Strawberries!

 It's the season for strawberries, and I'm making the most of it. We made a trip to Santa Fe (and ran other errands, too) specifically to get a bunch of the sweet, tasty,  delicious, seasonal berries. Organic ones were on sale for $1.99/lb. Wow! Twelve pounds later, we have dehydrated berries, freezer jam, and of course, lots of memories of eating the wonderful fruit by the handful. Yum!

Away We Go!

Alanna and Daddy went to see Grandma and Grandpa last week. They had so much fun! Here is Alanna posing with her backpack, ready to go. They flew in an airplane, which was a thrill (though Alanna couldn't help but fall asleep on the way), and she and Daddy had a wonderful time. Rhys and I missed them, but we enjoyed ourselves, too! We went to the Albuquerque children's museum, spent a day in Santa Fe, went to a birthday party, adopted a cat (more on that later), hiked, and relaxed. It was a great long weekend!

The Joyful Smoothie

Who knew a green smoothie could be a part of such joy and silliness? And it is soooo worth it!

And, of course, HAPPY BIRTHDAY!

Our little sillypants, our Stinker Belle, our Oh-my-goodness-

she-said-what!?!-girl turns TWO today.

We love you.

The Little Triumphs...

...are the ones that count! This is Rhys, fully dressed and ready for school with only one request to go get dressed! It doesn't matter that the collar of his jacket is tucked in, or that one of his pants legs is stuck in the top of his sock, or that he's wearing socks and sandals, or that the forecast was for warm weather so the knit hat may have been too much. What mattered what that he was dressed! And ready to go! Without my constant nagging! Whoo-hoo!

Mornings

I try to get up earlier than the rest of the family on the average day. Of course, if I'm up in the middle of the night with a kiddo or something, I struggle more with getting up, but usually I'm able to beat everyone out of bed. I get some time to myself and I get to see the sun rise (or at least as much of a sunrise as we can see of the mediocre views from the back door):

It's nice to drink a cup of coffee and read in the mornings before I have to fix breakfast or cajole short people into getting dressed. I enjoy the time!


Of course, this is what the rest of the family is doing in the meantime:

 

Spring Cleaning

I've been purging and cleaning since January, but only now have been able to face Alanna's room. Her room was originally my studio, then our studio, then a guest room, and then a baby's room. Now, it's a toddler's room, and she needs some room to store her clothes and toys. So, I've had to clean out my stuff. I'm still storing art supplies that I couldn't part with, and some crafting materials, but I cleaned out both the wardrobe (below) and about half of the stuff in the closet. It's been such a relief to just get rid of stuff I've been hanging onto for years (some things I moved here from Colorado 8 years ago and hadn't looked at since!). I'm still trying to purge more throughout the house, but it's a project that's ongoing and is only squeezed in between all the regular mom/chef/maid/dog runner/gardener/blogger things that go on. It feels good!

Before...

(Actually this is the photo we posted on Freecycle to get rid of the wardrobe, 

so it was empty. But know that it was full, full, full- 

and the play kitchen, the wardrobe AND the guest bed were 

all stacked together along this wall before!)

After!

Note: the Plywood thing on the wall is the underside of the guest bed that we fold down when we need to. It now has hooks and dress up things hanging on it.

Busted Ankle!

Aaron recently busted his ankle while trail running. It involved a trip to the ER to make sure it wasn't broken (thankfully, it wasn't) and it turned all those beautiful colors. Luckily, it's healing well- and he's running again!


Actually, the weather has been very springlike- wiiiiiindy and warm. It's been great trail running weather, as long as we're willing to be buffeted around and covered in dust when we get home...