Hiking and such.

The kids and I had been cooped up inside for a week or so and Russ was leaving the next day to go to Kansas City for a week for work, so despite the certainty that we were going to get rained on, we set out for a hike at Piedra Lisa Canyon.

This is the start of the trail head.  You can see the boulders up in the left corner.

The view of the city from the bottom.

The biker in the above picture came up to us and said, "You know, I have a bunch of photos from when I was a kid with only one parent in them, would you like me to take a family photo?"  So sweet!
(And although I was glad to have my puffy coat, I hate photos of me in it.  I wore it when I was super pregnant with Sam and now always feel like I look pregnant when I wear it, ha!)

My happy boulder-ers.

It started sprinkling a bit here...they were determining the best way to get up, talking about which is less slippery in the rain--rock or dirt.

It started really raining soon!  I love what rain does to the color of rocks.

Up, up, up!

Same tree, but photo taken from above.
There's something about the contrast of the spiky tree branches against the smooth rocks that I like.

Mmmm, love those textures and colors.
The red rock, the green from the moss that somehow seems to thrive in the desert, the dampness from the rain...

A couple of hikers going down the other side, which we would be doing shortly but didn't realize how treacherous it would be in the rain and with people who have legs have the length of our own...

We found shelter!
Brook and I have been reading the first book in the Horrible Histories series.  The one about Neanderthals and we were talking about how we could use this as a shelter--there was a back door so we could escape if we needed, and a place where some rain leaked in, that could be our shower...

The view from our shelter.

Oh Sam.  He loves his shoes.  There is a gaping hole in the toe of the one on the right, so his sock is wet and muddy inside, but he just can't bear to part with them.

The view from the top!
I didn't notice the look of "hurry up and take this dang photo" on Russ and Brook's faces until I went to edit it, ha.  It's a pretty steep drop off that rock.

After we shuffled down the other side, much of it on our butts, we headed back to the car.

Apparently we were on a different trail because we kept seeing what looked like animal shapes made from rocks.  First there was a snake, then a lizard, and then a turtle.
This was the end of our hike--we shuffled to the car, stripped off as much wet clothing as possible and went back to our nice, warm home to eat some chili I'd started that morning.  Mmm.

Other stuff we've been up to:
I have always loved the kid circuit kits.  Luckily, Sam loves doing them with me as well.

We were bored one day and somehow got on the subject of ribbon twirlers.  After watching a couple of amazing YouTube videos, I remembered I had some streamers!  These have to be THE easiest toys to make and they have given us hours of entertainment!

Laser pointers + long exposure = awesomeness.

A game Sam and I came up with while playing with our whatchamacallits...ugh, forgot their name, ha.
So one person puts a piece down, and then the other person adds to that piece.  That's it.  But you get some cool art out of it!

Hopscotch!

Brooklyn explaining the wonders of Hopscotch to Sam, who preferred to just jump around.

Aaaaand this about sums it up.
My little sleeper creeper.  :)

Next up, our trip to Texas!

...just need to sift through the bajillion photos of some really cute kids...oy.

A Lackluster New Years, Enderman and Other Fun Stuff.

 Sam got a Nintendo/Super Nintendo and some Mario games for Christmas and we've been having so much fun with them!  He loves Mario and Russ and I love re-living a part of our childhood.

This is what our New Year's Eve celebration looked like.  

Actually, Sam asked to go to bed around 8:30pm, so I lay in with him and read my book.  I came out a bit later (around 9:30pm) to find this.  Russ was reading White Fang out loud and she was out cold.
Zzzzzz....

But don't worry, we celebrated the next morning.  :)

Celebrated the new year with some Uno.

(This is Sam's Woo-hoo-I-Kicked-Your-Butt-At-Uno-Again look.)

Sam loves his Creeper shirt so much that we picked up some black shirts and paint for Enderman shirts...

...and they turned out awesome!!

Russ picked Munchkin up for us awhile back, but after attempting to read the rules...holy cow.
I need someone how to show me how to play this.  I'm in over my head!!
But Sam and I had a blast looking through all of the cards and laughing at the images.

We were watching something on TV and Brook asked which number was bigger (I don't remember what they were), so I put numbers up on the wall.  We have a ones column, a tens, a hundreds, a thousands, and a ten thousands.  But then we were watching The Lorax and Brook said, "He's a trillionaire.  How much is a trillion?"  So we had to add more columns and are currently up to ten quadrillions (a 1 with 16 zeros) before I ran out of ambition.

I've been wanting some LEGOs for awhile, so the kids humored me and let me go pick some out at the store (I've since found that we have a local store, woot!).  We've had a lot of fun, but...I want more.  :)

A day or two later, Russ was reading one of his Geek Dad books (which are so much fun!) and it had the idea of making your own comic.  So Sam and I put this one together (click to make it larger):

And then Sam said he wanted to make a LEGO movie.  I'm a bit biased, but I love it.  :)

Watching his work of art.

Random photo...picked some thick hiking socks up for Russ at Costco...they're getting a LOT of use this winter!  ...just not by Russ.  :)

Tesla, the Hot Wheels eating cat.

At the ALL Unschooling Symposium, Joyce Fetteroll made us Unschooling Toolboxes to take home--they were tin boxes filled with lots of reminders and quotes.  I pull a new one out each day and put it on the fridge.  When I pulled this one out, I laughed so hard!  It spoke volumes to me.  :)

We went to check out the local indoor trampoline park, thinking we could just show up and play.  Um, no.  You had to schedule a time.  DAYS in advance!  They kids were pretty bummed, but at least there was a small play place close.  They did some jumping and crawling and giggling.

And kicking their mom's butt at basketball...  hmph.

Luckily, Gravity Park had an opening the following day!  We were so excited!

Unluckily, both kids weren't feeling 100% and spent a lot of time doing this...  Come to find out, both were sick.  Sigh.
Perhaps we'll try again another day.

Russ has been making a lot of cheese lately.  He made some squeaky cheese!  YUM!
He currently has 3 pounds of cheddar aging in the other room.

The kids picked these straws out the week that we moved to Albuquerque, and I'd totally forgotten about them until I found them in a cabinet.  They were quite fun!

 

 

 

Who says learning how to tie a bow has to be done on shoes??

We went out and did some duck and goose feeding at the local ponds, even though there was a layer of ice--it was pretty fun to watch the birds trying to walk and land on the ice!

"Mom!  There are letters on this wood!  Look, they feel funny, feel them!"

Showing off his muscles.

We had so much fun getting big chunks of ice and throwing them out onto the pond--the would shatter and watching them go scattering across the surface of the pond and hearing the odd sound that went with it was awesome!

They were mining.  Looking for coal.  :)

Tesla looks at everything as potential prey or a toy...she was stalking Russ's pencil as he sketched.

That's it for now, folks!  ...gotta get back to editing photos!