dr. slumlord

phase 1

2012-01-04T14:39:00.001-07:00

So, before I go back to last summer and write down what we did before it gets lost forever in the abyss of my mind, I thought I'd do a marking for posterity of the first project that Roger and I are actually working on FOR OURSELVES! Here is what the front of our house looked like BEFORE the magic started to happen.

We took out the brick wall in front of the house with a minimum of effort. A little air hammer and some elbow grease and the bricks popped right off. Taking apart brick work doesn't seem so hard after all . . .
We found some pretty huge wasp nests tucked away in there.

Here is what the basement looked like right after the tenants moved out. Please enjoy that mammoth stone non-functional fireplace while you can, because it's not going to be around much longer! Please notice the kitchen sink in the middle of the island. In case you've assumed that it drained directly below, you'd be wrong. Nastiest drainage pipe with more 90 degree bends EVER.

Christmas came early for Alex. Hello excavator, good bye tiny windows.

And hello mud.

Best work crew ever. Just think of what they'll be able to accomplish when I don't have to watch them all the time to make sure they're not going to hit each other in the head with their hammers! They're all great at taking the nails out of the walls, and Max is a pro at removing screws with the cordless drill. They don't each have their own tools yet . . . but they're earning them quickly!

activities

2011-12-24T06:00:00.000-07:00

Here are some of our favorite activities this month, excluding all the excavating and demolition, which of course are in a class unto themselves.

Opa's Christmas concert with the Colorado Mormon Chorale 12/2 got us off to a great start this year. They actually performed up in Longmont this year, so we didn't even have to drive far, making it much easier for us to be on time and not miss anything! The choir did a great job, and the Stake Center was so pretty.

Go see The Velveteen Rabbit at BDT. Really cute show. Even cuter baby afterwards at Red Robbing for lunch.

Cutting out snowflakes -from paper and doilies - was such a big hit we revisited it multiple times.

Christmas glitter nails - Katie went for alternating red and white on her fingers, and white and gold on her toes. Max went for green toes, and Alex declined, as he was too busy driving the train.

Train show in Longmont - not as big as the one in Denver, but still really good this year. Added bonus was setting up the Circus Train (electric O-gauge model steam train) and decorating it immediately with various nativity sets. When Roger's old train set arrived from Grandmother and Granddad, various nativity figures quickly made it to the flat bed cars for immediate transport.

Gingerbread houses! Alex made . . . a steam train, Katie made the station, and Max went for a regular house. The writing on the roof of Katie's is 'Cris' and 'Mis.'

The kids all had cute holiday programs at school. It's fun to see how much the classes change as you go up just one year in age.

Note to Roger: Max is not the shortest kid in his class, even though he is the youngest.

Note to Kat: please learn how to take pictures in focus!

Katie's class decorated mini-gingerbread houses after the singing program. This was my first experience with glue-gun-on-milk-carton graham cracker gingerbread houses. I'm still a bigger fan of the original, but there was no way I was going to make 30 'real' gingerbread houses. Another note to Kat: need more graham crackers and frosting for 30 houses!

Making beaded snowflake ornaments - and whatever else we come up with.

Movie night - always a hit with everyone. This one also got a repeat or two throughout the month.

Sleep over at Oma's house - this became plural after the main breaker blew. Original fears of a new panel were put to rest when Roger figured out how to fix our antique main circuit breaker. He then discovered that only half of the panel worked - the CITY gets to come and fix their part of the adventure now, as we only have power coming IN to half of the panel. (Playing electrician was NOT on Roger's list of fun activities, but he was doing cartwheels when he figured out the problems!)

Hot chocolate party. The kids cut out the extra marshmallows from candy making into fun shapes.

Decorate sugar cookies

Make candy - FINALLY Katie is messier than me (her entire jaw bone was covered with chocolate).

Make Christmas cards - I'm so happy my kids like to play with paper and coloring!

Make deliveries -we're still trying to get to our best friends and to the fire station.

Camp out in the basement - this will require more sweeping

Zoo lights will be happening after Christmas - it just got too cold!

Hammond's Candy factory tour: TOTALLY great this year! The factory was in full production mode, so we could see them making lots of different kinds of candy, and all the packaging and other equipment going at full speed. And more exciting, KATIE LOST HER FIRST TOOTH WHILE WE WERE THERE! She pulled it out all by herself. I am trying to not freak out at the continual growth of my 'babies.'

Today (12/22) we woke up to THIS, so 'Have a white Christmas' will make the list after all! MERRY CHRISTMAS!

decorations

2011-12-23T06:00:00.000-07:00

This year we finally graduated to a full-sized tree. It's fake, but it is taller than 3 ft. I'm glad we went with the shatter-proof ornaments - I'll save the glass for a less exciting year. The activity advent has moved to a home of it's own home. Highlights of some of our activities coming next . . .

The kids have really gotten into decorating their own rooms. The boys opted for snowflakes and ornaments on their window - they had a little help with the tree - and peppermint lights. The giant penguin snow globe complete with motion-detector-triggered music is a huge hit - thanks Oma. Katie made each of the kids' rooms a Christmas countdown sheet, so they can cross of the days until Christmas. She is also very particular about the other decorations in her room - she designed the 'HO HO HO' on her door, and has blue snowflake lighst and a miniature lighted Christmas tree in her room.

Also, she (well, I might have had some input there) decided that every door needed a wreath, so everybody picked out their ribbon and bows. I may need a tutorial from a more accomplished bow maker, but these worked for the under 5 crowd this year.

today

2011-12-22T09:35:00.002-07:00

In order to remind myself that most days in December have NOT been about blowing the main circuit breaker to the house and having the power steering pump go out on the car, here's a start at what we've been up to this month . . .

Where to begin? We'll start with mom's birthday. This year we went with 'experiences' for presents. We went to Disney on Ice: Toy Story. In lieu of pictures, of which I took NONE, here is a quote from Roger: 'Hey. That didn't totally stink!' It was actually really good.

On her actual birthday, we went down to the Botanic Gardens for the lights. This is one of my favorite things in December, but luckily mom likes Christmas lights and the cold too. :)

It is so great to be able to do all these fun things with our cousins/family. Everyone should just move back to CO!

train show in denver

2011-12-02T18:16:00.000-07:00

We went to the train show down in Denver last Saturday - a little 'Advent Calendar Activities Preview.' SO much fun! So many train layouts. Alex made sure that he and Max had their engineer hats for the occasion. He is still very much a train guy. He set up 'Team GeoTrax' around the base of the Christmas tree on his own. My days as track designer are definitely numbered.

SO many G-gauge trains - almost makes you want to switch gauges and join the Garden Train Club.
This layout needs to be replicated at our house. Rog liked the guy with a million relay switches - microcomputers in the track that automatically switched the track so the trains would change routes automatically and not crash into each other. Our switches are not quite that fancy . . . yet.

Alex could have stayed even longer. We only got him out of there with the promise of setting up the Circus Train with the new switches when we got home.

what our christmas photo SHOULD have looked like

2011-12-01T18:13:00.001-07:00

We went to the Denver Museum of Nature and Science to check out the dinosaurs. I thought the animatronic dinosaurs were AMAZING. I tried to talk Rog into driving down just to try for a family portrait with 'Sue' in the background, but no go so far. You'll just have to enjoy me feeding my niece to the beast. Hopefully it distracts from my crazy hair.

Alex was not a huge fan of the IMAX movie - 3D screaming T-Rexs don't seem to be his thing - but who doesn't love the 3D glasses?

happy halloween, or WE'RE BACK!

2011-11-19T00:32:00.001-07:00

Thanks to Julie for the little kick I needed to get back in action. Here are some pictures - A LOT - from Halloween. We had a ton of fun this year.

The week before Halloween we went to my first corn maze, with Uncle Tom, Aunt Margaret and our cousins! We found one of the 2 bridges, shared a funnel cake, and had dinner at Chili's around 10 pm. Here's how much Katie and Alex enjoyed dinner:

The following Wednesday we woke up to this:

Luckily we live in CO, and it all melted in time for Halloween. Alex is completely enamoured with bats these days. He cannot get enough. Oma did a great job on his costume.

Max decided to be a skeleton, sans the scary mask.

Katie was 'Princess Aurora's mother' for Halloween, 'because queen rhymes with Halloween.' I need to get a good picture of her in her dress. This shouldn't be too hard since she likes to hang out in her finery.

On Friday we had a Halloween party at Aunt Mag's house. SUCH a fun time! Eyeball cake, haunted gingerbread house, party favors, and a pinata. Besides hanging out with cousins. Impossible to beat!

Max might have had a little too much fun destroying the gingerbread house.

Everyone like swinging at the pinata. Kalle and his friend Billy survived the evening unscathed.

We went trick-or-treating at the 'trunk or treat,' and also for REAL! So much candy, but so much fun. The weather was perfect for Halloween, and then it snowed again the next day. Next year, we're going to hit the BOO at the Zoo, just to have one more costume-wearing opportunity.

reunion, anyone?

2011-08-27T23:59:00.003-06:00

When I find my camera cord, I will finally post pictures that prove that we did more than sit inside all summer, trying to hide from the heat. Until then, noodle on this, Reese . . .

About a year ago Pam nominated/appointed me to be President of the Reese Family Reunion Committee. Doesn't that sound fancy? Well, here's the plan.

Meet in Cedar City, UT sometime at the end of July/beginning of August for a long weekend - Something like arrive Friday am, leave Monday.

Why Cedar City, you ask? Well, there's a Shakespeare festival in Cedar City for the artsy among us. Zion's Park is about an hour away - and Cedar City claims to be 20 degrees COOLER. Vegas is a reasonable place to fly into and pop on over - I think about 3 hours. There's shopping in St. George. And it's about midway between CO and CA - our friends on the east coast and beyond will have to fly in anyway, so I tried to find a location drivable for approximately half.

Mag and I thought the KOA campground would be great for lodging - tent, cabin or RV sites are available in one spot, so everyone can decide how they want to sleep, but it will still be in one close area; playground and pool for playing; small store for everything we forget to bring. Check it out: http://koa.com/campgrounds/cedar-city/.

We'll figure out the food and lodging specifics as the time gets closer - like when it's actually 2012! - but for now I'd really like to nail down a date, so that everyone has time to plan accordingly. Please vote in the comments for your preferred weekend:

July 20-23 (we could celebrate some birthdays with this one, as well as potential for Pioneer Day festivities)

July 27-30

August 3-6 - (happy birthday Dad!)

So, what works best for you? We will pick the weekend that works the best for everyone. I figured if we did it now, an entire YEAR in advance, it might work. And no, I can't believe I'm planning something this far into the future either!

We're shooting for as many of the members of the immediate Randy Reese Family to attend, but I'm game for anyone else that wants to join in showing up as well.

summer fun

2011-06-11T22:47:00.013-06:00

June is off to a great start. We introduced Summer to the dog beach at the reservoir. She didn't mind the dogs too much, and she even favored us with her impression of Roger. And no one got burned!
We finally checked out the children's area of the Botanic Gardens and it is a blast! The amount of fun we had is inversely proportional to the difficulty of getting these 4 goofers to all look at the camera at the same time.

Katie and Summer thrilled all the Grandma's with their cuteness and matching sweaters. Alex was an owl for a while.

No one could get enough of the suspension bridge.

Alex the owl turned into BUGMAN for a while at the bottom, while Katie and Summer worked some dress up magic.

The HEATED river was probably everyone's favorite, although Alex really loved the real kid-sized shovels. Katie even changed out of her dress to dig in the dirt.

There are tons of things to climb upon or through, and then naturally leap off.

This little beauty - Baby ViVi - joins us on all our adventures; she's just not quite as mobile as all the other cousins yet. We love watching Summer be a big sister, and everyone loves to hold that little nugget Violet.

memorial day weekend

2011-05-30T12:09:00.001-06:00

Camping trip #2 for 2011. Memorial Day weekend, Roger took work off Thursday and Friday and we headed up the Poudre River Canyon along Hwy 14. We changed campsites every morning - driving approximately 1 mile between sites - and managed to find a spot each day even without reservations. Definitely spring camping - some rain, some wind, and the heater turned on a few times every night. I feel like a wimp sometimes that these little people think camping means sleeping in a 'house on wheels,' but then wake up and realize that if were tenting it, we would most likely just stay at home. There's still time for 'roughing it' when they're older!

Campsite #1 - Lower Narrows. We had a nice spot on the end, with our own little beach to do what we all like best: Roger harassed the fish and the kids threw rocks and dug in the sand. I scored the post of water carrier.

Katie likes to dress up for everything, including camping.

Campsite #2 - The Narrows. Roger did some more harassing, me and my friends did some exploring. There are some nice campsites at the top of a hill that you walk into from your car. There is also a lot to be said for 'roughing' it in the RV, so that in the morning when you're moving on to the next site it only takes 5 minutes to pack up and head out.

There was TONS of wood to play on - we did some balancing and jumping and found a log that made a great teeter totter. There's Max giving his version of 'thumbs up.' It was good to have something to climb around on to warm up - definitely springtime in the Rockies.

Alex had his first run in with a cactus on our first night. Luckily it didn't slow him down too much from hatching some games. The grabber thing we found the first night got some serious usage, from 'grabber attachment of an excavator' to oar to fire stick.

Campsite #3 - Dutch George. Pretty cold and rainy this day. Luckily there was a small boulder field to climb on rocks, and we made another teeter totter with a log. The folks next to us set up a bunch of tents with no rain flies. We couldn't figure out exactly what there plan was - especially as it was drizzling off and on all day. At night when it started to pour I really wondered how they were doing, but didn't get a chance to ask them in the morning as they had packed up and left!

We did our usual morning twinking, and talked about whether we should just call it early and head home or keep heading up the canyon and try out another site. We checked out a few campgrounds, had lunch in Rustic, and then decided we might as well camp one more night. SO glad we did!

Campsite #4 - Kelly Flats. Best campsite of the bunch - the return of the sun might have had something to do with it, but it also didn't hurt that we had an entire loop of campsites on the end all to ourselves . . .

Or that our fearless leader finally caught that elusive fish! It made a nice addition to dinner.

The kids had another nice afternoon of digging, hauling water, and throwing rocks. I played princess and sat by the river and sewed - in between water hauling duties. And it was finally warm enough for the popsicles! Seven was finally worn out and ready to rest.

Great trip - and now we have some fun campsites checked out for when you all come to visit!

a little less hillbilly

2011-05-28T12:55:00.000-06:00

We have now progressed from this 'chicken house' in the living room

to a bigger house - still in the living room (because we're fancy like that and the 'maid' likes to dust) to their official house OUTSIDE!

The girls are fat and happy, and increasingly difficult to catch! Now we just need to see some eggs!

rain rain rain

2011-05-26T10:57:00.000-06:00

It's been so cold this spring! It's the end of May and the lilacs are still blooming! We've only had popsicles ONE day . . .
played in the sprinklers/watered the plants ONE DAY . . . .

and showed off our muscles ONE DAY. And that was WEEKS ago!

best birthday ever!

2011-05-25T10:32:00.006-06:00

Around Christmas, Roger started hinting that he had a great gift idea for me. Then he said he decided to wait for my birthday. He started the serious hinting up again in April. From 20 questions, I learned that Part A was mineral, Part B was metal. There were 5 parts. The hint that I remember the most was 'it satisfies almost all your needs' (which include but are not limited to kat time, creating, learning something new, doing something a little uncommon and/or difficult). I asked him if it involved heat - thinking it might be a lamp work class, but he said it was something I have never done before, so that was out.

Closer to May he said that he was starting a new hobby, so he wanted to make sure that Tuesday nights were open. I still didn't catch on.

Sunday before the big day he continued the torture by asking some friends to ask me if I had figured out my birthday present yet. By this time I was thoroughly exasperated. Monday after dinner he gave me an envelope. The torture continued: there was a gift certificate inside with nothing but an address. The address led to this website: http://www.ambrosiaglassart.com/.

GLASS BLOWING CLASSES! I haven't thought about this little adventure for a few years. The arrival of my small friends put this one WAY on the back burner. Thanks to an incredible husband with a great memory and NO gift palsy this year I am playing with molten glass once a week. For 5 weeks . . . or maybe longer.

(Maybe what I really need is a photography class.) The first week's project was a 'worm' or ornament, and a paperweight. Just to get a feel for the glass and how to use some of the tools.

Week 2 was a tumbler - or vase in my case. Not pretty, but the amazing thing is that this baby made it into the annealing oven. At the second to last step, I set the blow pipe down too hard on the gate and the piece fell ONTO THE FLOOR! The lip totally caved in and started to close. The teacher jammed a wooden paddle inside to keep the sides from sealing to each other,
got my piece back on the punty, and saved it. INSANE!

Week 3 was a vase, spinning out the lip and then ruffling it. I talked my way into some color. SO FUN! This time I was a little chicken on the heat, so it took a second heat - courtesy of the teacher - to get it hot enough to spin out, but then I swung it to finish it. This one is has a bit of a lean, but we're just going to grind off the bottom a little and it shouldn't be noticeable.

Week 4's lesson was adding a 'bit' to the basic form - I made a green footed vase - currently in the annealing oven as we speak - because I really don't need any handled beer mugs. This vase went a little 'banana' on me, but it got straightened out. The lip ended up a little flatter on 2 sides than I'd like - next time turn more while swinging the pole. I'm not in love with the final shape but it was a good lesson. And yes, I do realize that it's only the 3rd piece I've blown.

After the first week, I was a little bugged. I assumed that glass classes would be like pottery class: teacher demonstrates the thing to be learned, students grab clay and go crazy for the next 3 hours. For glass class, there are 3-4 students and you each make one project. That's it. The first night after I made my paper weight in 30 minutes, I then watched for 2 hours while the other two ladies made their pieces.

I am not usually one for watching, and group projects were NEVER my forte in school. I don't think I ever got marked down for 'does NOT work well with others,' but it's definitely not something I seek out. Is this because I like to control everything? Maybe. :) I like team sports that are active, but not working in groups.

After the second class, and making something more involved, I've come around. Glass blowing is a group activity. For me, it's the team sport of art. It's very difficult - even for experienced gaffers - to be successful working alone. For beginners, it would be impossible to put a piece away alone. AND the watching is definitely not passive - or doesn't have to be. I've learned at least as much by watching what the others do than by actually handling the glass and pipe myself. This old dog CAN learn some new tricks! Who knew?!

birthday boy

2011-04-30T22:05:00.013-06:00

I can't believe this boy is 4 year old already! He is so much fun to have around - he loves trains; he loves construction vehicles; he loves digging; he loves to figure out how things work; he loves his sister; he loves his mom; he loves candy corn and gum drops and taking HUGE bites of whatever he's eating; he loves shenanigans when it's time to go to bed; he has the best voice and laugh; he LOVES tye dye (thank you Lizard); he loves his cat and bungee cords; he gives the best hugs.

We've been talking about the birthday cake for Alex for month - pretty much since Katie's birthday. I'm not ready to challenge Duff Goldman, but I am loving marshmallow fondant. And I'm looking for more reasons to experiment with edible paint. (There were left over pieces so he scored a 2nd cake - we had it for lunch.)

(The idea and instructions for the cake came from http://www.bettycrocker.com/recipes/fire-engine-cake/a4c6b0d2-2347-45f2-8327-8ab7e3b328c4)

Busy day for the big boy - we had friends come over for the day, and assembled the chicken coop and run. The chickens will soon be outside where they belong!

First BBQ of the year! Hooray for a boy who wanted hamburgers and fruit salad for dinner. He also picked out 'cheese puff balls' and CANNOT get enough of those neon balls of salt.

For his birthday adventure, we drove up to Idaho Springs on Saturday to the Phoenix Goldmine. I think the kids were more impressed with being able to hand feed the chipmunks before we even went in.

The mine tour was really cool. This might be the summer of mine tours! This mine has some large veins of gold still visible, and some old tools on hand to check out.

We all panned for gold afterwards - unfortunately, although we all rubbed the 'Lucky Bucket' inside, no one struck it rich.

For lunch we hit the Buffalo Restaurant in Idaho Springs. It's so nice that we have some family close by to join us on our adventures.

easter mania

2011-04-24T21:41:00.001-06:00

I think we've hit on a good Easter plan around here. Saturday we do the candy, so that Sunday we can focus on the Savior. And boy, was there candy!

Saturday we went to Oma's house for an egg hunt and Easter dinner. Katie was the most interested in finding eggs; Summer was the most interested in opening them. Kat was the most interested in hiding things inside of real eggs.

My friend Kari arranges an Easter Basket exchange every year, so I've been on the prowl for fun Easter ideas. I saw this idea on Not Martha. MUCH easier to do than the version of Kindereier I tried last year - also off of her site. I am a little obsessed with surprise eggs. And the insides matched the outsides - between jelly beans and M&Ms, this wasn't too hard to do. (Even Roger noticed that little touch, and that kid never notices when I color my hair!)

The week prior to Easter we had a sugar cookie decorating fest at Margaret's house. I did a few of them with royal frosting - not as delicious, but SO FUN. And still pretty delicious.

We were in charge of dessert on Saturday, so we tried the rainbow cake also found on Not Martha. Such a fun cake to do. And I'm trying to get over the fact that the rainbow did not work out - the colors were still fabulous. (Next time we'll bake it a little hotter.)

We also made cupcakes baked in egg shells (idea from Delicious Days via Not Martha, recipe from Cupcake Project), but forgot to take pictures. The kids plunked in chocolate eggs for the yolks - next time the batter needs to be a little more dense, so the 'yolks' don't sink to the bottom. SO YUMMY. And actually a great size for snacking.

Katie made some cute eggs, bunnies and baskets out of paper to decorate the living room with. It's nice to have a little partner in crafting.

blurry

2011-04-18T21:27:00.002-06:00

The line between kitchen implements and tools continues to get blurred in my house.

glenwood springs

2011-04-16T01:11:00.001-06:00

The first weekend in April we thawed out the RV and hit the road for our first trip of the year. Roger planned a great trip to Glenwood Springs. I had no idea there were so many fun things to do - I've only ever stopped there for rafting or as a pit stop on the way to UT. Keeping true to form, we left late and camped around 11 pm. Why break with tradition? Note to self: No more Alex sleeping up on the bunk. Alex + swaying bunk = motion sickness = trip to Target for more PJs. I guess it was a win for him after all.

Friday morning we hiked up the first .3 mi to Hanging Lake. ONE of us forgot the backpack for Max. Turns out we didn't need it - the kid is a mountain goat. We turned around when things got icy - it was also preventative, as we were outnumbered by kids who could potentially want to be carried down the mountain.

After lunch we went to the train museum, and then hit the hot springs. The train museum had an O-scale model train and a maintenance car to climb on, and was good for a nap. It also gave Rog a chance to practice his cliff-side parallel parking. The hot springs are enormous, and were ridiculously crowded. I don't even want to think of how packed they are in the summer. Pizza for dinner made for Roger's perfect day.

Saturday we took a gondola up the mountain to the Glenwood Cavern Adventure Park. SO FUN. And fun for Max too, once he got used to the bumps when the tram went over the poles.

The weather was gorgeous, and there were so many things to do. Katie got THIS close to trying the rock climbing wall - maybe next time. The boys could have spent the entire day in the sandbox 'fossil digging' area. Big surprise there.

The alpine slide was everybody's favorite. Max's face in the middle photo is his reaction as everyone else got to ride the slide but him. By the end of the day he finally got his chance.

The Speleobox - a wooden box maze simulating a cavern - was a hit with 2 out of 3 of our friends. Max got stuck 2 turns from the end, and started a chain reaction of inconsolable children. He finally let Katie lead him out - I tried to go in after him, but it was a little too tight for claustrophobic mom. Katie and Alex couldn't get enough of it.The backpack would have come in handy during the tour of the caverns. The cave is really really great - they are opening more spaces this summer - but poor Max was just too cooked when it was time for the tour. Miner Alex loved being in a cave.

Every night we seemed to camp right by the railroad tracks. This picture also shows the snow as it just started to fall Sunday morning. A few hours later, Vail Pass was closed and we got to hang out in West Vail for 6 hours. It could have been worse - we could have been stuck at the McDonald's with NO play land! It would have been better if I had listened to Roger and agreed to drive home Saturday night. SOMEONE didn't want to arrive home 4 hours later 1 am - even though that same SOMEONE would not have been driving - so instead we scored the 12 hour travel day instead.

super fancy

2011-04-15T00:41:00.000-06:00

Are things getting too relaxed around here? Alex took a nap on the dogs bed the other day.

We converted our play structure from the 'castle' to 'indoor chicken hutch,' which naturally is placed in the front corner of the living room. The girls will be big enough in a couple weeks to go outside - and hopefully the chicken coop kit will arrive when they're ready to move. After they move to their permanent condo, the maid will get to do some serious dusting to get all the dust kicked up from the crazy amount of scratching they do. Feeding them worms and bugs continues to be excellent entertainment.

They are all looking a little awkward these days as their adult feathers come in - except for french toast, who is still nice and fluffy. Max's chick is making a pretty good shot at being Queen of the house. I take them outside for an hour or two when it's warm, and so far they stay in whatever small area I originally place them. Yesterday, they would not leave the planter by the playhouse even with lots of encouragement. They are getting pretty fast, but so far I'm still able to catch them to bring them back to their palace in the living room.

tuesdays with summer

2011-04-14T00:23:00.000-06:00

We have been having a BLAST hanging out with Summer - and her parents - now that they live so close to us. A few highlights:

We went on an adventure to the Denver Museum of Nature and Science. Luckily, I really did my research well so our first trip there was during spring break for EVERYONE ON EARTH. It was way too busy to check out the Space Exploration area, but Alex is now completely in love with . . . miners. Note: when checking out videos of mines on Youtube, watch out for the BBC specials on Australian gold mines. The included footage of where the miners hang out after work is not really the part an almost 4 yr old is - or should be - interested in. We hit the zoo to show off the tigers to Summer, and it happened to be a day when they weren't on display. 2 for 2 here, folks, but the kids still had a good time hanging out together. The lorikeets are back out there, so spring is really here!

This past Tuesday we went to check out the tulips and other spring bulbs at the Denver Botanic Gardens. The kids liked taking all the different paths, watching the ducks, and hunting for turtles in the pond. There is currently a display of playhouses up, and there were a few really cool ones. The Mine Shaft was really cute; the caboose house was naturally Alex's favorite, but I think Roger should start working on a version of the Mesa Verdi house:

healthcare olympics

2011-04-13T00:19:00.003-06:00

Since the contest between the parents of who can rack up the most doctor visits is headed towards a close, I thought I'd post a couple of pictures of our contestants. Under that pile of grandkids, 5 weeks post surgery there are close of 50 lbs. less of Opa to love. Here's a shot of mom with all of her hair. She mentioned something about going for a haircut before she starts the radiation treatments, but I vote for just switching her part to the left to cover any possible thinness. Approximately 4 weeks to go, and these games will officially be over! I both participants are going to tie for gold.

hello spring!

2011-03-23T14:34:00.013-06:00

First trip to the reservoir. It was too chilly to swim, but it's nice to start getting outside on adventures again. This year we are pass #58 - go team! It's nice that everyone can carry themselves and some of their own stuff this year - no more loading up three kids and all our stuff on the stroller!

Our butterflies hatched! 4 of the 5 caterpillars hatched. It was fun to watch the metamorphosis from caterpillars of maybe 1 cm long to chrysalis to butterflies - the kids liked checking them out too.

AND . . . CHICKIES! Katie chose a Standard Sultan, currently named 'Yellow Fluff.' She plans on changing the name when the chicken gets older. Alex named his Blue Andalusian 'Chicka Chicka Boom Boom,' last name 'Will there be enough room.' Technically his chicken is CCBB2, since there was an unfortunate accident with the original chick and Alex trying to help him drink. We are now all much more careful. Max followed Alex's lead and named his Araucana chicken 'Chick Chicka Boom Boom,' as well. This little beauty lays green to blue eggs - I can't wait!

Roger and I felt a little left out, so we got our own chickies too. Mine is a Cuckoo Maran, who should produce dark chocolate brown eggs. If only the eggs were actually chocolate all the way through! Roger's is a Silver Laced Wyandotte, first name 'Big Money,' last name 'No Whammies!' The heat lamp produces a strange red light, but we're getting used to it. It's going to be fun to watch these guys grow and develop feathers and start giving us eggs. It is already a little weird to prepare chicken for dinner, however. Doesn't really seem nice to be eating our little brood's relatives.

end of an era

2011-02-12T12:47:00.001-07:00

The week after Katie's birthday I took down the crib. This crib has been up in our house since Katie was born. I guess it's only fitting it came down around her birthday.

Until we build a loft bed, the boys sleep together on the bottom bunk. I thought it might be bananas - and it sometimes is - but for the most part it works out better than when they slept apart. Alex really likes to have someone sleep with him, and Max has been a good 'mom substitute' in that department.

And now there's a LOT more room for building forts!

So far the only downside is that Summer has to sleep in a big bed when she comes over to hang out!

happy birthday katie!

2011-02-10T12:16:00.000-07:00

Katie is now 5!! She is now up to 9 favorite colors and has stated that she will no longer be distracted by her brothers at swimming lessons. Because, you know, she's FIVE!

We had a bunch of friends come over for a ladybug mania party. With a number of siblings included, the number of kids quickly escalated. It was a little insane, but a lot of fun. I was glad that Mag helped her choose a non-princess theme - not that we avoided it entirely. It was even more fun to have Mag and Summer out for the party.

We had a ladybug cake; everybody made ladybugs to play 'pin the ladybug on the flower; we played 'find the ladybugs with ladybugs hidden around the room; and there were ladybug cookies in the favor bags and for treats at preschool. And did I mention the ladybug confetti? It's possible we took the theme a little far, but it was a lot of fun.

Some of the things Katie loved: new dress-up of Belle - (idea courtesy of Katharine's Halloween costume a few years ago),

a second ladybug cake at Oma's house,

a rainbow skirt and sparkly shirt from Aunt Julie that she wears at LEAST once a week,

pink roller skates from the Reeses - Max is also a fan,

and a ladybug tea set from Oma and Opa that EVERYBODY loves to play with.

A great birthday weekend for a great girl! We're so glad to have her in our family.

fun with relatives

2011-02-02T11:47:00.003-07:00

The most fun we had over Christmas was with all our visitors! The cousins could not get enough of hugging - I hope Summer survived. Luckily she'll be living closer to us SOON so we can all get our fix more often! They were all hilarious dancing at Three Margaritas.

Aunt Julie and 'Uncle Murry' - a.k.a. Andrew - were also big favorites. Odds of us hopping on a plane to Australia are pretty low, so they'd better just come back and visit us again up north soon.

Here are a couple shots of kids get their snow fix when their moms are too lazy to dress them all up for the 5 minutes they'd last playing outside. The mini snowmen turned out much better than trying to make a large one would have, and the snow actually lasted a decent amount of time when I put the pans outside to cool first. Now to think of something to entertain them with today . . .

the rest of december

2011-02-02T11:24:00.007-07:00

Technically it's February, but it still FEELS like Christmas since we have a little snow and it's FREEZING (as in -6F outside today, or colder than it was most of the winter in Finland!) I figured we'd play catch up here.

Lots more craft projects to keep our friends off the streets - the boys actually liked making the reindeer.

Alex and Katie each had 'holiday' programs at preschool, but apparently I only took pictures at one. Alex was that kid in his own little world, doing the actions to his own rhythm. 'Jingle Bells' continues to be his song of the moment.

The train show pretty much sealed the deal for electric trains in the house this year. Roger tried to resist, but in the end the Circus Train was too much for him to say no: one car has an elephant that ducks down below a gate, another has two clowns that chase each other around a freight car, and the caboose is decorated with . . . TIGERS! The guy at the train store was pretty much horrified that the primary driver of this vintage train is 3.5 years old, but he hasn't seen this conductor in action. After the initial set up, the boys added a circus in one loop, Christmas tree decorations in the other, and Thomas in a loop around the outside. Train mania continues.

Katie made presents for her brothers again this year. The excavator shirt was Alex's favorite present. I have to admit that 4 is probably too early for doing a latchhook, but she pulled the hook for a number of rows by herself, and then read the graph and gave me the right colors to do for 50% of the tiger.

When Grandmother and Granddad were out visiting, the kids all picked out fabric for RV quilts. The are all completely in love with them!

I tried to make more useful presents this year, with limited success. Last year's quiet books get minimal use, although the hats and mittens were favorites. Alex's sweater -finished Christmas morning at 6 am - will probably fit him well next year. Max's sweater turned out cute and he will actually wear it - a win! I had grand plans to make Katie and Summer matching dresses, and luckily Oma had all her projects finished ahead of time because the pattern Katie picked out was RIDICULOUS. But at least it was also crazy cute. Next year maybe I'll start in August with my psycho plans!

the first half of december

2010-12-13T23:55:00.014-07:00

The activities are underway! This year, I wanted the advent calendars to have more doo-dads than candy - except for mine, which is mainly Lindt, because I'm me. Some favorites: Max loves the dinosaur key chain that growls, the blue koosh ball and his Snoopy socks; Katie likes everything pretty much equally, but has YET to show any interest in the glitter glue!; Alex likes the cars and the croaking frog key chain. Now they aren't even interested in the candy. I might have created a problem for myself.

We went to the Christmas lights at the Botanical Gardens. FREEZING cold, but so fun! I love Christmas lights! The warming hut had a little craft for the kids and 3 live birds with their handlers to talk about them.

I loved the lights so much, the next night I went to the lights at the Botanical Gardens downtown with some friends. SO GORGEOUS!

AND I got the coolest glasses ever. These pictures don't do them justice, but they turn the lights into snowflakes, snowmen and reindeer. The snowflakes are my favorites. We keep them in the car for when we're driving around at night. Best $4.50 I ever spent.

We did gingerbread houses with some friends this year. They all had such different decorating styles. Most of the candy did actually make it onto the houses - well, at least 50%. Meringue powder is my new favorite cooking item - much tighter frosting than the batch I made with actual egg whites.
This past weekend we went to 'Santa's Workshop' one night and the parade of lights the next. Who knew Longmont actually had live reindeer running around? Katie wanted to visit Santa - the boys wanted mom to come along. There were tons of craft tables set up in the gym of the Memorial Building: Katie wanted to do them all, and the boys opted mainly for playing with the blocks. To each his own.

Lots of our activities so far from the ornament advent calender have been craft - making bead ornaments of various shapes, glitter snowflakes, and glue trees. The hot chocolate party has become a daily request. I found peppermint candy-cane straws on our trip to Hammond's Candies.

We finger painted some wrapping paper to cover our packaging needs.

Now, with any luck, this week I might get some dipping done!

Thanksgiving stay-cation

2010-12-10T15:56:00.007-07:00

This Thanksgiving we WERE planning on meeting Roger's sister and family in Moab. And then Cynthia acted like a responsible adult and checked the weather. 22 degrees in the daytime made us rethink our plans. Instead of Moab, we ate an early Thanksgiving dinner and then checked in to the Holiday Inn half-way to Boulder for a night.

The perfect pool for our little friends! We spent at least 5 hours playing in the water.

We lived off of casadillas and cheese and crackers for the evening and any needed snacks. High class all the way.

We had 'Thanksgiving dinner' again with Oma and Opa on Saturday. Above is what Alex does/will be doing every minute we spend at Oma's house. He literally can run that train for HOURS.

We also drove down to Denver and took a tour of Hammond's Candies. FUN! Fun to see the old equipment, fun to watch them form the huge block of candy that would turn into candy canes. Fun for the kids to score big suckers. This place needs to become a tradition, although I need to control myself better in the candy store.

yellowstone II

2010-11-25T02:43:00.000-07:00

We spent Thursday night in Utah at Cynthia's house. The next day we met up with Kristin and her small friends and went to the Dinosaur Museum at Thanksgiving Point, which was EXCELLENT. So much fun!

The skeleton exhibits were amazing, but the interactive stuff for the kids was even better. They created their own dinosaur out of giant stuffed parts; there were plenty of creations to touch; they built dams and rivers in the 'flood area;' and they could dig for dinosaur bones in the huge sandboxes near the end. Oh - and they had fun with their cousins. :)

Friday evening was Grandma Kathy's birthday party. Man, there are a lot of Reeses and their derivatives! I was too tired to be very social and neglected to even get a picture of the birthday girl. Luckily my other family members aren't so socially inept and so I got to at least hear second hand what everyone is up to.

Saturday we went to the SLC Zoo - thank you Jordan - and Opa. And thank you Lizard for all the tie dye.

Highlights were the baby elephant, and of course the train - which is a really great train. Having ridden the Denver Zoo train over a dozen times, I'm qualified to rate it. (The two blond hippie boys got hair cuts shortly after we got home.)

Alex still can't get enough of baby Summer.

Saturday night we celebrated Max's 2nd birthday out at Amy's house. Oma and the Angels arranged all the food and Princess Kat just showed up with the birthday boy. Our baby's not a baby anymore! Poor Alex - many tear were shed over those construction vehicles from the cake . . .

Alex and Katie provided a lot of assistance with the presents, but then Max started getting into it.

Goodbye trucks, hello baby tigers!

This pretty well sums up how we all felt on the drive home. Totally exhausted from a crazy fun week. There's never enough time to play with everyone as much as I'd like. Next summer we'll have to figure out how to stay longer on our visits. That pesky job of Roger's just gets in the way of fun sometimes . . .

yellowstone I

2010-11-25T01:39:00.002-07:00

In September - I know, I'm the Queen of slow these days - we took a trip to Utah for Grandma Kathy's 90th birthday via Yellowstone and Wyoming. We didn't make it very far out of the gate before we needed to stop for dinner. The troops played boccie ball while the pizza cooked - LOVE the RV!

We split up from Mom, Dad and Julie, and Uncle Tom traveled with us. Our first stop was the 6th crossing of the Sweet Water up in WY. I haven't (yet) had the pleasure of participating in 'Trek,' but holy smokes. I can't even imagine crossing the plains with all your possessions fit into that cart, let alone doing it in a WY winter. That water was bitter cold. The missionaries at the Visitor's Center were all getting ready to pack up and go home in a few weeks.

I read somewhere that Yellowstone has more geothermal features than anywhere else in the world. This fact was not enough to distract the kids from the smell of some of those features.
They did all like the 'bubble geysers' - Max in particular. He still talks about them. Although some of our friends did get a little tired waiting for Old Faithful to go.

We saw tons of wildlife - which Julie did a much better job of documenting. Tons of bison, a moose, elk, wolves eating something out in a field, but alas, no bears.

The kids did great walking down all those millions of stairs on the hike for the Upper and Lower Falls. Katie walked almost the entire way, scoring a piggy back ride from Julie only near the end.

So many boardwalks! I really liked the terraces.

Camping inside of the park = sardines. Camping outside in West Yellowstone = Best.Campsite.EVER. We made dinner in the parking areas for different geysers every night, and ended up setting up camp after dark. This was OK, except that we had to make peach cobbler for breakfast one morning because we didn't ever have the chance to make it for dessert. Uncle Tom slept with us, while Julie, Mom and Dad roughed it in a hotel.

Next time we go, it would be nice to spend more than a couple days in the park. It was great to go when there were so few people about. We took a few breaks on our way south to Utah, and the whirlwind tour continued . . .

baby tigers

2010-11-24T01:31:00.004-07:00

Max is as obsessed with tigers as Alex is with excavators. Here's a picture I keep meaning to send to Pam, but I just haven't got my stuff together: Max and his tiger case. This case goes EVERY where with him. He sleeps with it. He puts his treasures in it. It comes with us on outings. Best birthday present ever. Total hit.

Everything else in his world echoes his love of the tiger case. He will only drink milk out of his tiger cup - which actually is a tiger. When I ask him to put on his shoes, he asks 'my tiger shoes?' Which are his red sneakers. But first he naturally has to put on his 'tiger socks,' which are whatever pair of socks he's going to be wearing.

We go check out the baby tigers at the zoo pretty regularly, and Saturday we were rewarded with getting to see snack time for the tigers and leopards. The answer is 'guinea pigs,' and no, kids, the leopard is NOT playing with a stuffed animal.

camping in october

2010-10-30T16:08:00.000-06:00

When you're looking for camping in October, is Wyoming the top of your list? We chanced the snow and headed up and north to the Sand Hills just outside of Walden. We did our traditional 'pull in and camp at 11 pm' move, so that when we wake up we're surprised by our surroundings. It turns out the road to the north of the sand hills ends up in mostly brushy trees. Our construction crew was a little worried. When we drove around to the other side, however, we found what we were looking for. Not nearly as big as the Great Sand Dunes, but still plenty of digging opportunities.

Katie headed straight up the hill. The boys were happy to start digging straight out of the RV.

I think we missed some excellent fall color by a week or two, but there were a few leaves left.

After we were good and frozen, we headed in for lunch. Just in time to beat the rain. It rained pretty steadily from noon Friday through Saturday morning. Luckily we were headed to the hot springs in Saratoga, WY. Population 1739.

Roger's folks told us about the Hobo pool there. Just behind the swimming pool is another free pool open 24/7. This pool drains out into the river.

Alex wasn't interested in getting wet, so he hung out up top under the umbrella. The pool was smoking hot, but there were some kid friendly spots just outside of it. We sat and watched the ducks for a while, and hopped out when we were sufficiently lobstered.

Rog found another great camping site at Saratoga Lake - which in the summer would probably be packed. We shared the campsite with a couple of hunters (I'm guessing).

Saturday morning we headed home via the Snowy Range and Medicine Bow National Forest. Luckily the plows had been out, because just a few miles out of Saratoga the rain we were showered with all night long resulted in a foot or so of snow!

Max has adopted Alex's favorite way to travel. That or he couldn't reach the sun shade on his own.

more halloween

2010-10-29T17:20:00.009-06:00

A few more activities for Halloween. We're getting some great mileage out of our costumes!

Pumpkin carving - the haunted house lasted exactly one night before the pumpkin curled in on itself. Katie designed her own jack-o-lantern face.

One of Max's creations. My new favorite candy to use as a cookie decoration is Sour Spaghetti. It's great for whiskers and other lines, and of course DELICIOUS!

'Harvest party' with Alex's class.

Harvest party with Katie's class two days later. The boys got to come for the whole time, which was very exciting for big sister. Fishing, drop the ghost in the pumpkin, bean bag toss, stories, a ghost necklace craft, and trick-or-treating around the offices.

little fish

2010-10-28T15:46:00.000-06:00

Swimming lessons are coming along. Katie's shyness has really come to the fore. This week we made a deal to try and get past this, and after Katie's lesson she said 'now I like Miss Janet.' HOORAY! The floating and paddling are getting more and more fun.

This handsome guy loves to go down the slide, and tries out the moves he sees Katie learn in her lessons. He does a great 'alligator' and will even put his face in the water and blow bubbles now.

Fearless Max. We just try to keep up with you.

halloween is almost here

2010-10-19T14:46:00.004-06:00

Amazing what a difference a 2 year old makes vs. a 1 year old. We've had some time for crafts this season . . .

Glue ghosts - about the easiest thing we've ever made. Make ghost shapes with glue on parchment paper, decorate, let dry for a few days. Ta da.

Reversible table runner.

Halloween skirts - Max just served as a model for a pint-sized skirt; he remains true to the tiger costume.

A few new guys for our halloween tree. The white ghost in the upper left is wearing pumpkin mittens.

Painting pumpkins - true to form, Max chose green and Alex went with blue.

Coffee filters + liquid water color paint = fall leaves.

Pom pom spiders - mom on glue gun, Katie on design and eyes.

Decorating haunted gingerbread houses. (Note to Williams Sonoma: if you're going to advertise a great kit on your catalog, actual have it available for purchase, so psychos don't fall in love with it and then have to replicate it on their own.)

The amount of candy on the houses was riveled only by the amount of candy eaten by Max.

roller derby

2010-10-17T15:34:00.001-06:00

In between all the Halloween fun - or perhaps in addition to the craft projects - Rog and I hit a roller derby match at the Broomfield Events Center. The crowd was totally different than what I expected - tons of families, and like no tattoos. Such a wacky sport. The first half-time show, the derby folk performed the dance to Thriller. The big half-time show was some completely lame band. I think the only person cheering for them was the lead singer's mother.

I'm not ready to sign up, but I thought it was a fun night. I was too busy trying to figure out the rules and the scoring to take any pictures during the match. Roger's final comment: 'Man, that was a lot of buns for 2 hours.'

circus time

2010-10-08T15:29:00.000-06:00

The REAL circus was in town the beginning of the month. We made it in time to check out the animals before the show - such a cute baby elephant, climbing all over her mommy. Then we got to walk past all the PETA folk to get to the actual show.

Crazy amount of action in the show. All the kids were mesmerized. Max of course loved the tigers. And we figured out how to get him to drink milk - out of a tiger cup. SCORE!

Katie noticed EVERYTHING. 'Did you like the trampoline guys?' - there were 2 levels of 3 trampolines each, with acrobats jumping over each other, from level to level, and through hoops.

Katie: 'There were fireworks on the screens when they were jumping. Different than when the trapeze guys were going.'

Alex loved the 'ball of motorcycles.' They got up to 7 motorcycles driving around inside a metal cage! SEVEN!

I loved the acrobats that jumped on 30 foot planks. Some of them did flips in the air wearing huge stilts - and still nailed the landing.

We were too busy watching the show to even bother taking any pictures. Check out the link to Barnum's Funundrum to get an idea.

It would really be amazing to figure out their arrival time, and watch them move all the animals from the train to their camping spot.

glendo #2

2010-10-06T15:38:00.000-06:00

For Labor Day weekend we headed back up to Wyoming for the long weekend. We had such a great time the first trip we decided to do it again with the McKrolas. There were a few differences this time around.

We got a flat tire on the way up - Exit 288 in case you'd like to go check it out. Luckily Mike was behind us, so he and Roger drove around for (what felt like) eternity looking for the parts they needed, while I entertained the troops. If you're going to break down, the RV is the vehicle to do it in. When the games failed, I popped in a movie. These kids have it so tough! We left earlier, but got the flat, so we still ended up pulling into camp at 11 pm. The water line was WAY down. The previous month we were hanging out up by the trees.

We camped down in the trees this time. It was a little cooler this trip - in the mornings we had hot chocolate. The trees did protect us a little from some serious wind storms. Courtney's friend Morgan came along, and she saved my bacon with the kiddos. She needs to come on all our adventures.

Dutch oven pot roast for Sunday dinner.

No change here: we're both still adorable!

Mud pit mania! Courtney, Morgan and Michael spent a LOT of time digging a great mud hole. Deb and I tried to get them to move it closer to the water, but the mud just wasn't good enough, so they went back up to their original spot. They set quite the trend on the beach with the other kids, but there's was still the deepest pit. Rog took advantage of the wind and busted out some kites. He totally looked like the Pied Piper with all the kids lined up to watch. Court got the hang of it really quickly.

Kasey got to come along this time, and Oma and Opa joined us for a couple nights. The rangers didn't even care about the dogs on the beach this time, even though there were a lot more people. Another great camping trip!

tourquiose lake

2010-10-05T14:49:00.000-06:00

The last week of August we headed up to Leadville for a little camping. We found a great spot at Turquoise Lake. 'Matchless' boat launch has a ring of parking for cars/RVs, with campsites down in the trees. We scored a spot on the lake side, right along the water. Here are some highlights:

camping spot right on the water

posing by the lake

throwing rocks in the lake

pudding by the lake

taking a break from walking around the lake to throw more rocks in the lake

climbing on markers by the lake

recovering from the lake on the way home.

10,000 feet gets a little chilly at night, but still a perfect camping trip.

first day of preschool - aug 30

2010-10-04T15:22:00.011-06:00

After a year of torture, only getting to look at the trucks waiting to dig in the sand at the Memorial Building, Alex finally got to start preschool himself. Alex goes in the morning with Ms. Geri and Katie goes in the afternoon with Ms. Carol. So far we've gone and done lunch at the park nearby for the 45 minutes in between. I'm hoping for a mild winter so we can keep this up. It's a nice way to get a short ride in as well, and the boys like to go searching for construction sites on the way home.

The following day we zipped down to the Children's Museum to check out the bubble display. In case you're wondering, Max doesn't need any help.

Me: Katie, what are you drawing?

Katie: I'm just putting the grey hair on Oma.

Who can resist a tire swing?

I'm so jazzed that everybody loves school - even if it's just preschool. Max doesn't understand why he doesn't get to go yet - the poor guy is just stuck with mom.

production notes

2010-09-25T14:23:00.007-06:00

For future reference:

Apple mania! 46 quarts of applesauce (7 + red hots) and maybe 4 sheets of fruit leather - another box and a half of apples went to a friend. Hooray for the food grinder attachment! Next year, let the apples ripen more.
~110 lbs tomatoes = 50 quarts. I peeled and chopped, mom processed. We should be covered for at least a year.
~70 quarts of grapes = 18 + 10 quarts of grape juice - The second batch (5 days later) was darker; next year, try to be patient and let the grapes ripen longer. Put a dead animal over there to keep the critters from stealing the produce.
3.5-4 gallons of plums = 10 pints of plum jam + 4 sheets of plum leather (4 cups/sheet)
10 sheets rhubarb leather - this might be my favorite flavor. Rhubarb/watermelon was good but just a little wacky at the same time, but Max can't get enough of it. Rhubarb/raspberry is fantastic.

For fruit leather: 3 cups/sheet seems to be optimal. Rog would vote for thicker, but then it takes forever to dry in the oven. Cook for 10 minutes, sugar to taste, blast through the food processor - the blender doesn't allow enough heat to escape, but works for pureeing 2 cups MAX at a time. 170 degree oven for 8-10 hours.

today

2010-09-21T22:31:00.004-06:00

Today Katie had her first swimming lesson. She didn't love wearing the goggles, until her teacher found some purple ones, and then we were set. She's such a little fish.

Later, we went to Oma's to hang out. The kiddies were making up stories with the Fisher Price folks, and the following went down:

Alex: Do we love daddy?

Katie: Oh YES! We totally love daddy.

Alex: Do we love mommy?

Katie: Well, not quite as much as daddy.

At least my little barnacle Max is still all mine. :)

lakeside

2010-09-11T21:48:00.013-06:00

Here's a little blast from the past. As kids, we went down to Lakeside a few times for AT&T family days. On Aug 10 we took our own troops down to there. I was trying to make up for missing the carnival every time it was in town this summer. Boy, was that a great call. Unlimited wristbands and all the ladybug rides they could handle.

Max took a little warming up, but once he rode one ride, he was all in.

Katie's favorite ride was NOT the roller coaster.

A bunch of people from the ward were actually down there that night, so the kids even had little buddies to play with.

It's nice that our little guys are so close in age, because they were all happy riding the kiddie rides - just the right pace for everyone, although I personally thought that canoe was never going to make it back around on it's 20 foot 'river.' Funnel cake for dad and snow cones for the kids, and lots of great people watching for moi. Good summer fun.

zoo babies

2010-09-07T21:16:00.001-06:00

Here are some pictures to tempt you, Mag:

That's right - 4 adorable baby tiger cubs, just waiting for you to come and check them out! You have about a year to come out and seem them, before the keepers say they get too big and start bugging their momma too much and get shipped out to other zoos.

There is also a baby orangutan - buried under that blanket on the front right. 10 weeks old, and she'll be with her momma for at least 7 years, so you've got time on that one.

We missed the baby flamingo, but got to see the polar bears get fed. Boo at the Zoo is coming up . . .

katie

2010-09-01T13:05:00.002-06:00

Perhaps I need to ease up on the smack talk while playing the Wii:

Katie to Oma: Watch, and learn!

(With 'appropriate' intonation, no less!)

seriously?

2010-08-20T13:10:00.003-06:00

The Maxster and I ran some errands today. At the DMV, a lady - one of the other patrons - asked if he was my grandson. REALLY? I understand that it IS, technically speaking, physically possible that I COULD be his grandmother, but do I really LOOK like his grandmother?

Note to self: spend less time with toothless people waiting to register cars for their 18 year old sons who have 'had a little trouble with the law,' and more time with the young women, who think I'm cool for trying to knock them off of tubes being pulled behind speedboats.

glendo state park

2010-08-11T16:48:00.001-06:00

The last week of July we took a little trip up to Wyoming to Glendo State Park with some friends, and it was AWESOME! The reservoir was HUGE! The water level was 126% - the flooding knocked a lot of campsites out of commission, but it sure looked cool. We had the whole beach to ourselves most of the time, and almost the whole campground as well. The drunk Russians added a little spice at night, but otherwise it was pretty quiet.

It was crazy hot, but luckily we had some rain to cool us off in the afternoons.
We did a lot of creating with sand.
And a lot of burying.
Katie is a FISH! She swam and swam and swam, and did a great job in the kayak too.
Alex's blue bucket rarely left his grasp. It got lost in the lake for a little while, but Super Rog came to the rescue and reunited Alex with his favorite lake tool.
Mike's dog rarely left his side. He and Rog took the sailboard out, and Chase followed them, eventually climbing up on the boat. Apparently, sailing with a lab is not the easiest thing in the world.
Court was really great at coming up with different games to play. She spent a lot of time jumping through that floaty - and she and Michael came up with an obstacle course on the beach. I did NOT win that contest of speed.
It was blazing hot most of the time, but luckily we found a little spot to make a fort in some shade.
By the time dinner rolled around each night, everyone was usually pretty cooked. Here are Katie - 'not tired at all' - and Court right before Katie fell asleep AGAIN eating dinner.
I've been a little afraid that RV camping was going to turn our kids into wimps, but OtterPop breaks in the afternoons, ice cream on the dutch-oven cobbler at night, and having a place to lock up boys at nap time have made ME a wimp! Good luck getting this girl into a tent again!
On the way out, we stopped by the Red Cliffs for some jumping. I should have snapped a picture of one of the many signs warning 'NO JUMPING OFF THE CLIFFS,' but there were too many people leaping off the edges to get a good shot. Katie is fearless!

This is one of my favorite trips ever. Great location and easy-going friends to hang out with - I even saw Deb actually relax! Perfect getaway, and only a couple hours away.

summer adventures

2010-08-10T16:22:00.001-06:00

This is how much fun Max had on the squeaky train in Loveland.

Things got better by the end of the ride.

The water is always a good time.
When Rog came swimming with us, even Alex went down the slide.

The County Fair was another good time. Tractors, animals, and now Max has his own stick horse to ride around the range on.

hiking and biking

2010-08-09T16:04:00.006-06:00

One of the last Fridays in July we drove up to Lily Lake, just outside of Estes Park. It was the perfect place to beat the heat. The elevation gain is 20 feet around the whole lake - not that we made it that far around. There were just too many rocks, ducks and chipmunks to check out. Definitely on the list of hikes to try again.

I stole one of the YW to come along and help me out, and boy was that the best idea of the day! Her extra hands saved my bacon. The day was perfect, except for not having actual CASH to pay for the ice cream cones in Lyons.

The fun continued that night. Katie earned her bike! We headed down to Westminster for pizza from Cici's and to pick up the princess bike. I'm curious to see how long those training wheels stay on.

aunt mag came to town - a month ago

2010-07-25T10:58:00.000-06:00

Aunt Mag and Summer came out for a wedding, and we played and played and played.
Alex and Max can't stay away from that cute little cousin - but who can?

We hit the bubble exhibit at the Denver Childrens Museum. The exhibit was not as great as I had hoped, but the little twinner girls were sure cute.

Oma got a little worn out.

We had some fun with water balloons - Summer opted for a nap.

We went back up to the Aluvial Fan in Rocky Mountain National Park. It's a little more fun to climb without the Artic wind blowing.

alex the excavator

2010-07-24T10:00:00.000-06:00

The obsession continues. Almost every day, Alex asks to check out trucks on the computer. When we queued this baby up, he ran out and said 'Let me get Mommy Excavator. She'll really like this one.' What a considerate little man.

If you'd like to know what we sing A LOT around here, check this out:

I don't know how this guys sings the song without cracking up, but we certainly have some fans of his work around here.

Alex has also given everyone around here a truck alter-ego. Katie has been campaigning to become a front loader instead of a dump truck, but Alex isn't budging.

front loader - mom
bobcat - dad
dump truck - katie
excavator - alex
cement mixer - max
backhoe loader - seven
bulldozer - aunt mag
forklift - oma
crane - opa
steamroller - uncle tom
paver - aunt lizard

girls' camp

2010-07-23T14:29:00.000-06:00

These pictures are a good representation of girls' camp this year. When I went to girls' camp as a YW, it stank. I remember lame crafts - pom poms glued to a stick - and endless hours of free time. A highlight was my friends ditching me to go and try to score with the scouts running the camp.

The girls from our ward are so impressive. The three Youth Camp Leaders did such a great job of including all the younger girls and making sure that everyone was having a good time. I thought I could best Katie and Nikki and throw them in the lake, but I way underestimated them.
(We did a re-enactment since the water off the side of the dock was only ankle deep.)

I thought camp would be a nice little break from my regular routine of having to watch my little friends like a hawk. After a little 1st year from my group wandered off one afternoon, however, I was returned to my regular duties of having my own personal shadow. I was in charge of making fires at our ward campsite, so I guess that made up for it!

Our first years were the nuttiest - the last night their tent stayed up the latest having a 'dance party.' The next morning I asked one of them who had actually trying to go to sleep if I should have poked my head in there and yelled at them. She got the cutest smile and said 'No. I was having fun.' It's going to be great having these new little Beehives added to our class in the next coming weeks.

quadro revisited

2010-07-22T22:39:00.004-06:00

Quadro still proves to be one of MY favorite toys. In June I revamped the design a little to make it more fun for monkeys who like to climb. I got rid of the small slide and the stairs, which gave me enough pieces to expand the base, make the longer slide steeper, and add some hanging bars. The kids totally got into the construction, AND I used all my cross pieces. I NEED MORE PIECES!

kiddos

2010-07-21T14:53:00.000-06:00

In between our maiden voyage and girls' camp, I finally managed to get some pictures taken of the kiddies before they're teenagers. A friend of a friend agreed to try and catch all three of them looking at the camera at the same time. We met at the cutest little park in Longmont that you've never heard of: Old Mill Park. It's basically someone's backyard turned into an historical park. Just lovely. Suzanne is about the nicest person I've met, and she did a great job capturing the kids' different personalities.

new mexico

2010-07-10T14:09:00.001-06:00

photo by Diana Miles

We met up with the Young clan for the Fourth of July. We had such a great time hanging out with the Youngs - lots of adventures and lots of digging in that lush New Mexico dirt. With the house on wheels we might make it down south more often!

Rog planned a great trip for our first run in the RV - which was originally going to be a camping trip, so reservations were already made. Along the way we stopped by the Great Sand Dunes. HOT HOT HOT! Thank goodness there's water close by. We walked down to the dunes from our campsite the night we got there - just in time for a flash rain storm! The next morning we dug in the dunes and played in the water - and no one even got sunburned!

We visited a bird refuge - I thought of Betsy while we were there. We didn't find too many bird - it's possible we are a little too noisy for birding - but we had a good time walking around there.

We headed east over to Carlsbad Caverns. We skipped White Sands to score a little pool time. Luckily the weather was unseasonably cool - only 90 degrees - and we were underground much of the day. The kids did an amazing job with all the walking.

While we were in Silver City we hit a few of Rog's old haunts. The city pool was even better than he and Diana remembered.

The kids all had fun digging in Grandmother's compost pile. This would be disgusting, except that Silver City is so dry that any organic material is dried to a crisp minutes after it hit the pile.

One morning we met the Goates bunch over at the Catwalk. What a great hike. It was so nice to be near water.

The Fourth of July parade was excellent. Lots of floats, with plenty of CANDY CANDY CANDY. It didn't take the kids long to figure out that you had to move fast if you wanted to get some. (Like the tie-dye, Lizard?)

All afternoon and well into the evening the girls had their own parade in the driveway.

The RV was great to travel in. Afternoon naps were not a problem.

Nothing quite beats a 'camping' dinner of hot pizza and chocolate chip cookies. Our kids have a totally whacked impression of what 'roughing it' means.

happy father's day?

2010-06-22T14:52:00.010-06:00

Thanks to the amazingly mild and wet spring around here, the lilacs lasted almost an entire month. There has also been a bumper crop of cotton in these parts. By these parts I mean my yard. And it's my fault, because it's MY tree that's the main offender! It looks like it's a blizzard every time I glance outside the window. There's more white out there than at Christmas. My kids have been making snowballs out of the stuff. Some genius kids around the corner decided to test the flamability of cotton. Answer: yes it is! And they got to meet the folks on fire engine #4 up close and personal as an added bonus.

Here's another reason it looks like Christmas around here:

Happy Father's Day, Happy Birthday, Merry Christmas, and expect to see us in your neck of the woods sometime soon!

carnival #1

2010-05-25T17:12:00.006-06:00

The weather is warming up, and the first carnival arrived in Longmont: summer is officially here! This carnival is about the smallest operation that could still be called a fair - no funnel cakes! - but for the under 4 crowd it's pretty perfect. Check out Alex's face on the slide - his look could only be rivaled by Roger's on the way down the slide.The boys had a full-on blast on the cars. They didn't stop laughing during the entire ride. Katie was thrilled to score the pink horse on the merry-go-round - as if there is any other color she would ride.

camping

2010-05-21T16:47:00.004-06:00

I think we are ready to tackle camping with our bunch. To ease into things, we camped the first night in the backyard. We wanted to test out our equipment while solutions were close at hand.Sleeping bags? Excellent - at least for playing in. Katie actually fell asleep first. Max ran around the tent like a nut until after 11 pm. He finally fell asleep after he found a book to hold on to.

Glow sticks and flashlights? Another hit.

Fire and s'mores? Good times.

Neighbor's barking dog? My personal favorite. Sleeping in the backyard showed me how noisy our neighborhood actually is, and got me itching to actually get out to the woods. We can always throw the kids in a lake if they get too dirty, right? And if it's quieter maybe they'll fall asleep before midnight next time.

the key

2010-05-16T16:33:00.000-06:00

Alex is in love. Her name? 'Mommy Excavator.'

I am almost as big a fan.

For months, we told Alex that when he was ready to trade in his diapers, he'd score a new truck. Thanks to our friends at Costco, our dream became a reality.

It was love at first sight. For all of us. Mommy excavator doesn't leave his side, coming along on adventures and taking naps and sleeping in bed tucked under a blanket up on the pillow.

Next to the sandbox, this is my favorite thing of the summer so far.

If Max were ready, I think Elmo pants would be all he'd need.

rocky mountain nat'l park

2010-05-08T17:43:00.002-06:00

In an effort to hasten the arrival of summer, or to turn everyone in our family into popsicles, we headed up to Rocky Mountain National Park the second weekend in May. The wind this spring has been crazy!

We found a nice picnic area next to a stream. The snowdrifts were good for digging, but a little chilly for lunch . . . or so we thought.

The area at the trail head was even colder because of the wind, but we were committed. Alex managed to poke his head out for a couple of bites.

The kids had a great time climbing on the rocks. Katie is turning into a regular mountain goat.

We saw a fair number of elk, but these rams were a real treat to watch on the way out of the park

. . . until they got spooked and ran right in front of our car.

sunflower farm

2010-05-03T17:25:00.008-06:00

(photo by Katie)

Katie's final field trip of the year was to Sunflower Farms, a 'working farm' on the south end of town. Someone was not back in Colorado temperature mode, and did not pay attention to the trees being knocked over horizontal by the wind, or the frost hanging off her nose. The kids managed to have fun, although Max's lips were purple for quite a while.

The biggest draw was the sandbox - somehow it's totally different digging with someone else's trucks. They did take a break to try out the zip line, feed some animals, climb in the tree house, and play in the corn crib. I am ready to get some chickens! Where's my permit?!!!

happy birthday alex!

2010-05-01T16:17:00.005-06:00

Our little man is 3! Alex scored a true birthday week: cake with Oma on his actual birthday, and then more celebrating when we got back from Mexico.

Soon, he's going to be old enough to want a big party with friends. Lucky for me he's still OK just scooping Skittles onto cupcakes with his family.

In his own words, it was TRUCK MANIA! Truck books, mini-trucks, mommy trucks. A month later, he's finally OK that his birthday is over until next year.

perfect window

2010-04-24T16:05:00.012-06:00

Thursday morning it was still pouring rain, but I decided to chance it and head down for the free day at the Botanical Gardens. Total flood heading sound, until around 120th, and then gorgeous sunshine and blue skies. Our timing was great - TULIP MANIA!

Everything was shiny and sparkling, and my friends had a grand time splashing in the puddles - Max was a huge hit with passersby - and NOT getting to climb on the sculptures that have replaced the dinosaur exhibit.

Alex still loves a good water feature.

Katie had a good time taking alternate trails and meeting up at the opposite end - occasionally a brother would join her. This only caused problems a couple of times when Alex took a wrong turn. :)
Here are some of the things that caught Katie's eye. For some reason, needle-bearing plants were particularly exciting. I'm sure she would have snapped another 100 photos had the battery not died.
After a few hours, as we exited the parking lot on our way back north, the rain started up again. Hitting this window of sunshine saved ALL of our sanity.

And now, we're off to the beach and the kids are off to Oma and Opa's for the sleepover of the century - everybody wins!

the second greatest show on earth

2010-04-21T21:31:00.001-06:00

Last Saturday we went to the El Jebel Shriner Circus, and it was excellent! So kitchy! So awesome!

This circus has it all: cheesy trapeze act, tiger act, jugglers, balancing acts, acrobats, really bad clowns, performing bears, rope climbing 'power girls,' and more.

Before the show and at intermission, the floor was open for mini-horseback rides, elephant rides, and pictures with the trained bear. I'm still shocked Oma didn't go for the bear picture, but since she got to actually HOLD a bear in Moscow she was able to resist.

Bubble-mania! Alex had a great time covering the back of Opa's head with bubbles. He originally chose the green dinosaur flashlight, until he saw the excellence of Max's bubble gun, and made a trade that Max is too young to know better about. Oma went back and got own bubble gun. It's hard to say who enjoyed their toy more.

Roger was creeped out by the performing poodles the most. For some reason he couldn't believe that wasn't their natural color.

I think Dad said his favorite act was the elephants.

Motorcycle cage.

The grand finale was a HUMAN CANNONBALL! This guy had to be about 70 years old, and Saturday morning he flew 163 feet across the Coliseum. What a perfect ending.

best ROI hands down

2010-04-20T21:08:00.000-06:00

The sandbox has already hit #1 on my top ideas for kid entertainment.

My friends average about 3 hours a day playing out there.

Once I get the boys to stop eating and throwing sand, the time spent in the shower afterwards should go down.

Oh yeah, and I still need to find somewhere to dump the remaining sand due to my excellent math skills.

in honor of our friends down under . . .

2010-04-19T20:27:00.005-06:00

I overheard someone say that there's no point in going to the zoo more than once, because what could you possibly see a second time? Oh, those folks don't know what they're missing! We spend most of our time trying to match the fantastic animal adventures we caught in January, here are the new things we saw on our outing a couple weeks ago.

We caught this bad boy RUNNING!

The spider monkeys were making their way across the top of their cage, often hanging by only their tails.

AND we went into the Lorakeet Adventure for the first time. At one point there were three birds on my arm. Katie was really patient and gentle and had a number of birds grab her finger with their claws. One was not so pleasant and pecked her, but the drama was actually fairly short lived and she came back for more. Go Katie!

how mom celebrates spring:

2010-04-06T11:59:00.000-06:00

watching tulips fight through the snow;
cutting and soldering glass - small and doinky, but the first projects I've done in a couple years!
chocolate experiments with liquid centers - YUMMMMM! (bad photography, but good mint and caramel centers!);

expanding the sandbox - well, the handyman actually got up from a nap and built this, since he knows of my irrational fear of cutting off my leg with the SkilSaw;
from this:

to THIS!
and, just a side note, 1 cubic yard = 27 cubic feet - just in case you were going to be off by a factor of 3 like someone who no longer uses any math.

hopefully, the peas will also make it into the ground before May.

happy easter

2010-04-04T21:31:00.013-06:00

I really want to learn the secret to getting more than one kid at a time to actually face me when I'm taking a picture! Max thoroughly enjoyed his day of candy.

Easter bunny and flowers garland hanging in the kitchen.

Coloring Easter eggs with Oma.

Katie's 'Easter baskets' to take treats to friends. (photo by Katie)

Sugar cookies for deliveries to some friends.

My attempt at home-made 'Kinder Eier' - idea and tips from NotMartha. I used a drill bit instead of a Dremel tool - next time, though, I need to make bigger holes so I can get more in the eggs besides just small candies.

Excellent Easter basket for mom courtesy of DiscoMom, who arranges an Easter basket exchange every year. SO PERFECT!

Katie spent the day playing with Polly Pocket - my new best friend as well!

Alex tore himself away from his new crane for the train tracks to look for a couple eggs.

Max quickly discovered how to crack open the plastic eggs and get to the candy. That little tornado is totally a fan of jelly beans, but would start jumping around and laughing when I'd peel him a chocolate egg.

And I now have plenty of candy to keep the Beehives quiet for weeks!

littlest bookworm

2010-04-01T11:56:00.000-06:00

Max awake.

Max asleep.

Needlesstosay, this delights me to no end.

welcome spring adventures

2010-03-31T11:19:00.015-06:00

Here are some of our attempts to celebrate 'springtime' in CO:

teaching little brothers proper bed-jumping technique;

loading everybody into Jethro for the 1/2 block trip to Good Times (there is one car seat in there);

sledding at Scott Carpenter Park (the ROCKET park) in Boulder; (it was a spontaneous adventure, so the picture is a reenactment of how we went down the hill - all three kids were piled on my lap on top of a tiny green saucer, and they are sporting the same footwear they did on the hill.)

checking out the chicks at Murdoch's - hopefully next year we'll score a permit and get to have our own chicken coop!

and nursing Alex through our first case of the flu this year - so glad I went with apple juice instead of grape for him this morning! The patient is smiling because he's been watching Mighty Machines all morning long.

oma - mommy - daughter date

2010-03-31T11:11:00.005-06:00

March 10 Katie went to her first Broadway show. I thought Mary Poppins would be fun, since she already knows the story and many of the songs. This night was a special 'Kids' Night on Broadway' - Katie won the poster for answering a trivia question correctly (What kind of animal is on Mary Poppin's umbrella? - a real tough one!), she got to make a kite, and she won a lollipop by choosing a spoon from a bowl of sugar. Her wiggles were not appreciated by everyone around us, but I think she did great!

artist

2010-03-09T21:11:00.005-07:00

Self portrait of the artist as Sleeping Princess Aurora. Please note the ruffle detail.

Signed self portrait of the artist as 'Sleeping Princess Aurora dressed up in a Minny Mouse costume, next to Little Minny.'

Picture of mom (blue), Katie (purple), and Alex (blue and red). I personally love Alex's red shorts.

bowling

2010-03-04T11:47:00.010-07:00

A couple of weeks ago on yet another snowy Saturday we took our bunch bowling. Oma joined us.

SURPRISE! Katie needed to use the pink ball, even though at 8 lbs. it was a couple pounds heavier than the lightest ball we could find. The 6 lbs. ball was blue, however, which clearly would not do. Katie was a trooper and threw the ball unassisted both games - not counting the automatic bumpers.

Alex had more fun when we switched to the RAMP. He had a little help from dad, but had to carry his own ball most of the time. His expression never changed, even when he got a strike.

Max was a big fan of the candy I brought along for the adventure. He made it through the first game OK, but was tired of being a spectator after that. The ramp saved BOTH us.
One game would have been fine. Everyone was pretty cookied by the end of the second game.

Bowling in real life is not much like the Wii - I'm not nearly so lame bowling on the Wii - neither is Oma!

In the interest of full disclosure, I need to point out that 'my' strike in the 6th frame of game 2 was 'thrown' by Max. Go Max.

hobbies

2010-03-04T11:03:00.013-07:00

Max's current hobbies include:
pastry chef - he helped me make tartlettes for New Beginnings for YW. (I naturally forgot to take pictures of the finished product. I was trying to make everything gluten/corn/dairy free. Not easy to maintain taste, but pastry cream made with coconut milk is really really good!)

Sous chef - here he's helping with some meringue. It would appear that he is a fan.

performance artist - here is a piece involving chocolate pudding.

and gardener - hopefully spring will come soon and we can move this activity outside.

happy birthday katie!

2010-02-16T16:49:00.006-07:00

Little Sug is 4!! How is this possible? Kindergarten in another year?! What? Now I'm one of those old people saying 'Where did the time go? It just goes by so fast.' Katie made a paper chain to count down the days to the big event. 'Now how many sleeps until my birthday?' Her excitement was contagious. Now she's ready to make a chain and start counting down to Alex's birthday.

We went to the Children's Museum in Denver for the festivities. Some of the hits were the fire engine to explore, a 'nature area' with tunnels for worms and a tree to climb around on, and a 'little kid exploration area.' The boys spent a fair amount of time playing with the trains, while Katie painted. Hummmm . . . and how is that different than being at home?

Katie chose 'berry rainbow' for her birthday cake - three layers of jello poke cake with pudding and whipped cream in between. Pink was the big hit of the birthday - now we have TWO pink tutus to dance around in. Katie chose to have her party at Oma's house, and had a grand time calling all of the shots with 'Well, since it's my birthday, I choose . . . ' She's such a treat to have around, and is more fun every day.

why katie is awesome

2010-02-04T15:06:00.005-07:00

It's fun to observe and guess which of Katie's personality traits/quirks could have come from which parent. She's definitely her own person, but the 'nature vs. nurture' debate can't be avoided at times.

Who could these traits derive from?

When I came out into the living room one morning, Katie had been up for a while. This is what I walked out to. (Poor Prince Charming did not make the cut, and is off by himself on the side of the chair.)

While all the kids in our house love to play with the pegs, Katie actually likes to create pictures out of them - and sometimes arrange them by color - and not just spray them all over the floor.

She - and her com padres - loves to bake. (Now to only find someone willing to cook . . . )

She loves to climb and jump from rock to rock like a mountain goat, and shows no fear near the edge.
The battle of the pants is so on!

why max is awesome

2010-02-03T14:42:00.000-07:00

For breakfast, he usually eats 2 bowls of cereal - and often finishes Alex's on top of that. And still the ribs are showing. Last week independent Max has really started shining through. Here, he had to feed himself entirely on his own - no help. He actually got more of the pudding in his mouth than I expected.
After dinner, Katie wanted to paint. I naively thought that Max would let me at least hold the paint for him. Again, independent Max appeared. It's fun to watch this little creature master new skills almost daily, but for crying out loud slow down little buddy! (Apparently green paint is tasty, but not nearly as delicious as chocolate pudding or dirt.)

birth of a wardrobe

2010-02-02T17:40:00.000-07:00

Presenting the best Christmas present ever:
For Christmas, Rog build me a wardrobe to fill the space next to the linen closet in our room. It turned out even better than I imagined. The only - and definitely not immediate - problem is what to do with it if/when we move from this house! The finish job is not perfect (moi) but it is already a family heirloom in my book.

It was so cool to watch it being formed out of a pile of lumber and sheets of plywood. For Christmas Rog gave me the dove tail jig, and then got sick for a week. In January he busted this baby out. This of course included cleaning out/rearranging the garage to make space to build and then a 'paint room.' If you want your own custom furniture, you're going to have to go find your own carpenter, because this one is taken!

It has been reported that, in true Kat fashion, I waited an entire day before I came up with another project. In all fairness, there also more jobs on my own list now. I'm the one who has to strip and refinish the doors of the neighboring linen closet because of the now glaringly terrible original finish job I did on them.

In the mean time, we are taking votes on the following issue: to handle or not to handle? There are currently handles on the drawers of the dresser portion of this operation, but there has been much discussion as to whether the doors of the closet portions and the skinny jewelry drawer should also have handles. What's your vote?

why alex is awesome

2010-02-02T14:28:00.006-07:00

#1
Last night Roger and I prepared for battle: Operation 'Adios Blue Plug.'

My mouth dropped at how easy it was.

'Alex, if you give me blue plug, I'll trade you for Jack (a front loader engine).'

Alex, without hesitation, said 'OK!' He opened Jack, Jack and the mini-excavator had some conversation in greeting and discovering the magic button that raises Jack's front loader, and he went right to sleep.
Today, nap time showed that the battle might not quite be won.

When he hopped into bed, he immediately asked about blue plug.

Me: You traded blue plug for Jack.

Alex, handing me the engine that has literally not left his fingers since last night: But I don't love Jack.

Me: You're a big boy. You don't need blue plug anymore.

Alex, with tears streaming: I don't want to be a big boy. I want to be a (l)wittle boy.'

I somehow convinced him to take care of Jack for me, letting him keep the mini-excavator company, while he napped. Tonight might require fancier maneuvers.

#2
Numerous times yesterday Alex announced to Max that he was his 'best friend,' and then proceeded to tackle him and give him a smooch attack. Max was understandably not excited about being repeatedly flattened, but Alex looked so happy and was so sincere in showing his brother he loved him. I need to get faster with the video to capture proof for the future when the body slams are NOT for smooch fests.

#3
To cap things off, he also discovered the word 'WHY?' I think I need to come up with a reasonable number of responses before I resort to 'Because I said so.'

best zoo trip EVER

2010-01-18T10:49:00.013-07:00

We took a trek to the zoo last week, and it was terrible - in terms of animal activity. We still had fun, but we got spoiled from all the animals out and about when we went with Julie, Andrew and Lizard a couple weeks earlier. We need the 'animal whisperers' to come back soon so we can actually see animals in motion again.

The lioness was going crazy at the glass of the viewing area. She kept standing on her hind legs and pawing at the window. Did she think Max looked like a tasty snack? He didn't seem to mind, and it made everyone else really happy to see her so close up and personal.

We alternate between the train and the carousel on our zoo adventures. Katie always talks big about wanting to ride on an animal - not yet one that moves up and down - but her face in the bottom right shows how she really feels.

In case you're curious, the temperature at the zoo in the daytime in January was around 40 degrees both times we went. It's just bizarre to see all these animals native to Africa running around in the snow. The giraffes had the good sense to stay inside.

In the upper right Alex is checking out the Komodo dragon with his lunch. It's not a stuffed rabbit, and yes, he did go for the soft underbelly first.

Max is just so handsome he, too, can't stop kissing that cute little face.

We did actually go into Bird World for a change of pace, and some of the birds are pretty tame. This one was sitting on a guy's leg for a while - until Max walked over.

The other animals weren't terribly active last week, but there was one woman who was entertaining for me to observe. We kept crossing paths throughout the zoo, and then ended up in the 'Great Ape House' together. She'd been taking pictures like crazy all day, and then at the orangutans finally huffed: If I don't leave this minute I'm going to be sick! Keeping these magnificent animals in cages is just disgusting! Does she really think her 'brother' the orangutan would have a better life fighting for his survival in a decreasing habitat out in the real world? Alas, no adults with me to poke fun at her with. Katie's not quite ready for sarcasm.

a few christmas highlights

2010-01-18T10:33:00.011-07:00

Lots of visitors. The kids had a hard time getting used to just mom after all the fun with Julie, Andrew, Tom, Liz, Mark and Grandma Dorothy. Mag, Kalle and Summer had a surprise layover on New Year's Day, but we were too busy playing to take any pictures.
New train stuff - there are those who might argue that this was really for mom.

Lots of trucks.

A Flamenco dancer outfit for the queen of pink.

Tie dying with Aunt Lizard.

Alex opened all of his presents with the help of Alfie the Excavator car. An excavator hasn't been far from his hands since.

ideas

2010-01-08T10:37:00.004-07:00

Train/playdoe/construction guys table: BRILLIANT idea. Worth it's weight/size in gold.

Black beans as construction material: great for creativity, not so great on the bare feet. They are so much worse than Nerds. Even Max has learned that they don't taste good raw.

the remainder of the advent activities

2010-01-05T11:32:00.028-07:00

This picture isn't about anything in particular; I just love Max's profile after dinner. Those tiny little legs contrast nicely with his big Buddha belly.

Every year the model train club in Longmont has a show down at the fairgrounds. Alex still can't get enough. One of these years maybe we'll win the raffle for the model! - yeah right. At least we're supporting the club.

Longmont has a 'parade of lights.' We didn't last for the fireworks, but Roger had the good sense to set us up on Main Street right out front of Winchell's donuts. The floats were fun to watch - apparently anyone with a vehicle and some lights can enter - but it was not the warmest night of the month, that's for sure.
We decorated sugar cookies - boy does Max like his cookies! He sees that Tupperware container and just goes bananas.

We made deliveries to our friends, and took some candy and cookies up to the guys at the fire station. A couple of firemen - who were HUGE - took us into the garage and let the kids climb in the truck. My posse of friends is not so adventurous, but Katie did eventually hop up in the driver's seat and turn on the lights. I modeled a fireman's jacket for the kids - boy is that thing heavy!

We went with Uncle Tommy to dinner and to check out Zoo Lights. They had a 'Fire and Ice' show in addition to all the lights. The 'Firemancer' totally made us want to 'Vote for Pedro.' What a funny job to have as an adult, but the kids were fascinated. Most of the animals were already in bed, but we did get to pet a couple of reptiles. And of course we rode the train.

We made gingerbread houses with Julie, Tom and Liz. The big picture is the grin on Alex's face after Liz told him to just pop a handful of candy in his mouth - like he needed encouragement! Alex made an engine with a tender and Katie decorated a house with her usual precision. As with most projects, she concentrates and is totally focused on getting things just where she wants them.

We had a sleepover - or two - at Oma's house.

We did a toy audit, choosing toys to go to Goodwill. This is always harder for mom than anyone else.

We drove around many nights checking out the Christmas lights. Maybe next year we'll add our own blow-up monstrosity to the yard. One of the funnest houses is a pair of duplexes in a cul-de-sac that have their lights synchronized to Christmas music, which you can listen to through your car radio.

Sickness and cold prevented a trip up to the mountains for some sledding, but the snow is still here, so maybe I'll feel adventurous one of these days.

Roger's folks sent up a steam-powered tractor, and that is no end of entertainment for all the kids in the house.

We read lots of Christmas stories each night. The book order is one of my favorite things about Katie attending preschool, and Scholastic had a nice variety of Christmas books, telling the story of Christ's birth from different viewpoints and at different levels. We have found some new favorites.

the second week of Christmas

2009-12-11T15:33:00.011-07:00

If you're interested in some new holiday music, check out this free link to a holiday album on iTunes. FREE! It's free for a week. found via lifehacker via stephmodo

I'd like to claim that my helpers were responsible for this mess, but I'm afrait they were fast asleep. This one is all me. HAD Katie been helping me, it would have been a much tidier job.

This week's activities have included making jingle-bell wreath ornaments - now I want a big one for my door! (Yes, that construction hat is permanently welded to Alex's head, but Cinderella only comes out about once a week now.)

Picnic in the living room - this ended up being even more bananas than I expected. Next time we do this (?) I'm going with hamburgers and fries.

Animal 'magic scratch' ornaments.
Pop-up tree - template found on Martha. (I reduced the tree by 70%). Why is cutting paper so much fun?

Paint Christmas nails - Alex went with sparkles, Katie now has two different shades of pink on her hands, and even mom has some colored nails.

Date night with mom or dad - this one is still being planned.

Camping in the bedroom - we'll see how long they last in the tent, and whether or not ANYONE gets any sleep!

Camping in the bedroom worked out better than I expected, in that ONE child acdtually made it in the tent through the night. Alex had a hard time staying put, so he ended up in his bed sometime around 11 pm.

Christmas countdown

2009-12-04T12:22:00.021-07:00

Part of the problem with starting Christmas preparations really early is that I just end up adding more things onto my list. Seeing a picture of these trees on Kari's blog, coupled with a gift of some tiny ornaments from Mag from Ikea resulted in this project:
Please note Katie's decorating choices. She put different colored ornaments in each row, and where there were multiple hooks in a row she alternated matte and shiny. With no prompting from anyone, although that is probably how I would have arranged them myself. I guess that trait would be genetic. :)

For our Christmas countdown this year, we've put a different activity to do everyday in the pockets of the advent calendar. So far we've:

Made cinnamon/glue ornaments, complete with glitter. (1 C. cinnamon, 1 C. apple sauce, and 4 oz. glue - this made a ton.) I love how glitter jazzes up everything. I was in charge of glue, Katie and Alex do all their own glitter. This is a tough one to mess up, and man do they smell delicious!

Had a hot chocolate party. We had to switch to straws when the pouring to be a little more fun than the actual drinking.

Here's Alex's perfect cup of hot chocolate:

Made Christmas cards. I got this idea from Kid's Crafts weekly. I got to cut out the shapes, Katie and Alex got to run the glue, although I did cheat and help Alex olace one of his trunks. Now to determine the lucky recipients . . .

Cut out snowflakes. We need a little more practice with the scissors for these to resemble actual snowflakes, but 'cutting confetti' was just as fun with our crowd. And I busted out my 'Kirigami a day' calendar from 2008 and did a little cutting myself.

Max decided to add his own advent adventure: Let's see how many baths I can have in one day. Luckily he still fits nicely in the kitchen sink. So far we're at 2, but the day is only 1/2 over.

mr. freeze

2009-12-02T14:42:00.005-07:00

Last night it snowed a bit and today the high is supposed to be a balmy 22 degrees.

Naturally, Alex had to go outside and ride his 'motorcycle' to celebrate.

post script: Yesterday, Alex asked again to go outside. As it was only 15 degrees, I voted no. Alex: But mom! I'm a motorcycle boy!

the tornado

2009-12-02T11:07:00.007-07:00

Here are a few of Max's recent adventures:

He has moved on from eating dog food to filling up the dog's water dish with the dog food.

He DOES still enjoy eating dirt. Just picture that same little face with a ring of brown around the lips - the same face you'd get if you gave him an Oreo cookie. And for him, I can't tell yet if there's a taste difference.

He is very good with ladders. We put the Christmas lights up the day after Thanksgiving. I untangled lights, Roger put them up. At one point I turned around, and there was Max at the top of the ladder. I would have grabbed a picture, but figured that I was already pushing my luck regarding him taking a nose dive, since I wasn't entirely sure how long he'd been up there. I look forward to him figuring out the ladder on the bunk beds.

After telling him 'HANDS OFF' approximately 100,000 times, I finally learned my lesson and chose to keep the glass ornaments in the box. The tree this year is about 99% metal, which should prevent most of the damage Max could cause. And I moved the toy bench across the room, so his only access is by taking a leap off the back of the couch. More on that when he figures it out.

happy halloween!

2009-11-13T10:26:00.008-07:00

I finally got the pictures off of our old camera - it was on the fritz for a while and then finally gave up the ghost. These pictures are a little grainy, but here is the chronicle of some of our Halloween adventures. I don't have any pictures of cute little Summer because our camera died for good just after Katie's Halloween party at preschool - hours before Summer's arrival. Mag will just have to post some photos of all the cousins. Alex still can't stop kissing that cute little baby!

I love the difference between Katie's and Alex's cookie decorating technique. Alex would decorate a cookie by dumping on the sprinkles and then chow it down. Katie was very methodical and concentrated very hard on getting the sprinkles exactly where she wanted them. Again, Roger has no doubt who she is related to!

Katie had a little Halloween party at school - well, officially a 'holiday' party that the kids just happened to get to dress up for and walk around the building 'trick or treating.' The boys got to come too. It was cute watching purple Cinderella and her heavy equipment operator - backhoe loader driver to be specific - walk arm in arm around the school.
Here are our two little lobsters. Katie was 8 months when she wore the costume; Max 13 months.

And one finally shot of purple Cinderella. Thanks Oma for making the dress, and to Amy/Aunt Nancy for the gloves and tiara - yes, we know that the REAL Cinderella should be wearing blue and only have the headband, but you try getting that tiara off of Katie's head! Alex wears his construction vest at least part of every day, and Cinderella graces our presence as often as she can. Even Max didn't try to pull the hat off of his costume. I'd say those are good indicators of successful costume choices!

bedtime

2009-11-13T09:07:00.007-07:00

Katie and Alex like to sleep together these days - heads at opposite ends of the bed, feet meeting in the middle. This usually works out, but naturally there are exceptions. Last night I still heard noises coming from their room at 10 pm, so I poked my head in. This is what I found:

(photo re-enactment)

Katie was behind the door showing Alex her dress-up clothes, Max was jumping in his crib, and Alex was 'ready for work.' When he saw me he said: 'Hey mommy! Is it good morning time?' Not even close, buddy, but still adorable.

happy birthday tom!

2009-11-10T14:45:00.017-07:00

Today's birthday fest - a day late - is brought to you by Katie. She made Uncle Tom a skeleton - scissors are her new favorite thing. The head initially had a face of two star eyes, a heart nose, and a rainbow mouth. I left the kitchen to go change Max, and when I got back the stickers had multiplied. My favorites are the 'band aids' on the legs and arm - we've had a lot of boo boos lately. Best of all, she wrote her name just for you Tommy.

Here's a basket full of the kids that sang to you this morning.

These are just some cute boys.

This is one of my favorites. Katie loves to take self portraits - I don't know why she has to go cross-eyed, but so far she does it in every one she takes.

Miller farm

2009-10-23T16:14:00.001-06:00

Katie's preschool class took a little field trip to a nearby farm. A tractor pulled the group around the farm in a trailer, and made stops along the way so we could pick stuff: red potatoes, celery, broccoli, carrots, cabbage, kohlrabi, Indian corn, pumpkins, etc. You could pick as much as you wanted.

The kids were of course much more interested in the other attractions at the farm. There was a huge pile of dirt - Alex could have dug for hours with the excavator and dump truck. There was some bouncy dome thing - maybe next year my crew will be ready to brave the crowds and go for it. There were old cars painted like the characters from Cars. There were a few animals to check out - smart Kat got her thumb bit by the horse - luckily it only turned a great shade of purple.
No one was too excited by the unlimited vegetables, but the pumpkins were another story. Katie could not get enough. After we got home, we busted out the paints and did a little decorating. As you can see, Max's is the most detailed. Today I finally figured out what the crazy smell in my house was: two of our pumpkin creations had taken a turn for the worse and had started to go soft. Luckily we have plenty of backups.

I made some delicious soup with the veggies - which is so delicious that I am the only one who has been eating it for the past week or so. The only thing I've made lately that scored a 5/5 for eaters is . . . pumpkin gnocchi. Martha's show is good for an idea every now and again, and this one really is a hit. It might sound crazy, but how can butter, cream and lots of Parmesan cheese go wrong? This only took about 30 minutes to make, and for the first time in forever EVERYONE ate it! Katie loved helping cut the gnocchi.

pumpkin gnocchi - courtesy of the Martha Stewart Show - modified by moi

1 can of pumpkin -reserve 1/4 cup for sauce - Martha cooks a pumpkin, I cheat and use canned
2 cups flour, plus more for work surface
Coarse salt and freshly ground black pepper
1 teaspoon freshly grated nutmeg, plus more for serving
1 1/4 cups freshly grated Parmigiano Reggiano cheese, plus more for serving

1/4 cup (1 stick) unsalted butter
2 shallots, finely chopped
20 medium chanterelle mushrooms, trimmed - I re-hydrated a mix of dried mushrooms
8 fresh sage leaves - I used powdered sage
1 cup chicken or vegetable stock
1 cup heavy cream - I should have used less - this is a TON of cream

FOR GNOCCHI:
Mound flour in center of a large work surface; add 1 tablespoon salt and the nutmeg. Using a fork, mix until well combined.
Make a well in the center of the flour mixture. Add 2 cups pumpkin and 1 cup grated cheese to well. Slowly incorporate flour, beginning with inner rim of well. When flour is incorporated, gather dough together to form a rounded mass; knead mixture until smooth, 4 to 5 minutes.

Divide dough into 6 equal pieces. Roll each piece of dough into a cylinder about 1 inch in diameter; cut into 1/2-inch-long pieces. Transfer gnocchi to a baking sheet and cover with a clean, damp towel. Repeat process until all the dough has been used.

Bring 6 quarts water to a boil in a large pot over high heat. Generously salt water and return to a boil. Add gnocchi and cook until they rise to the top, about 4 minutes.

FOR SAUCE:
Heat a large skillet over high heat and add butter and shallots. Reduce heat to medium and continue cooking until shallots are golden. Add mushrooms and sage; cook, stirring, for about 10 minutes. Add 1/4 cup pumpkin, chicken stock, heavy cream, and 1/4 cup grated cheese; cook, stirring, about 30 seconds. Season with salt and pepper.

Using a slotted spoon, transfer gnocchi to skillet and toss to combine. Serve immediately with freshly grated Parmesan and nutmeg.

in short

2009-10-22T15:25:00.010-06:00

It's past time to get Max's 1-year pictures taken. For fear of being reported to child services for the 'unicorn look' he's sporting, I keep putting it off. Just as Max's forehead was healed from the first bruise - acquired while climbing out of a box - he landed in the EXACT same spot crawling along on the floor. At the current rate, he'll be 3 before we get those photos taken.

This is for Elizabeth: my photography skills are totally lacking - let's blame the camera, shall we? - but just try and tell me these transfer sheets aren't amazing! Fun times ahead. For anyone who wants to come over and sample, these would be dark chocolate with nutella centers.

Oma needs to go get one more pair of halloween pajamas, since cousin Summer will be joining us this year! The ghosts even glow in the dark. On a side note, cumpulsive Kat has been scouring Ebay in search of Thomas the Train engines, track and features. If you or anyone you know has outgrown their train set up, let me know. :)

I've been debating about renewing our Zoo membership for the coming year. If Katie will sport excellent outfits like this everytime we go, I think it's a must! Apparently it was still a little too warm for most of the animals to put on a good show, but the bears were fun - the black bear was at least sleeping in an interesting place. The gorilla was excellent - he was totally posing for us. Katie might even be brave enough to try sitting on a MOVING carousel animal next time.

blue bird lake

2009-10-08T21:14:00.010-06:00

In honor of my friend Betsy, I took the troops up to the trail head for BlueBird Lake in Rocky Mountain National Park. The ranger SWORE to me that the parking lot at the trail head was full, and that we needed to park down below. Why not? We were there to hike, right?
A wiser woman might have given more consideration to the fact that the trail was not wide enough for the stroller - leaving the 2 year old under his own power for the adventure and Max in the backpack - and the fact that I am not the queen of spatial memory.

It took us 2 HOURS to get up to the actual trail head. I'm pretty sure that Alex needed to stand on every rock we came across. For about half the time I carried Alex on my shoulders. We had lunch at the trail head, and I seriously considered turning around and starting back to the car, but I just couldn't go that far and not actually hike any of the trail. Calypso Falls was only .3 miles away, so off we went again. The rejuvenating powers of goldfish and yogurt are quite impressive.

Katie and Alex had a good time playing on the bigger rocks by the falls, and on each and every rock on the trail up to them.

On the way back down, the question of how we were going to get back down to our car became more pressing. I did not have it in me to carry Alex on my shoulders all the way back down, and by this time Katie was wanting to be carried too. A number of people passed us on the way back down, including a lone girl in a red sweatshirt. I ALMOST asked her if we could hitch a ride, but she was going to finish too far ahead of us and I didn't want to push her potential good nature by asking her to give us a ride AND wait 30 minutes for us to get to her car. So we soldiered on, got back to the trail head, and started down the road back to our car.

A few cars drove past us as I was praying for some help with my predicament - and some courage to flag someone down for a ride. Then some folks in an SUV stopped and asked if they could give us a lift. Inside the car was the girl I had thought about asking for a ride, sitting behind her parents. They were on their annual vacation from Texas. HOORAY for Texans! A cynic might argue coincidence, but seeing that girl - who I had already had a good feeling about - in that car assured me that we were being looked after.

When we got back down to the car I drove up to the trail head to see how far we had walked. OVER 1.2 miles!! Katie and Alex are total troopers, and I am a superhero!

We all had a lot more fun when we went back in August with Roger. We made it up to the top of the falls (Calypso again; we're not quite ready to make to to Ouzel Falls), and the kids had a blast throwing rocks in the water.

I about had a heart attack because little billy goat Katie likes to jump from rock to rock - sometimes jumping towards the water. There was much more energy for playing since we actually started at the beginning of the trail, and skipped the 1.3 mile introductory walk. Even Max got to escape from his cage for a little climbing.

county fair

2009-10-06T21:13:00.001-06:00

Alex's obsession with trucks has been steadily fed by the construction going on at the end of our street. What could have been a HUGE inconvenience and major source of irritation has instead actually been great. When we're really lucky, they park the spare dump trucks right across from our house. At least 3 times a week I load up the stroller with some # of children - ALWAYS including Alex - and we go and check out the construction guys. Scoop - scoop - dump. Sometimes Alex brings a truck along with him, sometimes one of his truck books. He is equally excited about cement mixers, dump trucks and excavators. One of the excavator operators is AMAZING. He knocks water bottles out of the way with the bucket. He hopped a cone out of his way with a huge sheet of metal. The company should have me write the evaluations for all the workers - I totally know who hustles and who is just there.

The county fair was in town in August, and, because this is Longmont, there was an exhibit of farm equipment. There were signs everywhere saying not to climb on them, but we did sit in the wheels. One of our party could have stayed there all day.

The fair had special activities for kids every morning. The day we went kids could make stick horses and then compete in a 'rodeo.' We skipped the rodeo, but we rode our horses around the entire fair. Going into the exhibit hall, a photographer for the Longmont Times-Call snapped a few photos, and one of them actually ran in the paper. Luckily her outfit sort of actually matched that day! (When I can figure out how to run the new scanner, I'll post the picture.)

One of the cool things about the small town fair is that, well, it's small. The owners of the animals are right there, and are excited to talk about their buddies. A couple of cute little 4H girls were practicing with their goats, and let Katie (Alex was NOT interested) and her friend Grayce walk them and pet them. Did you know you can actually RENT an animal if you want to participate in 4H? I always thought you had to live on your own farm. Who knew?

This quilt reminded me of Donna. (My hand is there for scale - I'm not touching the quilt!) The piecework was amazing, and it reminded me of the quilt show we went to the week after Max was born.

best mini-vacation ever!

2009-09-29T15:46:00.010-06:00

Last weekend Rog hatched an idea for a little getaway. We haven't gone anywhere this summer since the Young family reunion in Mancos. He hammered out the lodging and activities, I was on snacks and packing - the perfect division of labor. We had a great time! Katie announced early on that she wanted to go swimming 3 times - we almost met that request.

We drove down to Manitou Springs - right next door to Colorado Springs - Friday afternoon. We were hoping to swim before dinner, but traffic did not cooperate. The restaurant had animal heads and other 'western' stuff all over the walls, so between the decorations and mini-corn dogs we were off to a good start. Playing in the pool afterwards - which was the warmest pool I've ever been in - sealed the first day as 'totally fun' (Katie).

Saturday morning we went swimming again after breakfast and cartoons - so far a banner day for Katie once again. We then rode the cog train up Pike's Peak. The steam engines have been retired on this track too, but the train enthusiasts in our family had fun anyway. The original plan was to have one pair of adults ride up with the kids while the other drove up the mountain in the car and then switch at the top, but the road was closed because of snow. It's only September!
(Katie repeating over and over: Momma, I'm chilly!)
When we got to the top of the mountain, it was easier to understand the closure. The temperature when we started in Manitou Springs was around 70 degrees - at 14,000 feet it was 20 degrees, plus the windchill factor. We did not spend too much time running around outside, although Katie and Alex did have a small snowball fight and enjoyed stomping in the drifts. The kids had no trouble with the altitude; it seems to be the most challenging for folks over 6 feet tall - at least in our family. Luckily the gallon of water Rog drank on the way up helped him recover quickly on the way back down. Thankfully Max slept on the way up, because it was wiggle-mania all the way down.

And there you have the first - and thus far BEST - mini-vacation. Hopefully it won't be long before the next one.

input please

2009-09-29T15:32:00.005-06:00

My Grandmother Kathy hand-knit Christmas stockings for everyone in my family - parents and brothers and sisters. My mom would like to carry on this tradition and have matching socks for all the spouses and grandchildren, and me and my needles have finally gotten busy to try and comply. I have a number of socks to catch up on - and Carol is always hoping for more additions! The socks my grandmother made have pictures knit into them - I am no where near that patient. Too much counting for me. I decided to use the same palate, but change the design for each sock. After a number of consultations with my grandmother and some searching, I figured out how to do the toe and heel - it's not an exact replica, but it's close to the originals.

Now, as to pattern.

What do you think? I like the different stripes for the boys. Now that I see Roger's argyle next to them, is it too busy? I mean, he is a complicated fellow - wink wink - but is it too much? And what should I do for Katie's sock? She said she wanted snowflakes - she's complicated too - but is that too different? What other patterns fit in with the mix?

HELP!!

july adventures

2009-09-27T21:55:00.009-06:00

We were pretty good about hitting the park at least once a week - at least during the first part of the summer. There are a couple of parks here that have water features, which makes it cool enough for everyone - meaning ME - to enjoy! The Denver Botanic Gardens had an exhibit of dinosaurs this summer, so we had an adventure day with our buddies the Chapdelaines. The gardens were amazing. It's funny how many years I drove past them and thought I should go check them out but never did. I decided to wait until I could make it a real adventure! The kids were not as excited about the plants as the big girls were, but they did have a blast searching for dinosaurs everywhere.
The Longmont Museum had an exhibit called 'Little Builders.' We didn't discover it until near the end of its run, otherwise I'm sure we would have returned again and again. There were all sorts of things to build with - giant Lego-type blocks, wooden blocks, PVC pipe and fittings. Alex was - surprise! - most interested in the displays that involved movement - the crane, the conveyor belt, and the 'air cone.' Katie liked climbing in the little play houses and up on the 'construction work site.'
Roger got his boat out to the reservoir a handful of times. Unfortunately, he didn't have too much luck with the wind this season.

In case your name is Carol and you're freaking out about the lack of life jackets on everyone, the depth here is only a couple of feet. Roger had just sailed over to us on the shore.The discovery that Katie not only fits well on top of the stroller but loves to ride up there really made my life easier this summer. With the carabiners on the handle for holding more of our paraphernalia and Seven's leash, our traveling rig is about as good as it can get.

random happy late birthday to rog

2009-09-27T21:36:00.007-06:00

For Roger's birthday this year - back in June - we went on a hike towards Longmont Reservoir. Not the reservoir where we often hang out, but the actual reservoir for Longmont. We brought along a picnic supper and set out. On this particular occasion we were thwarted from reaching the end by some rain and a late start, but the kids enjoyed freaking Oma out by walking too close to the water on the little stretch of beach where we ate.

I like Roger and Max's matching haircuts - well, I should say hair STYLES, since Max is nicely on track for receiving his first hair cut at the age of 2 like his older brother.

After we read 'Bread and Jam for Francis' for the first time Katie switched to that diet. She did not quite grasp the point of the book, but at least she was eating something!

Max continues to sleep doing the splits. I just love what a little flexible guy he is.

retro time

2009-09-26T22:34:00.008-06:00

Here's a little fashion show of Max sporting some togs that I believe DAVE might have worn, oh, say 39 years ago or so. No comment on the percentage of polyester in the fabric, but I think Max pulls them off.

One day Katie came on some errands with me in Boulder. We drove down 30th Street to go return something at Macy's, and she spotted 'the ROCKET PARK.' Since learning of its existence, she asks me at least 4 times a week if we can go to THE ROCKET PARK. So, we finally hit it. Scott Carpenter Park has gotten a few updates, but is still just as fun as it was a couple of years ago when WE used to want to go to the rocket park. It will, however, take a few more visits for Katie and Alex to climb up to the top of the rocket. Luckily now that she's played there once, Katie now wants to go back even more.

(Now that I see these photos posted, I'd LIKE to say that it's my camera or a problem with blogspot, but I'm pretty sure that Max's face is indeed just always covered with some kind of goo.)

weekend with aunt mag

2009-09-26T21:46:00.010-06:00

In August Kalle had a conference in Denver, and luckily Mag and her new little friend came along for the ride!

Alex could NOT stop kissing his new little cousin. He is so smitten with her - as are we all!

We have finally found someone that makes Max look like a GIANT!

With Mag we skipped the adventures and just hung out playing at Oma's house to maximize our time. We are still working selling CO as a better place to live!

One of the funniest things we did was play a lot of hide-and-seek. Or more accurately, watch Katie and Alex try to play. The best hiding place was when Katie 'hid' underneath the top of our mattress that I had just cut off - more on that later - right smack in the middle of our living room. Alex came out and looked and looked and could not find her, despite the HUGE lump in the middle of the floor. So funny.

weekend with lizzy

2009-09-25T10:40:00.011-06:00

Aunt Lizard came out for Labor Day weekend. It was totally action packed.

There was a lot of wrestle mania . . .

We played at the reservoir. Alex had a grand time dumping water on Liz the entire time. Not pictured is the new trick Liz taught Katie to do in the lake . . .
We went up to Loveland and rode the train for the last time of the season . . .

We went down to the Taste of Colorado in Denver with Oma and checked out some rides and some street vendors. I got scammed by 'Egyptian COMFORT 1200' sheets - my brain read COTTON, but they are NOT 1200 thread count, and most definitely NOT cotton. A nice couple gave us their extra tickets as we were leaving, which was great since each ride was the equivalent of about $4 a person. In the center bottom Katie and Liz were rocking out to 'I Can't Get No Satisfaction.'

Since Aunt Lizard was around we added to the tye dye collection . . .
On Labor Day we went up to Georgetown and rode the Georgetown Loop. The trees aren't really changing yet but everyone had fun. Roger worked hard to get over his disappointment that the engine is no longer a steam engine and just a regular old diesel now.
As always, the visit was too short, and we're ready to have Liz come out again to play with us, the soon the better!!