Food, glorious food!

Remember the Sears Wish Book? When we were little, Mark & I would go through it & circle everything we wanted for Christmas. What was the one thing that I circled virtually every year? An Easy Bake Oven. There was something about cooking in your very own oven, even if it was with a light blub. I never got one. Until July 28, 2004. A few hours before going to the hospital to have Max, my mom finally gave me an Easy Bake Oven. Unfortunatly, it promptly went into a closet for the next few years, because, who has time to cook with a light bulb when you have a newborn/toddler? A few weeks ago, Max discovered it. So off we went to Target to get some mixes & he tried it out. The first project was a chocolate cake, swiftly followed by a yello cake. Delicious!

Eating the chocolate masterpiece

Cleaning up

Since the weather did not cooperate with my garden plans, Max & I decided to buy a couple of tomato plants & put them in containers. Max wanted to take pictures of them to show everyone just how big his tomatos were. And, yes, he did take these pictures himself.

Arkansas Traveler tomato

Husky Cherry tomato

Now I'm off to finish packing for Canada since our flight leaves at the crack of dawn tomorrow!

Sir Max the Brave

The forecast for the 1st of June was supposed to be sunny & warm (read HOT!). Since I had the day off, we decided to go the the Greater STL Renaissance Fair. We talked about it for a week and Max was excited. He couldn't wait to go see the knights and soldiers and princesses and all the other characters that promised to be there. We even made a deal that if he did all his chores for the week the Renaissance Fairy might bring him a surprise. He was determined & managed to get everything done. Max woke up the morning of and found his surprise.

Sir Max

Sir Max with his loyal Squire, Scottish Ian

Our friend Marlo went with us and our friend Craig met us there. There were lots of things to see. A harpist played a Scottish song & a storyteller told the tale of the MacLeod (Ian's clan) Fairy Flag. We watched Landsknechts demonstrate the cross bow & preform pike drills. We stopped by the blacksmith to watch him make horse shoes. We saw the sword-swallower do what she does best. We kept seeing the belly dancers roaming around the fair but never got to watch the show. Sir Max even got to slay some dragons and won a pretty bracelet for me. After lunch we sat down on a table to watch the joust. They started out aiming for rings and ended with aiming for each other. Max was totally enthralled. At the end of the joust, his favorite knight was answering questions and Max wanted to pet his horse. Of course being chivalrous, he said Max could pet him all he wanted.

Max's favorite knight

Joust

Finally we made our way toward the car and present day. Max kept chattering about the knight & the horse & swords & the horse & lances & the horse & how cool everything was. Then I saw it. The pony rides. Sudden flashback to me at 3, riding Mariah with Daddy & how much fun it was. I asked Max if he wanted to ride & I thought he was going to fall over himself trying to get to the pony. The look on his face as he rode around the trail made it all worth it!

I think this might have been his favorite part!

Now it's summer!

We had a beautiful day last week! Lots of sun and warm enough to get out the pool. Max had a great time!

Is it just me or does Max look just like Uncle Mark in this pic?

Right down to the toothpick (straw)!