Pucker Up!

Hello! Hope you all had a Happy Valentine's Day!



Some Valentine's Day pictures showing off the necklaces Grammy Mary made for them:
I love this picture of Gabi (and Maya actually has a normal/not cheesy smile):

Gabi wore this outfit on Valentine's Day 2 years ago and Joe had her in the same upside down pose:

Gio & Marco came over last Friday night, so they decorated heart cookies for everyone around here. It was a fun time!

Our friends, Chris & Tracy, had a baby girl named Tessa. Gabi & Maya have really been into playing with babies lately, so it is a special treat for them when we see Tessa. She is a cutie!

I don't know how the swim goggles ended up in the dress-up box, but they are always good for a laugh. I bought Gabi a new swim suit the other day and she wants to wear it all the time! She had it on one day last week when it was a high of -10 or something ridiculous like that! Crazy girl!

Love bugs:

It feels like sledding & snowshoing have become regular pastimes around here. That's Joe making a snow angel after taking Maya for a ride down the hill :).

Maya really likes stacking things, puzzles, putting things through holes, etc. She has very good fine motor skills. She has been talking a little more lately and I even got her to say "I love you" tonight (fitting for Valentine's Day!) However, she is very stubborn and doesn't talk unless she is good and ready. :) Here she is stacking a set of blocks that my Grandma Dorothy and Grandpa Larry made for me when I was her age.

Finally, some scenic pictures from the ranch...the first is a Sun Dog from last week when it was really cold. Beautiful!

In other news, we have received all of the bids back from potential contractors and hope to select one to build our house by the end of this week. Sounds like it will get going in March sometime and take anywhere from 4-6 months to complete. It is an exciting process, but also full of hard decisions.

Joe is doing well with his new office. He worked with a great group of people in Golden, so I think he gets kind of lonesome working by himself. He does get fequent visits from friends and family, so that is good! He has been very busy lately on new projects around here and helping/fixing projects from the Golden office.

The girls and I have a routine down pretty good. On Mondays and Wednesdays, they play at the Y for an hour while I do my run. Thursdays is story/craft/treat time at the library, and Gabi has gymnastics on Friday. She loves it (it would be hard not to since it is a huge space filled with trampolines, zip lines, and all kinds of other fun gymnastics equipment.) Her teachers always comment on how strong (and tall) she is for her age. On Tuesdays we hang close to the house and I try to do a lot of baking to keep healthy breakfasts and snacks close at hand. I'm loving being home with my girls.

Lots of love to you all!

Joe, Tara, Gabi, & Maya

Settling In...

Hello! It is hard to believe we have been in Buffalo for a month already! We are starting to feel less like visitors and more like residents every day. I've really enjoyed living on the ranch -- it is so beautiful and peaceful. The girls have enjoyed seeing all of the wildlife, including all of the deer, bunnies, and partridge that they see out the windows.

I've enjoyed being home with the girls each day...even more than I thought I would. We find ourselves all kinds of things to do! We get outside at least once a day to go for a "nature walk" and have gone sledding a few times as well. Gabi thinks it is really cool that we can walk across the pond on the ice in the winter. Here are a few pics of our outdoor adventures.

The girls are doing great. Gabi and I have "preschool time" each morning where we work on writing letters, 3-letter words, and singing silly Spanish songs. She can almost write her name (those Bs are hard to write!) and can color in the lines very well now. She is left-handed, so it has been a little challenging for me to show her how to write and draw, but we are getting along fine. She has become more interested in learning Spanish lately, so I have ordered us up some workbooks to help. :)

Maya enjoys "preschool time" too! She loves to color and draw. She holds her pen like an adult and has very good control (even better than Gabi I think!) I can sit her up to the table with a box of crayons and paper and she is content for hours! Maya can identify all of her colors, animals, and most other objects in picture books. She still doesn't talk a whole lot, but her vocabulary is big when she feels like talking...which isn't often and never when other people are around! :) Her newest words are "gahgee" for Grammy and "papa". When you ask her to say cow, she says "mooo." She really likes to see Papa Dave's beef cattle.

Both girls still love to dance and I really like it that our CD player/Ipod is on way more than the TV! We still get in an episode of Sesame Street (Gabi's favorite) each day. Here is a picture of Maya playing dress-up. Her and Gabi are playing together a lot now, so it is fun to see them interact.

It has been fun to be around Joe's family so much! However, I think it makes me miss my family even more! Gabi is really good at talking on the phone with my parents, so that helps. Here is a picture of all of the cousins at Amanda & Greer's pizza party they held last Sunday. All the kids got to make their own personal pizza! :)
Surprisingly, I haven't gone crazy from boredom yet! When the girls are sleeping, I've kept myself busy with some sewing projects, working on getting the house plans/specifications ready to be sent out for bids from contractors, and reading. However, Facebook has sucked me in and I'm fighting desperately for it to not be a time waster of mine! My official training has started for the 50 mile trail race that I plan to run in June. I'm excited and have enjoyed my runs so far (did I mention how beautiful it is here?!) We have joined the YMCA as well. The girls can go play at the little daycare while I run ouside on the trail or on the treadmill when it is too cold (I hate running inside!) They love the Y and have made lots of friends there already, so it is good for all of us!

I'm sure once the house gets started, I will have plenty to do then as well.

Take care and thanks for checking in on us! Tara

Merry Christmas!

We hope that you all had a very Merry Christmas! Here are some pictures from all of the festivities we attended! It felt like we were opening presents all day and eating in between! :)

Here are the girls dressed up for Christmas Eve church:


Santa found us at our new house! He brought Gabi & Maya matching personalized reading chairs with a special book for each. They really like the chairs so far!

We ate breakfast at Joe's grandparents' house on Christmas morning:

Marco doing a headstand during gift opening:

After opening presents at Don & Phyllis's house, we ventured down to Dave & Joyce's house for even more presents!!

A new hairbow from Great-Grandma Fern:

Greer & Marco with his new penguin pillow pet:

Gabi received a huge dollhouse from Grammy & Papa! She was super excited about it and after Joe spent 3 hours putting it together during her nap time, she loves it even more than expected!

Papa Dave sharing some whoppers:

We had Christmas dinner at Amanda & Greer's house in the afternoon. Here are all of the cousins by the tree! This was a hard picture to get!

The dinner was outstanding and the company even better! All of the kids had a great time as well.

It was fun to be surrounded by family! They have made us feel very welcome in our new home and we have loved every minute of being here so far. We went for a long walk today and saw lots of wildlife, including a bald eagle, lots of antelope, deer, a huge jackrabbit, and a hawk. Beautiful place.

Merry Christmas to all! Joe, Tara, Gabi, & Maya

Christmas Eve Snowshoeing & Sledding

Season's Greetings! We took the girls up to Pole Creek this morning to go snowshoeing. Maya got to ride in the backpack and Gabi hiked with us and rode on our runner sled when she got tired. Gabi especially loved riding the sled down the hills!

Gabi chasing Jackson through the trees!

Jackson loved our snowshoe adventure as well! Joe and I loved that we only saw one other family out skiing. If this had been Colorado on a day as nice as this, we would have been one of 100 families on the trail! It was a beautiful day in "God's Country."

We are getting settled in. I will write about our move soon at www.wyomingishome.blogspot.com very soon. So far so good! The girls are getting excited for Santa to come tonight and of course all of the present opening that will commence shortly. :)

Have a very Merry Christmas!!
Love,
Joe, Tara, Gabi, & Maya

Thanksgiving

Hello Everyone! We hope that you all had a wonderful Thanksgiving! We made the long journey to Iowa for the week, but it was a great time and well worth the trip! We picked up my Grandma Dot in Lincoln and took her with us. The girls had so much fun playing with Grammy Mary and Papa Gary! They fed us well and it was nice to just relax and hang out with the family. Here are some pictures from our stay.

Grandma Dot made turkeys and pilgrim hats out of candy and cookies. Gabi thought they were pretty cool!


We had an organic, pasturized goose from Grant Family Farms instead of the usual thanksgiving turkey. It was very festive, but didn't taste that great. It was fun to try something new anyways. Joe is always the bird carver in the family. :) My mom made all kinds of tasty other things to go with our Thanksgiving goose!


Papa Gary bought tickets for us to go see Disney On Ice. The girls LOVED it! Our seats were outstanding and Gabi was glued to the skaters the entire time. She kept flashing me smiles of excitement! Her favorite was Tinkerbell. The rest of us enjoyed it as well!

Pumba has been a long time favorite character of mine and he was the best costume of the night! It brought back lots of memories from middle/high school of my best friend, Susie, and I and our love of the Lion King.


We celebrated Christmas while we were there since we won't be seeing my family for Christmas this year. Of course we had to get the 4 generations picture! My mom bought the girls these matching outfits...aren't they cute!? Before we opened presents, we went to Mass where the girls were waving at and trying to get Papa Gary's attention while he was playing guitar and singing. It was pretty funny!

My mom bought the girls pillowpets, only these are pillowpets on steroids...they're HUGE! Maya thought her bumblebee was so fun! She hauls that thing around with her everywhere. Gabi received a ladybug. They are very cute and now take up half of the girls' beds while they sleep at night.

Maya LOVES books and has a great time reading to herself...out loud. It is quite comical and I need to figure out how to put videos from my new camera on this blog so you can see for yourself. She is such a silly one...wonder where she gets it...?

Thanks Mom and Dad for hosting us...we had a great time! My dad is having knee replacement surgery on December 7th, so please keep him in your thoughts and prayers. I'm sure all will go well and he'll be back to skiing black diamonds in no time! ;-)

In other news, we are busy getting ready for the big move...less than three weeks away now. Joe raked the leaves for probably the last time, so we had to get some pictures of the girls "helping" him out. We will definitely miss our big maple tree.

Our house is "under contract," but we're trying not to get our hopes up yet. We have had a contract fall through before, so I guess nothing is for certain until they sign on the bottom line at the closing on 12/29. We are getting excited for our move, but are very nervous and overwhelmed with everything, especially saying good-bye to everyone. In addition to the moving to-do list, we have our Christmas parties and our Going Away party to look forward to in the next couple of weeks. They will be fun, but kinda sad as well.

Thanks for checking in on us!

Until next time...
Joe, Tara, Gabi, & Maya