Starting with the biggest:
1. David got hired as a REAL LIFE employee at Los Alamos National Laboratory. So long student status, hello pay raise! That also means we can plan on making New Mexico our permanent home.
2. McKindrey is a great crawler now, and can walk supported only by one hand. We have yet to encourage her first independent steps, but maybe very soon we will try it. It is so fun to have her more mobile. She is also getting to be more of an explorer, especially outside.
3. David and I look forward to celebrating our 3rd year of marriage at Santa Fe, snowboarding. Well, David will be snowboarding, and I will be tumbling down the hill as he tries to teach me. So far I have been successful at sticking to my skis, but I've finally decided to learn something new. Maybe next year I will get David to try skiing.
We enjoyed Halloween-- carved up our pumpkins and even splurged and bought candy to pass out to trick-or-treaters. Sadly, we only had 11 trick-or-treaters, and ate about 3 bags of candy ourselves (or maybe that wasn't so sad)...
We recently got a bike trailer to take McKindrey on rides with us. We rode to the park yesterday and oh the fun. McKindrey LOVES the park. We go almost every day. The sand, the swings, the slides, the bouncy horses, the KIDS, the grass, the leaves, the dirty bandaids (gross, I know). She can't get enough of it all. The most joyful part of yesterday's park trip was that she climbed up some relatively huge steps all by herself. I so wish I had taken my camera to document the moment. But, David and I were flipping out and pretty much giddy. We are total dorks as parents.
I continue to enjoy working at the children's clinic on Fridays while McKindrey has daddy day with David. Other than that I love being home with her, even when every day is a mix of joy, frustration, laughter, crankiness... you name it. Learning to be a great mom is such a challenge, but it is also a fantastically fun and sanctifying experience. Now for the good part, some pictures :)
