Spring is Finally Here.

White Sands National Monument

This was the most incredible park ever. Besides being breathtakingly beautiful, with some 300 square miles of white sand dunes, they actually sell sleds at the gift shop and encourage you to slide down the dunes. It was a blast. You never really get going fast enough to risk injury (besides, um, you just land in the sand) but it is definitely fast enough to be totally fun.  The kids had a blast, sledding and building sand castles and just generally frolicking.

Ella made a friend and they spent most of their time going down on a sled together. Which was more than fine with us since that meant we got more turns on our sleds. (Her friends family had one sled per person, but we, of course, are far too cheap to invest in sleds for all. Two sleds between the six of us. We were only going to buy one, but someone gave us one for free when they were done.)

The best part about the day, well, another great part of the day, was the way our children just flopped into bed and went right to sleep.

Snow Day

We are just about 45 minutes from a ski resort here in New Mexico, so we dressed for the cold and headed up there for some snow frolicking.

The odds of an alien invasion.

I would guess that we have about the same odds of all three of my children looking at the camera at the same time.

Roswell was fine. We saw some cool conspiracy type stuff, but mostly just souvenirs.

The World's Largest Pistachio

Oh yeah. We were there. We are vacationing in New Mexico this week. I always feel guilty posting when we're on vacation, just in case there are creepers reading. But the truth of the matter is, I don't have it together enough to remember to post when we get home. So. I'm risking it.

We have a pretty fun lineup planned for this vacation. Plus Charlotte's birthday is this week, so that's fun, too. So far we have visited an old fort and a ghost town, we went to church on an Apache Reservation, and we have been swimming at the indoor pool at least six times. Plus Pistachio Land. We are about to hit the zoo. And tomorrow we are going to Roswell.

Oh yeah, and if you can't tell, I'm pregnant. :)  I have decided that I really like this stage of pregnancy.  My friends can tell I am pregnant (as in, they are not surprised when I tell them) but strangers don't say a word.  After three pregnancies, I am kind of over talking to strangers about it.  I just end up having the same conversation over and over again.  "You'll sure have your hands full" or "Three kids!" (The latter, I swear, always comes from middle-aged men.)

When I was pregnant with Ella it was truly exciting for people to notice that I'm pregnant.  At this point, I am like, "Really?  I am so much more than a babymaker.  Let's talk about that instead."  So I am embracing the ambiguous bump for as long as possible.