I'm no Dummy

Our front bedroom, Abigail's room, wasn't getting any heat. So I called our Landlord to have it repaired. It was a pretty frustrating conversation.

"Only one of your room's isn't getting heat? Did you try opening the vent?"

We don't have vents. We don't have a furnance. We have a boiler. It's a crazy contraption I haven't come across before. It heats up water and runs the super-heated water through pipes in the floor. It seems to work well for most of the house.

It was funny trying to explain the problem to the repairman when he showed up today.

"It should be working, the rest of the house is warm".

Yeah, well, Hmmm, I'll remember that when I can't put my baby in her bed because her room is freezing cold!

He ended up fiddling with some stuff, adjusting the thermostats and telling me to call on Monday if her room is still cold.

We'll see, I hope the fiddling worked.

Coolest thing about my new house.

The coolest thing about this new house is the awesome bathtub in the master bath. It's really big and deep. It has jets. It makes me want to have a big bathtub in every house after this. I didn't know what I was missing before.

Reading books

My girls love to look at books. But they tend to want to touch all of them while finding the ONE they want to look at. And don't let her sweet look fool you, Abigail is the main suspect in this crime.

A Year in the Life of Abigail

Abigail had her birthday while my family was here. I'm so happy we got to share it with them. We haven't lived by family for almost our entire marriage, so it's a special treat to share birthdays with family.

Here is a little stroll down memory lane about Abigail's life.

Her birth was a really good one. The contractions started in the late morning. I went on a couple of walks around the block to get them going stronger. Once I was sure it was real labor I admitted it to my dh and my sil who were going to the hospital with me. We called some good friends to come and watch the girls and off we were to the hospital. I felt like I was handling the contractions okay, but my companions told me later they were really concerned about how quickly they were coming. Once in the hospital I quickly pushed her out, I don't remember how long we had been there, maybe a half hour. Not long enough for my midwife to get there. We were attended to by a fabulous nurse named Zoobie.

Here she is in her blessing dress


Looking beautiful




We celebrated with the traditional cake and icecream. She liked playing with her new presents but didn't really care for the cake. She is a really smiley baby and we all love having her in our family.

Opening presents


Watching expectantly


Abigail with her cake


We love you Abigail!

Happy Thanksgiving.

I did have a happy Thanksgiving. But it was a crazy one too. I'm not quite sure how it happened but I was chosen to be the host for our holiday this year. I was glad that my family didn't have to do the driving this time, but I was really worried about my ability to be a good hostess. I tried to make sure we had sleeping surfaces for all 17 people, and to have all of the pies and foods everyone expects at Thanksgiving. I also wanted to show everyone a good time around Albuquerque, since no one had ever been here before.

Dinner turned out really yummy, everyone threw a hand in with the cooking. It took alot longer to make than we planned, but it was worth the wait. After dinner we finished it off with a candy-corn fight. I'm not sure how that got started, but I ended up with candy down my shirt, and all over the house. We put the kids to bed, including Abigail sleeping in my closet and the adults played games until the wee hours of the night. I think it was 2:30 when I hit the hay.

The next day we had plans to hike and visit a museum, but our plans were derailed by some pretty nasty stomach ailments and cold weather. We spent the whole day sleeping, playing more games, eating leftovers and watching movies. The next day there were still some who were feeling sick. But several of us ventured out to the Balloon museum.

I had so much fun with my family here. They were all great guests helping with cooking and cleaning and we laughed so much. I love getting together with my family, it is just fun. We will be gathering again in the Spring for Barbara's wedding and I can't wait.

Sandia Man Caves

We went on another short hike with my fun in-laws. This time to the Sandia Man Caves It was about a forty-minute drive from home. It seems we were just a week too late for the fall colors. But it was a fun hike up to the mouth of the cave, the steep heights were a little scary with Eve.

Getting Ready for Christmas

Hiking around

We went for a hike and a picnic lunch in the Santa Fe area. We had alot of fun tracking some kind of animal (that we never caught). It was nice to get outside and explore.

Our trip to Texas

We went on a short trip to Texas to visit my BIL who was back from Iraq and my sister (his wife) and their cute kids, including a new nephew that we hadn't seen yet.

The trip started out with a long drive that we made even longer by taking our time during each stop to run around and play.


Once there we had fun holding a little baby, watching football, playing blacklight charades, and "Are You Smarter Than a Fifthgrader?" (I'm not). The girls were in a constant state of dress-up and made their cousin's rooms messier than it had ever been before.


We went on a drive to Austin to a Celtic festival and that was great! There was sword fighting, dancing, singing, log throwing, shops, bagpipes and food. I saw something I thought was really smart. There was a woman there who was braiding hair. She was charging money and seemed to be doing really well, just for putting "celtic" braids in peoples hair. Genius!

Sunday was the blessing of baby Jaxon. He was a good baby and was content during the prayer. His antics started afterward, having a blow-out diaper so we didn't get a picture of him in his cute little white suit. But we loved being able to be there for this special day. Even with the long drive, we love getting together with Jake and Sarah. I was glad to see their home and see how well they are doing.



We love you guys and can't wait to see you again!

Happy Halloween

We had a great Halloween this year, and the kids are swimming in candy. I convinced the girls they wanted to wear poodle skirts this year, since I already had the pattern, and it didn't look too hard.

We started out the day sending Lily off to school in her costume on the bus, then the girl's and I followed her so we could watch the school costume parade.

There were lots of fun costumes, several scarecrows and SEVERAL transformers. Really, they were all so cute.

After the parade Eve, Abigail and I went to Gordon's office to meet him for trick-or-treating around the office. It is a tradition in this office to go all out for Halloween. Most of the adults had dressed up and every one had a bowl of candy for handing out to the kids. Eve was so cute, and said "thankyou" in her best voice. She thoroughly enjoyed all of the attention. Abigail slept through most of the event.

Halloween was an early out day for Lily so right after lunch I picked her up from the bus stop, then we went back to Gordon's office so Lily could trick-or-treat. Eve happily went around too. They both had fun doing the cake walk and ghost tic-tac-toe too.

After playing with Dad at the office we had a quick nap time then got ready for our ward party. Dinner and trunk-or-treat. It ended up being cold and windy, so the festivities were really short there. But we didn't make it out without another bucket full of candy.

After getting home we tried to take pictures, but Abigail was tired and ready for bed.



It was a very fun and full day for all of us.

First Tooth!

 

I'm a little behind in events in our family, since we went on a short vacation over the weekend. So I'll go in order of the happenings to catch up.

First things first, Abigail got a tooth! It's been on the verge for what seems like weeks, but it finally broke through on October 30th. It was her top left incisor. She got her second tooth the next day on the bottom left, I think the other tooth helped cut it out. She didn't get her third tooth until Nov. 4th, and she fell against a table to bang it out. The fall cut her gum against the almost out tooth. So Abigail now has three teeth!