Settling In

I know, I know...I've been a blogging slacker! The best excuse I can come up with is that I've been lazy. It took us a few weeks to unpack and figure out where to put all our stuff - we seriously had to get creative. The old baby mattress is under the couch. The kids closets are a masterful puzzle of broken down boxes, Christmas decorations, and baby clothes we can't seem to get rid of. I feel like such a packrat.

We are settling in pretty good. Albuquerque is better then I imagined (ie desert, cactus, scorpions) but still not quite home yet for me. I still miss my out-of-state family and the familiarity of home. I still find myself GPSing my way to anything that isn't our grocery store, our church, Jeremiah's job, or the mall. Or Costco, but that's because we literally live next to it. Did I mention we also live within walking distance to Target, Hobby Lobby, and the mall? I love our location, although we are a 20 or so minute drive to Jeremiah's work.

Another Albuquerque plus? It's mid-November and while a lot of my friends are Facebooking about snow and freezing weather conditions, we're still enjoying high 50s, low 60s weather. Sorry, I had to rub that in your face. I just love it.

Our ward here is pretty great. Everyone welcomed us so warmly and made us feel at home. I still don't know 90% of everyone's names, but they know mine and everyone is quite friendly. I've been called as the Relief Society Activities committee (I think there's a more official title?) and I really enjoy it. I love being crafty even if I'm not always that good at it!

Jeremiah is enjoying his job. He gets along well with his coworkers, especially his boss and the firm accountant (it's always nice to be friends with the boss and the accountant, you think he has this planned?). We've been on a few dates with his boss, Josh, and Josh's wife, Dana. They are really down to earth and fun to be around, even if Josh has a knack for picking awful movies. Trust me, you don't want to see "In Time".

I don't particularly love the kids school, but maybe it's because I was spoiled at Park Lodge. I feel like the communication between the school and the parents is lacking - aka there was a food drive that ended on Tuesday. I didn't hear anything about it until after it was over. And while Roman's teacher gets back to me pretty quick when I shoot her an email, Hayden's teacher takes a week or longer. But they are both learning, Hayden has made a few friends and Roman is learning to read.

Aubrey is spoiled at home with me. She's so attached to me that she'll leave Dora on the tv to follow me into the bedroom, even if I'm just changing my clothes. I'm trying to teach her to be more independent, but it's a work in progress. Luckily for me she's a really easy little girl who loves me and is eager to please me. She rarely has tantrums (but when she does they are stellar) and loves to be helpful.

My sisters and I started a food blog called Girls in Aprons. It was hard at first to get it going because my kitchen was a disaster and it's hard to cook in chaos. One of the first recipes I posted was on cream puffs and eclairs. My kids had a blast. Not only was there extra filling which they generously offered to eat, but I even found Aubrey sneaking into the fridge to take bites of the extras.

Aubrey slept in the pack & play for awhile after we moved. Her room was used for all of our random boxes and until they were all put away (aka stuffed in the closet) we couldn't set up her room. One day I had a burst of energy (this is history in the making, I don't usually have bursts of energy. Ever.) and I moved everything around and got her room set up. Including her big girl bed. She only fell out a dozen times or so her first time. But we used Carissa's trick and rolled up old towels and taped them under her sheet and she stayed in bed.

I love seeing her in her big girl bed. She lines up all her animals, uses her pillow pet as, well, a pillow, and refuses blankets (just like Roman) so I always have to sneak in and put them on after she's asleep. When she wakes up she sits there and cries for us until we come get her. She can't seem to figure out that she can actually get out of her own bed.

And see that Elmo kitchen behind her? She hates it. She wants a Dora kitchen or a Disney Princess kitchen. She's not spoiled, right?

We were fortunate enough to move down before the annual Balloon Fiesta. Although rain and winds kept some events from taking place, it was a lot of fun to see so many balloons in the sky all over the place. Some were so high they were just dots in the sky and others were so low we were sure they were going to land on the freeway. We really wanted to go to the Glowdeo, where the balloons were tied down in the evening time and put on a light show with their fires. But all those events were cancelled because of our weather. Maybe next year.

These pictures were taken on our way to Jeremiah's work. This is over the freeway. People were pulling off just to take pictures. We followed suit.

Aubrey turned 3 on October 10. She was So. Excited. It's her first year where she's actually sort of understood that it was her special day (although she still tells me almost daily that today is her birthday). We held off opening presents until Jeremiah got home from work, but she was super patient. Jeremiah got her a baby My Little Pony that she feeds with a bottle. Aubrey's in the mothering stage (ask the boys, they'll totally agree) and this present was perfect.

The boys watching her open presents. Weirdos, right?

A few months ago I saw these cupcake necklaces on Groopdealz. I got a pink one and a blue one. Aubrey is always begging to wear my jewelry and she felt so big having her own!

The best part...at least for me. Cupcakes! We felt like awful parents, we didn't even have candles for her, which is fine because with our luck she would have caught the house on fire with it...or worse, her hair.

Aubrey also got gifts from other family members, such as a Belle doll with a horse, My Little Pony dress-up dress, and money that she used to buy a My Little Pony remote control car.