Fiesta de los Globos

 Balloon Fiesta! I got a little choked up this year when I realized that this is Eliana's first, and only for a long time, Balloon Fiesta.  Next year Joaquin will be in school so we probably won't be able to come down for it.  How do you grow up without the Balloon Fiesta?  Do you come out warped or something? Fortunately despite some bad weather we had a good one.  Several days saw balloons landing in our neighborhood, one on Sunday so Joaquin got to see them.  Friday night the glow didn't go because of wind, but since parking and admitting were thus free, we went and watched the fireworks from close up.  Joaquin and Daniel bought a little shooting LED-thingy and had a great time watching it shoot into the air.  Eliana set a record as the most relaxed baby about fireworks.  She enjoyed them at first, calmly watching the sky explode into fiery bits and then decided to go to sleep.  (This from a baby who wakes up when Joaquin plays with Legos)  The next morning was COLD but the only morning we could go that had a good chance at lift-off.  We bundled the kids up ridiculously (here's Eliana as the world's cutest sausage.  She had some underthings, a sleeper, a cute sweater jumper and a fuzzy lined sweatshirt. Plus she got to snuggle up next to Mommy in the sling.)  Fortunately there were a lot of people there so we just warmed up by wandering through the crowds.  We had a great time as usual playing with the balloons and then Joaquin got to play inside a giant bubble.  Basically they fill up these giant plastic bubbles with air and a small child and let them loose on a pool of water.  Joaquin bobbled around and bounced his bubble and apparently it was great fun.  Show the child hundreds of giant hot air filled balloons floating through the sky and all he wants to do is bob around in a shallow pool.  Maybe he's a little blase about this event.  Eliana had fun watching the flying balloons, even saying, "ba, ba, ba" at them.  Then she decided to (you guessed it) go to sleep.  I hadn't realized the sling was still so soporific for her.  A few minutes at the chainsaw cutting contest and an almost purchased horse head carving later and our last (for a few years at least) Balloon Fiesta was over.  

Bañera Grande

 Now we're big enough to use the real tub! It's very exciting; Eliana loves being able reach the faucet especially.  She's not terribly afraid of water, so she splashes happily while the faucet is on and crawls around the tub when it's done.  She's even pulling herself up to her knees using the tub edge.  Eek, all of a sudden she's growing up too fast!

Recreo

Nowadays the best moments and the best photographs for me are of my kiddoes playing together.  Eliana loves Joaquin's room and now that she can crawl she can get there whenever she's down on the ground.  (Yeah, in a week she went from slowly crawling a few feet, to prowling around the house.)  This would be fine, but sometimes Joaquin's room has some dangerous stuff  (for babies anyway) on the floor.  So if they're playing around in there I usually try to watch. On this day they were super cute, playing tug-of-war with some used up glow sticks (Eliana loves these for some reasons) and giggling hysterically.  Joaquin was being quite nice to his little, little sister and she loves anytime he's paying attention to her.  Still I got a little worried when Joaquin crawled under his blanket and started being a blanket monster.  I mean, Eliana is really little and easily scared.  But apparently she's not easily fooled.  She just laughed and took that monster one, poking it wildly with her spear/glowstick.  A little sister's gotta be tough, ya know?

Balluminaria

 Joaquin's school has a cute little event to celebrate the Balloon Fiesta.  All the students decorate a paper bag with a balloon and then they set them out around the field and playground as luminarias.  They call it Balluminaria (I have a hard time saying that for some reason).  There's hot dogs and chips and a couple of balloon gondolas shooting propane flames into the air - fun for the whole family!  Joaquin was very proud of his balluminaria and we got a chance to meet some of the kids in his class.   I love the community this school tries to make.

Frambuesas

Grandma listens to all of the news, even the special interest stuff so she found out about Salman Ranch where you can pick your own raspberries.  Even though it was north of Las Vegas, therefore over two hours away, we decided it sounded like fun.  Joaquin was very excited although he persisted in saying we were going to pick strawberries (despite repeated corrections). Eliana bore with the drive quite well, only a few fits.  It was beautiful! They had these pretty gardens around some ruined adobe walls.  We played around them while waiting for Grandma and Grandpa to meet us.  Joaquin found a cool bug, here he's showing it to Eliana.  Then we went and picked raspberries.  Surprisingly labor intensive, but fun when you only have to do it voluntarily. Joaquin, Grandpa and Daniel picked conscientiously and we ended up with 4 1/2 lbs of raspberries! (And that's just for our family, my parents have their own.)  Here's some photographic evidence of Joaquin's industry and the fact that some of the raspberries he picked did not end up in the bin.  We finished our raspberry binge with dinner in Santa Fe on the plaza.  Eliana ate calabacitas happily, but cried most of the way home from there.  Other than that it was a wonderful day.

Que Linda

 I'm not a good photographer, but some days just make you want to take photos.  Eliana was so cute and happy playing and then I noticed her pajamas and toys matched. It's like we planned it, but no, happy accident.  These funny, lopsided, crinkly faces are her happy, busy faces.

Gateando

And we have a crawler! As of 9/28/12 Eliana is officially mobile! This particular video is actually her first real crawling moment, I noticed she was looking like she was about to crawl and called for a camera, and magic happened.  So here it is, Eliana's first forward crawl.  She's been doing it a lot since then, although never really farther than two feet.  Still, forward motion yee-haw!