happy halloween!

(Oskar's little tush last night)

I hope everyone stays safe tonight, and in the words of the dentist we trunk or treated from last night, "Make sure to brush your teeth!"

in the picture.

I'm sure at least some of you have seen this article that is making it's rounds on the internet. Do you love it as much as I do?

Goodness knows I take plenty of pictures of my boys, but as the resident photographer I really don't have many pictures of myself. It's something I've been trying to work on, but am still failing miserably at.

This part really struck me:

"I'm everywhere in their young lives, and yet I have very few pictures of me with them. Someday I won't be here -- and I don't know if that someday is tomorrow or thirty or forty or fifty years from now -- but I want them to have pictures of me. I want them to see the way I looked at them, see how much I loved them. I am not perfect to look at and I am not perfect to love, but I am perfectly their mother."

I know I can sit and look at family photos for hours; I can't tell you how many times I have sat and STUDIED a single photograph, trying to glean as much information as I can from it. Photos of grandparents, my parents, even of my ancestors who lived in the 19th century. So it makes me wonder if someday my kids (or grandkids!) will do the same thing. Will they stare at photos of me, looking to see what color my eyes were, marveling at the fashions that were in style while I was young, wondering what was going on in the background? I hope they do. And I hope there are enough photos of me that they are able to stare and wonder. 

So, while the number of photos of me pale in comparison to the number of photos of them, I do have a few. I managed to hand the camera off to Rob just 3 or 4 days after Oskar was born and he took this photo that I stumbled upon yesterday. You can tell I'm really tired and I have no makeup on (although that's pretty normal) and my bangs are growing out and hanging in my face and my face is still kind of puffy from pregnancy and I'm just wearing a baggy t-shirt, but I love it. So much. 

I hope all of you moms and wives and girlfriends and people who are always the one behind the camera snap some pictures of yourself with those you love. Someday someone will treasure it more than we can imagine.

pete the cat

My mom works in school (she's a sign language interpreter) so every time the book fair comes around she picks up some books for the boys. This time she sent those two Pete the Cat books and Max fell in love with them the first time we read them. Like, we read them every day kind of love. Now I, of course, think they are adorable too. Last weekend when we were skyping my family my mom asked if we'd downloaded the song yet. I hadn't so she said I had to asap. Well, I didn't get around to it until last night and BOY DO I REGRET IT! If you are wondering why, go listen to them RIGHT NOW! They are seriously the best thing ever. Don't just take my word for it:

it's been this sort of a week.

Sometimes (who am I kidding? A lot of the time) the military life requires HH6 to carry more than their share of the household tasks. And while I don't really mind it too often (I really do love this life), sometimes I just want to do this:

Life can be exhausting. So if you ever see me passed out please don't judge. ESPECIALLY if I'm drooling.

this is what happens during tummy time.

Yup, he's a belly sleeper. And every time he falls asleep this way I'm checking on him every minute. It's kind of ironic, because this is when he sleeps the BEST and longest, but I can't get anything done. Darn SIDS.

And want to know how I know this is his best way to sleep? He always wakes up like this:

It took him long enough to give me smiles.

i still can't believe we have a dog.

But, whether I believe it or not, we are her family.

Even if she is crazy.

Here she is camped out while the boys took a shower:

I'm not sure if she was hoping she'd get wet too, or was waiting to lick the wet shower when they were done, or just simply wanted to be close to them. But I thought it was pretty funny how she was resting her "arm" on the ledge.

Whatever the reason, she was pretty happy about it.

block leave 2012 part three: the grand canyon

things to note:
-this was our last (and longest) stop on our trip.
-this was Rob's first time seeing the Grand Canyon and while my second, it was my first time to the south rim.
-I much prefer the north rim; the south rim is much wider and bigger, but it is not set up for hiking and walking. We thought we'd just park our car at the campsite and walk everywhere, ended up we had to drive everywhere.
-IT WAS SO HOT.
-I shot both film and digital.
-I managed to hand off the camera a few times (including to Nick) so I could get pictures of me with my belly.
-between Yula and I we got stopped a lot so people could make comments or ask questions.
-yes, I slept on the ground at 33 weeks pregnant. It wasn't that bad.
-our campsite was DIRT. We were all filthy within a couple hours of being there.
-Max got sick. And puked a lot.
-Yula tried to find whatever shade she could.
-our favorite place to view the canyon ended up being at the watchtower. We went to it a couple of times.
-We payed the most for gas on the trip in the park.
-Laura was a good sport and got squished between the boys the whole time. And was up close and personal for the puking sessions that went on in the car.
-the pictures of Nick in the tent are some of my favorite I've ever taken.
-Nick runs away everywhere we go, so he was constrained every time we went near the canyon (lest he run over the side). Unfortunately, we couldn't keep him from running away while we were in our campsite so one of us was constantly having to chase him down. Then I discovered if I took off his shoes and put him in his camp chair he would stay put. It was awesome to get a break.
-camping is not so relaxing with small children. I barely sat down the whole time we were there.
-camp food is the yummiest on the planet. (although we were bummed no campfires were allowed, we had to improvise since we had planned for one)
-on our way to the watchtower to see the sunset, Max threw up. We turned around to go back to the campsite but I insisted we stop at the side of the road so we could catch the sunset first. I'm SO glad I did because it was GORGEOUS (hence the 50 million pictures). It was definitely a once in a lifetime thing. (and the kids got to hang out in the car while us adults took turns checking out the rim)
-I got a new wedding band that I don't need to worry about (my original rings are family heirlooms so I don't wear them anymore because I'm paranoid about something happening to them); I LOVE the copper!
-I do not like heights AT ALL so Rob loved freaking me out by getting as close as he could to the edge whenever possible. What he didn't realize is that every time he did it I almost puked. (and yes, he was so kind as to take the picture of his foot almost hanging off of the edge for me)
-we were originally going to go to the Gila Cliff Dwellings after the canyon, but since Max was sick we decided to cut the trip short and go home.
-thankfully we decided to stop by the watchtower again to see the sights one last time; it was beautiful.
-the boys did not want to get their pictures taken (Nick especially).
-Max felt a lot better the day we left so we didn't have anymore puking!
-Aunt Laura was always in demand.
-we took state highways home and didn't regret it one bit.
-we had no idea the canyons continued outside of the park; it was wild to see them off to the side of the highway.
-Rob drove the entire time so I got a lot of knitting done this trip!
-in the middle of nowhere NM we passed through fields of satellite dishes. It reminded me of Contact.
-we were graces with gorgeous skies the whole drive home.
-since we moved to El Paso Rob has wanted to go to Pie Town, named for their pie. Ended up we drove right through it so we stopped for some pie. I'm sorry I didn't get any pictures of our slices before we devoured them.
-there is nothing quite like seeing the lights of Juarez stretching on forever when passing over tansmountain.