End of October

 We were still at Brian and Tia's house. The kids all made designs for pumpkins and I helped them do the carving. We had beautiful weather to go to the park and had fun decorating their house for a mini-Lydia party.

Date Night

 Friday night we went out with all the adults to Los Amigos. Oh my. Steak and enchiladas is SOOOO good, made all the better with great company (Asa, Paula, Ashley, Julian, Brian, Tia and Brad) and for not having eaten lunch.

 After dinner we made a pit stop at Target for medicine...husband's weren't too excited about the selfie opportunity

But we got distracted and ended up getting a perfect picture of them! What would Tia and I do without our amazing husbands!

And after dropping babysitters off and eating chocolate cake we laughed our guts out at I.T. Crowd. It was a fabulous second to last day in Santa Fe. 

 

 When we finally went to bed we found Buddy snuggling with Ms. Belle. And as I type this Brad, Brian, Asa and Julian are moving all our stuff from storage to our new house. Huzzah for family and having a great place to live!

Halloween Party!

 Ben the T-Rex skeleton, Declan the strong man and both views of Will as Robin

 Ruth the Jedi and Claire as R2-D2

Lydia as a Macaw...I did her make-up!

All three of my kiddos

Me as a day of the dead...or as Claire likes to say a "Pretty Skeleton."

Longest Date Ever!

 The house we were going to rent was a mess...the copper wiring had been stolen out of it. So we got out of our contract with that property management company and started our internet search for a new home. Brad started looking out in Edgewood, which is 30 minutes from downtown ABQ. Once we found several houses to go look at I made appointments and we asked Tia and Ashley if they would watch our kids for 2 days while we were house hunting. This is the first time we'd been away from the kids for more than 4 hours since Ruth was born...7 years ago. So we had a BLAST! We stayed at a swanky hotel downtown, ate out, ran to meetings and looked at several houses. We also had time to just be goofy together and really enjoy each other; it was so refreshing and exactly what the two of us needed during this stressful time.

This is the backyard of our house!

 It's out in the country so it was bustling with wildlife. While we were there, less than 30 minutes, we saw 2 rabbits, a lizard, several grasshoppers and a stick bug! The best part of our house is that we have an AMAZING property manager. She is the owner of Mazzola Inc. and is so helpful and full of information on this area. She is world's apart from the big property management companies that treat you like a number.

Thank you Ashley and Tia for keeping our kids safe and happy while we were away!

Moving and the Baptism

 These are the nice gifts Brad received from his employees

 The kids were still sick during our great trek, so this is what they did for most of the 22 hour drive!

I'm so excited to live close to these awesome ladies! Saturday was Ben's baptism, so we made it just in time!

Sunday evening we spent all together at Asa and Paula's house. It was so fun to see all the kids playing together. And to see how grown up all of Ashley's kids have gotten! Oh, and Grandma's awesome garage rennovation, Claire could have spent all day out there!

Lasts

  This week I found several full punch cards for different places around town. So today we had a last hurrah day and got free burgers, free bouncing and free ice cream. It was SO much fun to be out on the town with my kiddos!

Ruth went to her last Girl Scout meeting. Paige (the troop leader) choked up when she was telling everyone it was her last time, boy did that do me in! I will miss working in primary with Paige and Amy. And I know Ruth will miss Paige's girls. 

I also went to my last sewing group here in California. Here we all are, minus Kathy Smith who organized the whole thing...and is taking this picture

Pics I Missed

Big Girl

Claire informed me at lunch today that she doesn't like Charlie Brown and Snoopy any more...because she's a big kid. I told her that big kids were allowed to like Snoopy, but I don't know that I convinced her; she's spent all afternoon being Woody and shooting everyone with Buzz's gun!

Nightmare

Will said he had a nightmare about a baby monster. He was trying to shove a stick down it's throat but it wouldn't go. So he pushed harder and that made the monster puke up a clock. I don't know if that was a fever induced dream or if he's just got creepy things rolling around in his head, poor little sick kid!