little stinkers!

Melissa's plane just landed in Salt Lake a few minutes ago. She hasn't been to my house in over 2 years, so her visit this week was completely overdue and very exciting for both of us. I'm so proud of her that she dared get on a plane with her kids all by herself. Good job Lissie! Hope your flight home wasn't too rough...

David is gone on business this week, so it was just the two of us and our little stinkers. The biggest little stinkers are namely, Sean and Hattie. I don't know what the 4 year-olds have against peace and harmony, but their conviction is strong! Despite the cousin rivalry, we had so much fun. We spent lots of time in the playroom just laying on the floor and talking while the kids played. The weather was luckily pretty nice so we tried to do as much outside as we could too. I pulled them to the park in the wagon one day, and we played in our little yard.

Poor Gracie had to go to school and miss a lot of it. But, she did have an early release day yesterday so we jumped in the car right after lunch and went to the zoo and the aquarium during naptime - an epic outing for sure. When you go somewhere with Lissie, be prepared to make it snappy! I can't believe we did pretty much the whole zoo and then drove to the aquarium and finished it all in about 3 hours. It's great that our kids' favorite animals tend to be the same: polar bears, wolves, big cats, giraffes, and elephants.

(note the pouty face on Hattie)

(Grace and Sean are convinced if they chase the birds, they will eventually catch one.)

(do I get to vote for my favorite wild animal? It has to be the giraffe. It has been my favorite ever since I saw them running on a beach in Kenya. This is the little baby at the zoo. very sweet little family...)

But, Sean's favorite thing on Earth right now is a shark. The kid is pretty darn funny. I knew we had to make it to that shark tank before the end of the day! Oh my goodness sakes, what is that?!!!

On the way home from the zoo, we stopped to grab a pink birthday cake and some pizza for dinner. We had a cute little impromptu party for Hattie so that she could eat some birthday cake with her cousins. It is STILL not her birthday yet, and already, I have so many pictures of this kid blowing out candles to celebrate it. We're going to have to label these pics carefully so that in 20 years we can figure out why on Earth she had 4 different birthday cakes when she turned 4!

Grace and Sean probably have the best time with each other. They are both little science nerds and love all things informational about nature. Here they are reading "what sharks eat for dinner" as a bed-time story together.

Well, 3.5 days just flew by. I knew they would which is why I asked her to come while David was gone - so his trip didn't seem so long for us. I'm glad the kids have been able to spend lots of time with Sean and Kate and Melissa lately since it had been so long before this spring that they had seen each other. That is one thing I am REALLY loving about living here. We are so close to so many family members. I don't feel so disconnected and distant. I was starting to feel like I had to imagine everyone all the time. I really felt like I lived on another planet in MA.

Thanks Barnhisels for coming to see us Chapman girls. The house is sure quiet and empty today without you.

random thoughts and what's been keeping me busy

So, I think the hardest thing about moving for me so far (aside from leaving friends) is recreating the kids' extra-curricular activities. Before moving, we were so settled into the things the girls liked doing and totally happy with all of their lessons. Having as much (or as little) access to the barn as we wished was just a dream come true. Then, as I've said before, the karate school and Master Doug are just not replaceable. I knew music lessons would be on the horizon soon, but other than that, I was all set for a long time.

I have been so torn lately. The balance between finding places that are similar to what we had before, while keeping driving times short and lesson times reasonable has been very hard. Also, the balance between letting the kids do the things they are most interested in and allowing them to go separate ways (thus creating more lessons) and keeping the costs under control is also crazy. Am I the only one who obsesses about these things?

I do not do well when I am on the go all day long. I like being home. I like the kids being home, and I don't like feeling frazzled and short on time. I don't want the girls to be in lessons every single evening so that we don't ever have time to do anything else. I don't want our weekends to be packed with places to go so that we never get to spend time with David and as a family. But, I also want the girls to experience lots of different things. I want them to have skills, be active, and have responsibility for and feel the accomplishment of mastering something. At the same time, I don't want to be so committed to any one thing right now that we just live at the barn or the karate studio or the dance studio. I don't want to sell my soul to anything thing like that when they are so young. And, I don't want to unknowingly make the decision for what they spend the rest of their life doing just because the lesson was easy and convenient for me.

We finally did settle on a karate place for Grace. Harriet did love going with her in MA, but she was starting to fizzle a little bit and now that we've moved, I don't think she'd like the kinds of schools we've found. They're a bit too serious and hard-core for her personality and her age. Where is the Master Doug of NM? He's not here. I have looked high and low. Grace continues to thrive on the martial arts though, and seems to be doing ok in her transition from being a blue belt in Kung Fu to starting over in Chinese Kenpo. It was the best compromise we could come up with.

Grace also wants to learn to play the guitar. She wants to be a rock star. Far be it from me to shatter her dreams at the age of 7. I don't know if she will really turn out to be a rock star or not, but it won't hurt her to learn to play a musical instrument in the mean-time. So, I have been carefully searching out guitar instruction for her. It is very expensive (or at least seems to be double what piano is), and/or is taught by a lot of greasy old washed up former "rock stars" who, quite frankly, are not going to come within 50 feet of my little girl. Still, the cute little gal has been saving ALL her allowance, birthday money, and other little earnings for several months now to buy her own guitar. I am so proud of her for doing that. We're going to try out a place nearby that does group lessons at first and then move her into private lessons if she does prove to be as serious as she seems about it.

Little Hattie, my princess, is going to try out dancing. I have always felt bad that the pink-hating, princess-avoiding, Gracie girl got to do 2+ years of dance when she was little and Hattie hasn't had a chance yet. I guess that may be a good thing about taking her out of karate, which I wouldn't have had the heart to do in MA. We have found a studio that seems to fit the bill, so the little darling will officially start this week. She did a trial class last week and totally loved it. She kept up with the class and the teacher, and looked just like the little princess that she is!

So, I feel pretty good about our list so far, but it has taken me many weeks to find these places and come to these decisions. My only hang-ups now are the other things we could be doing. I want my kids to be good swimmers, so we really have to fit in swimming somewhere. I feel like it's a safety issue, not a fun activity issue. Grace also likes sports and I know she'd love to play on a little soccer team. But, we just can't do everything nor should we. It boils down to choosing between lots of good things.

Then, there's the barn factor. I just flat out miss riding myself and frankly haven't done much of it in the last couple of years. I have sincerely tried to be as objective as possible and not make my kids ride if they didn't want to. But, I don't know if they really had a chance to turn it down when I put them on a horse with reins in their hands for the first time before they were each even 2 years old. They truly loved Hybid Farm and "their" sweet little pony, Tink. Hattie misses her. She talks about her all the time. Grace hasn't had a lot of time to miss her yet, but I know she will. Trying to ride without working at a barn just breaks the bank. I don't want to tie myself up again working right now. I am loving the freedom I have to really take care of my kids during the day and catch up on things at night. I am trying to let the horse factor go for the moment, but I know it will keep calling me. I'm hoping we can just do some random riding here and there and fill my horse bucket (and the girls') in a different way for now.

Well, like I said, random thoughts... but that's what I have been mostly occupied doing lately! It has consumed my days by phone and my nights by internet to research it all and figure it all out.

Oh, and I've also done a little painting. People who are on my facebook have already seen these pics, but for the grandmas who have avoided the facebook era, here is my latest home improvement project/settling-in-task to be done (which is to say that I tried to make the girls' room as exactly like it was in MA as possible!):

(closet with stenciled ponies at the top)

We have tons of other projects we'd like to do in the house. But, we're just going to do them one at a time as we have time and money. I'm very happy to have this room done though. It is so much more cheerful and feels more like our home than just a place where we put our furniture and sleep on it.

catching up - Easter 2010

(cool flowering thing at the bio park, wish I knew what it was. whatever it is won't grow in my yard.)

Ok, I'm way behind on my blogging. I think I hit a point this month where I had to choose between living my life and writing about it. You can guess which one won. I've actually started several posts, but haven't finished any of them. I know very few people really care whether I've got all the family events out there on the internet or not, but this is my journal and my scrapbook too, so I'm catching up for me. Here's the first one I need to do:

Easter was simple and sweet this year. I feel like it was absolutely ages ago. It was nice that it fell on General Conference Sunday because it was a completely relaxing day at home, but it was also strange to not dress up and go to church on Easter Sunday

(we wore the new dresses the week before.)

Easter weekend was quite filled with fun activities. Grandma and Grandpa Chapman along with Aunt Christine had driven down for a few days to visit and see our new house. Poor Grandpa got stuck doing David's honey-do list. But, we sure like the new shelves in the laundry room. Thanks Earl! While they were here, we also met up with our friend Alex and his kids for our first trip to the aquarium and biopark gardens.

(Aunt Christine and the girls in front of the shark tank.)

(our little Asian culture lover standing in front of Chinese sculptures, several hundred years old.)

(naturalized crocuses on the lawn at the bio gardens. I've always wanted to try this, but never have had the time or the guts to do it to my lawn.)

Then, of course, we had a couple of egg hunts. One with friends from church over at the park:

Then E.B. himself did visit our house and left quite a great egg hunt in our new territory. We are still finding eggs that he hid because we are not used to our new house and the new hiding places!

I think the pictures probably say it best.

need to blog

...too busy to do a really great blog today. Just read my friend's beautiful nature blog and wished mine had a little more to it than family news. But, I guess that IS the purpose of my blog. I will have to start including more things as well when I have the time. I'd start a second blog, but I know I wouldn't get to it very often.

So, here are a few fresh pics from our latest adventures in the west:

12 hour drive to Utah for spring break (I actually cried tears of joy when I was driving through the gorgeous desert around Moab. I have missed living here. Then I cried the last hour of the trip too because it was SO HARD driving with 2 kids and 2 dogs by myself!)
Grandma Primmer turns 80. LOVE HER!

(the kids with both great-grandmas - Grandma Pearlie and Grandma Primmer.)

time with the other grandmas and grandpas:

time with cousins Sean and Kate:

(early Easter egg hunt, yum.)(Grandpa Lyle kept so still that the Easter Bunny left some treats for the kids right on his shoes!)

first trip to Rio Grande Zoo - AWESOME. Loved the kids' reactions and wide eyes and smiles and watching them run to their favorite animals:
Grace's new cool awesome bike:Hattie's first bike ride on big sisters hand-me-down (why does Grace get to pick all the bike colors? Hattie would really like a pink one!)
pretty girls in pretty Easter dresses:
ahh... the sunshine... it doesn't get old:

March Birthdays

finishing up a blog I started a week ago:

We have a lot of them in my family, March birthdays, that is. In order, we have David, Grace, Aunt Jessica, and Grandma Primmer. We've done a lot of celebrating already, but the actual birthdays at our house finally came this week. After the big party in MA for the kids, we then had a party in a hotel room a couple weeks ago when Jessica was here in ABQ.

(hotel room birthday cakes - cupcakes from the grocery store!)

My grandma turns 80 next week. I'm hoping to drive to Utah for her party.

David's birthday was Monday. It was fairly uneventful considering we had just moved in and he's one of those 30 somethings. We made him dinner and bought a cheesecake birthday cake. We don't have a fridge right now (except for a small dorm fridge) so cooking and baking is kind of a pain. Dinner didn't turn out too well, but the kids and I gave him a new wii thing that made for a fun night.
Grace's birthday is today. It seems quite unreal that she has been in our life for 7 years. Those 7 years have been quite packed with events. She's an amazing little girl. I feel really lucky and often undeserving to be her mom. I don't know if she picked me or if I picked her, but I couldn't ask for a better daughter. I am so proud of her for all she's done and accomplished so far. I'm so proud of how positive she's been since we moved. I have a hard time coming up with adjectives to describe her. Smart, fun, sweet, talented, and beautiful just don't seem to cut it. (well on the other hand, there's also stubborn, moody, and lollygagger :-) ) I'm actually grateful that she has some character flaws so that I'm sure she's related to me.

Happy Birthday my beautiful Gracie girl!

She asked for a Star Wars family party. Here is my attempt at R2D2 for a cake. She may not be my princess Leia, but she's an awesome Jedi.

We Moved!

We did it. I still can't believe we did, but we did. I really thought I might spend the rest of my life in New England, but here we are in New Mexico! Our friend Bryan wrote a really interesting blog about changing your identity to match the place where you live and deciding "where you are from." We felt like we had come to a similar crossroads after 5 years in New England. Where were we from? Where do we belong? Our kids are from New England, but we still didn't quite feel like we were. We weren't sure we wanted to be either. Where is "home?" Are we westerners anymore? I guess we are now! Eventually I hope we all feel like we're from here and that we had a great 5 year adventure on the East Coast.

I thought about changing our blog title since we started our blog when we moved to Stow, MA and all the references point to that. But, I think we still feel like "stowaways" so, I think the title still fits. Someday when I have NOTHING to do, I might even give the old blog a face lift, but it's going to have to stay boring for now. Hey, at least I figured out how to get the family picture up on top so you can see it. (credit to bbsnaps for awesome pics - not easy to get a decent picture when you're trying to make 2 dogs and 2 kids sit still and smile.)

Anyway, after staying with friends for 10 days, flying here, staying in hotels for 3 days, having my mom, Jessica, and Bret here in a chaotic unpacked house for about a week, we are finally settling into living in our new house. It doesn't quite feel like home yet. We're still unpacking. We need to paint and hang pictures. We need to get some new stuff to fill empty spaces and store what used to be stored in all the built-ins at our old house. But, things are moving along.

(girls in window in m. bedroom)

Gracie started school. She seems to be doing ok so far. I was SO worried about her after our last weekend in MA. Friday night there, we went over to our house one last time to check on it since we couldn't close on the sale before we left. She spent a full hour lying on the floor of her empty bedroom howling and crying. She kept sobbing "I don't want to leave this room. I want to stay in this house forever. I don't want to move." I have seen many significantly sad things in my life, but that hour might possibly have been one of the saddest things I have ever witnessed. It sure didn't give me much confidence that I was doing the right thing. I know she hasn't had time to miss her friends yet. I know it's coming. But for now, she seems to be fairly content. She seems to have made a couple of friends at school and hasn't had any meltdowns since we got here. She was even caught uttering the words "I like Albuquerque." We didn't hardly dare acknowledge it for fear we had imagined it.

Hattie, I'm not sure what she thinks. She's been sleeping in her bed well (except for last night.) She hasn't asked too much about our old house. Every once in a while she'll ask for something that used to be nearby and think that we can just dash over to it, but doesn't realize how far away she is. She is mostly bummed that she can't start preschool again until the fall. (me too!)

Velvet and Shadow arrived on Thursday night with our friend, Bret. You will not meet a nicer guy. He volunteered to drive me to the airport in my car, take my car home, pick up our dogs and David's treasured bikes, and drive all of them across the country to our new house. I still can't believe anyone would do that. We were so relieved to not have to fly the dogs. I was so worried about them being so old and having to make 2 long flights with a layover in the middle of winter. They seemed pretty happy to come with Bret and were pretty bummed to see him leave on Sunday.

(new bff?)

My mom and Jessica also flew in to help us. Unfortunately, all the adults in the house got sick as we were moving in. We sent my mom and Bret home with some seriously bad viruses. Still, we managed to get quite a bit done. We are so lucky to have had so much help and it was really nice to get to spend some time with all of them too.(crusty faces)

(thanks Grandma!)

As for me. I am LOVING the sky. I missed the sky the whole time I lived in New England. The only thing that kept me going was the view of the river from my front rooms. I miss that view now too, but it is all better when I go outside and I can see horizon to horizon and watch the clouds as they pass overhead. I love the sunrises over the mountains that you can see from our upstairs windows. I love the sunsets you can see from our bedroom. And, I love the sun. I understand sun-worshipers. I am very close to being one. I have heard about the torrential weather in New England these past 2 weeks and I am utterly content to be sitting here in dry, sunny weather - even if it is a bit chilly still. I can feel it warming up to spring and I can't wait to spend the entire summer outside in the sun, with no bugs, and no humidity. I feel so much more productive when the sun is shining. I think I really like it here.