Killing time...

The girls and I have been trying to keep ourselves entertained while we've been in the hotel.

We went and saw Monsters vs. Aliens and it was really cute. The girls laughed their heads off through the whole thing, even though they didn't understand half of the jokes.

We went up to Longmont (where our house is) and went shopping for summer clothes. The girls are both growing like weeds. They are also in the habit of acting like cats so they have been crawling all over the floor which of course leads to holes in their pants. Kayla has gotten to the point where she wants to pick out her own clothes. She only wanted dresses though, so I had to keep pushing her in the right direction. Now that I've got their summer clothes it's back in the 40's here. I'm learning that Colorado weather is as crazy as New Mexico's. It was 70 yesterday and today it's 40 and raining. I guess they won't be wearing their new clothes anytime soon.

Taking a break from shopping at the play area in the mall.

The real reason we moved here. I've missed TCBY! They still have 99 cent wafflecone Wednesdays too!

After shopping we went to a really cool park that is down the street from our house. It has a wading pool for little kids only (of course it's not open yet). That will be fun in the summer. It also has this big Chinese tower that was donated to the city as a thank you for something or other. We ate lunch there and then the girls ran around for about an hour. They needed to get some of their energy out after being cooped up in the hotel.

Saturday we went to Littleton and had Easter dinner with Steve and Erin. The girls had so much fun playing with Naomi. It will be so nice to have family close to us. Thanks again for dinner Erin and Steve!
The cousins. (I stole this picture from Steve.)

Easter morning. The Easter bunny was smart and used Rubbermaid containers instead of baskets. The baskets always get thrown away, but the boxes can be used for storage. (Just a little tip for other Easter bunnies! They've got pretty cute boxes out there too!)

Checkin out their stuff.

Yesterday we went to The Butterfly Pavilion in Westminster. It wasn't very big so we only spent and hour there, but the girls loved it. The first room was full of spiders and trantulas. Yuck! One of the volunteers tried to get Kayla to hold a huge trantula named Rosy, but being my daughter, she wouldn't go near the thing. Aly almost did, but chickened out at the last minute. Both of the girls got to pet a starfish though. The girls LOVED the butterfly room. They were everywhere and they kept landing on us. They had so many different types.

This was my favorite. I've never seen one like this before.

Kayla learning how bugs fly.

A giant 3-D puzzle of an ant that I helped the girls with.

We have two new pets. One of Kayla's favorite things about Colorado so far is seeing squirels everywhere. The other day we were getting out of the car and there was one sitting right next to us. I bent down and held out my hand and it came right up to me. It was probably hoping for food. I didn't actually touch it, but it didn't act afraid of us at all.

Our other pet is a woodpecker. Every morning since we've been here it has woken us up. It is trying to make a home in the wall right outside of our door. Twice since we've been here he's actually gotten through and pulled out the insulation. We keep having to call the front desk to have them fix the wall because once he's inside he starts banging and he's almost made it through into our room. Joe keeps going out and throwing stuff at it hoping he will scare it away for good, but no luck yet. The thing won't let us take a picture of it. He's huge too! We'd let Ozzy after him, but the bird would win that fight.

All of the patching that's had to be done thanks to that darn bird. Obviously he was doing it before we got here too.

Our stay in the hotel is almost done. Tomorrow we are moving into another hotel up in Longmont. Lockheed would only pay for 30 days of temp living and the place we're staying right now is $$$$ so for the last two days before we get to move into our house we are going somewhere cheaper and not so comfortable. We get the keys to our house on Sunday and the movers are coming to deliver our stuff on Monday. Yeah!!! I'm so excited and I miss my stuff too. The girls are excited to have a yard to play in.

Katie requested pictures of where we are staying now, so here's a few.

Well, that is it for now. I'll will post more pictures of our house once we're in there!

The Move

The moving truck.
The movers were so fast! They packed and loaded our entire house within 4 hours. And somehow they managed to only fill half of the truck. I'm so glad it was them doing all of that work and not me!

Saying goodbye to our old house.

All packed up and ready to go. Our van was completely stuffed. You can't tell by this picture, but underneath the girls feet (plus the stow-and-go) was full too. Joe put up a barrier between the girl's seats and the back so stuff wouldn't fall on them.

Hasta La Vista New Mexico!

The drive went really well. The girls were good through the whole thing. The only problem we had was Ozzy threw up in his cage about an hour into the drive. We had to pull off the road and while Joe held Ozzy I had to clean his cage out. Luckily he didn't get out of Joe's arms!

Joe's car got covered while he was back in New Mexico helping us.

And finally....
Our new house!
We just signed the lease on Saturday. We can't move in until the 20th of April though so we've got another 2 weeks in the hotel. Me and the girls have been doing a lot of exploring while Joe's at work. We are really liking it here. We feel like we belong here. The cold and the snow isn't even bothering me a bit. I'll post some more pictures soon. (I couldn't take pictures inside the house because there are still people living there.)

Kayla's Last Day of Pre-K

Today Kayla had her last day of Preschool. They don't have a pre-k program in Boulder (at least not a free one) so I'm just going to finish her preschool education at home. Kayla's class made a book for her with a picture from each of her classmates. They also gave her a Pre-K graduation certificate. Kayla's teachers gave me ALL of the worksheets that they will be doing for the rest of the year so I think we're set. When I went to pick Kayla up she gave all of her friends hugs good-bye and was excited and happy, but as soon as we got into the car she started to cry saying that she already missed her friends. I promised her that we would take pictures of her at our new house so she can make them a card and send it to them and that seemed to make her happy.

Our 'official' moving date is set for the 26th and 27th of March. At least that's when the movers are coming. Joe is leaving Sunday to drive his car up and he starts work on Monday. The girls and I will drive up to Farmington to hang out and then on Thursday I'm flying up to go house hunting. Then the 25th, Joe flies back to Albuquerque and me and the girls will meet him here to finish up the last of the cleaning and turn our keys into our land lord. The movers are packing everything, so I've just had to worry about the cleaning. That helps out a lot and I'm so glad we don't have to worry about driving a U-haul up!

Well, here are some pictures from Kayla's last day. I will try to keep everyone updated as things progress. We're turning off our phone and internet soon, so until we get to our temperary housing... Bye!

Kayla in front of her classroom.

Kayla's class. (She sticks out a little bit, huh?)

Every morning Aly would sit and do puzzles while I helped Kayla get situated.

Kayla playing BINGO with her friends.

Natural History Museum

Last week we went on a field trip to the Natural History Museum with Kayla's class. The girls loved it. I was worried they would get a little bit freaked out by the dinosaurs but they didn't at all. We had a great time and they can't wait to go back and take Daddy to show him.

Kayla and her buddy Marcus. (Isn't Kayla photogenic?)

Kayla's favorite thing at the museum.

Watching a demonstration of a small dino being attacked by a T-rex. Nice, huh?

Aly took this picture. I was pretty impressed.

Kayla and another friend, Danyel.

aly's poosttttt

i loikeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee oobi....




iiiiiiiiii like circle crackers.

i like to play cannnnnnndy land castle gaem.

i maake silly cfaces..
i kniow my lettrs and shapes



(Aly was helping me at the computer and wanted to type so she did this post. She even found all of the letters by herself and helped pick out the pictures. Note: Oobi is a t.v. show that is all done with hand puppets. She loves to watch it and sing along with it! I have a video of her singing with it, but for some reason it won't let me post it.)

Pictures!

Aly's reaction to Santa. She was happy a second later when she got her candy cane.

Our little tree. Notice all of the ornaments near the bottom that Kayla made a school. She brought home so much stuff!

Kayla licking the spatula after helping me make fudge.
Just a note... I always thought it'd be so convenient for my kids to have to wear uniforms to school. While it is convenient, I really don't like them. They're not cute at all and I have to fight Kayla to put it on everyday because she says it's not beautiful enough.

The girl's new Christmas dresses.

Ozzy's favorite place in the house. Whenever I load the dishwasher he's there. Don't worry! I don't let him on when I'm unloading the clean dishes. :-)

Our first homemade Christmas dinner. All from scratch!(Except the cranberry sauce) It tasted pretty good too.

After Santa came.

Aly checking out the stockings. Yes the cat and the birds got stuff too!

Sleepy heads

Taking an inventory.

The aftermath.

Kayla's favorite gift was her dress-up clothes from Grandma Stradling. The second she gets home from school they're on.

Wii got a Wii. Fun, fun.

It's about time!

I know! I know! I haven't updated my blog in forever. My excuse... whenever I'm on the computer I'm using the laptop. I don't download pictures onto the laptop, so I always have to wait until I use the desktop to blog. I'm on the laptop now so there will be no pictures on this post. Sorry!

Not too much is happening in our neck of the woods. We're just trying to get back into a routine again. Joe went back to work, Kayla went back to school, and Aly and I are just trying to keep ourselves busy. Also, the dreaded potty training has begun so wish us luck on that! Now I remember why it's so exhausting and why I put it off for so long. Hopefully Aly will catch on quickly like Kayla did.

Joe is starting the process of looking for a new job. While he enjoys what he does for Lockheed, he is not compensated for the amount of work and effort he puts into his projects. We also dislike Albuquerque and are ready to get out of here. We'll keep you all posted on how things are going. Our goal is to be gone and settled into a new city before Kayla starts Kindergarten in the fall.

That's our life right now. I'll post some pictures from over the holidays soon. Happy New Year!

Ummm...Oopps!

The other day Joe and I noticed that Sasha was growing some new parts, so... she is now a HE and HIS name is now Ozzy (The Prince of Darkness). Now we have a better idea of how old he is because we found out that you can be sure the sex of a cat after six weeks. We had to try to explain to Kayla and Aly that she is now a he. They're a little confused! :-)

Our New Family Member

We came home from Thanksgiving with an extra living thing in our car. Friday morning I was making a fruit salad at my mom's house and Aly was in the kitchen with me. She said, "Mommy, kitty." I said, "Yeah, that's Sadie." (My mom's cat) She said, "no mommy, kitty." And then I heard a little meow and and pawing at the door. Aly had found a little black kitten who turned out to be really friendly, so we decided to take her home. After going through a ton of names we decided to call her Sasha. She's already made herself at home and fits right in with our family. She likes Joe more than any of us though. Joe says she must be hypoallergenic because she doesn't bother his allergies at all. Good thing too because she's here to stay.