Eleven Months

Photo dump! Once again, quite the rodeo. Our little trooper battled through a cold for the photo shoot.

Christmas "Tss"

Odd as it may seem, Augie's first word seems to be light, although it sounds more like "Tss" when he says it. This originally stemmed from his obsession with the pendant light above his high chair in our dining room. But now he correctly applies it to lights in all the rooms, at daycare, streetlights and now Christmas lights....

Clearly the Louisville lighted parade was going to be the best thing ever. He was speechless and entranced during the parade. Then as we were walking away on a quiet street, he pointed at a streetlight and said "Tss."

Christmas Tree Tss

And ornaments

First meeting with Santa, on the Pearl St Mall in Boulder:

1. Inquisitive.

 2. Skeptical.

3. Terrified.

Snowflake Express made it better!

Mama was pretty stoked.

Earthship

The place we stayed at in Taos was an "Earthship," which is a term for a weird looking smurf house that is half buried underground, mostly solar heated, runs on solar panels and does water collection and waste composting on site. There were banana plants growing inside while it was around freezing temps outside. It was a bit humid inside, but not enough to bother us. Contrary to what the name might suggest, an Earthship cannot move, though in appearance it looks ready to fly off with the aliens next time they visit Roswell.

Ready for the apocalypse or alien invasion.

Is this where we go in?

Alien baby.

Alien baby and alien Dada having their coffee.

New best friend.

Alien tractor beams coming through the door of the bedroom (bedpod? bedhole? bedcave?).

Watch out!

ET's arrival.

Funhouse bathroom.

Hiding in the Livingcave while Aug napped in the Closetcave in the Bedcave.

Friendly ships.

Mama and Aug "enthusiastically" accompanying Dada to the Earthship visitor center.

The moon is high. The sea is deep. They rock, and rock, and rock to sleep. -Sandra Boynton

Giving Thanks

We are so thankful this year to have a happy, healthy 10 month old (Brett always rounds up to 11 months when people ask and I get mad at him) who allows us to cart him around everywhere and do things on whatever schedule we feel like for the day.  Today we got up and had breakfast before heading into Hyde Park State Park above Santa Fe.

When we got there, I had some serious doubts about my abilities because there was snow everywhere and because the hike kicked off with a 1000 foot climb in the first mile.  But Augie's spirits were high and that lifted mine and we made it.  After the first climb, we had to pause and take off our outer layers because it was so warm once we got climbing up.  Augie waited patiently.

After our hike, we came home and Augie took a 2.5 hour nap.  Brett and I almost didn't know what to do with ourselves.  When he woke up, we heated up our Whole Foods "Thanksgiving dinner for 2" that was perfect, with turkey, stuffing, mashed potatoes and gravy, cranberries, green beans, and dinner rolls.  We finished it off with some individual portions of pie -- I had pecan and dada had apple and Augie and had a little bit of both.

What do you mean, the dinner didn't include pickled herring?

After dinner, things got a little zany (may or may not have resulted from an Augie-daddy wrestling match) we determined we needed to take a family walk.  We walked down to the plaza and back and that just made everything normal again.  Dada read Augie our go-to bedtime book, Goodnight Moon, and Augie turned the pages for him.

We are so thankful for this week that we get to spend together, for our family and friends near and far, and for so much more.  But this year we are especially thankful for our little boy and the joy he brings every day.

Taos Pueblo

We got to spend time at one of the oldest continuously inhabited structures in North America yesterday.  We went on a tour and then got to explore on our own a bit too.  This was really special for Brett who had done a project inspired by the building in architecture school.  Augie was very quiet and patient for the first 30 minutes of the tour, then he needed some extra bounces, crawls, and just to be carried in Daddy's arms.  It was a beautiful day and Brett got some beautiful photos.

High fives

We had no choice.  He had to crawl.

Finally!  The three of us!  But we're working on a better one.