Easter Weekend

 We had a great Easter Weekend.  I'm really truly trying to treasure these last handful of weekends while we are a family of three.
We went to a local park for a little Easter parade, the Easter bunny, and a Easter Egg hunt.  It was a lot of fun.  The day before we were blessed with getting a beautiful dress in the mail from Grandma Sweat!  These dress is beautiful, and the second one (like it) that Grandma Sweat has made.  Helena wore the first one for my maternity photo shoot!  I'm so thankful she has such a crafty Grandma to make her these truly special items!
Saturday afternoon we had another meeting with my doula.  It was a great meeting, and I'm feeling more and more at peace about this baby and birth, and feeling comfortable that he'll let me know when he wants to come.
We went to a special Saturday afternoon Easter Service at a new church (we're still church shopping).  The service was ok, Chris and I were distracted as Helena accidentally got called from the day care.  So I think we need to give this church another try.

Easter Egg Hunting

 Helena didn't get a visit from the Easter Bunny last year, so we made sure he made a stop this year.  She got some hot wheels cars, stickers, and a little fish rubber thing.  And a stuffed bunny that we got from the daycare at church last week.  She really enjoyed all the goodies!
We then went up to Ruidoso to Inn at Mountain of the Gods for some Easter Brunch.  We thankfully got there right before there were done serving breakfast.  We walked around the property and had a great time.

 When we got home we colored some eggs which Helena really enjoyed, and was worried about making a mess!

 Then right before bath time Chris "hid" the eggs in the backyard, and we did another Easter Egg hunt.  She had a great time walking around saying "looking eggs".  Chris hid the eggs twice and it was a lot of fun.  She's now obsessed with eggs.

It was a great weekend.  Chris and I even watched a movie (over two nights) The Martian.  It was a really good movie.

December 2015

Christmas Festival Downtown Alamogordo

1st time seeing Santa after a 1 year absence, she wasn't too thrilled.

She loves these blow-up figures

She did pretty good with the ornaments, we had to fatalities this year!

She warmed up nicely to Santa at the El Paso Mall.

So focused helping with the Gingerbread house.

Our mantel, Helena loved the lights!

3rd Santa visit was a success at the Alamogordo library!

Checking out the largest pistachio in the world!

She had a blast helping me make sugar cookies!

I made her, her very own felt Christmas tree!

Dad put up Christmas lights and got an owl!

Who knows if I'll ever catch up on blogging, I really want to blog more, document more and remember more.  I miss my blog, I miss a lot of things, and I feel this is one thing I have control over.  That I can easily incorporate back into my weekly schedule.  

We've been busy this month.  

At the beginning of the month there was a little Christmas Festival in downtown Alamogordo.  Downtown exists of one block, but we had a good time.  There was a live Nativity, Santa, and hot chocolate.  This was her first experience since last Christmas meeting Santa, and she was scared.  Over the course of the month we saw Santa two more times, and by the third time she was ok with him.  She'll now say Santa and is fascinated by his hat.  

In the middle of the month we took the drive to El Paso for some shopping.  The drive is about an hour and half and it was crazy.  I don't see us going back anytime soon.  The mall was insane.  Just crazy.  We did get some shopping done, but the experience wasn't pleasant.  I made a reservation for Helena to have a sit down with Helena and brought her Christmas dress and everything.  Upon arrival for our reservation the whole camera and computer system had gone down.  It was beyond frustrating.  I had made a dinner reservation for an hour after the meeting with Santa so we didn't have time to hang out.  Thankfully Santa came over, and that gave Helena the opportunity to warm up to him.  He gratefully took a selfie with us, so it wasn't a total waste, but I'm sad that we won't have an official Santa picture this year.  

Closer to the end of the month Santa was making an appearance at  the Alamogordo library.  So we checked that out.  This was a success, and had I known Helena would be good I would have brought her Christmas dress.  But we got a somewhat decent picture!

Labor Day Weekend

Riding a pony that used to be Auntie Alice's

 Considering I'm unemployed I really have no excuse except for laziness in regards to my lack of blogging.  So let's hope I can step it up. 
Here's a recap of our trip to Kearney, NE over Labor Day.
Prior to finding out I would be unemployed at the beginning of the month we had discussed a Labor Day trip to Nebraska to visit Chris' parents and sister.  We didn't really make any plans and then once we found out I was getting laid off we completely dismissed the idea altogether.  Then the night before deciding to go I mentioned it.  And well we decided last minute that a change of scenery would do us some good.  So we called his parents at around 8 at night (9 there time) to let them know we would be showing up the next day. 
We packed up and hit the road around Helena's nap time.  She instantly fell asleep and stayed that way for about 3 hours!  We stopped with just 2 hours left and had some lunch, she really didn't want to get back in the car seat, and the last two hours were a little rough, but over all she did an awesome job!
I love the simplicity of going to visit my in-laws.  I know I've stated it before, but no TV, just hanging out and visiting, playing games etc...  They have a big beautiful backyard that the living room looks out onto, and it's just so peaceful.  Helena LOVED being outside and the friendliness of the pets.
Helena did really well with the new atmosphere!  She even slept in Alice's old crib.  She enjoyed going up and down (and up and down and up and down) the stairs in Grandma and Grandpa's house! 
She even had her very own ice cream cone (the end of one that Grandma had eaten) and she loved it!
I loved it because Helena was well taken care of and I was able to lay back and relax!  It truly was a vacation.

Helping Grandma water the plants

She's a good helper!

The highlight of the trip: Giving kisses!!!!

Mom got to relax!

She loves her Auntie Alice!

And of course ice cream!

Picking tomatos with Grandma.  (notice she has one in each hand, and one in her mouth!)

Grandpa got in on the kisses too!!!

Three beautiful ladies!: Great-Grandma, Grandma, and Helena

On our way back Chris gave me a tour of this childhood.  The first stop was in Lexington which was were Chris graduated High School.  Then to Gothenburg which was where Chris was born.  Lastly was Brady where Chris went to elementary school and lived on a ranch.  It was a fun little tour!

more visitors!

The Sweat household has been extremely busy!  Let’s break it down.

My in-laws arrived Friday 7/3 and left to go on a Western Colorado vacation (they visited Steamboat Springs and Aspen) on 7/6 and 7/7.  They came back to our place on 7/8 and left Friday 7/10.  My parents arrived Thursday  7/9 and left Monday 7/13.  PHEW! 

The photos are extremely out of order! 

Lovely dinner!

We all went out to dinner and had a great time.  Helena loved all of the attention!  This was the first time Helena has had all 4 of her grandparents at the same time!

Friday morning was pretty casual as we awaiting my parents, and I went to the doctor for my back (more on that later).  After Helena’s afternoon nap we ventured out to the Denver Museum of Nature and Science.  We got there around 4:15pm, just to find out they close at 5pm.  But the last 30 minutes of the museum is free so we just hung out until we could enter at 4:30pm.  The museum has an amazing “Discovery Zone” just for kids to run free!  So that’s where we took Helena for 30 minutes.  Afterwards we went to dinner at LoHi Steakhouse.  It was just ok.  The perk was its location near Little Man Ice Cream! 

@ Little Man Ice Cream

@ Coors Field for a Rockies game

Saturday morning we went to a nearby library where a symphony was playing just for the little kids!  It was a lot of fun and Helena got to play with lots of musical instruments!   

After her nap it was downtown to Coors Field for a Rockies game!  It was SO hot and we were right in the sun that we only watched 3 innings before going inside (thankfully we had club seats!).  Helena had a blast walking around saying Hi to everyone!

Out and about with Grandpa (they were chasing two rabbits)

playing the piano

Sunday morning we went back to the Denver Museum of Nature and Science to actually explore the museum!  It was a lot of fun, and we of course ended the visit back at the kids Discovery Zone for Helena to run around some more!

Sunday afternoon we went to the pool! 

Monday morning we to Carpenter Park where Helena playing in the swing and for some reason was afraid of the slide…she’s gone down in before!  It’s so nice taking her to kid friendly places where she can truly just wonder and I don’t have to be too concerned or worried about her getting into something she shouldn’t get into!

having fun on the swing!

Discovery Zone

Discovery Zone

Discovery Zone

Mythical Creatures Exhibit at the DMNS

at the pool

she loves the water!

One of the things I love about this age is for the most part Helena is predictable.  She has her one nap that is usually taken around 12noon so our days are split up into “morning” and “afternoon”.  It makes outings so much easier because Helena as a schedule!  I love seeing her soak everything in!  It’s so much fun seeing her see things for the first time.  
Her latest development is dancing.  You ask her dance and she'll shake her little bum and it's the cutest thing you ever did see!