I've been lazy and keep forgetting to update this blog. Awyn is starting to try standing on her own, but only for a few seconds, and she has the most success when she does it accidentally. Speaking of dentally, she's teething again, and it looks like all top four teeth, starting with the front two. She's pretty miserable, and having a much harder time of it than her brother did. He also punched multiple teeth at once, but he rarely ever showed signs of discomfort. Awyn lets us know that it hurts.
Last night we went camping on the river road. We didn't change the batteries in the inflatible mattress, so we slept on the ground. Worse, I forgot a pillow. But we had a wonderful evening, watching the stars overhead, the mice on the ground, and playing with Sam until he announced that it was time for bed. We let him into the tent, he curled up on a sleeping bag, and promptly fell asleep. Awyn took a little more effort and time, but soon joined her brother.
We are working on weaning Awyn at night, which means that we are trying to let Eric take care of her when she wakes up. Some nights are better than others, and Eric is trying very hard to meet her needs at night.
We went up to Midland for doctor's appointments for the kids, and of course I forgot to write down the stats. Awyn is still just barely over 17 lbs, but we expected that. Sam is nearly 40 lbs, which is lighter than we expected, but it suits him just fine.
I had the tires rotated on the van at Sam's Club and they didn't get the lift low enough and tore some plastic bolts out of the front end, and we had to come up with a temporary fix, as the local parts stores don't seem to carry the right part. So after 3 hours of work, we finally got ready to finish our shopping and head home. That's an hour of Eric lying on the pavement in a parking lot, opening every package of plastic bolt in the shop, and 45 minutes of the manager of the shop trying to help us, eventually joining Eric lying on the ground, trying to make something fit, until he pulled a plastic tie out of another guy's pickup and tied our bumper back on. And a whole lot more time of me arguing with Sam's Club about liability and the fact that we simply didn't have any more time to go find a dealership (we were in Odessa, not familiar with where things are) and wait on them. I had to impress on them the fact that we still had a 4 hour drive home through raging thunderstorms, my husband was sitting in the van with two screaming kids, and would likely shred the next person wearing a vest to approach him, and we weren't going to come back until MAY, because we live 250 miles away. I especially loved the mechanic telling me to go to the dealership in Big Bend, since that's where we are from. Gotta love the clueless. I guess. So no resolution yet, the manager didn't want to refund our $15 tire rotation fee, but will let me fax her an estimate for repairs, and insists that it won't cost any more than $5. I tried explaining $50 in gas, $65 hotel room, 4 hours in a dealership waiting room, if lucky, with 2 very young children, 4 hours driving each way, etc. I'm not sure she understood just how inconvenient those cheap parts are really going to be. So now I don't know where we're going to buy tires from, as Sam's seemed to be the only place that carried the tires for the van at anything less than $150/tire, and at that I have to order them in advance. (tip here: Honda Odysseys take very expensive tires! and I thought we'd traded in a tire hog)
We decided to head home via the Black Gap road, so name for the feature we are about to drive through. It has been really the only time we've felt the need to put on the 4 wheel drive. At that, we heard an ominous hissing and squealing, just like a tire being cut on a sharp rock as we neared the bottom, and we did have to stop and inspect it. 
So can you see him trying to blend in with the rocks? I think that's the Sierra Quemada (and yes, I butchered the spelling) behind him. We were out on the river road camping, just east of the Mariscal Mine. It was a fun trip. We made a tarp taco of all our stuff and bungeed it onto the rack on top of our jeep. I think some of the pictures I've taken will show this, but I'm posting as I look through them. I think I mentioned this camping trip in a previous blog entry, so I'm not going into detail here. 
These are pitaya blossoms. They are one of my favorites, and I love the fruit they produce. I don't know how long it takes for them to ripen, but you bet I'll be out strawberry picking ASAP. 
We hauled out one piece of baby equipment with us, Awyn's new rocking chair. It's pretty solid, Sam likes it too. 
Sam likes to play in his toy box. I'm pretty sure that's not what we had in mind, but it is a box, and it is called a toy box, so why can't the box be a toy? We're going to have problems keeping his toys inside the box. 
Awyn has new hats from Grandma Joyce, and she really looks cute in them. She liked helping Sam open his presents too. 
We decided that the kids needed a plastic table that was their size. We put it in the computer room so that they could play and color while we did computer and sewing type things. It sort of works that way. They both seem to really like it though. 
Sam loved blowing out his candles, and he loved the whipped cream and berries that went with the angelfood cake. He's not a huge cake fan, but loves frosing or whipped cream. 
Today is Sam's birthday. I'm trying to finally send out party invitations. We want to have a book swapping party, where everyone brings a wrapped book instead of a present and the kids exchange and then open a book. Everyone gets to take a book home with them, and presents are opened all around. It seems like more fun for a third birthday than one pre-schooler opening presents while the others cry because it's not their turn. Besides, Sam has more toys than any one boy should ever have. Right now there isn't a square inch of carpet visible in his bedroom or our living room. Yes, Sam also has more books than most boys his age, but we can always find room for more books. 
This was taken from the top of the Laguna Meadow trail. The scar is hard to see if you don't blow this up pretty big, but it's the grey smudge going up the mountain pretty much dead center in this photograph. 
I'm hoping Sam follows his father's genetic path and doesn't ever need glasses like this. However, everyone else in his family wears glasses, except the current cousin crop and his little sister, and that may just be a lack of testing so far. 
