Thursday, November 30, 2006

Weather Report

"...And now to ABQ Mom with the weather..."

Thank you. Let's get right into it. There's a lot to discuss. A storm front has ripped it's way through the state of New Mexico leaving in it's wake towns digging themselves out of 1/2 inch to 2 feet of snow depending on the area. The storm made it's way out of the state and into Texas over night. This morning the city of Albuquerque woke to a slight dusting of snow. Just enough to make things look white but not enough to cause any major traffic delays or even the smallest snowball. Children everywhere were completely devastated. On the heels of this storm an artic cold and wrapped itself around the state. Last night's low was very low for the city. Dipped down to 17 degrees. Today's predicted high: a whopping 37 degrees. Welcome to winter New Mexico it's arrived!
Posted by ABQ Mom :: 11/30/2006 11:11:00 AM :: 8 Comments:

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Monday, November 20, 2006

A Tale of a few Stories

Just to prepare you I'm going to write a few different stories all in one post.


* My son and I both got a stomach flu. Man I hate puking, but I hate wondering if/when I'm going to puke more!

* My husband tries so hard to take care of me and the house when I'm sick but it drives me crazy that he won't come near me with a 10 foot pole because he's worried he's gonna catch something.

*It's been 4 days now and luckily my daughter and husband didn't catch whatever it was we had.



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* Did you ever hear the one about the girl that got ice stuck to her hand? You didn't! Well let me tell you about it! The kids love the fact that our new fridge/freezer comes with an icemaker. They couldn't get enough of that thing when it was warm outside. They would be constantly in the freezer getting ice then running outside and throwing it on the patio to watch it melt. We tried not to be too upset about it, we never had to worry about getting stale ice, the kids made sure to recycle it frequently.

Now that it's getting cooler they don't get into the ice quite as often but I still catch them in there sometimes. Nowadays though it's so they can have "cold, cold, COLD water". They'll get a little plastic cup, run into our bathroom (it's the only sink in the house they can reach) fill up their cup with water then run into the kitchen to get some ice. I've gotten used to this scenario so I tried not to let it bother me. It's just water, if it spills it will dry. I was pretending not to notice what was going on when I was brought out of my reverie by my little girl crying. Not surprising when she and big brother are together she's prone to start crying, but this was a different kind of cry. Besides Big Brother wasn't even near her.

When I found her she showed me her right hand. It had ice cubes stuck to every finger and a few stuck to the palm of her hand! She tried shaking them off and they wouldn't move. She tried pulling but they were pretty stuck! I think she was crying the most because it scared her that they were stuck. I tried not to laugh in amazement at the situation and walked her into the bathroom and ran water over her hand to get the ice to come unstuck. She must have tried to get some ice out of the freezer with wet hands. It had me giggling pretty good when I told her Daddy about it later. And you know what?!? They haven't played in the ice since!


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*It's always hard to accept that we're growing up, that we're getting older, that we're no longer the full of energy youngin's we once were. But you know what is even harder to accept? Knowing that our parents are getting older too. My husband and I were shocked with this revelation a few weeks ago while talking with my Mother-in-Law on the phone.

She grew up in Idaho, her father was a potato farmer, she studied horticulture in college before getting married. You might just say that there's a little dirt that runs through her veins. I've always loved going to their house in Idaho, there are so many beautiful flower beds all over their property. It's like walking through a plant catalog walking around the yard. She has worked for 15 years on those flower beds. She had a little help from her husband but mostly the help came from her two sons. My husband left and went to college, got married, moved away, she lost her most helpful assistant but she still had Sterling at home. He didn't LOVE gardening like my Mother-in-Law and my husband but he felt inclined to help. Now Sterling is away at college. My Mother-in-Law is a 4th grade teacher, working on her Master's degree and no longer has her son's around to help her with the yard. Yes, Juell, her 12 yr old daughter is still at home but isn't nearly the assistant as the boys were.

She just turned 50 this spring. Maybe that birthday made her realize she was getting older. Maybe the lack of helpful hands around the house made it frustrating. Maybe just understanding she doesn't have as much free time as she once did with teaching school and working towards her Master's pushed the decision. Whatever the reason it was a sad day when she had her husband rip out all the plants from the flower beds (except for two) and cover them over with mulch. She cried while it was being done. My husband and I practically cried when she told us about it. We're scared to go to the house and look at the yard and not see all the plants (yes even though it's dormant now). We never thought the day would come when she would think herself too old to keep up with her gardening. We definitely were shocked to learn the news.

(P.S. My husband asked me to write about this. He felt it was something important I should blog about.)


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* Wha....?!?! How did this happen? Well, ya, of course I know HOW? But How? It wasn't supposed to happen this way! We had it all planned. We had it all scheduled for when it would work the best for us and our little family. This was truly unexpected! It just goes to show you that no matter how much we think we got our lives under control, He knows what we need and when we need it more than we do!

I've gone through the full spectrum now. Having a hard time, not understanding why we weren't being blessed with something we so truly wanted and then expecting at exactly the best time for our situation. Then the getting what we wanted at exactly the time we wanted it even though it was a little close to the last one. Then this time around, where we were preventing and somehow it happened anyway.

This time around I have all the jokes running through my head:

-"You DO know how this happens, don't you?"
-"You know what causes pregnancy, right?"
-"Give me the name of a birth control and I'll give you a name of a child."
-"What did you do wash your underwear together?"
-"Did you get into the shower after him?"

And of course I have the insane thoughts too:

-"She's a walking baby factory now, isn't she?"
-"All she knows how to do is have babies huh?"

Yes I know, those are unfair, I am imagining the thoughts of other people and thinking that they're actually thinking it. Everyone knew we weren't going to have ONLY two kids. They should have expected an announcement of another pregnancy eventually. She is almost 2 1/2 now.

I just have to keep telling myself He knew better than we did. He knew another baby was supposed to come into our family NOW not a year from now. My due date is July 12th. My daughter's third birthday is July 17th.

"Every baby is a blessing."


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* We fly to Idaho tomorrow for the Thanksgiving holiday. My son's fourth birthday is on Wednesday. We have been counting down for literally two months now. He's so excited to fly on an airplane tomorrow and then his birthday is the day after that! I'm just excited I don't have to hear "I want that for my birthday." "I want to put that on my birthday list." Now I can look forward to hearing "I want that for Christmas." "I want to put that on my Christmas list."
Posted by ABQ Mom :: 11/20/2006 12:03:00 PM :: 6 Comments:

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Wednesday, November 15, 2006

Bragging Moment

Lookie, lookie what I just did! I just finished this bag! They taught us how to make them at enrichment last night. I didn't finish mine, (man I make a lot of mistakes when I'm sewing in public!) Once I started working on it today it started to make a lot more sense. But now it's finished! I bought three different fabrics, this one and one other that will go with black corduroy, then another fabric that can go with brown corduroy. I'm thinking I might make them as christmas presents. Now that I have the basic idea down I can make them smaller, more like a purse or bigger, like a bookbag.


Posted by ABQ Mom :: 11/15/2006 04:29:00 PM :: 5 Comments:

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Monday, November 13, 2006

blog links

I promised to post some websites where I have found blog templates. So here they are.

http://bloggertemplatesbycaz.blogspot.com/

http://blogger-templates.blogspot.com

http://www.diaphaneity.com

http://www.blogfrocks.com

http://www.tinkonline.nl

http://creativecommons.org

http://blogspottemplates.blogspot.com/

http://www.angiemckaig.com/misc/blogtemplates.html

http://www.zootsdesigns.com/
Posted by ABQ Mom :: 11/13/2006 09:07:00 AM :: 2 Comments:

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Thursday, November 09, 2006

An Arizona Story

It was interesting going back to Phoenix. It's been a few years since I had last been there, and this was the first time I had ever been in Phoenix without Shane.

Phoenix was the place of our first kiss.
Phoenix was where we spent our three months of engagement.
Phoenix was where we spent our first three years of marriage.
Phoenix was where my son was born.

I-17 Corridor.
The first time I had driven that road was when I moved down to Phoenix when we got engaged so I could look for a job. Shane was driving but I was still scared to death! I couldn't believe we were going 90 miles and hour and being passed like we were standing still! Driving that stretch of freeway was fun now! It was exhilarating. I knew the road like the back of my hand and could take the curves like Speed Racer.

Phoenix.
As I drove into the city I was amazed at how much it had grown since the last time I had been there. There was new neighborhoods, stores, roads, everything. But there were things that had never changed. I saw the exit to Lake Pleasant we had taken when I had come down to visit Shane to see if we were supposed to be together. His roommate had taken us water-skiing. The exit that went to his old apartment. Castles & Coasters, knowing also that DeVry where he had gone to school, our apartment and the hospital where our son was born was all just down the road on that exit. The exit that would take me to my old OB's office when I was pregnant. I saw the Central Ave corridor. The building I used to work in. The State Fair was going on and I was reminded of our one trip to the state fair.

So many of these places had memories in them that Shane and I shared and it was so weird to be seeing them again without the man that I had made all these memories with. I had my kids with me and tried to express to them the memories I had of these different places, but being at a young age it was hard for them to understand.

I saw the school I had taken some classes at to finish my Associates Degree. The airport where I had picked up my future sister-in-law for Christmas a month after getting engaged to her brother. I didn't even know what she looked like! Being in Tempe I was reminded of the different family events we had gone to with Shane's extended family. The movie theatre Brooke and I went to while waiting for the rest of the family to arrive the day before Christmas. The Arizona Mills Mall where Shane and I had walked to pass away the time and hoped to induce labor. The In N' Out Burger we ate at because we were both having a craving.

Since moving away from Phoenix every time we've gone back we've been blown away at the beauty of the city. Phoenix is a fairly new city, they took design and landscape into consideration when designing the city. Every inch of non-pavement has landscape. Beautiful flowering plants and trees. We realize how pretty it really was there and have hopes that one day ABQ will get it together. October was the month I had first visited. It was nice to be there at that same time of year.

We have lived there for three years while Shane was attending school. It was far away from family and we knew when the three years were over that we would leave Phoenix. We couldn't wait for that time to pass so we could move on to the next phase of life. Job. Baby. House. We hoped we'd move closer to our parents. We did move closer. Two hours closer. Not exactly what we had planned.

The Old Job.
I was so excited to take Sariah to the building where I used to work. If was a phase of my life that I "suffered" through, but there were people and moments that I enjoyed and I wanted to show Sariah that timespan from my previous life.

Since moving away I've kept in touch with Sue regularly. She has filled so many rolls in my life I don't even know where to start. She reads my blog on a daily basis and looks forward to the next email with pictures of my babies. I had emailed her before telling her I was coming to town. The kids loved the fountain in the lobby and it was fun to have Sue see my kids in person. While standing there in the lobby watching W and Aiden run laps around the fountain and Sariah and I visiting with Sue a few other old co-workers came walking by. They all recognized me and were thrilled to see me and visit for a few minutes.

I loved showing Sariah the places where I'd take my 15 minute breaks or eat my lunch while reading a book. The "park" in front of the building across the street where the kids played for nearly three hours. After our picnic at the park I took Sy back to my old office. Sue walked me around the office to see who was still working there that was there when I used to work there. It had been four years in a sales company that has a high turn-over rate but there were still quite a few familiar faces. My face was familiar too and they were excited to see my beautiful little girl. After saying hi to everyone that would have known me I headed back to Sariah's house. Friday at 4pm = traffic. I had forgotten how bad the traffic could be. I didn't miss that.

When I got back the boys were watching a movie so it gave Sariah and I a chance to talk. I told her about the different people that I had visited with and the reaction they had when they saw me in the old stomping grounds of the office. During that conversation Sariah said something that turned on the waterworks. She said "Even though it's been four years since you last worked there, those people were happy and excited to see you. You must have had some sort of effect or influence on those people when you worked there for them to have a reaction like that." That thought hadn't even occurred to me and it made me realize what a special thing I had at that old job. Yes there were days when I couldn't wait to quit. People that I was glad never to see again, but overall it was a good experience because of the people I was able to get to know.

I never thought that Phoenix would have a special place in my heart. After visiting with such a space since the last visit and without the man that helped to make that place special I realized that it does. I'm not saying I'd move there tomorrow. The visits during the fall-spring are nice though.
Posted by ABQ Mom :: 11/09/2006 09:43:00 AM :: 4 Comments:

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Wednesday, November 08, 2006

Rockin' Around The Clock

They're both sick.

She doesn't sleep well when she has a cold.

She woke up at 9pm before I had even gone to bed. She stayed up with me till 10:30pm. She wouldn't sleep in my bed so she went back to hers.

I forgot to eat dinner last night. Got up at 11pm to eat something. She woke up at the same time.

Midnight He woke up to use the bathroom. Needed my help to get his pajamas back on.

I woke up at 1am to use the bathroom. She woke up again.

Then again at 2am. This time daddy went in. Brought her into our bed... I had a tiny sliver of the edge of the bed to myself. I even had to give up my pillow to the little princess!

5:30am rolls around. Like clock-work He wanders into our room. 5:45am daddy's alarm clock goes off. He see that she's in our bed too. Starts talking to her and woke her up. By 6:15am I knew noone was going back to sleep. The three of us sat on the couch in the dark till daddy left for work.

6:30am daddy left for work. Watched 15 minutes of news.

6:45am Started Disney/Pixar's CARS. Watched whole movie including shorts and bonus footage.

10:30am We've all been up for 5 hours. I think I may have gotten a total of 4 hours sleep last night.

Man am I exhausted!
Posted by ABQ Mom :: 11/08/2006 10:29:00 AM :: 4 Comments:

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Tuesday, November 07, 2006

Halloween

We had a fun halloween this year. The kids were very excited to wear their costumes. Remember that pumpkin patch field trip? We ended up with 6 pumpkins from that. Yep. I carved them all. Well okay, not all of them. The 6th one got hollowed out but is still sitting outside waiting to be carved. It probably won't. :-(




Being that we live in New Mexico I felt it appropriate to do a Roswell Alien Jack O' Lantern.



A happy ghost.



A cyclops.


This is Sy's pumpkin. She's pushed it in the baby stroller and rolled it around the yard. Carried it around the house. When it came time to carve it she had no problem picking out the pattern she wanted on her pumpkin. A bat.



This is W's pumpkin. The day we brought it home from the pumpkin patch he painted a face on it with grandma. We carved the other side of it. He happily chose the spider pattern for his pumpkin.



Here they are in their costumes. I got a really good deal on them through disneystore.com. W had been telling everyone he was going to be Peter Pan for halloween and would tell them his sister was going to be Tinkerbell.


They absolutely loved being in their costumes.


Tink had eaten some pizza before her picture was taken.


Peter Pan getting ready to fly back to Neverland.


The did not want to take their costumes off when we got home that night. They wanted to put them on again the next day. I was "told" that they "will get to wear their costumes again on W'l birthday."
Posted by ABQ Mom :: 11/07/2006 08:45:00 PM :: 5 Comments:

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Road Trip!

The weekend before Halloween I decided to go on a little Road Trip. Thursday afternoon after W got out of Preschool we hit the road headed for Arizona and a visit with Sariah and her family. I told W we were going to a friends house and earlier that day had shown him pictures of Aiden. It was the perfect day to leave as Albuquerque was bitter cold and being blasted by horrible winds. While we drove W asked lots of questions and was very excited to play with his new friend. After every curve or every hill he'd point at a house and ask "Is that Aiden's house?" Then it progressed to "Aiden's house is after we go over that big, Big, BIG hill way over there!"

We arrived around 10pm Thursday night. I got to tell you, I missed driving that I-17 corridor between Flagstaff and Phoenix. It's the only section of road where you can drive like Speed Racer and still get passed by other vehicles. It was great to see Ches and Sariah again. We had only just barely knew each other when we were at Ricks together, and I tagged along with some mutual band friends to their wedding!

W and Aiden immediately hit it off and were so wound up it was hard to get them to sleep that night! Friday morning came early and W loved seeing all of Aiden's toys and they played hard. Sadly Aiden had to go to Preschool that day so for a few hours they missed each other immensely.

Sariah and I prepared for a nice picnic once Aiden was out of preschool. There's this building in downtown Phoenix that's across the street from the building I worked in when I lived Phoenix years ago. There is this awesome grassy area, awesome fountain/lake, and these cool statues. I thought the kids would love it. But before going to the "park" as I will call it from now on we went to the lobby of the building I used to work in.

There's this big fountain in the middle that the kids just went crazy over. Sariah and I visited with Sue, an old co-worker of mine for a little bit and thought it might be fun to tour the old office. As soon as we stepped off the elevator it's like we lost complete control of our kids! We didn't even recognize them. They started yelling and screaming and running around the office. Sariah and I were so embarrassed we grabbed armfuls of kids and practically ran to the elevators!

Once we were to the "park" the kids were able to run and yell till their heart's content. I tried to take some pictures.

Here is Aiden trying to throw a rock into the water. Too bad they were cemented to the ground!








Dalling trying to figure out how to get into the water without us noticing!

Dallin checking out one of the lights that shines on a nearby tree.

Dallin imagining how fun it would be to play in the water.

Dallin trying to sneak down into the water.

Sariah taking a picture of me while I took a picture of her.

Sydnie and her trusty giraffe gazing into the water.

I had asked Aiden to stand next to the tree so I could take his picture. W and Sy seemed to think he was lonely or needed help posing.

W sitting by the fountain being the photogenic boy that he is.

Friday night after finally getting the kids asleep we stayed up late and chatted. CHes came home from a football game the middle school band was playing at and we stayed up even later talking about memories from Ricks and other things. It was fun to talk with other musicians about musically related topics again.

Saturday we planned to do some fun, free Halloween related stuff. The day seemed filled with obstacles and at one point Dallin and Parker were taking naps. I took that opportunity to go over to my hubby's grandparents house so the kids could visit with them. Shane's grandfather had yet to even see Sy so I felt it important that they have the chance to visit. My kids started out shy at first but once Papa started sharing candy corn with them they warmed up quickly. They got to have popsicles with Mother under the Pomagranate tree. W "helped" Mother with a sewing project by pulling out pins that weren't ready to be pulled yet which resulted in some good tickles and cuddles. While cuddling Mother turned to me and said "I'm so sorry Dana, but you had absolutely nothing to do with this one (W)." I quickly replied (I've heard this before) "Yes I know Mother. I was just the oven!" When it was time to leave W and Sy were more than enthusiastic to give good-bye hugs to Mother and Papa, it almost brought tears to my eyes. Over all it was a good visit with the great-grandparents.

We quickly hurried back over to Sariah's house where we tried to get ready to go to the festival. After a quick stop at the wal-mart we went over to a local church's halloween carnival. Sadly Sariah and I got quickly frustrated and angry while there. It was poorly run and of course the older kids (teenagers) had to ruin it for our kids. Even though they didn't seem to be bothered by it, it really bothered us moms.

Here are pictures taken at the carnival.

W, Aiden and Sy in the bouncy house for their TWO MINUTE time limit!

W and Aiden. A.K.A. "The Twins". These two were inseparable.


After the carnival we went back to the house where we had hamburgers cooked on the grill and watched "Over The Hedge". We got some cute pictures of the boys playing together and Ches commented more than once that the weekend gave us insight into what it would be like with twins. We were all glad we didn't have them! It was a tearful goodbye Sunday evening. Aiden was sad to see W go and said "You can come back anytime you need to" while giving him a hug. It was so sweet!

(P.S. I didn't purposely take all these picture in black and white. I didn't know till the roll was done and went to switch it out with a new roll that it was a black and white roll. I was so mad! But at least the pictures turned out good.)
Posted by ABQ Mom :: 11/07/2006 06:50:00 PM :: 5 Comments:

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Monday, November 06, 2006

template changes

It's been over two weeks since my last post. I wouldn't be surprised if you all thought I fallen off the edge of the earth or something. I wish I had a good excuse for why I haven't posted more recently but sadly I don't. I have a few things in the works, a lot on my mind, some things that I would like to write about but can't (yet).

I've really been unhappy with my blog template lately. I've been playing a bit with some templates today, got the files all ready to copy and paste in, but having a tough time deciding. This is where you come in. Help me decide. I actually have a few others that I really like too, but I can't seem to get them right. Anyway this is what I was able to do myself without any problems or help.

Okay, so you choose. Which one should I change to?





Posted by ABQ Mom :: 11/06/2006 11:50:00 AM :: 10 Comments:

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