See? Normal!

I say "most of a week" above because Wednesday (when that photo was taken) we experienced yet another lovely batch of winter weather that resulted in the kids being home from school. Luckily things were all back to normal the following day, and the rest of the week passed without incident. When the weekend rolled around we decided to invite some friends out for a play date.

Look how excited he is. Note: I apologize once again for waking him up by taking photos of him.

The other boys spent a little time running around downstairs before Max decided it was time to go up to the play room. They spent the rest of the afternoon in there making sure that no toy was left untouched.

A rare moment of playing nicely together.

Max was trying to get Chris with the wrench, so revenge was justified.

We began our last weekend day with a trip to the donut store (which Max made in his bear slippers). After we got the boys all sugared up we decided we should do a little finger painting to bring some calm into the mix.

He enjoyed it for a little, but started trying to attack Christy pretty early in the process.

This guy, on the other hand, had no trouble spending lots of time trying to mix all the colors together.

Before putting the boys down for nap we decided to ask them for a little help with the laundry. Christy had pulled out a big box of Max's old stuff to sort through and we needed to get them washed so Owen could enjoy them. Having the kids run up and down the stairs with clothes wasn't going to happen, so we improvised.

Yes, teaching them this is a very bad idea.

It started with just Owen, but we knew that wasn't going to last long.

After the boys had their nap we decided to take them out for a long-overdue shearing. Max was his usual easy-going self for the process.

He kept making this face for whatever reason.

Owen didn't do quite so well.

Poor little guy started screaming the moment we set him in the chair. Thankfully it was over quickly and we spent the rest of the day looking at toys and eating cookies. At least it ended well.

The little guy has been advancing in some ways and regressing in others over the last few weeks. His eating has been iffy as of late, with some good utensil work but a bit to be desired in the not-throwing-food category. To make up for that, he's working hard on learning new words and has mastered a fairly full suite of animal noises to entertain us. We're hoping he'll get his words in soon so he'll understand our explanations of why throwing food is a bad thing, or at least so he'll be able to tell us what he actually wants when he's asking for more.

That'll finish it up for this week! If you want to see the rest of the photos, you can click here. See you next time!