Illness. And dust. And spackle. And missing the grandparents. Oh, and pears!

It's been quite the week -- in no particular order, Schultz Grandparents (hereafter referred to as Ghana, as so named by Anika) were visiting for a long weekend; Anika had yet another bout of high fever-ness and general malaise; our kitchen is being torn apart; the outside looks like a war zone; I have contracted mastitis, of all things; and Reni has officially tried his first food.

And, oh em gee, it is almost Thanksgiving. Which means almost Anika's birthday and Christmas and all that. I am so.not.ready.

Ghana 1 took some amazing photos of the kids and we had a great visit to the ABQ Aquarium (for a land-locked city, not a bad aquarium, btw) as well as some instructive chats with local nursery folks to get an idea of what to put in our war-zone yard. There is spackle everywhere. Everywhere. Stucco is really messy. Guess I should have guessed that. They are putting tile around the inside border of the pool, and preparing the rocks and rubbled ground for cement, which should happen later this week. Armando is trying to manage all this, plus work, plus install the kitchen floors (it is SLOOOOWWW going and I really wish I could help, but since the kids both scream every time I go in there, it's a no-go), plus put up with me and my whining and the kids crying since we are all feeling not-quite-up-to-snuff. We are eating all fast-food all the time here. I hope it's not enough to alter Anika's taste buds forever, and while in the end it's a good thing the now-defunct dishwasher forced us to get new floors, right now I am not happy about it.

Speaking of, Reni tried his first (actually second -- have given him some tastes of a frozen strawberry bar, but not counting that) food while Ghana 1 and 2 were here. Check out this riveting video:

Anika gets things like skittles and ice cream and sprite when she's not feeling well. And also, apparently, rockin' hair 'dos:

I was outside documenting all the work going on when I couldn't resist this shot of the boys.