Look who's THRILLED to be home....

The weather here has been completely un-South Dakota like, completely enjoyable and dare I say nice. We've made the best of it and spent a ton of time outside!

What would fall be without a trip to a pumpkin patch? Ambrose loved the hayride and the horses the pulled it. We drank hot chocolate, roasted marshmallows and looked around at all the gourds and pumpkins.

My parents have ensured that there is no lack of toys around here and Ambrose is loving it. We've spent a ton of time outside playing on the slide, blowing bubbles and riding on the toy tractor.

Ambrose is loving all the attention and endless supply of willing playmates and I am thrilled to be lounging around while others are around to help me!

I will never tire of life at home!

Things are looking up

We started out our trip as we always do, with an hour and a half drive to El Paso where we catch our flight home. I was able to get our things together and house closed up in record time and we left about 20 minutes early, first time for everything folks. As it turns out those extra 20 minutes would come in handy because wouldn't ya know it we got pulled over. I have been driving for almost 14 years and I had never been pulled over. I was way calmer than I thought I'd be and he only gave me a warning, in part because I was the first person he'd ever pulled over from South Dakota and we commiserated how much Southern New Mexico just wasn't our thing. Away we went, right on time rather than 20 minute early, but with our low car insurance rates still in tact.


With that, things could only look up, and they did, we went on to have the two best flights we've had in our joint flying career. Ambrose was awesome, flights were on time and we had very patient people around us.

After our flights we spent time with family and all went to bed. Ambrose is a notoriously inflexible sleeper and if anything is off he'll let you know by waking multiple (MULTIPLE!!) times. So I expect a restless night, and he delivers,2 night wakings, each lasting an hour or so. We all wake up a little bleary eyed and hope the next night is better. WE have a fun filled day, accompanied by a few tantrums and crabby spells but nothing major. He heads to bed, goes down fine, but wakes up fussing and crying around 1130, after an hour I go and get him where my mom and I take turns trying to get him back down and he is having nothing of it. We try every single trick in the book and the kid will not sleep a wink. This goes on until 5am....yes 5 am. You better believe I was in urgent care bright and early the next morning because surely there had to be something wrong. Although night wakings happen in new places, this was unreal. We go into the nicest urgent care I've ever been too, where they diagnose him with an ear infection. Part of me was thrilled because if I had gone there and they had said that nothing was wrong, I would have feared we all would never sleep again. This was his first ear infection, and he really showed no traditional signs of one, but the antibiotics have been helping, and for the most part things here are back to normal.

We have been busy, busy, busy, so check back because I'll be uploading pics tonight :)

18 months

Ambrose turned 18 months this month, a whole year and a half. Which makes him a full blown toddler, who runs and talks and tries to make me laugh and who is oh.so.much.fun!!!

This house is never quiet, from the moment he wakes he is chattering to himself and anyone that will listen. His vocabulary grows daily and it's been a blast watching him gain interest in more specific activities. He still loves being outside, going on wagon rides, playing at the park, throwing rocks or drawing with chalk. While he loves all the noisy outside rough and tumble activities, he has a quiet side the he shows more and more frequently (however, it's still in the rare category). He LOVES to read, specifically books about animals or counting, but really, anything will do.

You'll notice his hair is doing some strange things in this pic. I often forget to even attempt to tame it before we walk out the door. The first year of his life I couldn't have created bed head if I tried, there just wasn't any hair to speak of. So, now that he has it, the poor kid walks around with the best bed head known to man... poor kid.

He has a pretty serious girlfriend, and they are adorable. she most definitely wears the pants in the relationship, mainly because if he tries to take charge it's met with a bite or hit that reminds him she's in charge and what was he thinking.

Ambrose is a climber, he always has been, but he's been perfecting his skills the past few months and he is now a climbing master. Just today I found him standing on my (brand new, silly expensive, glass topped) coffee table. Not only is he good and climbing, he's stealthy. Not a good combo if we're trying to avoid ER visits.

I think we may be enjoying the calm before the "terrible two's" storm around here because most of Ambrose's strong willed spirited side has faded away and we are left with an incredibly sweet little boy. Once again, I look forward to what is to come because every day with this boy is better than the last!

I was also going to include a nice paragraph about how hopefully I'll be blogging more in the future, but as luck would have it, our desktop computer totally quit today and the laptop isn't available to me right now. Ugh.

wordless Wednesday

Noise pollution

This is what it sounds like at our house from 6am-3pm. It truly is making me loose my mind. When we purchased this house there was an empty lot next door, we had NO IDEA what a huge mistake it was to buy a house next to an empty lot. We are well aware now, and have been suffering through this racket for the past 2 months, and I'm sure there are a few more months left.

Ambrose is essentially sleeping in a wind tunnel because I've got fans blowing full blast in an attempt to drown out the construction noise. Word to the wise, do not buy a house next to a vacant lot, especially if you cherish sleep.

Zoo

As a gift, one of my friends gave me a family pass to the zoo, and while it's small, and sometimes sad, we go at least 3 times a week. We love to see the animals, but our main reason for going is because they have the only shaded playground in town. I'm not sure how the novel idea of shade escaped the builders of other playgrounds throughout town, I mean as they're setting up the playground in the blisteringly hot desert heat, did it not occur to them that the slides might heat up to the temperature of the sun? It has certainly occurred to me and my poor little boys legs. Ah well, that was a lesson learned in the school of hard knocks, and he now tests the temperature with his hand prior to taking the leap.

I'd love to show you a few pics of him pointing to the animals or smiling as the monkeys play or yelling "puppy" as a coyote runs by, but since he's turned into a full blow toddler, my pictures more often than not, look like this....

And in true toddler (boy I think) fashion, here is his favorite exhibit at the zoo...

While it excites Ambrose, I can only feel bad for the animals that are ridiculously close to this speeding train and it's whistle.

Wordless Wednesday

Ambrose is in a Choo Choo phase right now, he loves anything and everything trains.