Ok, so this is the second time doing this entry. The first one I did, I hit a wrong button and deleted everything. So bummed. Anyway , this is the first snow we have had since we moved here. The kids were so excited to have snow at their own house. Cody just had to go out and stand in it and feel it land on him. It was awesome.

My beautiful photographer. She also loved the snow and took lots of photos for me.

A nice amount of snow and there was still more to come.

Yes, it was very cold. All ready to go to school. They had a two hour delay, so the roads would be better.

Playing in the snow before they had to head to school.

One of the monuments in our town looking amazing.

This was the view from my living room that I would sit and enjoy. Never in my life has it snowed where I lived. I've been to the snow a lot. Been in a rented cabin in the snow, but so much more special when you are looking out your own window.

Loved all the icicles that hung from our eaves.

Alas, it was really nice when the sun came out again. Yes it melted the snow. But we so enjoyed it while it was here and turned our world white for a few days. As I sit here writing three plus weeks llater, it is snowing again. Can't wait to wake up in the morning and see how much we get. The kids can't wait to wake up and play in it. Better get the hot chocolate and marshmallows ready for the thawing out time.

Shaun's Thanksgiving Day Play

Shaun and two friends

Shaun and three friends

Shaun and four friends. The group kept growing.

This is Shaun and Jonah. I read with him almost every day, and he is a really sweet kid, and turning in to a really good reader.

Shaun was the second first grader to reach his AR goal in the whole school for this nine weeks. If you can't tell, he was very proud.

The turkey from the alphabet play they did.

We have had quite a few busy days this past month. One I'm going to share right now is the Thanksgiving Day play Shaun's class did for all the families right before Thanksgiving vacation. It was so cute. Shaun was a little pilgrim, and a right good one. They did an alphabet Thanksgiving and sang 3 songs, then all the kids served us family members pumpkin roll and lemonade. Enjoy the pics and hopefully I'll figure out how to post videos.

Most of you know that New Mexico is known for its Hatch Green Chilies. Now I am no expert on the varieties, but I do know they have a mild, medium, and hot(which is very hot according to Bill). So trying to be good citizens :-), we bought a bushel of the mild green chilies and a few pounds of the hot chilies.

Now to tell you how much this is the thing to do, every store, roadside vendor and the very few fruit and vege stands around here have their own roasters( I should have taken a picture). Including Wal-Mart.

Back to my story. We bought a whole bushel of mild chilies and decided to save money and roast them ourselves on our barbque. It took forever. We took 2 and a half days to do it, since it took awhile to roast, bag, and seal them. Now when you bags them(as we were told to do), you don't take off the skins. You wait till your ready to use them. It is a lot easier to remove the skins that way. So now we have a freezer full of green chilies that should last us the whole year. But the way we put them in everything, I'm not so sure. So I'm going to start posting a few recipes for awhile that were sucesses with the chilies. This was a huge favorite with our family. Enjoy!

Green Chilie Potat0 Cheese Soup

1 lb. bacon

1 onion

6 to 8 potatos

2 lb box velveeta cheese

6 to 8 roasted green chilies-skins off, deseeded, chopped

1 qt. half and half

2 to 3 tsp. chicken bullioun

salt and pepper to taste

Saute bacon( use however much u want to.), and 1 onion till done. Set aside

Dice up small 6 to 8 potatos. Boil in just enough water to cover and add some chicken bollioun to the water. Cook till soft. I take a little bit of the water out, but not to much. Mash lightly. You still want some small chuncks, but the potatos help thicken the soup. Add 1 quart of half and half. Then add 2 lbs. Velveeta cheese that has been cubed to help it melt faster. At this time also add the bacon and onion mixture. At this time also add 6 to 8 fresh skinned,seeded,and chopped Hatch Green Chilies. Keep stirring until the cheese is all melted. At this time add salt and pepper to taste, and if you feel it is a little thin, you can add some cornstarch. Now go get a bowl and enjoy.

As you can probaly tell, we had a great weekend in our little town of Artesia. They held a Balloons and Bluegrass festival. It was so much fun. It started out on Friday when two balloons were launched in the morning from our boys elementary school. It was awesome, since they were able to be so close as they got ready to launch, and then took off. All the kids were so excited. Also Mikayla got to come see them since the junior high principal told any teachers who wanted could come see them. Mikaylas class was one who came. So fun for all.

Saturday we all got up early to go watch them take off from really near our house. Well it turned out to be too windy, so none of the balloons took off. We ended up just going out to breakfast. Later in the morning, we went to the bluegrass part of the festival. They had some really good groups singing. Very enjoyable. There was also a glass blower there who was able to fix my broken cake top and the glass flower Bill bought me on our honeymoon. Needless to say, I was a very happy camper.

Sunday with the time change, we slept in and were still able to go and see the balloons take off. This time the weather was perfect and all the balloons were able to take off. There were about 20 of them and it was so beautiful. Shaun comment was, "this is so cool". I totally agreed.

This brought back some great memories since many years ago, dad and I took a hotair balloon trip down in San Diego. We saw the ocean at sunset. It was such a peaceful flight. It is something I have never forgotten and would love to do again someday.

Well I hope you all enjoyed the pictures as much as I did. If you would like to see the many more pics I took, look me up on picasa.

Well, we had to give Mikayla a haircut. Won't go into details but it was the only thing to do.

She does look really cute though. We had lots of tears

after the haircut was done. She's good now.

Dig the pigtails.

How many ponytails can we make?

Sept. and Oct. 2011

Well here I am back again... finally. Yes it has been awhile, but I have been busy but not with picture type things. Just life. Well lets see. School has been going well. All the kids are doing well and Cody seems to be slowly making advances. He still has a long way to go, but we are so proud of him. He has been a lot less frustrated and more willing to learn. Shaun has been getting awards in reading and one for perfect attendance for the first 9 weeks of school.

Both boys wanted to play football this year, so Bill ended up coaching Shaun's team. They were the Greyhounds. Cody's team was called the Ducks. They both did so well. Cody did really well. He really enjoyed playing.

Mikayla loves to play sports but is not on a team, but loves to get out and play with her brothers. She still enjoys singing and loves being in choir. She is in the process of auditioning for a solo. Not sure she will get it since the teacher is partial of giving the solos to the 9th graders no matter what their talent is. But that is ok. The practice of aditioning is good for her.

It sounds like I'm going to get the job I applied for to work in a church nursery. The guy called me yesterday and said they want me, but they still have to call a coulple of my references. Unless someone of those I wrote down don't like me any more, it should be no problem. I'm supposed to go in Wednesday.

Mikayla's foot surgery went well. But we didn't get a good report from the pathologist. Instead of the things they took out being cysts, they were rhumatoid nodules. We've done blood work and are waiting for the results and praying for good news.

Not much else to talk about now. Enjoying living here. The weather has cooled down, so we are enjoying the beatiful weather.

Ruidoso, NM Day Trip

This past weekend, we took a day trip to Ruidoso, NM. It is up in the mountains and so beautiful. We started the day heading towards Cloudcroft since it was only a few miles farther to go that way. We stopped at a bakery known for their pies and pastries in Cloudcroft. Well as it goes, we got their to late and they were completely sold out. I heard the girl tell another person, they sell out by 9:00 in the morning. So bummed. So after looking in a few thrift shops, we were on our way again.

Oohhh to smell the pines again. There is nothing like the smell of pine trees. Enjoyed our drive so much. When we pulled into the town of Ruidoso, we were surprised by the size. We started driving up the main street, and it kept going and going. Then we drove into the historic district. Cute mountain town with a stream off to the side. I was in love. I can't wait till we can go back and actually have a whole day to look around.

We had dinner at the Casino up there. Talk about an amazing place. Beautiful lake out back the hotel, awesome sitting areas with fireplaces, waterfall in the lobby, Waterfall outside. Just beautiful. Great place to walk around, although we didn't walk much due to Mikayla's bad foot.

Anyway headed home about 8:00pm. Got home about 10:00, and can't wait to go back.

Its been fun getting to know our new home state of New Mexico, and look forward to more day trips. Next, Carlsbad Caverns.... that is when Mikayla can walk properly again.

By the way for those who haven't heard, Mikayla had some weird bumps in her foot. They took one out and sent it off to be tested. Just waiting for the results.

Trip to California

Well life has been very busy here this summer. The kids and I made a two week trip to California. We had a really good time seeing everyone. The sad part was going for the memorial of Tyson Motto, but at the same time, I wouldn't have missed it for anything. Tyson was a very special person and will be missed by all. Don and Teena, Jason and Vincient, you will be in our prayers.

The trip to Calif was long and tiring. Drove straight with only 4 hours sleep. The kids did really well for all that sitting. When we got there about 10:30 am, after hugging G'pa and G'ma and a quick shower to wake up and feel better, of course we had to go to In and Out for lunch. YUMMY! One of the places we all miss. It was sooooo good. After eating we drove around Visaila just looking at things. My favorite comment of the drive was Cody saying, "Mom, everything is soooo green. I have never seen it greener." I guess after living in brown, dirt, and tumbleweed scenery, anything would look green. We also stopped by to see our old house. Very neglected looking.

After driving around, we went to the park, and my kids were able to surprise the Woods kids with our visit. They didn't know we were coming , and the surprise worked really well. What a fun time.

We were able to visit a lot of friends while there, spend time with family, celebrate Shaun's 6th birthday at Chuck E Cheese since his b-day happened while we were in CA, go to the sportspark water play area, dinner with friends, coffee with friends, and stay with my parents, which was a change and enjoyable. When we left, Shaun goes, " I miss dad and now I miss G'pa and G'ma." So glad we had the time with them we did. Love you lots.

We left for home and on the way had lunch with Jessica Jeans and her girls. Thanks so much for the break and visit, and then headed to Flagstaff for the night. I wasn't going to try to drive straight home. The next day we headed home, stopped at Meteor Crater, and a few other stops. It was so good to get home in time to leave for Galveston, TX. But that will be my next post.

Well, it has been a very busy week with school winding down. Yay! We only have 4 more days of school. This past week, we had Shaun's graduation from kindergarten. It was really cute. They held it in the high school auditorium. They broke it into 2 groups, so our graduation started at 6:00. All the kids sat on the stage with their classes. They started out singing a couple of songs together, then each class would come up and sing a song from the month of the year. Of course, Shaun's class happened to be December, so they sang "Fleitz Navidad". Then after their song, they were presented a diploma. I loved it when Shaun's name was called. They finished the evening with one more group song. Then it was pandimonium getting the kids off stage as more parents came on stage to drop off their kids for the next ceremony.

We took the kids out for dinner at a local mexican food restraunt that has amazing hamburgers, so there was something for everyone.

The next day, they had a tiger birthday party for all the kids in Shaun's class. I took the punch, so I was there. Of course the kids had a blast.

Cody has been doing amazing in class. His grades have been amazing and his teacher is so proud and so is his mom and dad. His class has had a lot of things going too. Friday they had a read in, so I took some cupcakes for his class to eat. Yesterday he had a birthday party he was invited to at the bowling alley, and then this Wednesday, his whole class is going for pizza lunch and bowling. By the time this week is done, he will be a pro. Oh yes, one of the days last week, they had a shaved ice trailer come to the school and all the third graders had shaved ice. Yummy.

Shaun's week will be very full too. Tomorrow they go on a field trip to check out the school where they will start first grade next year, and in the afternoon, he is getting several achievment awards. Then Wednesday is play day and picnic. One of the supermarkets around here donated all the food for it.

Mikayla is doing well, in the older grades, they don't get all the fun stuff. One of her teachers is providing all her students in Mikaylas class with Subway for lunch. She also participated in a Choir concert not to long ago.

Well thats it for now, keeping busy keeping up with the kids. Looking forward to summer.

Beautiful Scenery

This is some of the beautiful country we saw yesterday.