Save the Worms

Yesterday we moved dirt from our front yard on the side of our driveway to our backyard. 

This section of the dirt was easy to move, since we previously hauled away all the chipped-up trees and leaves and garbage that was on top of the dirt.  Now it looks like this except the driveway isn't dirty anymore.

The rest of the sideyard had a ton of bark mixed with dirt, so Dave and I developed a system.

Step 1.  Scoop the dirt onto our newly made dirt sifter.

Step 2.  Save the worms!  This is where Kate saves the worms from the sifter and puts them in her jar.  She doesn't get her worm-handling skills from me.  She's not squeamish at all about holding wiggly worms.  The worms in this picture fell onto the ground from the sifter.

She eventually let the worms go in the backyard in the newly moved dirt.

Jack was a little nervous about the worms, but he eventually held one in his bare hand, but I didn't get a picture.  

Step 3.  Dump the bark off of the sifter into a pile. 

 Step 4.  Wheel the dirt into the backyard and dump it in place.

Since we bought our house it seems like there is always something to do and work on.  We must have been so bored when we rented.  The kids love being outside while we work.  They get really dirty, but they love it!

Huge Blog Update

June and July have been super busy, eventful months full of lots of picture taking and visitors and evacuations and lost teeth and monkey bars and yard work and birthdays.  I'm finally done blogging about all of it.  I've post-dated the posts so they are in chronological order, so you might have to click on "older posts" at the bottom of the page once or twice to see everything that I've posted.

Just a little note about how glad I am that I have my blog:  when we were evacuating it was so nice to not have to worry about taking pictures or scrapbooks from the last four years with us.  I knew that everything is saved on my blog and wouldn't take up space in our packed van.

If you want to be sure not to miss a post, just click on all the links in the Blog Archive for June and July (far down on the right sidebar).

Ty at 2 years

It's hard to believe that it's been two years since Ty was born.  Here's a little Ty update:

• He is a sweet little guy.  
• He talks more than my other kids ever did at 2.
• He loves to be funny and goofy.  He has a funny way of running when he's feeling goofy.
• He loves his "kankets" (blankets that both Grandmas sewed him for his blessing).
• He loves to wrestle.  Luckily Jack does too.
• He loves to scoot on his bike.
• He loves to play basketball with Jack.
• He loves a nice cold sippy-cup of whole milk.
• He gives hugs voluntarily when someone is sad (sometimes).
• He goes to nursery without crying (hooray!).
• He loves to swim and has no fear of the water.  
• He hates doctors and nurses.

I took him to his 2 year appointment today (July 13th) and he screamed and cried.  After a struggle we finally got his weight and height.  He weighs 25 lbs (around the 15%) and is 33" tall (25%).  Hopefully he doesn't have any heart or ear problems, because he was screaming so loud and wiggling so much that it was impossible for the doctor to listen to his heart and look in his ears without possibly hurting him.  He was freaking out!  Other than that, he's really healthy and happy and developing well.  

Sidewalk Chalk

I've deprived my kids of sidewalk chalk for a few years now.  When my kids were younger (4 and 2), they would be covered in chalk whenever they'd use it and I'd have to bathe them and wash their clothes.

I decided that now that the kids are 7, 5, and 2 that I should be nice and buy them some sidewalk chalk at Walmart yesterday.  They were so excited to get outside and start using it.  I tried to keep them inside because it was super smoky yesterday afternoon, but they slipped outside and got started on their artwork.

Geotrax Birthday

My mom and dad gave Ty the greatest birthday present.  I told them that Ty loves Geotrax stuff and it's fun to get more things to add to the Geotrax that the kids already have.  There was a great sale on Toysrus.com (buy one get one free), so they bought Ty two super fun Geotrax things.

I probably should have saved one for Christmas, but my kids were in heaven with enough new toys for everyone to play together.  Ty was asleep when the UPS man brought the present.  Jack was dying to wake him up so they could get started playing.  The second Ty woke up, he got to open the box.

Still a little sleepy, but SO excited!

Showing me the cool fire engine.

I made this nice train track for the kids to play with, but Ty wasn't sharing too well and kept breaking it when he was mad.

I may never be able to vacuum my living room rug again.  It's the new train "town".

Thanks Mom & Dad for a "Christmas in July".  My kids will be entertained for hours!

Ty Turns Two!

When Ty woke up on the morning of his birthday, he saw balloons and crepe paper all over the living room.  

 He liked playing with the balloons, but he was a little shy when people kept singing happy birthday to him.

 A little later that morning, Ty got to open his presents.  He had some good present-opening helpers, Kate and Jack.

 Jack gave Ty this Francesco car from the new Cars 2 movie.

 Jack couldn't wait to get started playing with the new toys.  Kate gave Ty a big shovel that everyone loved.

 We gave Ty a tee and a new ball and bat.

 I made Ty an airplane shaped cake in honor of all the airplanes and helicopters that have been flying over our house the last few weeks dumping water on the fire.  Ty loves seeing all of them.  He could tell that it was an airplane cake, so I accomplished my goal.

 Ty wasn't so sure what to think about our birthday song singing.

This is Ty's face that he makes when he blows out the candle.  It's a very dainty blow. 

Ty didn't eat any cake.  He just wanted to blow out the candles, so we let him do it over and over and over.  Our house already smelled like smoke from the wildfire, so the match smell blended right in.  Ty would say, "again, Mom. "  and so we'd do it again and again.

Fire Still Burning

The fire picked up today and dropped a little bit lower towards town.  Town was protected because the area between the homes and the fire was already burned in the 2000 fire.  We walked to the middle school (close to our house) and took some pictures looking to the north-west.

 This picture is looking towards the west at the ski hill.

Grateful!

I have lots of pictures to post from our evacuation vacation (or "evacucation" as my friend called it), but it'll take me a while to get to them.

We came home yesterday and I felt so grateful for so many things.  So, I thought I should write them down because who knows if we'll ever experience this again.  I hope not.  Our little town doesn't have much more forest to burn.

I'm grateful....

•  for the firefighters and everyone who kept the fire from burning anything in town or in the lab.  It's amazing to see how close the fire came.
• for all the help that my parents gave me while they were staying here and when we were in ABQ.  
• for Uncle Brad for opening up his home to us (and to my friend Juli's family)
• that Juli's family stayed with us in ABQ so my kids had a three day long playdate :)
• for Geoff & Annelisa for letting us stay with them, and feeding us, and entertaining our kids. 
• that our power stayed on, so our freezers stayed nice and cold.
• that we have cell phones, email and facebook to keep in touch with everyone
• that so many people were praying and fasting and thinking about us
• for the sense of community that I feel seeing the signs around town thanking the fire fighters and knowing that everyone in town has something in common since we were all evacuated and experienced the same thing.
• that I had a reminder that "things" don't matter, only family matters.

Post Fire

We took this picture on the way home from Colorado Springs, a few miles away from Espanola.

 This is taken from just outside Espanola (I wish I'd been able to video it.  A camera couldn't capture the whole fire -- it's wider than the lense).

 We stopped at the turn-off on the way up the hill a few miles out of town.

 We stopped at the airport and took pictures from there.  We love seeing all the helicopters!

 Lots of other people were taking pictures at the airport too.  We had to pick up Dave's car from the airport. He'd taken a rental car to the airport before his trip to New Jersey.  His car had a good bit of ash inside it and the windshield wiper fluid was black.  But at least it was safe.

We went out the night that we got home and took some pictures of the fires glowing around town.  All the hillsides that surround the east and north sides of town glowed like this.  This is by the horse stables not far from our house.

 This is taken from the hill above our house looking towards the north and the roundabout.

 When we got home, our house wasn't as smoky as I'd expected it.  It still smelled a bit like new carpet -- we had just picked up a huge piece of bound carpet for our living room a few days before we evacuated.  The non-smoky smell didn't last long since it's been really hot so we had to open the windows.

The smoke comes and goes.  I'm writing this on July 14th and this morning we woke up to really strong smoke.  Monsoon rains are trying to come.  The last four days it's clouded up in the afternoon, but doesn't produce much rain.  After it rains the smoke rolls in and it smells really stinky!  Hopefully we'll be able to get the smoke smell out of our stuff eventually.

Evacucation Part 2: Colorado Springs

On our way to Colorado Springs, we took these pictures of the fire (we were near Cochiti).  (Those big clouds are all smoke!)

 Geoff & Annelisa were really nice to let us come stay with them.  Our kids have so much fun together!  The big girls (Haley, Callie & Kate) got to work right away writing plays.

Friday morning they performed Haley's play, The Mean Mother.  I got to be the narrator. Haley did a great job writing the script!

 King (Jack), Sister (Callie), Sister (Katelyn), Sister (Kate), Mean Mother (Haley)

 The "pigtail girls" and Ty -- the girls all had pigtails in before bed.

 The big girls were posing and ready for a picture.

 Crazy kids!

Friday while Geoff was at work, we took the kids to the American the Beautiful park in downtown Colorado Springs.

picture from here

They had a great time playing, splashing and laying down in the fountain water.

Callie, Ty, Katelyn, Jack and Kate

Ty and Kate, Cameron and Callie

This is the only picture that I have with the three "babies" in it.  I loved watching Ty with Cameron and Emily.  They are very active almost two year olds!

 And here's Jack, posing for a cell phone picture.

We drove home on July 4th (they opened the town on Sunday, but we decided to wait until Monday to drive home).  We stopped at Arby's for lunch in Alamosa.  Ty spent most of our time there like this.

Poopin'

 Thanks to Geoff & Annelisa for letting us stay and feeding us and entertaining us!