy and I at the Cher concert

The view of the fountains from the Eiffel Tower

It's a long way down...

Tanier and Stacha

Barry

Friday, May 14, 2010
Dear Max,
Tonight I got to make one of Grammie's dreams come true.... We went to see Barry Manilow! I would say that your Grammie is a bit of a "fanilow"

Growing up I remember every Saturday, Grammie would put Barry Manilow music in the 8track player and we would clean the house while listening to all the classics, Mandy, Copacabana, and Looks like we made it. It was a fun evening, I was just glad that I didn't start dusting every time he sang. So glad I got to hang with Grammie tonight, it has been a long time since just the two of us went somewhere... not that I'm complaining, it was just nice.

Oh Barry!

Oh Barry....

Barry?

Barry.

Tanier was able to go with her good friend Tyson and we saw Marianne (one of our assistants at work) there too.

Our Camera went on and adventure....

Thursday, May 13, 2010
Dear Max,
Our camera, Mr. Blue, has been on adventure for the past 5 days. You see on Sunday when we went to St. George to visit the Grandma's, I found myself about 2 hands (or one daddy) short of being able to fully wrangle a happy and active 18 month old. At Grandma Trenholm's there are so many wonderfully strange things that you can get into, so it's always full alert when visiting. Well, being a party of one, this made this more difficult. Really, I'm just trying to set the stage as to why Mr. Blue has been on an adventure... I left him at Grandma Trenholm's care center. Somewhere between, taking pictures of you and Grandma, trying to get the phone to Grandma to talk to daddy, keeping the phone from you, cause you love it so, keeping you happy, while taking the phone away, and chasing you down hallways... I forgot Mr. Blue. I didn't realize it until we walked in the door and daddy wanted to see pictures of Grandma to see how she looked! I couldn't find him anywhere... and deep inside I knew... I had left him at Grandma Trenholms. A quick phone call confirmed my thoughts. It's 11:30 pm, who can I call. My best friend of course. Grammie went right down to pick up Mr. Blue, and ensure all family memories would remain in tact. And that's when the adventure began....

The Nurses who found Mr. Blue

Hey, It's Papa! And Mr. Blue thought he had to say goodbye when we did...

Mr. Blue went to the Faculty Lounge...

What goes on in "the lounge"

Mr. Blue went to the first grade...

Met Mrs. Woodland

Went to lunch with "the girls"

Visited with hold neighbors

And even took time to stop and smell the flowers!

It was so fun to get Mr. Blue returned with full documentation of what he had been up to for the past 5 days! Looks like he had a good time and didn't miss us much!

Mothers Day

Sunday, May 9, 2010
Dear Max,
Today is mother's day. It still is strange that I now "officially" fit into this category of "mother". I think I have gone so long not really loving this day, that it is hard to accept any type of fuss for myself. Instead, I enjoy putting the fuss and excitement of the day onto Grammie and Grandma. These are two special moms, and maybe since they have been moms for a lot longer than me, it just seems that this day was made for them. I've told you many special things about your Grandma, but I want to tell you about my special relationship with your Grammie.

I call it the full circle. You see when you are a baby and a child, much like you are right now, you need your moms. You need them to feed you, love you, shelter you and cloth you. They are your everything, you could not function without them. You spend all your time together, eat all your meals together. Laugh together, your mom is your best friend. This notion of best friends is where the circle comes into play. Grammie and I, we are best friends. As I grew and became more independent my need for my best friend came and went. I think back into junior high and high school, and my best friend is who I would call at 6:30 in the morning to decide if I should wear the red socks or white socks. This best friend was the one that at the time you thought knew all the answers and would never let you down. But with life, their were and will be times when your friends let you down. My "real" best friend was always there, and Max, your "real" best friend will always be there for you. I know this cause I learned from the best. Grammie was always there for me and I will always be there for you. I knew I was lucky, but I don't think I realized how luck I was at the time. As an adult my mom, your Grammie has always stood by my side, she has lifted my soul when I was feeling down, she has encouraged me when decisions haven't always been easy and always found a way to sympathize with my aching heart when life gave me some tough pills to swallow. What more could a best friend do? Nothing. But it wasn't until I became a mom myself that I realized how much I appreciate my best friend. Max, your Grammie is like no other. I think, just the other day when it was discovered that you had a double ear infection, my first call was of course to your daddy, but my next call was to Grammie. And her words, what can I do? Without hesitation my best friend is to my rescue. I can not tell you all the countless times that Grammie has rescued me. So many tough "mommy" decisions these days and I often times feel much like a child myself, in constant need of my mommy. Maybe not to feed, cloth or shelter me, but certainly to love me and my family. We are so grateful to have Grammie, she is a constant example of unconditional love, service, acceptance, learning and fun. She never lets a moment escape that she could possibly teach or create. I learn from her everyday. I have come full circle.

In celebration of all that is mother, we started the day off with some breakfast made by Daddy. During breakfast I opened my cards and gifts. You, Daddy and Cooper gave me a spa day! Oh! I'm so excited!! Then we went to church, on the way to church, Auntie Andrea called and decided to drive up to St. George to surprise her Mommy and wanted to know if you and I wanted to join her. We said of course, we went ahead and attended sacrament meeting. I do enjoy sacrament meeting on mothers day, the little primary kids singing, is always so touching. I found myself thinking a lot about your birth mom today. A silent prayer in my heart that she is doing well. Max, I'm so grateful for her and her love for you. I'm grateful for her decision to give you life. I pray that she is at peace today.

After sacrament meeting, daddy left for work and we went to St. George to surprise Grammie. It was so fun to see her reaction. She had no idea we were coming, I sent you in the door first, and she just started to cry. It was such a great moment. We didn't get to stay long, but definitely worth the drive. We went over to see Grandma Trenholm too - we stopped real quick to let Daddy talk on the phone, take some pictures and then we were off! It was a whirlwind! And just like that, the one day a year dedicated to mothers, was over.

Max, helping Grandma work the phone to talk with Daddy

Grandma and Max sharing some pringles sticks

Not being a very good sharer

My handsome boy! I love you!!

Grandma talking with Daddy on Mother's Day

Mommy and Grammie
Happy Mother's Day!

Double the Birthday's....

Saturday, May 8, 2010
Dear Max,
Today we celebrated both your Auntie Julie and Auntie Andrea's birthday's! It's fun that their birthdays are close, so we have double the reasons to get together. We started the celebration on Friday evening with dinner and a movie, we went to see Iron Max 2. I say "we" as in the adults went. You enjoyed the evening with your 2nd family, the Jewett's. Saturday morning we woke up bright and early and went over to Aliante Station to swim. I was wondering if you were still going to like the swimming pool, after going a whole winter with minimal swimming. You still LOVE it! I think it might be time to advance you out of the swim toys and into some floaters... I don't know, but it seems like you would like the freedom in the water. It was so relaxing and such a beautiful day out, the perfect day to be in the sun. After the pool, we came back to the house for some haircuts and birthday cake! What a great celebration! We are so lucky to have such great people in our lives, and so great to have two wonderful best friends and Auntie's to you. And the cherry on top for you was getting to spend some quality time with Papa Rogers. Oh, how you two just love each other, their is such a special connection between the two of you. I love it and I love you Max!

You are so good when you get your hair cut.

It's truly amazing! An 18 month old to sit still and have his hair cut....

Oh and smile too! Such a ham

Hanging with Papa Rogers...

Two special guys!

Tanier

Wednesday, May 5, 2010
Dear Max,
I'm so excited to tell you about Tanier. Tanier is mommies cousin. She is younger than me, about 9 years younger. Grammie and Tanier's Grandpa are brother and sister, so you and Tanier are 2nd cousins. I haven't had a chance to know Tanier very well, but I'm so glad for this opportunity for Tanier to come and stay with our family. It is so cool to get to know Tanier better and to get closer to family. Tanier has been in Asia teaching English, she just returned a few weeks ago and was looking for a job. I was able to get her an interview in my office and of course, they loved her and hired her on the spot. She moved in with our family just a couple weeks later and started her new job. I enjoy so much visiting with Tanier and learning all about her, it's fun. I hope that we can remain close, even though their has been things that have happened in other generations of our family, I'm glad that we can rebuild during our generation. I know that sometimes family rifts can affect several generations and I think we are lucky that we are not falling into that. And the greatest part... You have a new best friend! You LOVE Tanier! And she loves you so much! I can remember being a young girl, around 12 years old or so and Tanier would have been around 2 or 3, and remembering how much I loved her and would take care of her. It's so fun to see her taking care of you! We are so blessed! I love you Max.

Tanier and Max

So Happy!

I don't know if we can be friends anymore...

This is all I can say...

Saturday, May 1, 2010
Dear Max,
Oh Max, where do I begin? Thursday...let's begin with Thursday. Wednesday night, you didn't sleep well, you ended up in our bed, which means that non of us slept. I dropped you off at Jaime's and before I even got to work, Jaime had called and said, she didn't think you were feeling well. So I made a doctor appointment for you and came home. We went to the doctor to discover that you have a DOUBLE ear infection! Yup, a DOUBLE! I had no idea what this meant. Ignorance is not always bliss, so I followed my instincts and reacted by...
Calling Daddy, filled your prescription and callled Grammie. And just like that Grammie was on the move, back down to Vegas to help. Daddy and I both had important meetings on Friday, that of course we would have missed, had Grammie not been able to come, but having Grammie swing into action saved us.

You slept most of the day on Friday, were fairly low key Friday evening, and went to bed easily, sleeping through the night. I thought... "this ear infection thing, it's not too bad!" Why...why did I ever think these words, it's as if you had something to prove....

Saturday you woke up a changed little boy.
Non stop jabbering, jabbering just to jabber, I didn't mind this, it was kind of funny.
Then you started to walk...your balance is off, you fell on your bottom and then it began. Insane crying. I try to pick you up, you go limp, now, on the floor full blown tantrum. WHAT IS THIS!?! Where is my low key little boy? I'm not sure how to react to such behavior. Ignore it? Console it? Scold it? Nothing seemed right and for sure nothing worked. Their was nothing that could be done to make this better. After what seemed like an eternity, it was only 10:00 am, we thought, a nap might do the trick!

Maybe you slept, maybe not. Who knows what happens in there?! Grammie wanted to take us out to lunch for Mothers Day. What a sweet idea, to celebrate what we both are, Mommies! You woke up and we headed out. We decided that we should eat first, before running a couple other errands to ensure that we would get the "best" you.

And that's when it all fell apart. We went to a Sushi restaurant, that I will not name, as I'm trying to keep our identity a secret, so maybe we can sneak back in without them noticing it us. I'm sure we will have to give them a few months to recover. I've never experienced such horror as I did in the sushi restaurant. It was as if another little boy was in your body, a bad little boy. Throwing cups, tipping over chairs, running into the kitchen, screaming your head off, oh I could go on and on. The problem, I was so ill prepared. I have never met this side of you, and of course get introduced to him in public, with the world watching... how will this mom do it? Like this!

PACK IT UP! Pack it all up! We are leaving now! But I just got my coke? They were not prepared for a "take out" drink. But in a desperate moment our waitress got creative. Yup, I drank my coke from a macaroni salad to go container! Max, I could not believe that here we were celebrating being Mom's and I'm getting the ultimate mom test...Was it a poor decision to take you in public in such rare form? Who knows! I'm sure theirs a million different answers and a million different scenario's but what I know is that this was embarrassing! I could not believe it. I'm doubting my mom abilities. I thought I would be one of those mom's that would always have it "under control" or at least be able to pretend.

I'm so grateful for Grammie. She was a trooper putting up with all our crazy! I have no idea what I would do without her. So our Mothers day lunch consisted of us sitting in the car eating sushi out of to go containers, mixing our wasabi and soy sauce with an empty edamame shell in a parking lot. Glamorous! And I would like to say that you sat quietly in the back... but that's not the case. Interesting enough as we started our drive back home and got about a mile away from the house the most happy jabbering and giggles started coming from the back seat. Who's back there? I think it's Jekyll and Hyde!

Grammie and I pulled into the driveway and I just started laughing. As I'm staring at the macaroni cup that our coke came in, listening to a suddenly happy baby giggle, thinking back to the shear terror of the sushi house. Max, I don't know if we can be friends anymore! I'm seriously doubting my mom abilities! And just to think, Grammie felt like she could leave us! She's a trusting and brave Grammie!

Max, we are friends, and I'm so grateful for you...all of you. I'm just praying that this is not your new personality! Oh heavens!