New bike

In the hopes of spending a little less money on fuel in his daily commute to Deming, Brian purchased a brand-new motorcycle this past weekend! The bike gets 58 miles per gallon, and the van (which he had been driving) only gets about 24. Even with a monthly payment and insurance in there, we figured we'd still come out ahead. Plus, he's wanted a bike forever. Now he gets to fulfill his dream every single day. A bonus for me? He looks pretty hot on it, too.

Buddy time

Jack has found a new best buddy! He and Gabe were able to enjoy some pool time, water guns, sprinklers, pizza, and ice cream this past weekend. Jack's had a difficult time adjusting to all the big changes we've had these past few months, and it does my heart good to see my shy guy getting along so well with another little boy.

Nature girl

Seems like Kate is in her element when she's outdoors. I know my dad found that out for certain when we were in Idaho. If I needed him to watch her, and she was less than happy about it, he'd just scoop her up, head outside, and walk up the block to see the crows that hang out in a nearby church parking lot. Kate would sit and finger-rake the green grass--which she'd never seen much of in the Sierra--and imitate the birds' caws. A few months later, in New Mexico, give my girl a bucket and a pile of dirt, and she's happy. Throw a sprinkler into the mix, making the dirt all squishy between the toes, and she becomes ecstatic.

More "news"

It's been bugging me lately, my lack of actual writing on this blog. I am a writer, you know. Sometimes it's just easier to upload a few snapshots of the kids and then write a caption or two. Kind of like on Facebook... it's easy to be a good writer when you're limited to only 250 or so characters. I sometimes spend my entire morning run wording and re-wording a new status update. It's much more difficult to mentally string together a whole blog post. And I guess there just hasn't been a whole lot of writing inspiration lately. We're still working hard on putting a life together here in New Mexico.
We did celebrate a few firsts these past few days:
1. Casey went to the dog groomer for the first time. Poor thing was looking a little ragged, came back all shiny and happy. She's having a fun summer overall, playing with her new golden retriever cousin Chrissy.
2. Kate did her first poop in the potty! First of all, she's a tub-pooper. For two weeks or so, she was pooping in the tub almost every night. After lamenting about it on Facebook, someone told me to Google "baby poop in tub." I did, and turns out, it's not so uncommon. I guess the warm water makes those muscles nice and relaxed. Anyway... one website mentioned having a potty handy, so when baby does make a ready-to-poop face, you can whisk her right out of there and sit her on the pot. After Kate put a little turd in the tub a few nights ago, I did just that. Made her sit on Jack's potty for a couple minutes. When she stood up, there was more in the potty. But she started screaming hysterically... and that lasted for about five minutes! I guess it's a new sensation for baby. She'll just have to get used to it!
3. Jack made his first attempt at swimming! We've been going to Grandma Pat's pool this summer, and every time, he is a little more daring. Yesterday, he actually walked by himself off the steps and started tip-toeing around the floor of the pool. At one point, he walked too far, and with no one else nearby, and not enough experience to know just to turn around and head back toward the steps, he started making crude motions with his arms as he walked toward the wall. I count that as early swimming. Soooo proud of him. Next time we visit Grandma Pat, he'll be doing the backstroke.