Changing and not changing

Some things in the Lacroix world changed over this past weekend: we bought a new car, so long little red Jeep (or as Evie calls it Jeepie)...hello new Forester, we picked up two new chickens, Evie has named them both Oliver (does anyone see a trend here?) and Evie and I turned under our summer garden to plant a fall/winter one.

The not so changing? Evie has an amazing crocheted dress that Oma made for her first Easter, and for the past week we have not been able to get her to take it off. The exception being for school, where she bought some bogus excuse about school being too dirty for the dress. This, as you can see, is silly given that these pictures show that I then I let her garden in it on Saturday. (Sorry Monique! But it has come totally clean in the laundry...) She is so in love with this dress that this past week not only is she wearing it every day when I get home from work but she has gone to a birthday party in it, slept in it, gone out shopping in it, out for breakfast in it and, of course, helped me with the garden in it. (What you don't see in the pictures are the sparkly pink shoes she also insisted on wearing while gardening... sigh... at least she likes the dirt!) Now don't get me wrong the dress is awesome (in fact a little too awesome for all this abuse) but it is now ohh about 2 sizes to small for her so it just barely covers her tushie.... almost indecent. I think I have the solution though. I am getting ready to go out and by seat covers for our new car (so that it stays looking new for at least a little while) and while I am there I am going to invest in a few pairs of nice, thick tights for her as well :)

Mmmm

ice cream is sooo good.

Big Girl Bed

Last weekend Evie spent Friday and Saturday sleeping on her mattress on the floor. On Sunday I asked her if she wanted to get rid of her crib and use a "big-girl bed" and her response was an emphatic "SURE!". I took apart the crib and converted it into the cutest little small person bed. Evie was so excited about it she immediately got all of her stuffed animals and put them to sleep on either end of her new bed. Then we went out to Target and picked up a few things every big girl should have: bedside table (aka bookshelves, aka red crates), a hamper and a box to organize crafts. Evie was most excited about the hamper and proceeded to collect all of the laundry in the house and insist that she be allowed to wash it. (nice...)

She has slept really well in the bed all week. (I think she might have fallen out one night because she woke up crying for some reason but when we came in the room she was in the bed. so who knows....) The funny thing is that she still stays in bed and calls for me in the morning as if she were unable to get out. I will be curious to see how long that lasts for.


In other news Evie has really gotten into art projects and this morning we busted out the clay. She had a great time making squirmies (her name for long pieces of clay) and must have spent an hour creating scenarios with her squirmies, which, of course, had to involve me sitting there patiently with squirmies on my leg so that "they wouldn't cry when Evie leaves" She also, very nicely, brought Patrick his own squirmie to keep him company while he did house repair work... too cute.


Evie explaining the anatomy of a squirmie

Labor Day at Blue '09

As has become our tradition, we spent a fabulous labor day weekend up at the cabin on the Blue. This weekend was particularly nice though because my brother and Claudia decided to join us too!

We spent Saturday making our annual visit to the Alpine craft club's Christmas bazaar. Picked up a couple of exciting oraments for the tree and a cool hand-made toy for Evie. We then went next store to the library's thrift store (all proceeds go to support the Alpine Library) where Evie picked out some interesting toys (see swaddled oversized my little pony below) and a big bag of dress-up clothes for just a buck!


Saturday night we made s'mores at the fireplace... but this time Evie had vegan s'mores because the last two times she has eaten marshmallows it didn't end well... we still aren't sure if it really is the mallow's fault but I personally didn't want to take the chance. Because we told her marshmallows make her sick she proclaimed her banana s'mores the "yummy ones" and the mallow ones "yucky ones" At one point she went into the kitchen to give my dad a real s'more and said "Here you go Papa, I have a yucky s'more for you."

On Sunday we just hung around the cabin. Evie and I spent a good two hours down at the stream. I decided to take a hands off approach to stream exploration and just let her guide me where she wanted to go and do what she wanted to do. As a result we meandered up the stream, occasionally sitting in one spot to throw rocks, float sticks downstream or collect flowers. It was a wonderfully relaxing way to spend a morning.


On Monday we packed up a little early and then stopped in Glenwood, NM for what has to be one of the coolest hikes, Whitewater Canyon, aka the catwalk hike. My mom took way more pictures than I did so I'll post more when I get them from her. It occurred to me over the weekend that this was Evie's third labor day weekend at the cabin... look at how much she has changed over those three holidays!

Itty Bitty Oliver

The Mott Lacroix family has a new member! His name is Itty Bitty Oliver... or just Ollie for short. He is a 2 month(ish) old kitten that I adopted from my coworker who has a reputation in a certain Phoenix neighborhood as the taker-in of your sick, your weary, your abandoned cat(s). At the tender age of a month (or so) he was led to her house by another stray that she had named Itty Bitty, thus Oliver's first name was Itty Bitty's Buddy. When she found little Oliver he had an abscess and chapped paws from living on the (hot!) mean streets of Phoenix in July. She diligently nursed him back to health and then sent out a call to kitty arms for a new family for him (She currently cares for six cats of her own and at least 10 strays...)


I (somehow) convinced Patrick that Itty Bitty's Buddy was just the kitten for us and so two weeks ago now I went up to Phoenix for work and came home with our new kitten. Evie was so excited at the idea of a kitty we decided to let her name him. Her first choice was Olivia, but once we explained to her that the kitty was a boy, and that she might give him a complex, she settled on Oliver.


Oliver was pretty shy at first but has really come out of his shell the past few days and is darting around all super cute and kitten-like. I forgot how much fun it can be to have a kitten... well fun and painful... I am nursing some pretty awesome scratches all over my toes where I was ambushed last night....

Catalinas

For some reason we have a tough time pre-planning camping trips in the Catalinas. Both times we have gone, it has been a decidedly last minute operation. Last Saturday at around 3 pm Patrick and I decided that it was too hot in Tucson, and that we hadn't gotten out in awhile so, what the heck, lets just go camping up on Mount Lemmon tonight. This was, of course, the one time Evie decided to take a 4.5 hour nap so we didn't even put foot in the car until well past 4 pm. Given the last-minuteness of the excursion we also had to make a stop a the store for burgers, charcoal, water and cheddar bunnies. Oh and wouldn't you know the car doesn't have enough gas...

Anyway, we rolled into the first campground deemed at a high enough elevation for suitable sleeping at about 5:30 and were told that it was full (I guess we weren't the only Tucsonans tired of the heat). We drove on to the next campground and found the first two loops totally full. Just as we were getting ready to find a picnic bench and just make it a dinner trip we found an open spot... and it was even a good one! We were watching my parent's dog so we tied both of them trees and I unloaded the car while Evie "helped" Patrick put up the tent. (Apparently ring-around-the-rosy is a very important step in putting together the tent in Evie's mind... who knew?)


By this point it was barely light out so we decided to start dinner. Luckily for us our "neighbors" had some lighter fluid for our charcoal, and Patrick got going on the turkey burgers... the going, I am afraid to say, was excruciatingly slow... so slow that Evie was asleep in the tent by the time dinner was "ready". Ahh nothing like very, very slow roasted burgers :)

In our rush to get out of the house I forgot that the last time we went camping Kita chewed a little hole in one of our tent zippers and subsequently the zipper broke. So we had the small problem of two dogs and no way to efficiently contain them in the tent for the night. Patrick ended up tying them together and then holding onto their leashes as he slept. Well, maybe slept isn't quite the right word for it... fitful rest might be more apropos. The dogs and Patrick may not have slept well but Evie was a champ! She was such a great camper (she even managed to poo in the woods, a feat many an adult cannot list as an accomplishment) and really didn't want to leave the woods. In fact the whole way down the mountain she half cried half moaned about how sad she was to leave "her Catalinas"