I’m pretty sure this only helps cement my opinion of CNN as focused first on entertainment and only second on worthwhile news… but it is vaguely novel. If they are going to care more about delivering what sells than about what’s important, I’d rather they get their money from other people’s wallets than by cluttering my screen with even more advertisements!

Rebekah’s flight this morning was overbooked, so we volunteered to take a flight out on Wednesday. This means she gets to stay here longer for free (we’d considered changing her flight but it was too expensive), AND we got a voucher for a free ticket in the future.

COOL!

Today we went to Target and we only spent $5!

Pictures of Max in high res are here! I am just getting started out, but I have uploaded the most recent ones. Now you can print Max, have desktop Max, wallpaper Max, screensaver Max, life-size poster Max… all your wildest dreams come true, right here, right now.

What this means for the rest of you: even sans-downloading, that’s still where most of our pictures will be available for viewing if you happen to enjoy skimming them occasionally. I will ( /hope to be) posting pictures more sparingly on the blog. I’ve been thinking about how much I really love the integrity of 100%-text posts. Pictures have a place, don’t get me wrong, and I would never ever go without them. BUT. I always feel a little extra satisfied after a well-written post that is worth a lot all on its own.

I’ll still post pictures though, let’s be real. How could I not want to share this?

…or else I’m so far behind that nothing will ever get blogged from this house ever again!

We are moved in, as much as we intend to be for a good few months at least. Video to come.

My sister Rebekah is coming to visit in the morning! For five days. She can hardly wait for Max time and I can hardly wait for no-Max time. It will be such a wonderful arrangement! :)

In all fairness to Max, he’s been a very good boy this week. I am having a hard time believing he will be 8 months old on Saturday, but he sure tries hard to make sure he grows up fast! He does not want to be a baby. Here are the current highlights of his little life:

• Growing so much hair he needs a haircut
• Growing so much he needs new clothes. Again.
• Pulling himself up to standing using anything he can get his hands on
• Water. In all forms. Baths, showers, sinks, cups, bottles, rain, carbonated, you name it.
• Eating very cleanly from a spoon… unless he insists on feeding himself (he usually does)
• The Pottery Barn catalog
• The washing machine
• Anything attached to a wire
• Playing hide and seek with his toys (aka putting them where he can’t see them, then looking for them)
• Walking so fast he practically drags us behind him
• Crawling, but he seems dissatisfied with it. He needs a shirt that says “Walk or Bust”!
• Practicing standing without support (He decides to practice all on his own. It’s cute. I think his record is 10 seconds.)
• His new big-kid carseat and stroller.
• Making choices (he definitely prefers his soccer ball!)
• Loving when Trevor comes home, everything Trevor says and everything Trevor does.

Trevor is really enjoying his job. He is 1.5 months into a 3-year position and he couldn’t be happier to be programming again. And I couldn’t be happier that he works 8 minutes away and gets to come home for lunch everyday! (Our gas bill couldn’t be happier about that, either.) When not at work, he is always busy either as a committee chair for church, working on some learning-Chinese projects, or checking the mailbox for his Economist magazine which has apparently not made it to our new address yet (we feel a great loss about this).

My current project list consists of getting our food/emergency storage in perfect shape, promo-ing our September Enrichment program at church (it promises to be a big event), trying to hold my inner creative - which is suddenly bursting at the seams with ideas - in check while I wait for Max to take naps longer than 30 minutes, and stockpiling recipes for when I get to bake something new again.

This wasn’t much of a fabulous post, but now that I’m caught up, maybe I can post something more exciting soon!