ACS in Indianapolis 2013!

When the American Chemical Society announced that they would be holding the Fall 2013 meeting in Indianapolis, all of my chemistry friends groaned. Who wants to go to Indiana? Boston, Washington, Seattle, San Diego, New Orleans -- these all sound like great vacation places, but Indianapolis isn't exactly at the top of most people's must-visit list. I, however, cheered and immediately started making plans to present my research at the meeting. The ACS meeting was a great excuse to visit my family -- or, having family in Indianapolis was a great reason to attend the ACS meeting. Either way, I decided to go, and to take the kids as well.

Our trip began with a drive to Denver so that Dale could compete in a trail run in Colorado, and Dale continued on to Ouray/Telluride for the Imogene Pass Trail Run while I flew from Denver to Indianapolis with the girls (without Dale!). I was a little bit nervous about flying with the girls by myself -- after all, I had to lug two car seats (plus a carry-on) through the airport with me, I had two recently-potty-trained two-year-olds who LOVED to visit new toilets, and the four of us couldn't all sit in one row, so I had to put Adelaida across the aisle from me next to some strangers. Luck was with me the whole way, though. First, I gave myself plenty of time at the airport so I wouldn't be rushed, and had the girls hold onto a rope so that they would stay near me. We ended up in the security line next to a very nice couple -- the woman was a retired elementary school music teacher and they were going to Indiana also! They helped me through security and walked (slowly!) with us through the airport to our gate, then even watched our luggage while I took the girls to the toilet in the terminal. I was feeling pretty good about my luck at that point, but that all paled in comparison to what happened next. While I walked the girls back to the gate from the bathroom, I saw someone who looked suspiciously like my Aunt Carol walking toward me. And right next to her were Aunt Debbie and Aunt Bobbi! I approached them and found out that they were flying to Indiana also, and were on the same flight with me! I immediately went from a lone mother flying with three young kids to a group of four adults and three young kids -- a much more manageable ratio! Debbie, Carol, and Bobbi helped me get the girls onto the plane, sat next to Adelaida on the plane, and helped us disembark and gather our luggage. I'm sure I could have done it without them, but their presence made my trip infinitely easier!

We arrived safely in Indiana and started the conference/vacation. I gave two talks (both of which went very well), met up with chemistry friends from high school and college, and attended several very interesting presentations. It was great for me to see what others are doing and have a chance to hear responses to the research I'm doing! One of the best things about the ACS conferences is that they have free day care for kids of conference participants. I took the girls to the ACS daycare two days, and they loved it! They did crafts, played games, watched movies, and even had meals provided at the conference. It is a great conference benefit for parents.

When the girls weren't at the conference day care, they stayed with Mom and Mikel, with a little help from GG and Auntie Rachel. With Simon and Anderson there too, it was a very full house!

The weekend after the conference ended was my dad's retirement party, so we stayed for the weekend and Dale joined us in Indiana for the retirement party. It was a great opportunity to visit with family, celebrate Dad's career, and of course take a hay ride. I'm not sure who enjoyed the hay ride more, my dad or the kids!

Although I did take my camera on this trip, I really didn't take many pictures. Here is one of the four "big" cousins eating suckers at Mom and Mikel's apartment.

Carving Pumpkins

Dale joined the girls and me for our annual pumpkin patch outing this year, which was, of course, super fun. However, Dale and I have different ideas on the "perfect" pumpkin, and rather than trying to convince the girls to get the smallest pumpkins they could find (so I could easily carry three pumpkins around all morning), he actually sought out nice, large, round pumpkins for the girls. I made Dale carry the pumpkins while the girls played on the fort, went down the giant slides, looked at the animals, visited the bunny colony, and generally enjoyed the pumpkin patch. The pumpkins sat at home for a few days, and then Dale bought a pumpkin carving kit and the girls were excited to help him carve their pumpkins!

Dale scoops out Cordelia's pumpkin while she watches


Adelaida and Estella proudly show off their pumpkins


The pumpkin-carving set came with a book of stencils, which made cutting cool designs easy!


Adelaida uses the detail knife to help her daddy cut the pumpkin


Estella admires her cat pumpkin


Cordelia poses with her ghost pumpkin


A ghost, a cat, and another ghost. These pumpkins look pretty good!

Happy Halloween from the Parkes girls!

Halloween is always a fun time with kids, and this year was no exception. When asked what they wanted to be for Halloween, all three girls immediately replied that they wanted to be princesses. (Or more accurately, Adelaida said she wanted to be a princess, Estella wanted to be whatever Adelaida was going to be, and Cordelia didn't want to be left out.) So, we had three little princesses this year! As usual, they had several opportunities to wear their costumes: a Halloween party at school, a Halloween party with their friends, a Halloween-themed birthday party, and finally trick-or-treating on Halloween night. The dresses were a little more torn on the last night than they were for the first party, but the girls didn't mind!

Here are some pictures of the girls all dressed up.

Princess Cordelia


Princess Estella


Princess Adelaida


This pictures is of the Estella and Cordelia trick-or-treating at "Halloween Village," an annual MOMS Club tradition. The "houses" are made from large appliance boxes, painted to look like houses, with the dads crouching inside and passing out candy. The kids love it every single year!


Here are Cordelia, Adelaida, and Estella all dressed up on Halloween night, with their custom candy bags! This was their first trick-or-treating experience, and  I think it is safe to say that they enjoyed it!

Future artists

On rainy, bitterly cold, or otherwise boring stay-inside days, the girls start to get cabin fever after about two hours. They occupy themselves nicely for the first hour, drawing pictures, building with legos, playing school, going on a bear hunt, -- and then they start to bicker over toys and complain that there is nothing to do. I spend the second hour responding to "my sister called me a name" and "my sister won't share the toy with me" and "my sister won't play this game with me." In situations like this, I tape a large sheet of butcher paper over their little table, replace their regular shirts with painting shirts, and pour some paints in an old egg carton. Voila! Happy, occupied kids for at least the next hour!

Here are some pictures of the girls painting one such day earlier this month.

We chose Broncos colors for this particular painting party.


Adelaida paints very nice pictures -- usually of our family.


Cordelia gets huge globs of paint on her paintbrush and paints one stroke on the paper, then goes back to the paint to refill her paintbrush. Oh, and she usually leans over the table to get more paint, which is why the painting shirts come in so handy!


Ordinarily Estella paints quite nicely on the paper, but for some reason this day she decided to paint her hand instead.


Painting is serious business.


Eventually the paper is covered, the paint tray is empty, and it is time to move on to the next activity!

Christmas 2012

After a series of relatively recent blog posts, here's one I should have written several months ago. At this point, my goal is to post things to the blog no more than one year after they happen. So really, I'm doing this post two months early! (... well, kind of.)

Merry Christmas! Santa came to visit and took pictures with all of the families. The kids were squirmy, but we took one picture with all of us facing the camera.


Before I show any more pictures, I should really back up and start at the beginning: the airplane trip from Albuquerque to Indianapolis. Here was our plan: leave Albuquerque around 3pm, fly to Denver, catch a connection to Indianapolis, arriving in Indy around 10pm, on United. Here's what really happened: we left Albuquerque as scheduled and got into Denver around 4pm. Our flight out of Denver was delayed ... and delayed again ... and finally canceled. United gave us two options: fly to Baltimore and then on to Indianapolis the next morning, or try to fly from Denver to Indianapolis the next evening (but that flight was overbooked so we might not get on it). We chose the Baltimore route, only to have that flight delayed by two hours. The net result was the we spent six hours in the Denver airport with three kids (a 4-year-old and two 17-month-olds), then got on an airplane at 10pm and flew to Baltimore. We arrived in Baltimore at 2:30am, and because our flight to Indy was scheduled to depart at 6am, our layover wasn't long enough to qualify us for a free hotel. So, we spent the night in the Baltimore airport -- again, with a 4-year-old and two 17-month-olds. We found an empty gate and tried to get the girls to sleep, but it was futile -- they spent the night running around the airport while Dale and I fought to keep our eyes open. At 5:30, we moved to our departure gate ... only to learn that the flight from Baltimore to Indianapolis was going to be delayed three hours! We finally left Baltimore at 9am, arrived in Indy at 11, and all five of us took nice long naps.

OK, back to the fun part of our vacation.

Adelaida, Estella, Simon, and Cordelia sitting on the dining room window sill.


Estella, Adelaida, and Cordelia playing the piano in their adorable matching dresses.


Annabelle and Adelaida really bonded!


Cordelia became very attached to this John Deere hat and wore it every chance she got.


Keoni is such a cutie!


Adelaida and Estella became very attached to their Uncle BJ!


Adelaida loving on Papaw


Amani had no fear -- she was actually eager to talk to Santa, whereas all the other kids were a little bit hesitant to approach Santa.


By the way, our flight home was uneventful, on Southwest! :)

Family Pictures 2013

One late July morning, Dale and I skipped work, dressed the girls in their most adorable summer dresses, and took them to the park to play. The photographer we met there took a couple hundred pictures of the girls playing, and they turned out great! The best part was that it didn't feel like a regular (boring) photo shoot -- no posing for pictures, no "say cheese" or "everyone look over here." The photographer just took pictures of the girls while they were playing and having fun. Here are some of my favorite pictures from that photo session.

Sweet Cordelia


This is my absolute favorite picture of all three girls together. Dale is on the other side of the seesaw, and Estella can't take her eyes off her daddy!


Cordelia, Estella, and Adelaida playing "trains" on the slide. They do this on our slide at home all the time too.


Cordelia, Adelaida, and Estella on the bridge.


Loving sisters! Estella and Cordelia love each other so much. I just love to see them hug like this!


There's nothing quite as funny as riding on daddy's shoulders! I'm not sure how Cordelia's dress ended up covering Dale's head, but it is cute!


A lovely picture of Adelaida. She looks so mature in this photo, it is hard to believe she is just four years old!


I think this is my favorite picture of the whole family

Ring around the rosie!

Somehow Dale ended up with Adelaida on his shoulders and Estella holding on to his back for dear life. I think he was having as much fun as the girls were!


My favorite picture of the day: Adelaida smiling and smelling a dandelion!


Estella just can't keep her tongue in her mouth!


Another photo of the whole family. Adelaida, Dale, Estella, me, and Cordelia.


I was so happy with the way the photos turned out. Thank you Kira, for taking great pictures while the girls played and had fun!

Birthday party for our two-year-olds

We celebrated Estella's and Cordelia's birthday this year with a party! (It was mostly just a good excuse to invite some friends over for the evening, but we had cupcakes and everything, so it was a real birthday party.)

The girls loved being the center of attention, and did a great job of keeping up with the "big kids" -- most of the kids there were Adelaida's age, but Cordelia and Estella followed them around and played with them the entire party.

Here are some pictures:

We lined all the kids up on the grass for cupcakes, and let Estella and Cordelia sit in front of the other kids.


Cordelia and Estella, the happy birthday girls


Adelaida celebrating her little sisters with a cupcake



A little bit of icing!

Balloon Fiesta 2013

We were lucky enough to have family visiting for both weekends of Balloon Fiesta this year! Charlotte (Mamaw) and Aunt Karen were here for the first weekend and beginning of the week, and Richard and Laura brought Elizabeth, Sarah, and Benjamin for the second weekend. We generally try to go to Balloon Fiesta once each year, and this year we had good reason to go twice!

Here are some pictures from Balloon Fiesta 2013.

We rented a wagon for the girls to ride in, and it worked very well -- for about the first three minutes. Then the girls remembered that they were cold, tired, and hungry, and attitudes went downhill from there pretty quickly! Oh well, live and learn. (Cordelia, Estella, and Adelaida)


Cordelia, Estella, and Adelaida in the wagon, with Mamaw and Aunt Karen standing behind them.


The first balloon


Estella is happy!


Balloons in the air just after sunrise


Cordelia is happy on Dale's shoulders, despite the fact that her hat slipped over her eyes!


Adelaida on Dale's shoulders (about half an hour before she decided that she didn't want to walk, she didn't want to ride in the wagon, she didn't want anyone to carry her, and she didn't want to stay where she was; a pretty major breakdown ensued).


Estella, Cordelia, and Adelaida with me, with balloons inflating in the background


The weather was so perfect that most of the special shapes balloons went up, which is something that doesn't happen very often! This hummingbird was one of my favorites, and one that I haven't seen before.


A beautiful day for a mass ascension!