Christmas Eve Luminarias

(Yes, this was 2 months ago.) As a gift, Robert came by the house on Christmas Eve and covered the entire front with luminarias. All we had to do was light them at dusk! What a beautiful New Mexican tradition. We usually go down to Old Town on Christmas Eve to see the luminarias but because we had our own, we stayed home and drank cinnamon hot chocolate. They looked great and we even lit them again the next night. We had hoped to save them all the way until New Years Eve but a little snow ruined the bags.

Just a quick note that there are no pictures of Christmas morning this year because I had the camera settings messed up and they all came out super blurry. But Santa did come! Jack got a Hot Wheels track from Santa, a Scooby Doo house from Mom & Dad, and a Lego Star Wars watch from sister. AnneMarie got a Littlest Pet Shop girl doll from Santa, a Build-A-Bear gift certificate from Mom & Dad,
and Pet Shop penguin that you decorate from her brother.

Happy 5th Birthday!

Sadly, I am just now getting pictures up from Jack's birthday 6 weeks ago! He turned 5 this year, I am so sad. He was very excited because at our house, that means he can chew gum, which he does, constantly! Here is that big boy posing next to one of the kids' gifts from Santa, a magnetic mosaic board. He also got a special cereal as is our usual tradition, he chose Lucky Charms this year. And we ate his favorite dinner, orange chicken with soy sauce! I will put up the pictures of his party soon.

Snowy Day

In February we had some freezing cold days and missed almost a week of school. There wasn't much snow and it was too dry to do much of anything, but Jack gave it a go anyway. AnneMarie refused to go outside.

Notice Jack is wearing two different snow boots. His left foot was hurt and swollen at this time, so he wore his sister's boot on that foot, since it is a few sizes bigger. Thankfully, his foot is almost completely healed and there will be no permanent damage.

We had fun out there but boy was it COLD! We only lasted about 15 minutes outside. That was the coldest week I can remember since I've moved to New Mexico. School was actually cancelled not because of snow but because of complications from the cold (frozen buses, natural gas shortage).

February Zoo Trip

Nathan took off work early on a Wednesday and we headed to the zoo! The weather was perfect, it was not crowded and the animals were pretty active. There were several things off exhibit but we still saw plenty.

Julia brought some old hot dog buns and we brought some saltines, so the ducks and koi had quite a feast!

These kids LOVE feeding the peacocks! Today they were giving them pretzel goldfish. Those birds have no fear if they think they might get a cracker!

We only saw one elephant, he was playing soccer by himself.

They pose like crazed kittens on top of this sculpture just about every time we go to the zoo!

This peacock was showing off! There were a lot of other peacocks (males and females) nearby.

The male lion is roaring and "talking" like crazy while we were there! None of us had heard anything like it before. It was a great trip to the zoo! Can't wait to go back.