::fixer of the gate::

I love it when my parents come to visit. It's so nice to spend some time with them and my dad always fixes as much of my broken stuff as he can fit in to his trip.
I had been saving our front gate for his expertise for quite a while.
I guess it's been rotting a bit on the inside, so it's been sagging and rubbing on the ground. The sagging effected the latch too, so it was really tough to open and close. And if it got left open because it was too tough to close, the wind would smash it into the gatepost and then it was impossible to open because the latch was buried in the wood. Anyway, you get the picture. I had friends standing outside and honking because they couldn't get in. My own brother thought I had locked him out when he came to visit and injured himself trying to climb the adobe wall.

It was about time for a repair!

So of course dad fixed it. And I took a few pictures of him because I couldn't resist. And it was just a good opportunity to document how he always takes good care of me.
And you're going to get to see all the photos because I like pretty much all the ones I took.



What do you think? Are these photos posed or candid?

And of course, wherever my family is to be found there is a surplus of cameras and camera-poeple. Look for the counterpart of this photo to show up here some time soon I'm sure!
(Mom was on her way to pick up Max from school for me so that I could take a little nap. Best nicest thing ever!!)


We lifted the gate back up and reinstalled it. The dang thing was so heavy.
Then while dad was on an adventure club bike ride with Max I located all the painting stuff and the right color of paint and painted/repainted the whole thing.
A finished project--amazing!! And now my life is seriously easier than it was before. I can go in and out of my front gate while carrying babyseats and such and actually close and open that gate. YAY!
So thanks dad, you're the best fixer dad ever.

These are pretty much the only pictures I took while my parents were here. We were busy running places and working a little and taking care of kids. Oh yeah and a little yummy eating out and some fun shopping. I didn't have much time for photos. So you'll have to go here if you want to see more. I like to see my house and kids through my mom's perspective, it's pretty fun. And she takes such great portraits!

So there you go. Happy green gate and happy me.

::dinner::

Having dinner with four more kids than normal is no easy task. Not that it's not fun--just a lot more complicated. Good thing there were four of us adults vs the six crazy kids.


(KC says "I don't want what I have, I want THAT one!")

Surprisingly enough all of us adults survived the kid craziness and had a really good time visiting.
And I love that the table is outside--makes cleanup so darn easy!


Love those darling babies!

::bryans::

Kris's sister Kari's family is here visiting with us over the holiday weekend. We're having a lot of fun with them, but the kids are the ones really having a blast--between the screams and accidents and falls and crashes that is.

It's so fun when cousins can spend time together and have fun.
Today we went to church together and then the kids spent a bunch of time outside. When they were all worn out we watched a movie. The new living room is perfect for that sort of thing.


After that we had a fire and smores with the bigger boys. Now they're all in bed, at least for now.
Looking forward to some more fun tomorrow!

::dinner & kris::

Kathy made us a delicious pizza a couple of nights ago. It had ricotta cheese, artichokes, tomatoes and some delicious shredded cheeses that I don't remember.

She even made me a couple of non-tomatoed pieces which I thought was so sweet.

Anyway I was trying to take a picture of the cute people at the table, and somebody was giving me some trouble. It's not necessarily the guy you'd expect.


He just refused to behave.


I do appreciate him setting such a good example for his crazy son, of course.

Oy.

::::

Kris's Aunt Becky and Uncle Richard took an impromptu trip out here to Santa Fe to see if it might be someplace they could move too in a couple of years. They're living in Germany right now on the military base.
We tried to show them all our favorite things and make them fall in love with the city. We'll see how it all turns out in the end. But in the meantime we had a blast hanging out with them. They're so much fun.

Here they are in front of our new house--in their lovely matching parkas.

We'd like to have them as neighbors someday. We'll keep wishing!

::science pt 2::

Remember this post I put up forever ago?
Well this is part two to that part one.

Remember that awesome science kit that we got Max for Christmas? We did a few of the experiments but then I had no time to work with Max on it for several weeks. When he heard that my parents were coming to our house for Sandy's blessing he was SO excited. He decided my mom would be perfect to do the science with, since she likes to teach him stuff and he likes to learn her stuff.
He was planning the science projects for weeks.
So when they got here he got her right to work.

Here they both are, wearing shirts that would be ok to be all stained by red cabbage juice.

While they were working hard, Sandy was hanging out with Grandpa.
Who was, of course, tweaking my bread recipe to make sure it works out here at extremely high altitude!


They did several projects the first day, and I can't even remember what this one was, but it was cool looking. My mom was so patient and sweet and had Max read the instructions for all the projects. He was in heaven.



And they did more the next day.....to be continued.....
and the requisite baby picture--this was from the same day and I just COULDN'T leave it out.

::31 on the 31st::

(My birthday presents--my new computer for work and some fun stuff my mom brought for me!)

Today is my birthday! It's been a great day, besides the 20-30 minutes I spent on the phone with the bank, since they pulled our rent out of our account twice for Feb. Ouch.
But enough about that. The fun part of today is that my parents are here visiting. This is the first time I've been able to be with my parents for my birthday in years. Probably since we moved away from UT which was close to seven years ago! So how fun that they got to come out for the baby blessing and stay for my birthday.

I got to go shopping with my mom and sandy this morning while the boys went on a Land Rover adventure in the mountains (Max had the day off school for some teacher training or something.) We had a good time. Then we all met up at Harry's Roadhouse for lunch, which was delicious. Then we went home and relaxed for a while and then at the end of the day enjoyed pie and some sweet gifts.

Max served me a fancy breakfast this morning and it was delicious. He was very very serious about it too. Or at least he tried to be.

I couldn't be luckier.
\

::visits::

We were lucky enough to have Kris's parents here to visit for what was essentially a long weekend. They got here Saturday night and I took them to the airport on Wednesday morning. We had a great time. Kathy has been here before, but this was Ken's first time and we had fun showing him around.
Kris and Max took him up on a four wheeling drive in the Land Rover into the mountains where they saw wild turkeys and wore Ken right out. We took them to a delicious Mexican restaurant. We went to the Cowgirl grill where they got to enjoy the awesomeness of the ice cream baked potato. Kathy and I did a little shopping. Ken got to see the office and meet the people that we work with. We got to sing christmas carols--especially Max's current favorite "The 12 days of Christmas" over and over...

I think Kathy's favorite part was Sandy though. She said this was the oldest any of her grandbabies had ever been before she got to hold him. She made up for it though while she was here. The boy was always happily snuggled up in her arms.

I love this picture. Sandy was in heaven.


He has his eyes open so much more lately. It's very fun.

The bummer was that poor Ken had a work emergency come up just before they came out, and so he was stuck at his little makeshift workstation in our living room for a lot of time. But what would a visit from Ken be without a work emergency, really?

At least we have a bunch of computer stuff, so we could make sure he could get stuff done.

But he took a break long enough to play guitars with Max. Max is doing really well with his lessons, and so was able to play with Ken quite well. It was really fun to hear them play and sing together.



Max is lucky to have such a rich heritage of guitar playing and appreciation from both his Grandpas. We expect great things from him as far as guitars are concerned! At least we want him to be able to serenade girls in college...

Even Sandy got a little Grandpa time. Ken was holding him for me while I did something, and when I came back into the room this is what I saw:


It cracked me up. Lucky Grandpa--not everybody gets those special Sandy kisses.

We're so glad they came, and we'll have lots more to show and do next time they make it out here.
And if you want to see some more fun pictures, see Ken's post here.

::baby::

Meet my new 3 month old niece Ann.


I'm so glad I got to meet her before she got any bigger. She's adorable, isn't she?

::more visits::

My brother Cammon is visiting us this weekend with his wife Lorri and cute little 2 yr old boy and 3 month old girl. We're having lots of fun mostly just hanging out. Kris did a quick dental exam on the little guy yesterday when we gave them a tour of the office. He did awesome--Max got to do the exam first and was a good example thank goodness.
They've been playing together really well, Max and Scooter. Lots of sharing and messing around. And lots of piano playing.
We're lucky to be so close to family finally. How nice that family can come see us, we love it!!

(yes they're wearing matching shirts--thanks Gram)

::goofy, goofier, goofiest::

But which is which?
Not even Boston is sure.

(these pictures are from about a month ago when Kelly & Lechelle & B were here to visit and we went up to Taos Ski Valley. I have more pictures that are fun and eventually they might actually get posted!!)