SD

Life back home with loved ones is great! I'm soaking up the help, and Ambrose and Bram are enjoying the never ending list of people willing to play with them!

Brothers

Bram has been a little slow to gain weight (which is a whole other post...) so his "little brother" shirt has been way too big..until now! Yay. So I took the chance to put both boys in their shirts and snap a few pics :)

B

Happy Halloween

apparently, the rule of picture taking with two kids is only child can look cute at a time. As you'll see, that rule applied to us....

We started out our trick or treating experience with a trip to our local zoo for the Zoo Boo. John was hunting on Saturday, so I thought it would be a great way to pass the time. I talked it up to Ambrose for the entire day on Friday, which resulted in him waking up on Saturday completely stoked to go. We get dressed up, take a few pictures of my adorable fire man and trusty Dalmatian fire dog.

We pile in the car and head to the zoo nice and early. I had planned to be there right when it opened so that we could get in and out in 40ish minutes (things never go as planned) . We don't even arrive at the zoo but I know that it's insanely crowded by the amount of cars parked in completely random spots on the way there. We get to the zoo and I'm pretty sure that my mouth was gaping open because the line to the zoo was unreal. The line began inside the zoo, wound around through part of the zoo, all the way through the parking lot and along side the street. At the point I am cursing myself for talking this up to Ambrose. Had I kept my big mouth shut we'd be able to turn around and go home, but since he's so excited mom guilt gets the best of me and we stick around.

After 45 minutes in line with a cranky/sleepy infant, a TON of people smoking IN THE LINE and 5 people cutting in front of us (because how dare I pause in line to unbuckling my infant and pick him up), we make it inside. We make it to three booths, before Ambrose throws down his fireman hat and candy basket and announces that he wants to go home. I sigh, because OF COURSE that's how it would go, and then I make Ambrose get it together because there was no way we were leaving yet. He rallies and we stay for about another 30 minutes.




The next few pics are of Halloween night. Ambrose had practiced all week saying Trick or Treat so that he'd be prepared for Monday night. The phrase served him well because he came home with a load of candy. I didn't get near as many pics as I'd like because John was gone still and as it turns out keeping Ambrose from darting out to every house with a porch light on took most of my time, the other part was divided evenly between carrying all of Ambrose's stuff and trying to keep Bram from diving out of my arms (the stroller lasted 5 minutes before he was ticked).

Pumpkin Carving

To all of you South Dakotan's it may seem a bit late to be carving pumpkins, but here in New Mexico, if you carve a pumpkin more than 48 hours prior to Halloween you end up with a molded, smelly, shriveled up mess sitting on your front porch rather than a smiling Jack o Lantern. So, here we are the day before Halloween.

Of course we begin by gutting the pumpkin, and of course, Ambrose Mr-I-like-my-hand-clean, doesn't really care for it this part.

The artistic part of our parenting team is gone for work (again!) so Ambrose was left with me to carve his pumpkin. I'm not an artist, so I let Ambrose take the lead on our canvas. I let him shout out shapes that he thought each facial feature should be, and that was our planning for our pumpkin face. They must have talked about Jack O Lanterns at school because he gave each feature the logical shape.

pumpkin carving weather is also a little different down here as opposed to South Dakota. The sun is out in full force today, so the pics are a little squinty.

Every day life

The weather is cooling down so we're breaking out the fall hats :)

This little guy is a spoon grabber. Every meal ends in a crazy mess.

Because he's 2 these types of tantrums happen pretty frequently. Here he's mad because it's windy.

Pumpkin patch

John is home now, and holy smokes, am I glad! I actually have a couple of minutes to breathe in the evening, and who knows, maybe I'll actually start keeping up with this blog :)

With the adult to child ratio all evened up, we made the choice to head to a near bye town to visit a pumpkin patch. The town is about an hour and twenty minutes away, which isn't all that long, but with an infant who is known for his car seat shenanigans ( ie: screaming and screaming and screaming) John and I both doubted our sanity at certain parts of the trip.

We begin the car trip with the standard routine of running around the house shouting questions and commands at one another in an attempt to make it out the door in time to hit Bram's " napping sweet spot." I knew that if there was any chance at all to end up at our destination sane, it depended on Bram sleeping for a bit in the car. If we didn't time it right he wasn't going to be tired enough to fall asleep and he'd get irritated and scream, or he'd be over tired and again, scream rather than sleep. So, I was clock watching like a crazy person . We make it out the door right "on time", pull out of the driveway and wouldn't ya know, we're low on gas. So, just as Bram begins to fall asleep we pull into the gas station. He wakes like someones shocked his big toe and I can tell he's not going to be easily convinced to go back to sleep. We exit the gas station and Bram does pretty well for about 5 minutes. He begins to fuss, which of course rapidly transitions into an all out scream fest in the backseat. John and I both look at one another and question whether or not this is how we want to spend our Sunday. John geniusly suggests trying to feed Bram and see if he'll settle down. Excellent idea! I feed the little guy, buckle him back in, and with the help of the paci and the radio station turned to static, Bram begins to fall asleep. Hallelujah, I breath a sigh of relief and become pretty optimistic about the trip.

Wouldn't ya know though, we hear from the back seat, " I gotta go potty!" I swear, Ambroses' bladder has it out to send me off the deep end. Really, I am guaranteed that if we are in huge rush, an incredibly disgusting location or an overall inconvenient time, Ambrose has to pee. So, we pull off the highway, and the second John's foot hits the break Bram's awake. I was less than patient as Ambrose takes care of business on the side of the road (in a small potty, we take that stupid thing with us everywhere) and after a quick squirt of hand sanitizer and a wipe down of the potty, we're on the road again. Bram is, you guessed it....crying. I contort my body into an uncomfortable position to rub his head, hold his hand,....anything to help this kid fall asleep. It works,....for 20 minutes, because of course Bram falls asleep right outside of town, and honest to goodness if we even do a rolling stop, this kid will wake up. The car must be moving steadily at 65mph or he's awake.

Anywho, we make it, and the drive quickly proves to be totally worth it!

He liked running around from pumpkin to pumpkin, and even posed with one, but he wasn't interested in the slightest in bringing one home.
This is as close to a family picture as we get lately.
despite his short nap, this little guy was in fantastic spirits!!

There were some John Deere bikes that were a ton of fun!

It was much more than just a pumpkin patch, and it was a great time.