Baby Reed: Exposed

This might be embarrassing for him later, but I want to remember my little Reedy's cute buns and chubby rolls :)

Raingutter Rigatta

This was our first time at Cub Scouts in our new ward, and they did not disappoint! It was a Raingutter Rigatta and Nolan made the Black Pearl. He is always so creative and this time was no different. He drew a pirate's medallion on the sail and glued little lego pieces on the side to look like cannons. It even had a steering wheel, and a little pearl at the top of the mast. He loved his boat. He's so cute. The kids all got sticky and wet afterwards with squirt guns and watermelon.

Smokey The Bear

In case you didn't know (how could you not?), Smokey the Bear was found in a forest fire in New Mexico very near to where we live. So there's a little museum and memorial to Smokey in a little neighboring town called Capitan. Hanna happened to already have something of a peaked interest in the bear because we did a whole class on him and forest fire prevention in preschool last year (she became an instant fan of both). So when we told the kids we were taking them to the Smokey the Bear museum, Hanna was way excited and the other kids didn't really know what we were talking about. But they sure know Smokey now! Everybody wanted to join the Fire Patrol, and we all got badges to prove it. We had a long fun day of exploring the towns and the beautiful scenery around us (Ruidoso, Cloudcroft and the Lincoln National Forest included).

Liam's 3rd Birthday

My funny little guy is 3! I can't say enough how happy I am that he's mine. His big hugs and sweet little lisp make me smile like crazy. We have our special "Mommy/Liam Time" every day right before naps where I read him a story and he forces me to sing the Power Rangers theme song. He loves music and has a good memory for lyrics, which unfortunately demonstrates the fact that we listen to way too much pop music around here, because we'll catch him spouting off songs like "Call Me Maybe" and "Moves Like Jagger." He's got some serious dance moves to accompany his pop music fettish. He's so easy to love and makes our family MUCH cooler than we could be without him. For his birthday he got a new trike/bike thingy (which he loves, since all his big siblings have bikes) and we had our new friends the Spencers over for cake and ice cream (at which time, he was once again too afraid of the fire on his candles to blow them out and make a wish). We also took him to the Toy Train Museum here in town which was thoroughly entertaining and came complete with train ride for all! Such fun. Love my Liam.

Testing The Waters

Our first week here was so lovely. Scott was home with us, and aside from unpacking, all we had to do was explore our new town. On top of that, the weather was cool, cloudy, rainy and heavenly all week long. Here are some pictures of us sledding at White Sands and visiting the Space Museum.

So, New Mexicans seems to have something of an obsession with space and I didn't get it until we went to the museum and got educated on the history that our town has with a lot of important "spacey" events. We share the desert with Holloman Air Force base and White Sands missile range (both of which are pretty cozy with NASA and the federal government). I won't share all the details, but you know that monkey that went to space? He was named HAM after Holloman Aero Med and his remains are buried here at our space museum. Now I almost feel famous just for living here!