Baby Mamma

Confession: Almost without exception, I get choked up during Hallmark's Christmas commercials. There is something about the holiday, homey-nostalgia cocktail that gets me every time. Its not Hallmark alone, there is a sappy fever-reducer commercial out there that brings a little tickle twinge to my throat. Even worse is Suburu's commercial about the teenage daughter taking the family car for her first solo ride and all the dad sees is his little 5 year old driving away...

My point is--I have always been a little sappy. But since becoming a mamma I am over the top S.A.P.P.Y. If I am exposed to any sort of family scene with a carefully cued musical background, I have to swallow hard and avoid eye contact....

So today when Chloe climbed up behind me and wrapped her little chubby baby arms around my neck and barked in my ear while we looked at puppies online I melted. Oh, little baby, don't change! Don't grow up. Don't drive away in our suburu someday...just keep wrapping your little arms around me and we'll look at puppies.

I. AM. SAPPY.

...and I love being this baby's mama.

A brazen old lady and a baby.

In June I went home to Idaho for the first time in two years. No matter how long I've been gone there is always something nice about coming home, comforting. Nothing compares to the familiarity of home--Mom and Dad, John Wayne, the garden, our old dog that secretly I've never liked, Mom's white walls, Dad's growing pile of movies...Its like stepping back in time and reclaiming a little piece of childhood.

My nieces and nephews are bigger now. The two oldest just graduated from high school. I see in them this year's borrowed trends--skinny jeans, 80's metal band hair, blue eyeshadow; they pull it off well, they are cute little hipsters. Today's styles have looped around and gathered in styles reminiscent of my childhood/middle school years...my awkward years. When I looked at them, I felt the generation gap widening, and my illusion of returning home to reclaim my youth shatters a bit.

Even more so after this conversation with one of my niece's 16 year old friends,

Referring to my daughter she said, "Wow! So how old is she?"

Me: "Ten months."

Young hipster: "Whoa! And you just barely had her?"

Me: "Well, ya. like I said, I had her about 10 months ago."

Young hipster: "Wow, and you're like 30? You are a strong brave woman to have a baby at YOUR age."

Me: "I'm 31."

Apparently I am a strong, tenacious woman brazenly traversing the wild unruly territory of motherhood at the withered old age of 31. It was hard not to laugh right out loud. Instead I smiled a tight lipped smile, pushed play on John Wayne's, 'Mclintock' and slipped back into my 'coming home, I'm still a kid' illusion...

So here I am, a crazy old lady with a chubby little baby.

brave.

Cannon Beach!

Little Orange Lady

We bought a bag of oranges a little while ago and I let Chloe play with one of them for a little bit before her bath. She looked so cute in her shinnies holding the bright orange I had to post it.

I just like her.

And her chubby little rolls.

More Christmas Adventuring...

I didn't get to see my family much while we lived in DC, so I was very excited to have my momma in Arizona ALL of December! (no sarcasm intended, I was genuinely excited to have this sweet little lady around!) She stayed for a week with each of my sisters that live down here. While she was with us we took her to see Montezuma's Well and Tuzigoot, two Sinagua ruins just a few hours North of us.

The well itself is actually a sinkhole with a constant mysterious flow of water that runs into it. Over a million gallons of water flow into this hole every day that is unaccounted for, as of yet scientists have not been able to track its source. This mysterious water flow gives the place a magical, mystical appeal. It is a small little ruin, but still fascinating to wander around.

This is another likely storage space at the base of the well.

My sweet momma.

Chloe doesn't share my fascination with old places yet, she slept through most of it...

After we left the well, we drove about 15 minutes North to the Tuzigoot (Apache for 'crooked water') ruins. Normally there is fee to enter this site, but because the visitor's center was under construction, there was no fee, no rangers, and no other people around. We had the place almost entirely to ourselves.

This is the view just below the ruin, right before we started climbing up.

This is what you see as you look out from the top.

This ruin was once an estimated 110 room village with an amazing view.

It was really fun exploring with my momma, I love this lady!

Christmas Break Adventures

Over Christmas break Sam and I decided to explore Arizona a bit. We drove up to the Superstitions, pulled over on the side of the road and started hiking. We didn't have a destination plan, but serendipitously found Canyon Lake,
beautiful.

The weather was amazing and Chloe was the perfect little travel companion. I love love love the desert this time of year.

A few days later we decided to drive out to Goldfield Ghost Town. Its an obvious tourist trap town and I loved every minute of it! Only the mine and the foundations of the buildings were authentic from the original town, the rest was rebuilt for our touristing pleasure.

We were expecting this little white church to be a quaint historical place of worship...not so. Inside is a shrine to Elvis and all of his movies--apparently a few were filmed in this area. And for a small fee here in this church the King himself will preform your nuptials. I feel cheated that I didn't know about this sooner.

On the weekends every hour on the hour from high noon to four, they stage a gun fight. The guns are really loud and we were a little nervous that Chloe would scream through the whole thing and annoy the people around us, but...

...she slept right through it.
Strange that she'll sleep through a gunfight, but if we sneeze during her nap time at home...