Pool Play Day…

Okay, I know in my last post I said I wouldn’t be making another post until we got back from our trip to Colorado but I lied. Blogging is kind of my outlet. It’s a way for me to sit back, relax, and document my life as a stay at home mom. This morning one of Owen’s Best Friends came over to play. Kaitlyn and I wanted to get them together for a play day since we will be gone for the next week(ish). I set up the pool in the backyard and the kids had a BLAST! I wasn’t going to pull out the camera because I knew I said I wasn’t going to blog but I couldn’t resist, the kids were being too cute. I think it was a little cold for Autumn but she really enjoyed watching the two older kids jump, slide, and splash around. They worked up a big appetite after playing in the pool so I made the kids PB&J’s with fresh fruit and carrots on the side for lunch. They also had some Chex Mix and some yummy Capri Suns to drink. It was such a fun and very HOT morning. Enjoy the pics.

They had so much fun sliding into the water and they both did an exceptional job at taking turns!

After awhile Owen got bored sliding into the water so he would stand at the top of the slide and jump into the water. This kid is going to give me a heart attack. He is fearless!!!! Olivia even jumped from the top of the slide a few times. They are so funny.

And here is little miss stinker eating her lunch outside watching Olivia and Owen.

When they needed a break and to warm up they would jump in the pool I set up for Autumn. The water was nice and warm and they loved laying in it together. Lol. Owen called it, “The Hot Pool”.

Eating their lunch outside!

My sister and Abigail also came over to hang but Abi napped the whole time the kids were swimming. She woke up from her nap just in time to watch Owen and Liv eat their lunch. At least my sister got to enjoy some fun adult conversations while Abi napped.

After lunch, they dried off and got dresses. When they came in they played a few round of Hullabaloo. Hullabaloo is the game Olivia got Owen for his Birthday and he LOVES IT. It is kind of like a toddler version of twister. Owen wanted to teach Olivia how to play. They had so much fun and were quite entertaining to watch.

While the big kids were playing Hullabaloo Abi was catching up on her reading. She is so so so adorable!

At the end of each game Mr. Hullabaloo asks everyone to Do A Funky Dance. This is Owen and Olivia doing their “Funky Dance”. Thanks again for coming over Altman Ladies, we love you!

 

Okay, I am serious now. I will not make another post until we get back from Colorado. Farewell for a couple weeks blog!

Saturday…

Cousins:

Yesterday was a busy, fun and exciting day. After a few months of anticipation, our cousin’s Ellie (17) & Olivia (10), finally made it here from Chicago. Owen was so so so so so excited to see them and to go pick them up from the airport. They are here until Wednesday evening when all 6 of us make our way up to Denver. Thank Goodness for the mini van! Wow, never thought I’d say that, lol. My kids are loving having their cousins here and Owen is constantly attached to Olivia’s hip. He had a big meltdown this afternoon when he woke up and they weren’t here. They are staying tonight and tomorrow night at a friends house. They are two busy girls since they used to live here and have lots of old friends to see and catch up with. I promised Owen they would be back so he is doing the best he can with out them.

Here they are this afternoon after church playing in Owen’s room while Autumn was napping. He had them playing trains, shooting baskets and playing hide and seek with him. Owen loves having family around. Good thing we will be in Colorado for 8 days surrounded by family non stop.

Cammy’s Bachelorette Party:

Last night after Brandon got home from work I headed out to a Bachelorette Party for one of my good friends Cammy. Cammy is my sister’s BFF who I absolutely love. She is such a sweetie and I am so very happy for her and her fiancé. They are getting married in 2 weeks and I could not be more happy for them. They are so different, Cammy a Vegetarian Yoga Instructor and Chris a US Marine Computer Genius, but they make such a great couple. Anyway, I left Brandon, Ellie and Olivia in charge of the kids for the evening and my date Kaitlyn and I headed off to the party. We all met at St. Clair Winery for dinner, which was AMAZING, and then we headed to Hotel Parq Central’s Lounge for drinks afterwards. It was a fun evening spent with lots of people I love!

Me and Kaitlyn at dinner. I love her so much!

My Sister, The Bride-to-be, Me and Kaitlyn at the Hotel Balcony lounge. It had a beautiful view of Albuquerque’s tiny Skyline. They renovated this old abandoned hospital into this beautiful Hotel. It was a gorgeous night too!

My Sister & Cammy acting out the wedding. My sister was pretending to be Chris pulling back her veil. Lol.

My two favorite girls in the entire world!!!! My eyes look a little red from being outside in the extreme dry heat for a couple hours. I promise I wasn’t intoxicated, I had 1 glass of wine. Kaitlyn, My Sister and I were on the reserve modest side since we are old married mommies. Hahaha!

This may be my last blog post for a couple weeks since we are headed to Colorado Wednesday night for 8 days. I’ll be back with lots and lots and lots of pictures when we get back I promise. Farewell!

The Remainder of Our Week…

As I said in my last post, the ugly New Mexico winds have FINALLY stopped. Yay! Unfortunately they lasted a month longer than usual which means we did not get to enjoy any of the nice spring weather and have jumped full force into Summer. Thursday we had a high of 98 and yesterday the high was 101! Holy cow, it was a hot one. We tried our hardest to make the best of it and enjoyed bathing ourselves in sunscreen and spent some more time outdoors. Here is a recap of our weekend:

Thursday:

Thursday morning was pretty laid back, ran a few errands and hung out as a family. That evening we had our pastor and his family over for dinner and games. The menu was BBQ Pulled Pork Sandwiches, Corn on the Cob & Seasoned Steak Fries. Yum, Yum, Yum! Since our pastor often mentions how mush he loves Chocolate I made a cake called “Too much Chocolate Cake” for dessert. I'm not joking that was really the name. I don’t normally show pictures of my food or desserts, but I really feel the need this time since it looked so pretty and it was amazingly good…

O my goodness you must try this recipe sometime if you’re a chocolate lover. Let me know if your interested and I’ll send it your way! It’s rich but not overly sweet. Yummy!

The night was so much fun, the food was so delicious and the company was great. We stayed up playing one of our new favorite games, Wackee Six (Thank you Hauquitz Family for introducing us to this game), until around 10pm. Owen had an absolute blast with the girls and also got to stay up 2 hours past his bedtime. What a fun fun night.

Friday:

Friday morning was the same as Thursday’s, errands and some fun family play time. Once the kids went down for their naps, my wonderful husband let me have the afternoon off to go shopping for some much needed summer clothes so I have stuff to pack for our upcoming trip to Denver. Kaitlyn and I met at Marshalls did a bit of shopping and then headed to the mall. We had a blast shopping kid free and we always seem to laugh non stop when we are around each other. It was fun, relaxing, much needed and I found some great deals. Thanks again hubby for letting me go, you’re the best! When I came home I found Brandon and the kids playing in the backyard with the new pool set up. The kids were having a blast. Autumn stayed in the water until her poor little lips were blue and she was shaking. After about an hour swim I busted out the homemade popsicles and then the dried off and came inside since it was so hot and their little cheeks were turning red.

 

I didn’t get any pics of them in it, I promise I will get some soon as I am sure this will be used a ton this summer, but here is their cool set up. They had a blast sliding into the water. Autumn can even slide down in the water all by herself. She is such a little daredevil thanks to her big bro. Lol.

Thanks again so much “Grandma Pam” for Owen’s awesome beach towel with his name on it. Owen LOVES it and it is getting used a lot lately!

Friday evening Nana & Pampo invited us over for dinner. They served Spaghetti Casserole, a Delicious Salad and Garlic Parmesan Bread. Everything was so amazing and the kids really enjoyed themselves. We are having Autumn a small swim 1st Birthday Celebration in Nana & Pampo’s backyard in a few weeks since they have a huge beautiful yard. They have been working so so so hard to make it perfect for her party and even decided to go out and buy a new swing set. They figured it would be good to have for Owen, Autumn & Abigail to play on as they grow up since the grandkids love going to their house. Here are some pictures of Owen and Autumn testing out the new set. Thank you so much for being such amazing grandparents Mom & Dad. We love you tons!!!!

Owen was so sweet and pushed Autumn in her baby swing. They love each other so much. Owen is such a good big brother.

The swing set has this cool trampoline looking swing thingy that is sort of like a hammock. I realize that is a terrible description but that is all I can think of to describe it. It is quite relaxing and the kids love it. I could honestly fall asleep swinging on it. 

 

Once the kids cheeks were bright red from the heat we decided to brave the temper tantrums and make them come in for the night.

Since I always talk about how much fun the kids have at their Nana & Pampo’s house I decided to take a few pictures to show you what a night at their house typically looks like. They set up Owen’s favorite Hot Wheels race track and him and Nana get the bag full of 70+ Hot Wheels and shoot them down the track….

and Autumn and Pampo sit at the end of the track and play with all the cars Owen and Nana shoot their way.

They have such great hands on grandparents. I wish I lived closer to my grandparents growing up. What a blessing!

Autumn likes to put things in and take them out of this big gold bag. She is such a cutie pie!

For those of you who don’t know my Dad, he is obsessed with Music. All different kinds of music. He just simply LOVES it. He always has. My sister and I have fond memories of waking up to him cooking us breakfast and blaring his music on the weekends when we were little girls. He has totally passed this love onto Owen. Owen always asks Pampo if they can put some music on and then they listen to it really loud. It kind of drives my mom a little crazy but they boys love it. Here are he dj’s in action!

Have a great Weekend!

A Week Outside…

I know I’m probably going to regret saying this but the wind is FINALLY over. I think. It has been a beautiful week just a little on the hot side, but I’ll take hot over windy any day of the week. Monday, Tuesday & Wednesday were gorgeous so me and the kids spent the majority of our time outdoors. Monday morning we met up with Auntie Kiki and cousin Abigail at the park by their house. We have never been to that park and what a treat it was, the park was beautiful and had lots of fun stuff for the kids. Tuesday morning we also spent at the park, except this time we were with Kaitlyn & Olivia and at the park by their house. Then Tuesday night we spent the evening outside in the backyard. I made the kids popsicles out of a Grape flavored Sonic Slushy in an ice cube tray with toothpicks. The kids loved them and really enjoyed the family time in the backyard. Wednesday morning we went with one of Owen’s good friends to her Grandma’s house to swim in their beautiful warm salt water pool. The kids had an absolute blast and were both out the second we walked in the door. I am sure there are many more days to be spent outdoors with the weather really starting to warm up. I don’t have pictures from everything we did this week but you can enjoy the ones I did manage to get…

Both the girls had a blast on the swings. Abi was a little timid at first as you can tell by the tight grip she has on the swing, but once she saw how much fun her older cousin Autumn was having she loosened up and was giggling!

Owen spent the majority of his time at the park Rock Climbing. What a boy!

I LOVE these girls. So sweet!

So the kids are in their underwear because they were eating popsicles and they were dripping all over. I can not tell you enough how much fun it is watching the relationship between siblings. I am so blessed!

I didn’t mean to turn our backyard fun into a photo shoot, I would’ve dressed them if I was, but the kids were just being so stinkin cute! The lighting is really bad because it was so sunny but you get the point!

Owen is getting to be quite the soccer player.

Here is Owen the day before our swimming trip trying on his new gear. He picked out some Lightning McQueen Arm floaties and a Crab floating ring. He is so funny. I am so sorry I don’t have any fun pictures from our morning swimming but I have two arms and two kids so that pretty much means no picture taking. Lol. Owen can swim on his own but just in case I needed to be extra close.

And since the weather is finally nice and hot we made a special trip to the store this afternoon to get the kids a new pool to splash around in in the backyard. I know they have those cute fancy little blow up pools now but I am so over them from dealing with that kind of pool last year. Trying to keep it clean, empty the water out after every use and blow the darn thing up I said to heck with it. My sister and I had a pool like this growing up and we loved it!

 

Hope you are all enjoying this nice warm weather as much as we are! Happy Summer Everyone!

P.S. You didn’t really think I would blog without blogging about what I have been up to when my kids are asleep did you? Yep you guessed it, I have been working on a new dress. I have to say this is my very favorite dress to date.

I just learned how to make these adorable Flowers out of a scrap piece of fabric. They are so easy. You don’t even need to know how to sew and they take maybe 10 minutes from start to finish. So cute and a very fun way to add some style to a dress or headband.

The straps criscross in the back and you pull them through a button hole and tie a bow. So cute! I promise to post some pictures of little Autumn in it soon.

 

Okay I am done I promise!