Christmas Morning

All done opening presents....notice that Ryan is playing with his new Jack-in-the-Box.  He has been talking about getting a jack-in-the-box for over a year now.  I have no idea where he got the idea, maybe a movie?  But it was the toy he told Santa he wanted and whenever anyone asked him what he wanted for Christmas, that is what he requested.  I wasn't really planning on buying one (they are hard to find and cost 20$!) but my sister said I had too.  He didn't give quite the reaction you would imagine after all that, but he probably would have mentioned it if he hadn't received one.  

The toys that created the most excitement were definitely Woody and Buzz.  

Ryan of course took some time out Christmas morning for some book reading.

Before we ripped into the presents.  They look so cute in their new p.j.'s and slippers.  Andrew received Cookie Monster slippers, but unfortunately they were too small, the kid has big feet!  (Like mother, like son I guess).  He was plenty happy with Ryan's old Elmo slippers though.

We had a great Christmas and it was so fun having Grammy and Gramps come and visit.  Tomorrow we head out to Las Vegas for the week and Christmas part II!  

How we do Christmas...

We went to the mall to see Santa.  Both boys went to Santa no problem.  The only problem was when it came time to leave and the "elf" woman informed me that I HAD to purchase pictures. She said I should have told her not to take the pictures if I didn't want them.  WHAT?  She was taking the pictures with a digital camera, so I'm pretty sure it doesn't matter if I buy them or not, but whatever.  Spencer forked out a ridiculous amount for the pictures, and I'm pretty sure it was to avoid an embarrassing conflict between me and Elfie.  

When Grammy and Gramps came into town we went to the River of Lights at the Botanical Gardens.  It was actually pretty impressive and we had a good time braving the cold and checking out the lights.

Earlier in the week we went to a Gingerbread House party with some of our friends from the baby-sitting co-op.  Ryan was very diligent and serious in putting the candy on his house and I don't think he even had a piece of candy while we were there.  Andrew on the other hand was pigging out, and if you know Andrew and how he drools, he came home quite the mess.  

This picture was taken right before I told Ryan we had to throw the house away.  He was actually ok with the idea, because royal icing isn't that good and the candy was getting pretty hard!

snow in Albuquerque

Like most of the country this last week, we too got snow.  I know some of you didn't believe me when I told you it snows here, so here is the proof.  It snowed all day, but didn't start really sticking in the afternoon.  We probably only got about 2 inches, but it shut this place down!  The schools were cancelled and even Spencer had a 2 hour delay for work (which he unfortunately didn't get to take advantage of, the poor guy has had to go to work really early and stay late this week because he is running some kind of test).  The snow was totally melted on the roads by about 9am, but we got lots of good snow play in yesterday and this morning.  

We are so Thankful....

For the Pilgrims and Indians....and that Grammy made us this awesome tee-pee to play in,

For all of the good food we had to eat,

That we could spend the week with all of our Grange aunts, uncles, and cute cousins,

For the beautiful snow!!!  Even though it ruined our chances of an outdoor family picture and it made our trip home a little slow...

 

and to be back home safe and sound.

Happy Thanksgiving!!!

Fascinating Read

I'm famous. My thesis finally showed up in the UW library catalog. There's two copies for everyone's reading enjoyment.

Also, my advisor presented some of our work at POF 2008 (The 17th International Conference on Polymer Optical Fiber). I ran across the program in my periodic googling of my name today.

November???

I can't believe November is almost over.  I was thinking about something to post about...nothing too exciting, just living our little life here in Albuquerque.  I only had 2 pictures from the month of November.  My parents came over Veteran's day weekend and we had a great visit with them.  My mom and Ryan made Gingerbread cookies.  And true to my Mom's Kindergarten teacher self, she even sent Ryan on a little Gingerbread man hunt when they escaped off the cooling rack.  

Ryan is still constantly making us laugh by the little phrases he comes up with.  We have to be VERY careful what we say, because we know we will hear it again, coming out of Ryan's mouth.  The other day he gave ME two choices, a happy choice and a sad choice of things I should do...something he obviously hears a lot.  

Andrew is all over the place.  I am sure he will be our child that has all of the broken bones, he usually is sporting at least one bruise on his face and I think he gets a bloody lip at least twice a week.  He is so different from Ryan in that he gets into EVERYTHING.  We didn't have to toddler proof much with Ryan, but Andrew is teaching us how to do it now.  He is so sweet and I think we treat him like he is 6 months old still, but oh well.  Soon enough we will have a real baby in the house again and he'll have to become a big boy then!

My pregnancy is going great.  My only complaint is my nasty varicose veins developing on my legs.  My doctor finally told me that I had to start wearing support hose all the time, or they will get worse and not go away.  It is the most uncomfortable thing in the world to wear nylons ALL of the time.  But I know lots of women have it a lot worse, so I will try not to whine too much about it!

We are excited to go to Denver next week for Thanksgiving.  We have so much to be thankful for!

HaLlOwEeN

What a cute elephant and gorilla!

Ryan had lots of fun trick or treating.  He was a real trooper.  I kept asking him if he wanted me to hold his bucket, but he said he was ok.  People gave him handfuls at a time!  We only went down our street and by the end, his bucket was totally full.  We did take Andrew, but after a few houses, I brought him back home.  He liked getting the candy and would say "please".  But he just wanted to bang his flashlight on the sidewalk and he was slowing us down :)  Something kind of fun about trick or treating in Albuquerque is that a lot of neighbors sit out on their porches to hand out candy.  I've heard that in some neighborhoods they even sit out on the sidewalk and chit chat with each other and the kids can just zoom down the street collecting candy.  How efficient!

Spencer and I went to a fun Halloween party.  If you can't tell, we are obviously a Publishers Clearing House Prize Patrol man and a surprised housewife.  It was a big hit, and yes, Ryan and Teri, we totally copied you!!!  

Oor friend Max joined us again for Halloween festivities.  You might remember him from last year.