Santa 2008

Our friend, Julia, sent Elena a box full of beautiful hand-me-downs from her daughter, Maddie. In it was a Christmas dress, just the right size! So Elena wore it on Sunday when we went to see Santa.

It's a Girl Baby!!

Elena was not surprised at all. Why should she be? She's known all along that she is going to have a baby sister. Although, she is concerned because the baby is "just a skeleton" right now. It'll be a while before we can convince her it's a real baby in there!

(why is it so short?)

We went on Saturday to get Elena's haircut and we cut quite a bit off. When her daddy saw it, he said, "Oh sweetie, you look so pretty!" and then whispered to me, "why is it so short?". It's so short because I wanted to see what it would like like without that halo of unruly wispy hair around her head. It's cute but I'm not so sure it looks like her so we'll probably let it grow out!

Punkin Love

Elena really enjoyed getting ready for Halloween. I forgot to post these earlier:

Trick or Treat, Smell My Feet

So Elena's grandma taught her how to say "Trick or Treat, Smell my feet, Give me something good to eat" and she then went to her preschool and taught her whole class. That's our girl!

Here she is this morning, all ready for some big Halloween fun at school:


And here she is with her class, trick-or-treating in town:

Monkey Doppler

Here is Elena trying to find the heartbeat on Big Giant Monkey:

Elena loves her school and we do too

We had a parent-teacher conference on Thursday night and hear just what we expected: Elena does a great job with everything but sometimes they have to remind her that she is not actually a cat. That's our girl!

Here are some pictures from the first day of school:

Putting on inside shoes:
Hanging up the backpack:
Standing in her cubby!

Pictures of Beep Beep

About 2 years ago, we were driving down the street and the name "beep beep" came to me for our next little bean. I told Chris that it would be good because Elena could pronounce it and he agreed. Needless to say, we thought Beep Beep would be here long before now but we're just so happy that he has finally shown up!

Here are some pictures of him (we say 'him' although we won't know for another month or so):

So where is Ridgway, CO anyway?

Ridgway is in the southwest corner of Colorado. It is 250 miles west of Pueblo and, more importantly, only 6 hours from Santa Fe and Papa and Grandma Minnie.

Ridgway is ringed by the San Juan mountains and sits at 6998 ft. It's a small town with only about 800 people. The "downtown" (which is about 2 square blocks) has a great coffeeshop/bookstore, a fun home store called Lupita's Bizarre Bazaar, and a thrift store that supports the local animal shelter.

There are also some great restaurants for a town this size (only about 800 residents). My favorite is Siam, the Thai restaurant. Don't tell Chris but I go there for lunch sometimes.

There is no "e" in Ridgway.