Happy Halloween!

This year we had a fun Halloween! Owen dressed as a little bear, and yesterday we went to a church party/trunk-or-treat. Owen had so much fun! It was a carnival-themed party complete with carnival games, prizes, a bounce house, and a magic show.

He also loved the trunk-or-treat and the candy that came with it. He got his first taste of tootsie roll and lollipop. He was probably thinking, "man, I've been deprived for so long!" He was in heaven.

On Halloween day we carved our pumpkin. Owen was a little scared, because up to this point the pumpkin had been his little friend that he'd play with. He wouldn't even touch the pumpkin while we cleaned and carved it. Once we put it outside he warmed up to it a little more.



After Owen was asleep Josh and I ate candy and watched some scary movies on TV. I haven't watched a scary movie in so long, let's hope I don't have nightmares tonight!

October Snow!

It's snowing!!!!

I never would have guessed that our first snow of the season - and Owen's first time in snow - would be in Albuquerque. But I recently looked out the window and was quite shocked to see snow falling, and sticking to the ground! Usually when it snows here it's just on the mountains. It's pretty rare for it to snow in the city, and even more rare for it to happen in October. I think it's kinda fun!!! I guess it's a good time to start gearing up for the winter.

Owen wasn't very excited about the snow. I made him a snowball but he didn't like it. He didn't want to touch it or play in it. And he was mad I made him put his hat on. I'm sure after a long Chicago winter he'll get used to snow!

Not Much Going On

Life has gotten a bit routine and boring again around here. It's a welcomed time though because I like routine. Josh has been very busy with his rotation, and he has a few late nights this week. For the most part he's home for dinner though, and he has most weekend days off.

Since I don't always have a car, I've been trying my best to find things to do. I'm most grateful for the park that's just around the corner from us! It's such a family and pet friendly park. I have never been there without someone walking their dog around it. We go there nearly every day, if not twice a day. Owen LOVES it. His favorite thing are the slides. He also loves to bury himself in the sand.

Owen and I go for a jog in the mornings about 3 times a week. My motivation is an 8k Thanksgiving Day turkey trot I signed up for. (It will be in cold Chicago. I just might be crazy.) But I just love love love having my BOB stroller so I can do this!!! I can't imagine life without it.

Despite our serious lack of kitchen supplies in our furnished apartment, I've been trying to do a little cooking and am trying some new recipes. I made this perfect fall treat of caramel apples as part of a food blog I belong to (it came from the cookbook 'Baked'). They weren't perfect but they were oh so yummy!
I also wanted to make it feel like Halloween around here, so I made these cute jack-o-lanterns (thanks Angie for the idea!). If you fall in love with them like I did, you can see a tutorial here. They are super easy to make and they are fun to have in our window.

Most of my time is actually spent caring for and chasing my cute little boy around. He is learning so much so fast, and understands the majority of what I say. He still babbles in his own language and doesn't say many English words, but I can tell he tries and I'm sure he'll start talking soon enough.

He loves to get into our drawers and the other morning I found a few of his shoes in my drawer. He's also in love with shoes. First thing in the morning he runs to his shoes and brings them to us to put on him. And if we don't, he tries his hardest to get them on himself. He could wear his shoes inside all day! But, for some reason, once he's in the car seat or stroller, they come off immediately. Without fail.

He also loves climbing in and out of the cupboards. He recently discovered this one in the hallway and was entertained with it for the longest time. (please excuse the nakedness and soggy bottoms! We promise this isn't a habit of his.)

We also love to go in the "backyard" of our apartment building, which is really just an area full of rocks behind the buildings. But what little boy doesn't just love playing in rocks! When I do get the car, we've gone shopping, to the library, to other parks, and to story time at Barnes and Noble so he can be around other kids (not that he really sits still long enough to listen to the story!) We love it when we can get out.

Last week we were lucky enough to get out to go hiking in the Sandia Mountains with Josh and his classmates! It was part of their class and they had to give presentations along the way. One classmate actually had a baby carrier and let us borrow it, which was wonderful! We got a picture of the whole group, plus Owen. :)

From the time we left Albuquerque to when we were on the mountain with pine trees, it was seriously only 30 minutes!! We love this about Albuquerque. There's a ski resort just a few miles up from where we were. You can see Albuquerque in the background behind us. It's a good thing we went when we did, because the next day there were several inches of snow!

So, overall we are having a great time in Albuquerque. We love the weather and the mountains. But we will be excited to get back to Chicago where we can sleep in our own bed!

Santa Fe

After we went to the pumpkin patch, we drove up to Santa Fe since it was less than an hour away.

A little trivia: Santa Fe is the capital of New Mexico and is the oldest capital city in the U.S. as well as the highest capital city, sitting at 7200 feet. It's known as "The City Different."

For some reason I always envisioned it being in a pine forest, but it's in fact not in a forest but nestled right next to big mountains that have pine forests on top. The area is beautiful, but that also means lots of people are attracted to it, so the downtown area is a bit touristy. It's also too artsy-fartsy for our taste with a lot of way overpriced art, jewelry, and other artifacts. There are several museums and galleries which probably would have been interesting, but we didn't have time to go to any since we were there for only an afternoon.

The streets are really cute, and it's obvious it was built with European influence....a main plaza with surrounded by a church and the palace of the governors, narrow streets, lots of shops. We had a lot of fun just walking around. All the buildings in Santa Fe look similar because there is a law that all buildings must be built in an adobe/Spanish pueblo style.

San Miguel church- the oldest church structure in the U.S. dating back to 1610.

Cathedral Basilica of St. Francis of Assisi. The spires were never completed due to lack of funds.

Pumpkin Patch

Today we went to McCall's Pumpkin Patch in Moriarty, NM. It wasn't too far from Albuquerque, and I'm so happy we went!

It was filled with all sorts of fun activities and lots animals, including a petting zoo-Owen's favorite part. We fed goats, road pedal karts, slid down a giant slide, slung pumpkins on a slingshot, dug in a sand box as well as a corn kernal box, walked through a huge corn maze, and finally we took a hayride out to the pumpking patch where we picked our own pumpkin to take home. There were still many other activities we didn't even do! The sky was clear and the weather was perfect. Owen had a blast, and so did we!!

This is what happens when a stranger takes your picture...your head gets chopped off.

Owen loved feeding the goats. Once we ran out of food, he started scooping up dirt/hay/rocks to feed to them.

Owen's favorite part by far was the petting zoo area. They only had goats, but he had was so excited to be so close to them and to brush their hair. In the video he gives one a kiss, and tries to give it a hug but it walks away too quickly. It was so sweet!

The corn maze was in the shape of a bunch of hot air baloons. We didn't go through the whole thing, but Owen was a little trooper walking along the paths!

Here's a decent picture from a stranger.

Owen picking out the best pumpkin.

I couldn't get a picture of him looking up the whole time we were in the pumpkin patch because he was carefully watching his step the whole time. It was so fun watching him though because he'd find a small one and try to pick it up.

Owen's Latest Tricks

Owen learned how to do this just before we came to Albuquerque...
It's a good thing we have round doorknobs here in Albuquerque and Chicago! They'll take a little more skill to open, but I'm sure he'll figure them out before too long.

Owen just learned how to shake his head 'no.' He doesn't usually mean it for 'no,' we think he does it for the sensation of being dizzy. Then he usually follows with a bunch of silly faces. He also just learned how to spin in circles. Funny kid. Sorry the lighting is really bad in this video.

Ok, this last one isn't really a trick. I gave him is first mohawk in the bath last night! He's finally getting enough hair to do a tiny something with. I thought it was pretty cute.

Albuquerque Balloon Fiesta

Our first morning in Albuquerque we got up super early before the sun was up and braved the very chilly morning to see the International Balloon Fiesta. This is the largest festival of this kind in the world, and it lasted for a week. I had heard about it before, but didn't know exactly what was involved. Well, let me just say that it was quite spectacular!!!

Starting at 7am as the sun was rising, a mass ascension took place- 600 hot air balloons inflated and lifted off the ground into the sky. It was so fun to see all the bright colors and fun shapes of the balloons. The coolest part was we got to walk around the field where the balloons were set up, so we were right next to them when they inflated and lifted!! It was so fun to be surrounded by hundreds of hot air balloons, and then to see the sky filled with balloons. We were lucky it was good weather because the mass ascension was canceld today-the last day of the fiesta-due to too much wind.

I took about 100 pictures, so there are a bunch here because it was hard to narrow them down.