Pictures

The boys were so cute playing together - in between the fighting over the "tools" on the workbench.



Peek-a-boo!
On a side note: See how neat and tidy all those toys are in the background? Yeah. Not normally that clean. Ok, I'll be honest. It is never that clean. I had just vacuumed and ended up organizing the toys. I'm telling you this so that you don't look at all the toys scattered through your own home and feel like a slacker. Rest assured these toys are once again scattered through my house and it only took 45 minutes to get messy again!


Lucas is busy building an airplane for me. I kept asking him to turn around so I could get a picture and he kept telling me that he was really, really busy.


A very annoyed kitty. She has been locked in the bedroom all week because we have a visiting doggie that likes to chase and bark at her. She gets out at night but she is still all pissed off with the arrangement.


Nick has the cutest hair when he wakes up from his naps. It is all frizzy in the back.

Just a Quickie

We took the dog back to the no-kill shelter at the end of our trial period. He refused to go pee in the yard. And on the final day we had him he refused to go pee on the brief walk in the rain that AJ took him on, but the damned dog had no trouble lifting his leg on the wall and peeing on the carpet. That simply won't work. If it is raining outside I need a dog that will willingly pee in the yard or at least on a five minute walk in the rain.

My niece and nephew came to stay with us for the week with their grandma (AJ's mom) so we will be busy seeing all the kid-friendly sights and attractions for the week. I'll try to post pictures of our adventures, if I remember to take pictures. First I need to remember to take the camera. Today we went to the zoo and had a good time. It was surprisingly empty for a holiday weekend but I suppose that most people were in church when we were cruising through the zoo. Their loss. We saw the elephant working with the trainer and doing tricks, and the Lorokeet feeding (visitors are allowed to feed the birds by hand - lots of fun), and the the giraffe feedings.

Tomorrow I think we will try to hit the aquarium and the botanical gardens before it gets too hot. There is a kids maze at the botanical gardens, it is a huge maze that goes on forever - pretty cool.

Hope everyone had a good 4th!

Battles Rage On

The battles are continuing with a major confrontation occurring this morning at approximately 0730 hrs in my closet. A skirmish erupted between Riley, who was cornered, and the dog who was advancing. Riley let loose with some claw action and hissing at which point the dog continued to advance and take nips at the air around Riley's face. Riley responded by spraying and leaping into my arms (see photo below). Haylee heard all the commotion and ran into the closest to rescue Riley, puffed and ready for action. She switched strategies at the last minute and launched a flying lateral assault from the doorway. Her attack was met with more air and tail nipping. Haylee responded with a full frontal attack and landed on the dog's face where she was shaken off and then immediately leaped onto his back. The dog, feeling cornered was yipping and yelping. Haylee showed no signs of letting up or relenting so I stepped in to call a temporary cease fire while both sides cooled off. Since then the dog has been demonstrating more respect for Haylee. I haven't seen Riley all day.

Battle wounds


Haylee checks on Riley who is hiding in the room behind the gate. The dog keeps a healthy distance.


"You think you wanna mess with ME? I will rip your tongue out while blindfolded and with one claw."

A Dog?

We think we have found a good dog. He is home with us, for a one week trial period where we are evaluating how well he will fit in with our family. He is an Australian shepherd from Santa Fe. He was a stray that nobody has claimed. He was all set to be euthanized when a no-kill shelter took him, quarantined him for three weeks and got his "boys" snipped. And now we are giving him a test run.

So far he seems to be an excellent dog. I am really very surprised at what a good dog he is. He needs training, and a name but he gets along well with the kids, seems to ignore the neighbors evil dogs who try to draw him into a fence fight and isn't hyper.

The only thing that needs to be determined is if he and the cats can work out their differences. He is a herding dog. Haylee in his mind clearly needs to be "worked" and herded. Haylee disagrees with the dog and when he nipped at her (another breed characteristic used to work livestock - Haylee was unharmed but PISSED) she freaking went berserk on him and ended up "working" him. She cornered him and spit on him. Not very lady-like but I will forgive her for that. So now there is a stand off. She is in our bedroom doorway and he is at my feet facing her. I hope that they work things out. We won't be able to keep him if they don't come to a middle ground by the end of the week.

Nick's new truck

Lucas knows the words to Cash's "Ring of Fire" and Nick is learning to dance to hillbilly music while playing with his new shiny red truck. And yes the truck is Nick's. He liked the music in the store. No joke. I guess my kids are rednecks? God. So. Not. My. Intention.

So Scrwoood

Crap. Do you see what I see? This is what I walked into the room to find. I grabbed the camera to document this terrible TERRIBLE moment.

Yes he got up there himself. All by himself in search of his juice box.



And then he sat down so that he could wrinkle his nose up at me as if to say "Whatcha gonna do now Ma?"


I am secretly sharing his pride in his accomplishment but his climbing ability adds a whole new level of fear to my days now. He is going to crash and burn and whack his beautiful little head while my back is turned and . . . . there is always some terrible thing to worry about I guess. I just need to take a few deep breaths and hope that he learns better balance soon.

Camping part deux

We went camping again for four days and three nights. We initially went to Bluewater Lake State Park - but it was the biggest asscrack of a campground ever. I swear as we drove through the place looking for a semi-decent campsite we passed multiple skinheads. It must have been some sort of a convention. We never did find a spot and decided to take our non-skinhead butts to a more family friendly place. El Morro again, since it was the only campground within a reasonable driving distance from Bluewater. Our friends Pat and Amy joined us with their two doggies, Yogi and Boo. We had a lot of fun but didn't expect the campground to be as full as it was. We snagged the last two spots in the whole place (all nine sites). We had to settle for a less than ideal sight that was flanked on one side by a steep rocky slope that Nick seemed to be drawn to. It rained the first day (Saturday) and so we were trapped in the tent with the kids which was NOT A GOOD THING AT ALL. We eventually loaded them into the car and drove to town to gather supplies that we had forgotten.

On night two we relocated to a safer spot that was closer to Pat and Amy's spot. The rain decided to stop and the clouds parted, blue sky's dominated, a beam of light shone down on us while the angels sang. Alright. Kidding about the last part. Thankfully we dried out and the kids were not trapped in the tent. We had a great trip, came home Monday and are looking at the calendar to plan another one soon.

Here is Lucas in his "work hat" that came with a tool set we bought to entertain him during the rain.


Nick looking cute


Lucas trying to teach Nick to pee on a stick. Very cute.


Nick helping AJ inflate the beds


Lucas eating his Egg sandwich.


AJ reading Lucas a book


Nick taking a nap. A very needed nap.


Day one: Steep rocky slope just off camera to the left - adjacent to the camp table.

The Good and The Bad - and possibly ugly too

First the good:

Nick is starting to master the silverware thing. Spoons only work with "sticky" foods like ice cream, oatmeal and yogurts. Forks are still a challenge because some foods need to be stabbed just right or else it won't work. But he is getting better and better.


The other good:

Nick sleeps. Finally.


The bad:

Lucas split his chin open this morning and might benefit from stitches. The gash is pretty deep and about ¾ inch long. It stopped bleeding but needs to be held closed because it is gaping open. Yuck. But here is the thing. I really don't want to take him to the Dr. so that they can wrap him in a sheet and stab him in the face with needles and then stitch him up. So. Mommy and Daddy tapped it closed with a butterfly (bandaid?) sticky thing. You know what I'm talking about. The butterfly things that close up minor gashes so you don't get stitches. Lucas was just fine about five minutes after the incident so really the stitches would be for cosmetic purposes only as far as we could tell. If we wanted to avoid a nasty scar we'd get the stitches, but I want to avoid trying to juggle Nick while trying to comfort Lucas who the Doctors would be torturing with evil needles . . . butterfly closure it is. Nightmare at the Emergency Department avoided. The cut is on the bottom of his chin so hopefully the scar won't be too visible or ugly. But scars are cool right?

Hey look at this:

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I feel so stinkin' cool now.

Go here for all the inside info.

PECOS BABY!

We had so much fun. Except for the F*%@ing birds, but I'll get to that in a moment. We got up to the "Forked lightening Ranch House" around nap time. I was so happy to find that the Casita we were staying in was super comfortable, clean and well stocked with all the things I forgot - like dish soap. There was plenty of room for all four of us and there was even a washer and dryer (new!) in the unit. The best part was the scenery. I had no idea New Mexico could be so pretty.

The park people were so friendly and welcoming, they clearly loved their jobs and took a lot of pride in their park. Very refreshing. I posted a bunch of pictures on the link above. I am still not very good at getting slide shows on my blog.
The bird story:

There was a nest outside of our casita and it was very noisy during feeding times (every 15-20 minutes it seemed). As of Saturday late morning I hadn't yet had a chance to check out the type of bird when the kids and I returned to the casita for nap time. When we arrived I saw a bird hopping around on the ground unable to fly but it had feathers.
So I spent about five minutes chasing the f*#$ing thing around the yard until I finally caught it. I showed it to Lucas who thought it was really cool and then I stood on a chair to return it to the nest. ( Ahhh I am such a good person aren't I? Sainthood is just around the corner for me. ) As I reached into the nest the other FOUR FLIPPING BABIES all jumped out of the nest and onto the ground, and then the fifth one whom I had just returned followed them down. But they weren't flying. And the parents. . . ahhh the parents were so pissed off at me. They were screaming at me and dive bombing me and I still didn't look to see who/what they were. I was now focused on keeping track of where all the babies went so I could catch them. The kids laughed their cute little butts off as I ran around the yard cornering and then carefully returning each and every baby to the nest - carefully not disturbing the others this time. When I finished a full half hour later I realized that I still didn't know what they were. So I looked up at the incredibly PISSED off parents who were perched on the roof still raising hell and this is what I saw:

A Brewer's blackbird. Ugg. I had hoped that I would have rescued something glamorous, like baby eagles. Haa haa. They clearly weren't eagles but you get the point.

The worst part was that for the remainder of our time there the birds dive bombed me every time I left the building. I took a walk and they FOLLOWED me on my entire 20 minute walk and yelled at me the whole time. I had no peace or quiet at all.

Loading Up

We are headed off to one of the parks that AJ works with this weekend. AJ is working at some special event there and we decided to tag along. I'll let you know how it goes. Have a good weekend!

AJ's Cake

Here is AJ's cake. I gave my mom a hard time about decorating the top. I told her that the carrot she was doing would look like crap and that my "leaves" were going to look wayyyy better. And all that trash talking didn't pay off for me because her carrot looked way better than the leaves I thought I would totally rock. Oh well. I admit it. My leaves suck.


The boys sat in the hallway and fed each other Graham cracker goldfish. It was really cute.

CAMPING!!! (with kids for the first time)

We went camping for the first time with CHILDREN (dum dum duuuum DUMMM). Prior to this trip AJ and I had only been camping when it was just the two of us. We were planning on camping in the Mt. Taylor Forest (North of Grants NM) but ended up at El Morro National Monument after learning about the forest's reputation for having loud parties. Crazy forest. And we had a great time. We planned easy foods and beverages so we wouldn't have to fuss with cooking and cleaning. A new - very roomy tent was just the right size for all of us to comfortably sleep, and it fit perfectly onto the tent pad. It was a beautiful day and the campground was completely empty! Can you believe our luck? The stars were aligned and our trip was starting to shape up nicely.

Notice how cute our little site is?


Now for all the stuff I left out of the previous paragraph. Nick is teething (two teeth it looks like) for the first time ever and is not handling it well. The wind just WOULD NOT STOP blowing and it made functioning outside very difficult because everything blew away. Including our wonderfully planned dinner. We cooked hot dogs over an open flame - that the wind tried to extinguish. The wind was so strong that it kept blowing poor little Nick over.

AJ and I have spent a good part of our lives camping but it is a very different experience when you don't have kids. What we hadn't fully anticipated the amount of hazards that camping posed for children and babies. Literally EVERYTHING posed some sort of horrible danger. I had no idea it would be like this. Every jagged pointy rock, every partially buried root, the firepit, the concrete table, the tent stakes, the small rocks under the tent, the road running through camp, the propane tank, the lanterns, the perfect snake hiding habitat, the vast openness that surrounded us - all seemed to be waiting to jump out and get the kids if we didn't watch them CONSTANTLY and it was exhausting. Nick had several bad falls that left him bruised and shaken.

The "X"'s in the picture show where all the child/baby hazards are located: everywhere.


Recovering from a fall off of his baby camping chair (he hit a jagged rock that was covered by the gravel in camp)


And all this exploration, trauma and change led to a very much needed nap.



We cooked dinner early because Lucas refused to take a nap - it was all so exciting!! And then we had smores early too. It was weird starting a campfire while the sun had a couple more hours left in the sky, but again. . . we have kids and we promised to have smores. So I had THREE smores I confess. Lucas had one smore and was so thrilled to have cooked his own hot dog over the fire with a stick he picked out and also to cook marshmallows over the fire too. What a great day for Lucas. He was so proud of himself.

Here he is showing off his first smore.


Sticky hands.


The sunset was pretty amazing.


You just can't beat the view.


Thankfully the wind died down during the night and the other campers that joined us were very quiet people. AJ and Lucas slept on separate air mattresses while Nick and I shared a sleeping bag and air mattress. AJ and Lucas had nice warm sleeping bags and Nick and I apparently did not because we FROZE our asses off. I'm not kidding. We were so cold. And it was the kind of cold that wakes you up at 1 am and keeps you up until the sun comes up. Ok. So it wasn't entirely the sleeping bags fault. Nick kept sticking his frozen little hands on my belly. If he wasn't so darn small and cute I would have made him sleep in his own bag. So AJ and Lucas woke up all happy and rested and Nick and I were really tired. AJ actually had the BALLS to complain about being too sweaty in his sleeping bag !! Fucking Bastard. My consolation prize: I burned off all the calories from my three smores trying to generate body heat for Nick and myself. Nick and I laid down after breakfast and took a nap - and this time we piled on the covers and stayed warm. Note to self: Bring warmer sleeping bag next time.

Rolling up the tent. Daddy's little helper. AJ would go around and unclip and unsnap things to take the tent down and Lucas was right behind him reclipping and resnapping everything. So camping with kids is a little more challenging when you have a helper.


Nick looking more rested after his nap with Mommy.


Mom. Get. Me. A. Warmer. Sleeping. Bag. Pronto.


We had a great time and learned a few tricks to make next time a bit easier. Not easy. Just easier.

Nick's Stats

At his one year check up:

22.2 lbs
31.7 inches
18.9 inches (head)

Tall kid. Skinny kid.

Less Frustrated

Tonight I kept Lucas up past his bedtime and we made oatmeal cookies and banana bread together. Screw it. I need to learn to lighten up a little. Lucas had a blast and I enjoyed the one-on-one time with him which we really don't get anymore. It kind of makes me sad because he is so often having to wait for my attention until his loud, screeching brother settles down.

Don't get me wrong. I love Nick more than I can express but HE IS DRIVING ME NUTS lately. He is at this stage where he is all consuming. He wants to be held and carried everywhere and if I put him down he freaking looses his mind and lets loose with this grating screeching sound. And you'd think that after five or ten minutes he'd decide to stop but noooooooo. He keeps going. So to sum up. My back is killing me from caving into my one year olds demands to carry him absolutely freakin' everywhere. I can't clean, cook, or pee with this child. And I am going out of my mind.

So baking was a nice break and nice opportunity to spend some time with my oldest baby. I mean Big Boy. He is insisting on being called a big boy now.

Lucas was clean after his Dad gave him a bath and I got him all sticky with batter. Sorry AJ.


Mmmm. The best part of baking.



And this is the current state of the rest of my house. It can wait. Indefinitely.

So Frustrated

I am being pulled in so many directions and I am so frustrated. I don't have TIME to do anything well or thoroughly, which means that I am constantly feeling like I am running from one thing to another and not finishing anything. The kids demand attention nearly all the time and I would like to do other things . . . like clean my bathroom or bake banana bread. But I never have the TIME. And so I just end up throwing my hands up and getting angry and frustrated all the time. And I have to dedicate time to this property management so that I make some extra cash which is nice. . . then I can buy that dining room table I really want. And somehow I was volunteered (by someone else) to head up the 18month to 3 year old playgroup for my Mom's group. Which means I actually have to PLAN and ORGANIZE and holy crap GET MY SHIT TOGETHER because I really want them to LIKE ME and I feel like I am in second grade again, trying to make friends and good impressions. . . AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!

Ohhhh what a birthday!

Nick has a terrible chest and head cold (although he looks just fabulous in these pictures - don't let it fool you) and is really not feeling well at all today. And I suspect he has an ear infection, but we are waiting until Monday to take him to the doctor in case the ear thing clears itself up. So we are giving him some Benadryl to dry up his mucous and Motrin to kill the ear pain. Whoo Hooo what a great first birthday!!

We made him a blue cake and tonight only gave him a frosting free cupcake due to his not feeling well. Tomorrow if he is feeling better we will do the whole candle thing. But he was in a fairly good mood at dinner considering he'd had a grand total of 40 minutes of napping today and three knocks to the head which left bruises. . .seriously I think Nick might go and find another family who will ensure he has good birthdays from here on out. Prepare for a bunch of pictures now.

Eating our cupcake. . . we liked it a lot.

Wrinkling his nose up at us . . . one of my favorite face expressions!

Awww here is a better picture of that face expression.

Smiling at Daddy

Laughing at Daddy and showing that at one year he still doesn't have a single tooth!

Mr. Lucas enjoying a cupcake as well. He handled Nick getting attention very well.


He tried to clean up his crumbs, which was so sweet. He's a good kid.

Haylee has found a good location for scraps

Opening presents. It was vital to the success of the evening that Lucas also be included in the present opening process.

YAYYYY PAPER MOM!!!


Oooo. A ball banger thingie.

Oooo fancy new shoes. And they fit! Size five feet. And they don't cause him to trip and fall. And he didn't try to take them off because, oh yeah, they actually fit correctly!!