Fire

Tonight we lit a fire in our borrowed fire pit. We also toasted marshmallows and listened to our wind-up shortwave radio. At first we listened to a firebrand preacher - in Spanish - from across the border. Then we started listening to something in German. Soon enough, we were listening to Radio Taiwan. After that, something from Japan. It was too much fun. Sam loved the fire. Awyn is scared of it and won't get anywhere near it.

Another big first - Awyn peed in the potty today. A couple of days ago Sam decided he no longer wanted a foot stool to reach the toilet. So this morning Eric converted it back into a potty chair for Awyn. She wanted to sit in it, so we let her. When I took off her diaper, she sat, strained, and peed. We'll keep giving her the opportunity. I wouldn't have said before this that she was ready to start potty training, so we'll take it nice and slow. We can't help but be excited. Just think, in another year, we might be completely done with diapers!

Story time

Daddy reads a story to Sam and Awyn.

Candy!

Princess Party

Fairy Awyn

Sam thinks Awyn is Tinkerbell. The wings are from Aunt Debbie, and the dress was cousin Willow's. She was a hit at Ariel's birthday princess party. Sam was Captain Kirk. I rather thought that was close enough to being a prince. Once we got to the party he was given a gold crown, which he placed on his head, and pronounced himself to be King. Nice and Kirk-like. He didn't keep the crown on long enough for me to get the camera out.

Couldn't resist this picture.

Awyn's new dress

This dress just arrived from Grandma, and as Awyn was running around naked, we slipped it on over her head. She's holding Sam's bat that he made back in October.

Peek-a-boo

Eric and the kids played peek-a-boo and tickle toes last night. They all had a lot of fun.

Tasha supervises the tamales

Tasha made sure the tamales didn't leap off the counter. I spent the day making tamales. They are time consuming, but oh-so-tasty and worth the effort. I'll have several meals put away when I'm done. Notice that I'm using my sticky rice steamer to steam my tamales. This is why I want a full sized stock pot with a steamer basket insert; I can cook more tamales at a time.

Tasha loves snow

Today was almost as cold as yesterday, no new snow. Tasha loves snow, and was having a ball whenever I'd let her outside. The snow that fell last night froze hard enough to walk across without leaving footprints. Eric bent the screen door trying to open it. I just thought I'd show a nice snow picture, and Tasha, who is under-represented in this blog.

Brrrr. It's Snowing.

Snow began falling last night, right around the time we went to bed. I heard the start of the hissing against the windows. It's been snowing all day, and is expected to continue to do so for at least another day, with a slight warm up into rain in a couple of days, sinking back into freezing temps and more snow this weekend. It's been in the 20's all day. This isn't the pretty, fluffy stuff we had in December. This is that nasty powder. The road to the Basin is closed. The post office is closed - no mail delivery. Bus driver training was cancelled. It is truly nasty out there. We took a short drive in the jeep to drop of mail, get some milk. We only went as far as the gas station, and they sold out of milk yesterday. Wish I'd thought that far ahead. Oh well, I do have powdered milk and canned milk, so I can cook. The jeep handles pretty well in the snow, but we did slide around the corners. It's really icy, not at all slushy. It's obviously much colder this time around. The power has been flirting with us. It keeps coming and going. We're hoping it stays on through the night, or we'll get pretty cold without the heater. We did need to do some grocery shopping. We are out of potatoes and onions, and many other good things. I'm getting low on yeast. I did make pizza. We had some leftover turkey-spagetti sauce that went well with a can of pineapple and olives and cheddar cheese. (gas station was out of white cheese - only had cheddar) Sorry, no pictures of the kids playing in this stuff, it's too cold, although we did let them for a couple of minutes before we ran down the hill and again on our way back into the house. We just don't have much snow clothing for them - there isn't much point here in the desert. At least they do both have jackets. Sam has gloves - somewhere. So do I, but I can't find them either. I do have my spiffy (and warm) wool hat I got for Christmas a couple of years ago.

1800diapers.com

Seriously people, I use these guys fairly often. Their stock can vary sometimes, but they usually have some pretty cheap cases of diapers, and they ship for free for orders over $45. They have Kirkland, Luvs, Huggies, Pampers, 7th Generation, and much more. I've blogged about them before, but nobody's taken me up on the offer. You see, I get $1 off my next order every time you order, even after your first order! So I'd love it if I convinced others to use them. I think Sam's Club diapers are cheaper, but hey, it costs about $50 in gas to drive up and buy them. We buy wipes (I like the Kirkland wipes), diaper genie refills, Kandoo refills, diapers, pull-ups. They even have adult diapers and the overnights for older kids. All cheaper than the grocery store...
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They're growing so fast!

Sam was supposed to start speech therapy last week, but that got postponed. I was waiting for a phone call to reschedule for some time this week. This morning I finally got the call, and instead of scheduling, it was being cancelled again. Good thing, as they'd forgotton to call me when they rescheduled. I don't think they'll reschedule until next week, as it's supposed to snow here this week, and was already snowing in Alpine and the North entrance of the park.

Today we drove up to the Basin for lunch into a frosty wonderland. Wet, heavy clouds have been circling the mountains, and it was just below freezing outside. This is leaving some beautiful frosting on the plants and rocks. Before we went to the Basin we stopped at the school to check out another Curious George book and another Magic School Bus video. Both Sam and Awyn love Curious George. Sam can watch the Bus videos as many times as we'll let him. Here's a funny sign of his generation - he doesn't understand the concept of rewinding. He's used to DVDs that we can replay or restart or skip around instantly. We plan on buying some Curious George books the next time we're in the big city; Great Grandma gave the kids a gift card to Barnes & Noble.

Too cute!

These two are too cute not to post! Sam's been watching too much Dora - that's why he's helping me take the picture by 'clicking'.

Window Seat

Awyn and Aidan really played together, and mostly up until now they've played next to each other. Yesterday they really seemed to play with each other, even holding hands a few times while dancing. Awyn's pretty forward about that - Sam taught her to hold hands for dancing, so I think that's why she was insisting on trying that with Aidan.

Play Date

Awyn and Aidan, playing together. They danced, played, and had a ball.

Video of Awyn and Tasha

Awyn loves to tuck Tasha in when she's trying to nap on her bed. Awyn will also tuck her dolls into bed with Sam if Sam's asleep.




Yesterday was my Birthday. I made myself a very rich dark chocolate cake with whipped cream on the top. It didn't have any flour in it - so I guess it was more like a souffle. It had Citronge in it, an orange liquor that I'm thinking will go well in coffee or hot chocolate. mmmm.

Christmas portrait

Most of you should recognize this as the image we used in our Christmas cards. If you don't, then I forgot to send you a card, so send me an address. I've had a few cards returned with incorrect or old addresses. I'm not making a huge effort to fix those problems.

Anyway, the background here is the Rio Grande, Mexico, the Chisos Mountains. This is taken from the Rio Grande Village nature trail across from campsite number 18. Fun short hike, awesome photo opportunity. The canyon in the near background is the east end of the Hot Springs Canyon.

Puzzle Boy

One of the things that Sam is supposed to work on is his ability to put together puzzles. While Awyn was taking a bath, and getting ready for bed, Sam got to sit down at the table with some puzzles that had been hiding forgotton on a shelf. They date to a time when he wasn't ready for them, and we didn't want to lose all the pieces before he was ready. Well, he loves puzzles. He will sit down and put the entire thing together, so far we haven't stumped him. I think we'll try to do this more often.

Awyn tucks Tasha in.

Awyn decided that Tasha needed Sam's special blanket to take a nap. She kept putting it on Tasha, patting her, and saying "hat" and "nigh nigh".