Surprise Mother's Day visit

I had a low-key Mother's Day. Shane, Ander and I were all sick with colds, so Shane and I traded off the morning watching Ander while the other one napped.

We met up with Jeanette who treated us for lunch at ZTejas on Mill Avenue in Tempe. After hand-made guacamole, hefewiezen, iced tea and Mexican food, we rolled back home. The boys went down for a nap and I headed to Walmart to collect a gift card mom had sent me and a little shopping.

Then I got a call from my cousin Rick, from Escondido. He was in town and wanted to know if we were up for a visit. Always! He came on by and we had a real nice talk while Ander was asleep, which was good because it was hard to have one afterward with Ander demanding attention from "Rik! Rik!" They played cars and ball and had a nice talk themselves.

Here are the two pals ... I should be in this photo...

spring babies

A momma dove built a nest near our front door, and has been protecting it fiercely for some time now. I figure there must be something she's protecting in there and I've been anxious to peek.

Last week, I came home to find she was away so I brought out a kitchen chair -- which was barely tall enought so I stacked a kitchen stool on that which made Dad VERY Nervous, or maybe religious because he used the word God... (and, yes, it was a horrible example for our son who is a daredevil when it comes to climbing anyway -- I'm not sure where he gets that from -- but I'll just have to try and correct that because I was losing the window of opportunity here...you understand...).

But I found what I was looking for... two good-sized juveniles looked right back at me.

another hat

Ander likes hats (Charlie, 1-year birthday). This one he spotted at Kohl's and was immediately smitten. I tried to get him to switch to a Dallas Cowboys hat in honor of my brother Curt, but he would have none of it (Uncle Mike will have to talk to him about that... )

And, darn it, if he isn't getting so smart to notice that I replaced it in the cart, at which point he began to stomp and throw a fit in the store, running back to where he found the original.

Choose your battles, right? So, we got the hat.
And he wears it.
A lot.
Without encouragement.
Here he is in the bathtub with it.
At least he looks pretty cute in it...










I'll have to get some photos of him in other hats... like his fireman's hat and basketball hat.

Ander gets a haircut

Cutting hair is a major ordeal here. So, when it gets cool, we just let the boy's hair grow and trim around the ears as necessary. That was about 3 times over the "winter". About the time it gets to be too long, the heat is back and we buzz it short for free with dad's clippers. And, thank God, because I'd hate to pay for the screaming and drama that ensues. You'd think we were doing surgery without anesthesia or something.

After one too many comments about mullets, we trimmed him up a few weekends ago. Here is the before and after photos. The "after" photo was taken the next day because the truly "after" photos included red eyes and pouting.

Our neighbors told us they were outside and laughing because their cat heard the crying/yelling and when Ander would stop for a breath, the cat would howl back.