Snowboarding & A Day in Taos

David snowboarded 3 different days over the course of our stay in Angel Fire.  He of course went out the first day...

...and then even though he had planned a day at home with us, we got between 6-8 inches of snow that night - so of COURSE he had to go that day too!

crazy!

On Thursday of our trip, David decided he was going to go give the Taos ski mountain a try.  After thinking for awhile, I decided I was over hanging out in the house with the girls and decided to tag along.  I spent some time looking for things to to with kids in Taos, and found this GREAT toy store!  It has all of the really neat stuff like Melissa & Doug & original games, etc.

But it also had this AMAZING play ground you could play on for free!

It was a warmish day - around 50 and sunny - and they (and I!) loved having a chance to be outside!

Inside they also had a fun train table for them to play at.  There was supposed to be a fun music time I had planned for us to be there for, but they were renovating the room :-(

We spent most of our morning there, then packed up and found this little gem...

broke my week long fasting!

Afterwards, we happened upon this really cute little resale shop.  It was huge & had all sorts of neat furniture.  Would have LOVED to be there sans kids!

David had a great day skiing a new mountain!

As we headed out to pick him up (the mountain is 30 minutes outside of town), both girls PASSED OUT.  Too much fun in one day!

We also got to have a treat for dinner!  One of our favorite places in Angel Fire was a Chinese food restaurant that we heard had closed down.  Turns out they just moved to Taos!

It was a great day!  I was so glad I hadn't stayed home!

"I Play in the Snow Mommy!"

After finally getting the kids to bed our first night, I was feeling nervous about them.  I'm not usually a "nervous" mom, but I just kept feeling the need to check on them.  Kate was in a new place - Hannah had congestion/cough and I just couldn't shake it.  Who knows.  Well, the good (or bad?) news is that they didn't give me much time to worry because between the 2 of them I was up pretty much every hour between midnight when I went to bed and 6 am.  

And that's when things got crazy.  

I heard Kate crying, but looked at the monitor & she wasn't in there.  I got out of bed to see if she was wondering the house & realized quickly SHE WAS AT THE BACK DOOR!!!  OUTSIDE!!

6 am.  The sun wasn't even up yet, but with the snow it looked bright enough (b/c of the reflection).  There were 2 door outside - one in the living room & one in our master bedroom.  I guess she had gotten up and saw the snow & let herself out the LOCKED back door in the living room.  

THANK GOODNESS she found her way to our door.  I don't think she had been out long - her socks were definitely wet, but her face wasn't that cold.  I quickly threw her into our bed so David could help warm her up while I got her wet clothes off.  Somewhere in the midst of this, I said (panicked!) "KATE!  WHAT WERE YOU DOING OUTSIDE?!?!"

and in her sweet little voice...

"I play in the snow, Mommy!"

Ugh!  At this point it's a funny story I'm sure we'll tell her for the rest of her life.  But, at 6am that morning all this mommy's mind could think of was all the what-ifs.  What if she hadn't come to our door??  What if she had wondered around the other side of the house and we hadn't heard her crying?? What if some animal had gotten her??  Seriously!  I decided I was probably *NOT* going back to sleep anytime soon, so I moved us to the couch with cartoons where I spent the next good bit of time thanking God for protecting my baby!

"I play in the snow, Mommy!!" 

 ha!

Goin' on A Trip

When I turned 30 in November, David rocked it with my gifts.  This year, he gave me himself - his time.  One of the gifts I would have to wait for though - and it was well worth it!  He promised to give me at least 10 uninterrupted days together as a family in Angel Fire, NM.  I can't tell you how many hours I spent looking forward to this trip & it did not disappoint!

After our breakfast stop with the Bandits, we headed out for a looong road trip.  The whole trip takes a total of 13 hours.  That is if you don't travel with children.  We managed to add a couple hours, but I do have to tell you that we could not BELIEVE how great the girls were.  

I think they each slept less than an hour - which is nuts since Hannah still takes two 2-hour naps, and Kate usually takes one that long.


There was lots of movie watching, pod-cast listening, book reading, and a whole lot of enjoying being together.

this small miracle happened at one point!

We rolled into the driveway at about 11pm & by this point the kids were WIPED!  Hannah had been fussing for about 15 minutes and as we pulled in, Kate started crying too.

WELL.

David quickly discovered that the driveway (which is quite the incline) was too thick in snow & we were not going to make it up.  As he put it in reverse to back down to where we could park we started to slide!  YIKES!!  We had come so far with no melt down, but we were in FULL melt-down mode at this point.  Kids crying.  Dad frustrated trying to figure out how to get us settled & Mom just trying to make everyone ok!

We quickly unloaded (did I mention that my kids  have been up since 6am & it is now after 11pm??), carried kids & suitcases up the hill and tried to get beds made FAST!  Kate was so tired she pulled her blanket & pillow into the living room and just laid down while I got beds ready!  poor baby!

With kid settled, I moved on to our next set of business & called our emergency road side service that we have with our insurance.  Thankfully, it was not a big deal and after a phone call I had us scheduled for a tow first thing in the morning!  Whew!

I snapped these pics when the tow truck came...

I knew it was bad when even the tow truck was sliding around in the driveway!  But he pulled us out with no problem & soon the snow plow came to clear out the driveway so that we could make it up for the rest of our trip. Saved!

Breakfast With the Bandits

A few weeks ago (maybe it's been over a month now!), Michelle - the funniest bandit of all - came back from a 2 year Journeymen trip to Africa.  She's literally been living in the bush - no electricity and all that for a good bit of that time.  

I knew she was probably bombarded with people that wanted to see her, so I sent Ashley (lives in Lake Jackson) an email that if they were going to be in Ft. Worth (where Michelle is) any time soon to let me know & I would come over for the day so we could all grab lunch or something.  ALSO, my roommate & fellow Bandit, Courtney just had a baby and I was dying to meet little Karsyn.  (she lives north of ft. worth).

Well, somehow even though this group usually can't even come up with a weekend to get together in the summer, everything aligned & the Danes were coming up the same day we were going to be driving through on our way to Angel Fire!  So, we set up a breakfast at Chick Fil A so the kids could play while we caught up.

I love, love, love these women (and men).  I don't think I ever laugh as hard or come away as encouraged as when I'm with them.  I love that we just pick back up right where we left off.

Kendall checking out baby Karsyn

We managed to get a pic of all the kids that were present.  We were just missing Madison who was at school & baby Karsyn

Cooper (Courtney's), My girls, Cooper & Kendall (Ashley's)

And one of the Bandits with the kids

Courtney (with Karsyn), Me, Michelle
Cooper, Kate, Hannah, Cooper, Kendall & Ashley

And then we added the men to the group.  We missed Trent since he was at work :-(

Roomies

By this summer we will have added our little one & hopefully have Scott & Alden join us too!  Can't wait!

Valentine's Day

Yes, it's been a month since I last blogged - but it has been  FULL, FUN month - so, prepare yourself.  I've got a post a day coming your way for quite awhile.  

My parents came to town the weekend before Valentine's, so Mom took the opportunity to celebrate with the girls.

making cupcakes with Nana

always gotta have a little taste

the boys relaxing while the women cook

Valentine's Day we had MOPS, so I put the girls' cute shirts on & off we went!  Of course we attempted a group photo, which is ALWAYS DIFFICULT.

We actually ended up with a couple cute ones :-)

And for a little walk down memory lane...

As irritating as it is, I can't find the pictures from our evening festivities.  We decided to host our Second Annual Valentine's Day Care!  A few of our friends brought their kids over for some bounce house & running around crazy fun!   It was always borderlining on chaos, but we managed to avoid it!  With 8 kids under 4 running around, I'd call that a success!

David and I had a sitter the following night.  We enjoyed getting to get out & catch up after a busy night the night before and a YUMMY dinner at Barron's.  And even though David had planned for a fire & s'mores for dessert later, we couldn't pass up dessert!

Next David took me for my fun surprise!!  A new phone!  My other phone had ceased to have the capability of being turned on silent, which is fairly inconvenient along with a "home" button that was going out!  Well, after feeling super spoiled, we headed home for the rest of the evening.

I thoroughly enjoyed getting to celebrate all my loves!

A Little I-Phone Fun

Time for a little I-Phone dump & some fun pics of the girls :-)

Baby girl PASSED OUT on our way home from church

trying to ride Big Sister's scooter

a little light reading

My girls think outside the box
Because really.  Surely the carts weren't really designed to ride in them the way I put them in originally...right?

so cute :-)

Baby's 3-D Sonogram

We had our 3-D sonogram between 19-20 weeks.  This would normally be the sono where we found out that another little girl was joining our family, but since we lucked out and found out early, it was just fun to get to see her again.  

Wanted to share the 3-D images we got, but first, a few that arethat is not 3-D.  She spent a lot of the sono in this position - I think we've got a little gymnast on our hands!

In case you can't tell - legs on left, rear end in the air, head tucked under (like a summersault) on the right.

Her sweet profile

Proof that we in fact are having a girl.
Yes - there should be another leg at the top of this photo - she does have 2, it just didn't show up in the pic.
And in case you can't tell - leg on bottom, rear end on right side.  Like she's sitting on the camera :-)

 Then we moved onto the 3-D images.  With the first 2, they smiled, posed & took great pictures at my 3-D.  I had heard about people having trouble, but never experienced it.  Well, Little Girl #3 (no, we still haven't picked a name...ugh), spent most of the sono like this:

hands all in front of her face

 After a bathroom break, switching from side to side, we finally got her to move around so we could get a few pics. - here's the best.  

Again, after checking all her anatomy, they deemed her perfect - which I couldn't agree more :-)

So thankful to find out she's still doing great, and most of all it makes me excited to meet her.