Silly Eva

I got these pics off my camera - since it only takes 14 pics at a time...

Anyway, I hope you enjoy these as much as I do:) I guess I've been missing that cute face because I haven't seen it for almost 5 days...too long!

Oh, and here a couple pictures of the beautiful aspen leaves up by the Santa Fe ski area.

Up, up and away in my beautiful balloon

This'll be very short and sweet. We went to the balloon fiesta in ABQ this past weekend and it was quite the experience - try it once for sure, we'll see about next year. We woke the girls up at 5am to get down to the balloon park. I still can't believe how many balloons there were. Note to self: thank Katie for making breakfast burritos the night before, and go to bed earlier when you know you're getting up at 5am.

Check us out at Katie's blog. http://ktann83.blogspot.com

What would I do without Katie and her camera to update y'all about my life. Good thing we're hanging out a lot or you'd just get lame notes from me without a picture link;)

If you get lost, find a police man

So, we went to the state fair last month with my brother's family. We had a great time. It was very nerve wracking to keep track of the girls. We stopped at the police dept. booth and signed our kids up. We had to write our kid's names, our names, and our cell phone number - then they gave the girls a bracelet that had a number that corresponded to my info. So, we told the girls that if they got separated from us to find a nice police man and show him your bracelet so he can call me. It was a zoo! Thank heaven we didn't lose anyone.

Anyway, we did have fun and my SIL took some fun pics so go see her blog:
http://ktann83.blogspot.com/2007/10/new-mexico-state-fair.html

We really did have a busy, fun month. Sorry for not posting more;)

A Spoonful of Sugar

So I hope you all have seen Mary Poppins at one time or another, if not, you won't really get the full story but it's still good.

Tonight I made dinner. Which if you know me, you know I'm quite the chef. I had planned on making Lasagne and maybe even home-made breadsticks. Isobel complained-I don't like Lasagne. Well, last week our fridge died. It was about 60 degrees inside our fridge and outside our apartment. Well, we didn't notice right away, it took about 2 days for us to decide it was really kaput. Well, then we called the office and had them send someone over. He came and "fixed" it but a couple hours later when the milk was still warmish, I called again. They said they'd send someone over in the morning. It was Saturday, so the guy had to do the work all by himself. I don't know how he got the fridge up to the second floor and into our place by himself (we were at Isobel's classmate's birthday party). When we got home, he'd replaced our cereal boxes and magnets onto our new fridge. How thoughtful.

The point: I went to make Lasagne and our cottage chesse was bad. As I was finishing up making the alternative, I told the girls that dinner was ready. Eva asked, "What are we having?" "Spam pasta" "Spam pasta! I love that!"

So I I dished up the food and then took the cornbread (overcooked) out of the oven. "I love cornbread" was the reply. "Mom is so nice to make us such good food."

Then Isobel asked for a drink of ...get this...powdered milk, "because the other milk is all gone." I told her I had gone to the store and gotten more milk. She looked disappointed. So I told her she could have powdered milk to drink if she wanted. She wanted - and was excited! When I poured the girls their milk. Eva took a drink and said, "Mmm, chocolate!" Isobel quikly corrected her that it was white milk. I told Isobel to let Eva go ahead and pretend. Then Isobel said, "It is chocolate. Yum!" Then Eva said, "Strawberry!" "Lime Cordial, Delicious!"

This continued for some time while their forks talked like sisters who were busy feeding someone. Someone who loved Spam pasta.

"A spoonful of sugar goes a long, long way. Have yourself a healthy helping everyday."

Lesson from little

Hey kids, this is Bryce.

The whole family went hiking at the Santa Fe Ski area today (through beautiful fall aspen leaves), and Isobel taught me a little lesson that I thought I'd pass on.

We rode the ski lift to the top and hiked down, luring Eva and Isobel down the trail with Smarties. (They wanted to ride on shoulders, "back down the chair," anything but walk.) Almost at the bottom, we saw a wooden sign: "Adventure Land."

So we took a little detour. It was a very short loop, just a dirt maintenance road that looped out and back... We were almost back when I rolled my eyes and said, "Adventure Land is quite a place."

Isobel said, "Yeah, like there's these rock stairs," and headed up the side of the mountain. Eva followed right along, delighted. Then they found a few boulders and climbed to the top of those, and Isobel said, "Adventure Land is fun."

Consider the lilies.

Happy Birthday, honey

Guest blogger: DH

While Bettie worked on her birthday, the girls and I headed for the Organ Mountains. Isobel quickly dubbed them the "Napolean Dynamite Crystal Mountains," since they're as jagged as the crystals that powered Uncle Rico's time machine in this clip:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wbFeS3PrLtE

Here's a photo of the mountains.

Highlights of our day at Dripping Springs, a pretty BLM-managed picnic area with some jagged rocks, ranch history and a seasonal spring:

• At the visitor center, the girls told the host they were going rock climbing. She said "Oh no" to them, "La Cuevo is a very safe trail" to me, and "you'll get to use your climbing muscles, though" to them.
• I nodded and then we drove back to the La Cuevo trailhead and headed straight to the top of a neighboring fin of rock. We missed Uncle Devin, but made it to the top and back. ("Don't you move from this spot. I'll go help Eva.")
• Eva chose a prickly pear as the spot for one of her spills, and I picked little thorns out of her hand, side and leg for much of the rest of the afternoon. There were even a couple left over for Bettie when we saw her two hours later.
• Eva and I were looking at a tiny lizard with a long blue tail when I said, "Isobel, do you see this?" "No. Look. A snake," she said. And there was the back half of a bright green snake, maybe a Black-tailed Rattlesnake, its dark rattle disappearing last off the side of the trail. (We also saw a roadrunner, my first.)
• At La Cuevo, a cave where a saintly hermit was killed in the 19th century, Eva had to go. So I dropped her pants and held her up, like I have with Isobel dozens of times. But Eva said, "No. In a potty. My pee is scared of the ground. It's staying up."

Anyway, wish you were there, Bettie, but someone's gotta bring home the bacon.

My Birthday Weekend (wahoo!)

Where to begin? Thursday night my family and I drove four hours to Las Cruces. If you can't locate a map to know where that is, it is in the center of the southernmost boundary - it borders Texas and Mexico. We had never been there before and were kindof embarassed that we were surprised how pretty it was. :) There were mountains all the way down the state! We checked into the hotel, starving, ordered pizza and tried to keep the kids from jumping on the beds and the floor. Once we finally ate, it was time for bed. Well by this time, about 11pm, the kids were a bit exhausted - thus, irrational and screaming. Eva was screaming her famed 100dB wail that makes all of us ready to run down a board room table and jump out of the 21st story window. Finally, DH was laying with her in the other bed when Eva said, "I wanna sleep with Mommy, cus she is da softest." How could I say "no" to that? So, DH slept alone, Isobel slept on the floor, and I sorta slept with Eva. She's a mover, a snuggler, and a sweater. So she'd snuggle into me more every time I'd try to move a way, lay on my arm and sweat all over it, and then wiggle around for about 10 minutes -- ALL NIGHT LONG! So, about 30 minutes before the alarm was supposed to go off (like 5:50am), I got up. You can imagine how tired I was staying in a conference room and listening to a lecture/training all day.

When I got out of the training, I had to wait for my family for quite a while. I had the privilege of observing a very long ant trail that went from across the sidewalk to up the side of the building and onto the top.....I was bored. But when they arrived, they had gotten me a dozen roses! 6 red and 6 white. (For your info: I have never gotten roses. Mostly I get daisies, daffodils, or on occasion a carnation. Not that I don't absolutely LOVE these kinds of flowers, It was kinda fun to get roses.) Then we went to the Outback for dinner and they sang to me and I got a hot fudge sundae - yum. Then we drove up to a campground just below the Organ Mtns. It was very pretty. I was a little embarassed to be receiving phone calls in my tent (thank you Verizon) but it was fun to be remembered. :)

The next day we took the LONG way home. We were planning on meeting my brother's family in ABQ that evening so we wanted to take our time getting there. We went to White Sands National Monument. It was fun to play in the sand and exfoliate my feet;) It was pretty crazy because the sand is white - hence the name - but the sand blows across the roads and they plow it, just like snow. You know how when they plow the snow it kinda leaves a little tiny layer of snow and ice on the ground, smooth and kinda bluish-colored? Well, these sand covered roads looked just like that. Honestly. We were nervous everytime we turned a corner - we slowed down and prepared to slide a bit - but it was sand! It was crazy. Quite a trip.

Then we took the scenic route home thru Alamogordo and Ruidoso and up around to some ancient ruins that I can't remember the name...Gran Quivira (Salinas Pueblo Missions). When we got to the ruins it had just stopped raining so we walked up the trail and as soon as we got to the huge buildings sprawled out over the hillside, it started to rain pretty good. We couldn't go down at this point, so we just walked/ran around while our faces were dripping with water. We were quite the sight. It is a cool place. Eva asked a random woman in the gift shop to read her a story book about the tres javelinas (three little pigs retold), which she willingly did:)

We were supposed to meet my brother, who was moving to ABQ, around 6 or 7ish pm. But moving always takes longer than you expect - "oh, just a few more things, a few more, almost done, almost cleaned..." So we went to dinner and the dollar store. I wanted to get some candles and buy a cake at the grocery store. I got a coconut cream pie instead. We got to my bro's hotel around 8:30pm and the kids had finally sacked out so we let them sleep. Then when my bro arrived around 9:30, his kids were out, too. So there was no need for candle burning. We visited and they gave me a super cute flower lamp from IKEA. Yeah!

Sunday morning we wrestled 5 kids in church clothes around the hotel lobby for continental breakfast - what a zoo. Then my family and one of my brother's girls came to SF for church and my brother's family followed later. That night my friends brought over a birthday cake and sang to me. (Too bad I'd been away from home and didn't have any ice cream! I'm lame! Don't worry, we're well stocked now:) I had some messages from my mom, e-mails from friends, couple text messages, and my sister even started a blog in honor of my day: theseglesnest.blogspot.com. All in all, it was a great birthday!