Oh-Bla-Di

One of the things I love about the way we do holidays around here is that the BIG ones happen for us in the fall.  By the end of November, when we’ve packed up the last of the Thanksgiving leftovers, we slide into the holiday season with fewer commitments and more breathing room in our lives.  But, to get to that place of serenity, we have to wade all the way through November – through Noah’s birthday in August, Ava’s in November, Thanksgiving, and our anniversary.  It’s busy, but I always find myself crashing on the couch after every party thinking, “That was so worth it.”  This year, I found myself on the couch after Thanksgiving saying, “That was absolutely our best one yet.”

We were thrilled to have company for Pie Day/Enchilada Night on Wednesday and a big group of friends and family join us for dinner on Thursday.  In order to make it through both events, we needed a hero and a little organization – enter Matt & sticky notes.

Dinner for 20 was served only about 30 minutes late, which ended up being perfect for our guests and the turkey cooking.

We ended up roasting one turkey and frying two.  On Wednesday, when Matt and I were talking about it, I thought maybe the 60-some pounds of turkey we were planning might be a bit overboard.  He explained that one of the fried turkeys was more of an “appetizer turkey.”  We joked that there is probably nothing more grossly American than that idea.  “Hey, here’s this huge fried bird I’m going to eat for a snack and here’s this other huge cooked bird that I’m going to have for dinner.”  

Anyway, it worked out and we had more than enough food, dishes and chairs to go around when it was time to finally get to the main event of the day.

I love Thanksgiving, and especially Thanksgiving in the military, because it really is a “more the merrier” kind of thing.  With no gifts like other holidays, it’s so easy just to ask others to join you and have a good time.  This was probably our most hodge-podge group of guests so far in Vegas, with folks from Matt’s work, my work, TPS, and Hoffman and Lee Families.  But, the upside to that is that everyone just pitched in and made the day fun.

The kiddos spent nearly 8 hours tearing the playroom to shreds, we got treated to magic tricks from Audrey’s grandpa, and the pie and homebrew supplies both took major hits.

The party broke up at about 10:30pm and by 11:30pm, our house was set completely to rights and Matt and I had our feet up on the coffee table toasting “the best Thanksgiving EVER”!

h/t to Sarah’s dad, Tony Lee, from whose Facebook page I stole several of these photos since I kept forgetting to take pictures all day.  

I’ve talked about them before but we discovered a new (to us) band last year called Rabbit! and we listen to them several days a week.  In our minivan, Rabbit! is called “New Yusic” and probably always will be.  We were listening to it again last week and I finally figured out why “Camera” is one of my favorite songs on their Connect the Dots album…it perfectly sums up the vague parenting feeling that it’s all slipping by too fast to capture it.

I wish I was a camera
I would take a picture of
All the small and subtle stuff
Everything we can’t give up
I’ll keep my memories all intact
Of how we love and how we laugh
I wanna be a camera
I wanna be a photograph

I want it all to just slow down long enough that I capture all the little things that make my babies special, the things we swear we’ll never forget but that fade by the time the terrible two’s have passed.

I wish I was a photograph
Of times and places in the past
The truth is every picture’s old
Taking seconds or a year ago
This way we could stay the same
Let the world around us start to change
I wish i was a photograph
Or maybe just a picture frame

The time is so fleeting that, seconds after something happens, it’s all a memory.  Babies roll over for the first time only once; only one step is the first one.  Every milestone, every change moves them farther along their path.

A box and a pinhole set in the window to capture the path of the sun
You can hold on to lighting right when it’s striking, if you keep the shutter open
Digging through the thumbnail proofs
The ones I keep are ones of you

Maybe if we set things up just right – start a blog, take thousands of photos, terabytes of videos – we can remember it all or at least archive it for later reference?  How do you capture the way they smell when they’ve been outside to play on a spring day or just after a cozy winter bath?

I wish I was a picture frame
The kind that you can get engraved
One that says “I love you Jill,”
One that says, “I miss you Jane.”
Now I know you won’t get scratched
Underneath a pane of glass
I wanna be a picture frame
I wanna be a photograph

I want to bottle up their lives and memories and put them under glass, so nothing will hurt them or tarnish them.  Something this precious should be protected.  The frame would say, “I love you” so that no one would ever doubt that the protecting was all simply for love of those kiddos.

I wish I was a photograph
So nobody would have to ask
Who was in your high school play?
Or, What was on your wedding cake?
I could be a college crush
I could be an image of
How we live and how we love
I wish I was a camera

How we live and how we love
I wish I was a camera

All the little moments -the ones to review, the ones to relive – I want to record the times they can’t remember so that my kids can look back and know.  So they can see how they were happy; so they can see how much they were (are) loved.  I want them to remember, through my own memory, how each day, development, word, deed, and thought was cherished (even the crummy ones).  I want to be an image of that feeling for them; I want them to know how we lived (for them) and loved (for them).

Before it was back-to-school season, Grama & Grampa came to visit and enjoy our Henderson bar & resort.  When they arrived on Wednesday evening, we headed right to dinner at Claim Jumper. (No food on airplanes means that Grampa is hungry when he gets here!)  It’s so fun that we can do that on a whim now that Noah is eating table food.  After dinner, we headed to the house and then had cocktail hour, at Ava’s request.

We spent part of each of the next four days in the pool.  Ava woke up asking to go every morning and usually went once in the morning and once in the afternoon.  Such a little fish!  Of course, we were all too happy to oblige since swimming made it seem like we were all on vacation in a fantastic rental house.

On Saturday morning, we loaded up the van and headed north to Mt. Charleston with plans to hike to Mary Jane Falls.  Matt and I had attempted the hike one other time but, since we were idiots and thought we could push a stroller up the side of a mountain, we didn’t finish.  This time, with better gear and rock solid determination, we made it to the top (after a 1.5 hour climb!).

This being a desert, you never know what you’re going to get when you climb a mountain to see a waterfall.  But, Mary Jane Falls did not disappoint.

Ava loved to touch the cold, cold water and climb over the wet rocks at the bottom.  And, in spite of a massive elevation change and having to help carry a three year old up the side of a mountain, even Grama & Grampa were still happy to be there.

The way back down was much easier, but we were all tired and hungry.  For some of us, the rumbling in our tummies made it particularly difficult to keep putting one foot in front of the other…you can decide for yourself who those folks might have been.

We treated ourselves to a picnic lunch at a day camp site and then made the drive back home.  You’d have thought we’d be worn out after all of that, but we still had plenty of energy for a swim that evening!

Along with the swimming and the hiking, we also had plenty of time to just play around the house.  We spent lots of time helping Noah walk with the walker and playing on the floor of the playroom.  Noah even got to open some early birthday presents!  Grama made him his own set of Raggedy Ann & Andy dolls and also brought a birthday outfit.  The outfit was Matt’s on his first birthday and fit Noah perfectly!

We tried to get a nice photo of Noah, Matt & Ava all with their dolls made by Grama (Matt’s were from when he was a kid), but this is the best we could do.

When we let the kids loose, things got a little calmer, of course.

Isn’t it nice how he knows how to sit still for a picture?

On the last evening of the visit, Matt made us fajitas for dinner.  So yummy!  Ava got to help Grama with the tortillas.  Not sure that it’s the most efficient way to cook, but I don’t think anyone had any objections.

Thanks for a great visit, Grama & Grampa!  You’re welcome at Henderson Bar & Resort any time!

After our friends stopped through town on their way to Edwards last month, we quickly packed up our things and took off for the local mountain.  Matt, Ava, & I had been camping in this same spot a couple of years earlier and, now that no one in our family was pregnant or newborn, it was high time to take Noah on his first camping trip!

We got to Mt. Charleston at about 2:30pm and had our campsite all set up by about 4pm.  Since we bring everything but the kitchen sink and the toys, we’re still a car-camping family.    But, while I kept Noah occupied with snacks and took photos, Matt and his little helper got us all squared away.

New cots for the tent…hooray for easy camping sleeping.

Once we were all set up, we packed up our backpacks and hit the trail for a quick hike before dinner.  Although Ava generally loves to hike, this trail was too flat to keep her attention and the whining about being hungry started almost immediately.  Needless to say, we didn’t make it very far down the trail before we turned back to return to the campsite.

Ava’s carrying her own water in a pack these days.  Such a big girl!

Since we packed in hurry for this trip, we kept it simple for dinner.  Noah got his standard quesadilla and some puree, and we got campfire roasted hotdogs.  Add some Cheetos and we quickly had a campsite full of very happy people.

Pardon  the dirt…this is what little girls who play with charred wood found in a “fort” look like.

By the time the sun started to sink beneath the trees, we were already getting chilly.  One of the greatest draws of Mt. Charleston is the difference in temperature between there and the Las Vegas Valley.  Our house was 103 degrees when we left on Friday afternoon, and it was about 75 degrees at dinner time on the mountain.  Overnight, temperatures dipped to about 45 degrees…we were grateful for all the blankets we had packed!  Sleep that night was a bit fitful since the kind folks at the next campsite over decided it would be awesome to maintain their campfire by chopping at a tree all night.  With no real sense of time, I think they must have chopped sporadically for at least four hours, but it was probably a lot less than that.  However, when camping with children and staying awake late due to noisy neighbors, one can always be assured payback will come with the morning light.  And, indeed, we were up with the sun.

Can you see Ava?

Because we only planned to stay the one night, we packed up our stuff shortly after breakfast to maximize our morning hiking time.  We left just enough to maintain our space for a picnic lunch after a hike, but got mostly cleared up.  We hiked the Robber’s Roost trail and it was quite the adventure.  Lots of rock scrambling…just like Ava prefers.

Ava’s become such a proficient hiker.  We talk a lot about making safe choices and thinking about where to place our feet.  She could probably coach me through a tough one now.  Noah loves his backpack and does pretty well about keeping his hand and face inside the casing so he doesn’t get smacked by a tree.  And, I don’t know how Matt does what he does on the rocks with that baby strapped to his back…I think he burns more calories than all of us put together!  One of the things I’ve enjoyed the most about these excursions is the rocks.  I think I maybe missed a calling life to be a geologist…so many stories right there in the side of a mountain.  Very cool stuff.

After our hike, we had a quick PBJ picnic lunch back at the campsite and then loaded up the van to head home.  This was a great test case to try out camping with two kiddos.  I see it happening again often for us…especially once Noah is walking.  More fun adventures ahead!

Ok.  So timeliness in reporting has not been my strong suit this summer.  However, that’s only because we’ve been so busy having a good time!  Before the sun starts to set early again, here’s a little bit about our third annual 4th of July party.

As all of our parties do, this one started the day before with a massive cooking session.  This year, I had an audience.

But, that audience had to work for the next day’s supper.

And, just like in years previous, dessert was a crafty adventure.

After all that work, we got to enjoy just a little taste of the fun to come the next day (in the rain!!)

So, on the 4th, we got into our Star Spangled best and got ready to party!

Matt started cooking early in the day and spent a lot of time going back and forth to the grill.  All the effort was worth it, though, because that brisket was awesome.

By the time afternoon naps were over, Noah was ready to get the party started and wanted to go hang outside with Daddy.

We were so fortunate to have a fun group of friends join us for food, swimming and sparklers.  Are these some cute kiddos, or what?

As always, the fireworks were the highlight of the night.  Ava particularly loved the sparklers and the thrill of running away from lit fireworks when Mr. Dave let her help him.

By the end of the night, America had been thoroughly celebrated.  Although our fireworks were small, we enjoyed the neighbors’ larger light shows and Matt & I stayed up late to watch the shows in Washington, DC, and in NYC.  And since it needs to be said in August as often as it is said in July, God Bless America.