Downstairs Tour

I know I keep promising a "photo tour" of our house, but the upstairs really is still pretty scarce.  There are boxes in the master bedroom, curtains to be hung in Ethan's room and a new piece of furniture being shipped here (as I type!) for the office/guest room.  That being said, here's a tour of the downstairs of our house, and eventually, I'll take pictures of the upstairs! :)

This is our kitchen

Here is our family room

That's our front door

This is the view when you walk in the front door (that's our dining "room" all the way in the back)

Look!  Our fridge is magnetic!  Yay! :)

Here's our outdoor area (see the playground with the yellow slide?)

This is our view from the back of the house (see the mountains??)

And here's our laundry room, to the left of where I'm standing are two pantries (yes, two!) and directly behind me is the door to our garage

Sandia Peak Tramway

The boys and I rode the Sandia Peak Tramway up 10,378 feet to the top of the Sandia Mountains this afternoon.  Ethan definitely enjoyed it, signing "more" when we'd ride over a tower and the whole tram would sway, lol.  It was super cold and windy when we got to the top, though, so we didn't stay long, but the views were gorgeous and we had fun. :)

Going up the tramway

Family photo!  P.S. I love Ethan's face, lol.

Date Night!

Matt and I went on a date night tonight (with our favorite little third wheel, of course).  We went to the Nob Hill Bar and Grill and had these delicious wings and great burgers.  Ethan was SO good the whole time, too, which was awesome.  He did scream and cry at one point, however, when he dipped his french fry in what he thought was regular ketchup, but what actually ended up being homemade spicy ketchup (in our defense, we didn't realize it wasn't regular ketchup either).  The poor little guy was NOT a happy camper.  It was sad at first, but he was so dramatic about the whole thing it was kind of funny by the end. He just kept sticking out his tongue and crying.  Needless to say, he survived the whole spicy ketchup incident and went on to enjoy the rest of the evening with us. :) And here's a picture of my two guys coloring on the kids menu together.  Be still my heart.

A playground and a play house

Ethan had quite the day yesterday!  Not only did we go over to the big playground (as opposed to the smaller playground right behind our house), but Matt also built him a pretty sweet box house, with a garage and all! :)

Ethan absolutely loved the tube slide!

See the one tiny little finger through the door "handle"??

Installing a garage door :)

One happy little homeowner!

Winner, winner, chicken dinner!

I love Pinterest.  I really do.  I don't know what it is, but something about the whole thing is just addictive.  So yesterday, while I was perusing Pinterest, I came across this awesome pin for "Super Fast Chicken Freezer Meals."  I was instantly inspired!  You see, now that we have more space in our kitchen, my slow cooker is SO easy to get to.  In our old apartment it was hidden back in a nook, and unfortunately, the level of effort it took to get my slow cooker out of that nook negatively affected the amount of times I was willing to use my slow cooker.  But now!  Now my slow cooker has it's own little shelf and whenever I want to use it, BAM! it's right there ready to be used.  Yay!  I literally already used my slow cooker three times in the 12 days I've lived in New Mexico, haha. :)
Okay, so back to these freezer meals.  I found the pin yesterday, and instantly knew this was something I wanted to try.  So often I re-pin pins that look interesting, but never go back to them, but this was different.  I knew these freezer meals were perfect for me!  The ingredients are so simple (and bonus - I already had half of them!).  There are five recipes on this particular blog, and I decided to try three of them: Teriyaki Chicken, Sweet Barbecue Chicken and Café Rio Chicken.
Let me just say, these things were SO easy to prepare.  SO EASY.  You literally just put all the ingredients into a bag, mash it all together and throw it in the freezer.  Then all you have to do is pull a bag out, let it defrost for an hour or so and then plop the contents of the bag into your slow cooker.  Easy peasy!  I don't want to jinx it or anything, but I feel like even I can't mess this up!  I will say, the hardest part of the whole thing?  Having to wait to actually eat them!

Daycare, Bowling and Fish, Oh My!

This past week was our first full week in New Mexico.  Ethan started daycare on Monday and aside from a scratched face, everything went really smoothly.  I guess one of the other kids got a little too excited around Ethan's face?  The scratch is from the outside corner of his eye, down to his nose, but it's healing really well already (and it's given Matt an excuse to call Ethan "Scarface").  Overall (other than that awful first night), Ethan really seems to be doing well in New Mexico.  He's down to one nap in the middle of the day and pretty much off of formula (finally!).  He sprouted a few more teeth this past week, but hasn't really let us see them much since they're way in the back.  That being said, Matt did teach Ethan to grin!  If you say, "Show me your teeth!" he'll give you the biggest, cheesiest smile.  It's really cute. :)
Friday night we took Ethan bowling for the first time, which he absolutely LOVED.  He was in awe of all the bright colored balls and struggled with the concept of waiting his turn.  I ended up bowling most of my turns while holding him (not the easiest thing to do).  And when it was Ethan's turn we got a ramp so he could just push the ball down the lane.  Needless to say, we will definitely return to the bowling alley in the near future.
Yesterday I worked aaaall day.  Seriously.  All day.  I pulled an eleven hour day editing a document for work.  I was really happy to have the opportunity, and actually enjoyed the work, but working eleven hours on a Saturday is no fun.  Matt was amazing and watched Ethan the whole day.  I don't know who was more burnt out by the end, me or Matt, lol.
Then this morning, we took Ethan to the aquarium.  I don't think he loved it quite as much as he loved bowling, but he definitely had fun checking out all the fish. :)  Now we're spending the afternoon watching some football, enjoying some homemade pretzels.  Yum!

Helloooo, New Mexico!

Ethan, Beaker, Natty and I, along with the MP, made it safely to New Mexico on Wednesday, January 8th. We attempted to fly out on Saturday, but thanks to some wintery weather on the East Coast the airport was SO insane that we couldn't make it through the line to check-in and ended up missing our flight and the next available flight wasn't until Wednesday. Kind of crazy, but it all ended up working out because it gave Matt a few extra days to get the house settled before we showed up.
Flying with two cats and a toddler proved to be entertaining. It took me three trips back and forth through security (once with Beaker, once with Natty and once with Ethan) and then we definitely held up the boarding line for a few minutes while setting everything up, but other than that everything went smoothly. Once we got to New Mexico we were all pretty wiped out (we got up at 3am to make sure we made our flight). Then Ethan had a really rough first night, which could've been from the flight or the elevation change or maybe teething, but he slept through the next night with no issues, which we were all very thankful for.
Our house is great. We have 3 bedrooms and 2.5 baths with our own garage and a little outdoor area and the local playground is right out our backdoor! It's great to have so much space for Ethan (and Beaker and Natty) to run around. There are still boxes to be unpacked, but after things are a little more moved in I'll be sure to post pictures of the house.