Merry Christmas

2011

When nature calls

This little man stood with his boots at the door demanding that we go outside. Neither of us grown ups were particularly keen on layering on the winter gear and tromping into the woods but we were all a little stir crazy. 

Turned out to be a great idea.

it's going to be a white Christmas for us

Lights!

Tree lightings make me happy. 

Baby bejos learning new words..."ites"...makes me smile

Rerun

I know, I know....how many times can I blog about tamale making without losing a few loyal readers.

I'd promise that this would be the last time, but I doubt that I can pinky swear on that. 

This time it was very different, it wasn't at my house.

Baby bejos golfed while we wrapped tamales

around the yard

 yes, we have snow in Arizona

Fine Art

We took baby bejos to a local art exhibition this weekend. Brave, I know. Mostly mr. bejos and I took turns catching glimpses of the show while the other chased the wild toddler, trying to avoid major catastrophes. Mostly he loved the free range of the empty stage area.

Leon's Place

A few weeks ago mr. bejos and Cooper went off trail in the woods near our home in search of oak for the winter season. What they found instead was much, much more interesting.
Leon's Place.

It has turned into a topic of discussion that extends beyond our household. Who is Leon? Man or child? Shall we leave a note for Leon? Solutions ranged from leaving notes on paper, or spelled out with the nails in Leon stash, or quietly stalking the compound.

Last week mr. bejos, Cooper and I returned to Leon's place. I guess we have decided to quietly stalk the compound. Like a pair of amateur sleuths we tromped into the forest in search of Leon's place.

 can you see mr bejos just inside the fort?

 The lifejacket(?!) has the name Leon penned on the front, thus "Leon's place"

 eek!

 

 our not-so-inconspicuous tracks....

Nap date

Mr bejos and I are, or at least used to be, hikers. With baby bejos in tow these days we rarely get more than 1/4 mile - and that is absolutely no exaggeration - since baby bejos has to walk on his own two feet and he rarely follows the path. In general, I love that he does not follow the designated path, but when I want to clock some serious miles in the woods I just want him to fall into line.
 *sigh*
 This weekend we took advantage of a friend's offer to supervise naptime while mr. bejos and I sneaked off for a quick hike in the woods. We hiked quickly, broke a sweat and covered over 3 miles! A serious accomplishment these days. Our intention was to snowshoe but there just wasn't enough snow to justify breaking them out.

Ornaments

A few of my favorites this year

Do you notice a theme?
all southwest
all outdoors

Tree

Our bush-like juniper tree made its way into the house displacing, surprisingly, just one chair. The tree seemed so small and unassuming in the woods, yet it dominates our living room with a serious sense of presence.

Hunting

As a child one of my very favorite Christmas memories is tree hunting with a group of family friends. We'd meet for breakfast at someone's house, gear up in some serious winter attire, and tromp out into the woods to find the perfect tree. There were maybe 8 adults and a dozen kids, a motley crew for sure. I'll see if I can't get mama and papa bejos to dig up a picture of one of those years....

We decided to start a tree hunting tradition of our own this year. With a tree cutting permit in hand we hosted breakfast and drove down south for a somewhat snowy and very muddy expedition.

Funny how tiny a tree looks in the wild, and how HUGE it seems in the house.

More to come this week