Day 2: There's no place like home

On Saturday, we stayed at camp which happened to be filled with big boulders to climb and hike around. We got a little shutter happy, so bear with me.

Mark helped us all up and down the boulders.
Our band of rock climbers
My new favorite family photo
The kids were done with squinting into the sun for pictures after this one.
We dubbed this Sam's room. I love this picture of the first five!
My husband loves to climb rocks! He was the envy of all as he scaled the largest boulders in the park with ease.He took the girls on one such scaling mission. It doesn't look bad from here.
But check out the heights they were climbing to. I did my best not to give in to my motherly urges to faint and/or throw up seeing my young girls climbing to such heights.
This one is called Elephant Rock. Can you see why?
Five kids in a bowl.
Harrison enjoyed our hike. Our littlest member is pretty happy so long as he has something to chew on and something/someone to look at. I used his bib as an impromptu hat.
We ended the day with a campfire and s'mores. Fortunately, they were much better received this time.

Adventure #3: Daytrips near Deming, NM

Your chariot awaits Princess Madelyn!
We picked Madelyn up from school Thursday and headed south seeking warmer weather and a geology lesson.

We pulled up to the City of Rocks State Park, our home for four nights, after dark. And man, was it ever dark. Fortunately, we woke up to beautiful surroundings and the warmth of the sun. We headed south through Deming to Rockhound State Park on Friday for a day of rock hunting.
Rockhound is unique in that they allow each person to carry out 15 lbs. of rock. For once, our family wasn't penalized for being large. Mark and Sam find a 'big one'.

Sam took a hard fall for this rock. He wasn't about to let it go.
Mark and Madelyn found 'sparkly' rocks up one of the hills. We are debating about whether or not to crack into a couple to see if there are geodes.
Here we are in front of the dragon (background).
A view of the Florida Mountains. We doubt they see snow often but they made for a lovely backdrop. We took a short drive up to Spring Canyon. The road up is at a 17% grade and there are dips for seasonal streams that make for some fun driving. We made Dumbo fly!
Thanks Rockhound for the new rock garden in the backyard and the great memories.

P.S. If you ever find yourself in Deming, the Dairy Queen there makes the B-E-S-T blizzards. And, trust me, we know our blizzards.

Flashback Friday

First, I have to thank my good friend Cari for inspiring me to start up a new blog segment. Mark recently finished compiling his all-time favorite photos. Since it will be years before I get them into albums, I thought now would be a good time to feature a few each week on the blog.

Ever since we brought Harrison home from the hospital I have been trying desperately to remember what each child was like at his age. As much as I love having two sets of twins, it makes things blurry. Each moment of their early days was filled with soothing, bathing, dressing, feeding and diapering. There was little time to just observe and appreciate my daughters. I was always focused on filling a need.

It's nice to go back now and reminisce. This picture of Chloe and Catherine was taken almost 5 years ago when they were four months old. This was the first time I captured both girls smiling at the same time. I remember how excited I was at this small victory.

Honk if you see us...

...we'll be hard to miss!

Coo-uld he be more cute

Good Times-January

January started with Harrison being introduced to his toys. He amazed us when he grabbed them right up.
Sleepy Saturday. Mark loves to catch my 'cat naps' with the boys.
Catherine made apple streusel muffins for everyone one morning. Thanks cousins for the kit!
Three-months-old and all smiles.
Sweet sibling time!
My two singletons
I love this picture! Look how much fun they're having.
When Catherine gets a cold her eyes swell mostly shut. Poor girl! But she still demanded her turn with baby brother.
I'm not sure why blogspot turned this one on its side. I like it better as a horizontal picture. Everyone, tilt your head to the right.Our three-month-old cutie!

Is it safe to come out yet?

What a week!

It all started a week ago Saturday when Sam came to our room just as we were falling asleep to report he had thrown up. We had no idea he was feeling yucky but promptly gave him another bath and stripped his bed (every last piece). He fell back asleep and was fine until morning when the fun began again. Of course, that was a day Mark had to work.

I hate days like that when I feel like I need to protect the baby, comfort the sick kid and oh yeah, make three meals, wash many loads of soiled linens, do homework with the oldest and so on. I survived and Mark paid his dues later in the week.

Sam followed up his pukies with a cold he caught from Catherine which Mark also caught.

Seth was next in line for the crud. On Monday night we got another middle of the night wake up call from a pukey boy. Unfortunately, he continued throwing up the rest of the night and my sweet husband slept in his room and helped out with the sick bucket each time so I could stay near the baby. (See, I told you he paid his dues.) Seth repeated this cycle on Thursday from breakfast until lunch.

Friday was all clear up until bedtime when Madelyn reported her tummy hurt. We sent her to bed with a bucket and yet again found ourselves woken up by a sick kid. Madelyn had a rough night, waking up a dozen times, to be sick. Mark was by her side too. Until he was called away to help me with Catherine who started throwing up at 2 a.m. followed by Chloe at 4 a.m. Good times in our house, let me tell you!

Now we're 48 hours past the last attack and we're just wiping noses and trying to catch up on fluids and sleep. We are thankful for the health we generally have and appreciate the modern convenience of a high efficiency, super capacity washing machine.