Afternoon Tea

We ladies got together today for afternoon tea at the St. James Tearoom in honor of Carrie's pending wedding. If you live in the Albuquerque / Santa Fe area, I highly recommend St. James for any event ... a bridal shower, birthday celebration ... or just because. It's really a very lovely, charming venue.

The food is absolutely delicious and included a wonderful rosewater mousse desert that is served in these dainty little glasses. I must confess, I ate all the extra desserts that were available. They were very petite (so my indulgence doesn't count as gluttony) and incredibly delicious!

Madison and Carrie ... and Madison's pink Princess Tea

Carrie, Madison, Amy and Debby

(and the incredible rosewater mousse on top)

The Arrival of Granny and Grandpa

Today Christian got to see his Granny and Grandpa for the first time since July! He didn't remember them, of course, and took some time to warm up to these two happy, smiley faces. And when he did, that is when the fun really began!

It was a true delight to watch Christian and his grandparents together. "Reunited and it feels so good ..."

An Exhausted Little Boy

What a day we had! Saying goodbye to Auntie Bol and Uncle Mr. Ashe in the morning (after a lovely breakfast!) ... and spending the afternoon with the Fernandez Family. And no nap for Christian! We put him down to bed at the hotel, and he was so wound up, it took forever for him to fall asleep. Finally, there was silence from the crib and we sneaked over to see Christian had fallen asleep in mid-play!

Ever the doting mommy, I grabbed my camera to document this cute scene! And then, of course, moved his head a bit so his nose wasn't squished into the bottom of the crib (we mommies are always worried about our children suffocating, you know).

Stay tuned to more stories about our week as they occur!

A Visit with Kristy, Joaquin and Baby Teresa

We were delighted to visit my sweet friend Kristy and her adorable children, Joaquin and Baby Teresa today. I haven't seen them for well-over a year and was excited to see how much Joaquin had grown (A LOT!) and how adorable Teresa is (VERY!).

Christian seemed so small compared to Joaquin ... yet so BIG when compared to Teresa. She is only 4+ months old and weighs 10 lbs, compared to Christian's 24 lbs. So it was a bit of a surpise to hold such a light baby!

Thank you for the lovely afternoon, Kristy, Joaquin and Teresa! Oh how we wish we lived closer so we could visit more often ... so that Joaquin and Christian could become best friends ... and Teresa and Christian can fall in love and get married one day. :)

Our Stay With the Ashe Family

Our stay in the Land of Enchantment began Monday with a visit to our fabulous friends Auntie Bol and Uncle Mr. Ashe (aka Jon and Valerie) at their beautiful home in Bosque Farms, just south of Albuquerque. They graciously let us stay with them for a couple of days.

We had a blast with them and Valerie and I especially enjoyed watching the finale of Dancing with the Stars Tuesday night.

Christian was especially taken with the spaciousness of their home and their cat, Watson. It was so cute to watch the two play with a ball together.

We'd like to thank the Ashes for so graciously hosting us. Our stay was all-too-short and we miss you already!

The Long Journey ...

Our long journey actually began the night before when we found a sizeable scorpion in the house. In case you're not familiar with desert critters: scorpions are bad news and since we have Christian, we are very concerned about scorpions. In extreme cases, a scorpion sting can kill a child. Jonathan tried to kill it, but it just made its way down the sink drain. Jonathan ran a lot of water, I poured a lot of bleach. So I hope its either dead (sorry, PETA) or on its way to the sewage system.

We have since learned scorpions travel in pairs (and often with babies). So ... I guess there is one more in the house somewhere. We put out "sticky pads" in some key areas with the hopes that the other scorpion might get caught in our absence.

The travel morning started with a visit to Christian's new doctor, Dr. Diaz who is an absolutely wonderful, kind and compassionate man. I'm going to have to devote an entire blog post to telling you about Dr. Diaz (some day).

Christian and I were upstairs getting ready (okay, he was playing, I was getting ready) and Jonathan was downstairs loading the car up. I heard Jonathan say, "Hi, Christian!" ... and i was confused when I saw the baby gate was still up, but the voice came from downstairs. Turns out we've got a little escape artist on our hands ... Christian managed to get through the gap between the gate and the stair railing. I have no idea how he did that, but it appears we need to come up with a new solution for keeping him from going downstairs. I am just thankful he didn't fall down. He's actually very good at getting up and down the stairs on his own ... but it only takes one moment of distraction for him to loose his footing ... and down he goes (as I witnessed back in February). So knowing he bypassed the gate and got downstairs without my knowledge really got my heart racing!

Our drive started close to 11:00am (much too late) and we assumed since that was Christian's usual nap time, he'd take a nap. The nap lasted an hour or so ... and didn't resume until we got close to Albuquerque. So, he was pretty cranky for some of the drive. And since he's not walking, we couldn't put him down on the floor when we stopped and got out (the picture to the right is a stop outside Grants, NM). So, he was either in the car seat, in our arms, or in a high chair for the entire day. And that is no fun for a kiddo who is used to being able to crawl all over the place and explore the world.

Christian's spirits picked back up when we arrived in Bosque Farms (just outside ABQ) to stay with our friends, Jon and Valerie. And he was too excited to go to sleep. I think we got him down at around 10:30pm. And sure enough ... he was awake at his usual time this morning (5:00am Arizona time).

It was a rough day for our lil' guy ... and consequently a rough day for us all.

It could have been worse, of course ... but I have informed Jonathan that next time we must go to Albuquerque, it will be on a plane.

Heading to the 505

We're leaving today for a few days in Albuquerque. My friend, Carrie is getting married on 5/23 ... and Jonathan's parents are driving down from Denver to visit us Christian, whom they haven't seen since July. Chrisitian is a completely different kiddo now, and won't remember them ... so we're hoping he'll warm up quickly and he and his Granny and Grandpa will get to spend a lot of time having fun together!

The last time we made this long round-trip drive between Phoenix and Albuquerque was back in January 2008, when Christian was just a couple of months old. And that was a rough trip. So it will be interesting to see how he does now that he's older and much more interactive. I expect he'll sleep thorugh the first portion of the drive. After that ... we'll just hope for the best!

I hope to be able to update the blog frequently through the week with stories and photos. (and I still need to post about Christian's latest doctor visits, too). So, stay tuned!

In the meantime, enjoy some photos of today's lunch ... RAVIOLI! Who knew Christian would like ravioli so much?

Actually, he's been eating A LOT lately ... so maybe he's going through a growth spurt! :)