Christmas Break

It's Christmas break...er, Winter break and the kids are in crazy holiday mode. Lily has decided to dress up any and all outfits with the candy cane choker necklace. Yup, I'm the apathetic mom this week.

Eleven

How do kids do it?! Another year and another birthday.

Jack is my easy going kid. He is happy most of the time, except when his sisters are conspiring against him. He still loves Legos, although Nerf guns and Video games are starting to creep higher on the playability list.

Happy Birthday Jack!!

Doll House

For some reason both of the girls put a doll house on their Christmas list. I had mentally crossed that off because I know they are way expensive and then you need to get the furniture. A friend of a friend gave me a phone number of a lady that wanted to give the doll house to a "good home". I'm sure Emma and Lily will love this.

The Day of Candy

I weighed Jack's bag after all the parties/parades and his grand total was 6 lbs. Holy cow, that's a lot of candy. He managed to get the most, I didn't want to start a competition so I chose not to weigh the girl's candy. He was VERY mature to not rub it in. Of course, his is the "community" bag, er, I mean Mom's chocolate fix.

Hot Glue Halloween

I finally got motivated/inspired to work on Lily's Mummy costume. I had a general idea, but I needed to let the idea sit for a couple days to really put myself under pressure to complete it.

First we cut off the feet on an old pair of cream tights. I had parts of a leftover sheet that had previously served time in the Greek Olympics for school. The sheet was torn into strips and I broke out the hot glue gun. Nothing says Halloween like hot glue. Next we cut strips of netting and started gluing and turning.

The good news is that I didn't burn Lily. I did scorch a fingertip or two of mine though. I ran out of glue sticks at one point, I guesstimate the total sticks used somewhere around 10. Not bad for one costume.

Pumpkin Carving

We have a tradition of carving pumpkins at the barn in our neighborhood. It's fun to see what everyone decides to carve. Michael and Jack working on "Mario".
Emma pulled out all the stops and tried to include all things Halloween.

Week of Parties

Last night was Jack's Scout Pack meeting. I, of course, was running around trying to get costumes ready because it was Halloween themed. Somehow, Halloween always manages to sneak up on me. Well, maybe I'm ignoring it until it practically sitting on me. I have a love/hate relationship with this holiday. Who doesn't love the excess of chocolate ripe for the taking? I'll be a little sad when Lily can read and know which chocolate bars actually have nuts. For now, all I have to say is "Honey, you can't eat that, it has nuts." As for the dislike? Costumes are a mystery to me. Being creative sounds great in theory, but I am not at all creative in this realm. Luckily, the kids helped out this year.

I was throwing out random ideas and Emma latched onto the Ipod idea as soon as I threw it out there as a possibility. I had seen this done and it looked SUPER easy. We started working on the costume over the weekend. Of course I was able to leverage a clean room out of her before we started the project. We got mostly done and had to stop for a creative break. We weren't sure what to make the screen out of. We found some shiny black paper and made it work.Jack's costume evolved out of several ideas. He wanted to be a zombie vampire, or a zampire. No problem. That sounds like some fake teeth and a t-shirt stained with blood. Easy peasy.

Lily went as a vampire Tinkerbell, but she really wanted to be a Mummy. I wasn't as motivated to get that costume done by the first "party".

Happy Birthday Emma

We tried to tell Emma we were going to skip her birthday this year. She could stay 8 for another year. Unfortunately, she didn't take us up on that offer. We also tried to tell her since she was born @ 10 at night, we would have to wait to have cake until then. Once again, she didn't go for it. I guess she's getting smarter in her "old" age.

Denver Zoo

We had no school today, something about teachers and "prep time". The kids and I went to the Denver Zoo with a friend and her three kids. We were able to fit in one car and it was surprisingly not as crazy as I thought it would be. I guess my kids haven't been to the zoo in a while because they had a great time. I was sure they'd be bored, but the animals really entertained.

Flying By

I have good intention, but no follow though these days. I must have written a dozen posts..in my head. I'm a little disappointed that they never made it to the computer.

I'm also a little in awe that it's that time of year again. I LOVE fall, but September was so warm that it felt like Summer still. Lily was just asking if we could decorate our house "spooky". I think that I may go look for the fake spider webs and let the kids go crazy. Yup, that's the kind of decorating that interests me right now. Throw it up and call it good. Apathy, isn't it great?!

Published

I took photos a couple weeks ago and the realtor indicated that she would like to use the photos for an ad. I was more than a little happy when I picked up the newspaper and saw that she had used the picture.

Hilarity; Part Duex

Feels Like A Monday

Just because I needed a laugh today.

First Day of School

As is tradition, I try to take the pictures as the kids are headed off to their first day of school. This is a momentous occasion as I have all three kids in the same school. Jack is starting 5th grade, Emma is entering 3rd, and Lily is doing afternoon Kindergarten. The school is starting 15 minutes earlier which is going to make mornings a little crazy, but I'm not complaining.

It's Great to Be Five

Lily is at the great age where she can use all her fingers on one hand to show how old she is. She is also of the age to attend Kindergarten. (YEAH!!!!) We celebrated her birthday at the crack of dawn, actually she was so excited because I told her that she could open her birthday cards first thing in the morning. She knocked on our door at 6:20 AM with all the enthusiasm of a new five year old.

She had some grandiose plans that didn't account for a Sunday birthday. I'm not sure who and how many people she invited, but we ended up having a few neighbor friends over to help her celebrate.

More Power

So, Michael came home from work today with a power washer. It seems he traded his line testers for a weekend with a power washer. I knew that our back patio was dirty, but I didn't realize how dirty it was. Using a power washer is a little addicting, I'm sure there are plenty of things that need to get hosed down. It's a little funny to have been in this house long enough to notice the "newness" wear off.

How many days until school?

Emma must have heard me chanting today. Six more days, six more days!

Steamboat Vacation

We just came back from a quick vacation to Steamboat. Our friends invited us to go with them and we had a great time together. The kids were a little crazy the first night which resulted in a little sleep deprivation the second day. The key to making it through the days were the endless activities. Alpine sledding, trips to the pool, hikes, canoeing, and hot springs made the days fly by.

The hot springs are right in town and were a lot of fun for the kids. We were there less then an hour and we had to leave due to a storm that blew in. Guess they don't want people in the pool if they see lightening. We were able to go back a few hours later once the storm passed. These are the kids in the hot springs;


The bummer of the trip was Emma breaking her front tooth on the edge of the pool. Luckily, it must of missed the nerve as she wasn't in pain.
I was able to get her into the dentist today and they fixed the tooth. I'll have to keep an eye on it, but so far so good.

No Pressure

A friend asked if I would help her take pictures at a reception last night. I had a lot of fun just blending in and taking pictures. The family is in our ward and the reception took place in the next town over. Apparently the church building has "picnic" facilities. Nice alternative to the typical gym reception.

I love that they used books on the tables and buffet.

Red shoes, love them!

Kids Say The Darndest Things

Emma was having a day. You know what kind of day I'm talking about. By 5 o'clock I was desperate to get out of the house in hopes that I would be a better parent in public. Thankfully my neighbor knocked on my door and offered to go on a walk. We proceed to go on the walk and I have to reprimand said child for fighting with the four year olds. It's never good when you have to reason with an eight year old about the futility of arguing with younger children.

A little bit later, Michael gets home from work and rides his bike to where we have stopped to play. Emma is still being a pill and I have put her in time out. Michael asks if she's had a good day. Her reply; "I was until you came."

Oh SNAP. I saw my future right then. Emma the teenager, quips cutting remarks in the blink of an eye. I'm not sure that taking away her Nintendo DS is going to work when she's 15.

Mysteries of Life

Ahhh, Jack. We went to the doctor this morning for a mysterious rash on his legs and on his arm. Thankfully the rash is NOT contagious, but it could take up to 8 weeks to clear up. He gets the weirdest ailments.

Happy Anniversary

Eleven Years! We are not ones to make a big deal, but we did get a sitter and go canoeing for a few hours by ourselves. Michael went all out and got a slice of ice cream cake and had the name Skip put on it. (You'll have to ask him)

Limited Attention

Emma was gung ho about "helping" me make a skirt. Help lasted until about the middle of the project, then she got sucked into some tv show. This is her watching tv as I looked to see if it fit. I think she no longer cares, but "we" did make a skirt together. (Thank you Keira for the tutorial)
Rotten child. She wasn't happy about any of her clothes choices and wanted to wear a pink skirt of Lily's. Umm, Lily barely fits in the skirt, Emma was certainly not going to fit. She was willing to wear jeans under the skirt to make it modest, but it's going to be in the 90s today. I had to explain that layering in hot weather is not a good idea. If you look closely at the fabric, the owls are wearing hats and scarves. Not exactly "Summer" fabric, but the pink met Emma's criteria (which is a little weird, she doesn't normally push for pink).

Crazy for Climbing

I finally remembered to take a camera when I took the kids to the climbing wall. Lily is tenacious enough to keep trying and make it to the top of the "easy" wall.
Emma decided to go right for the hard stuff today and made it up as well.
Jack practically runs up the wall. He is awfully quick and enjoys figuring how to get to the top.

Exploring *contains scary pictures*

I happened to be at one of my favorite parks and the kids found a small snake. I didn't know what kind it was, all I knew was that it didn't have a rattle. Never the less, I didn't let the kids too close.
After we saw the small snake, I kept taking pictures and even got a couple cute ones. Then on the way back to the car I saw a BIG snake.
I may or may not have freaked out when I saw this one. It was at least 4 feet long, in my head it was much larger more like 10 feet.
I think I'm not going to head over to that park for a little while. It may take a little while to recover from that.

As American As...

I asked Michael what he wanted for dessert on the 4th. He said, "What is more American than apple pie?" I'm not great with pies but I figured that Google is my friend and this pie turned out great.

Easy Apple Pie

Ingredients

• 1 recipe pastry for a 9 inch double crust pie
• 1/2 cup unsalted butter
• 3 tablespoons all-purpose flour
• 1/2 cup white sugar
• 1/2 cup packed brown sugar
• 1/4 cup water
• 8 Granny Smith apples - peeled, cored and sliced

Directions

1. Melt butter in a sauce pan. Stir in flour to form a paste. Add white sugar, brown sugar and water; bring to a boil. Reduce temperature, and simmer 5 minutes.
2. Meanwhile, place the bottom crust in your pan. Fill with apples, mounded slightly. Cover with a lattice work of crust. Gently pour the sugar and butter liquid over the crust. Pour slowly so that it does not run off.
3. Bake 15 minutes at 425 degrees F (220 degrees C). Reduce the temperature to 350 degrees F (175 degrees C), and continue baking for 35 to 45 minutes.

July Fourth

We keep our 4th activities pretty simple. We planned on meeting up with our neighbors for a potluck dinner and then head to another neighbors for dessert and fireworks. Right about the time that we started dinner, a storm blew in.

Thinking that the rain would blow through, we continued with dinner inside instead of out. Fireworks kinda happened, the dads put in raincoats and the kids ran in and out of the garage watching. Everyone was drenched by the end of the night, but it was a lot of fun hanging out with neighbors.

Entertaining Cousins

It's crazy how quickly times flies when you're having fun. We had a great visit with Gabrielle and Quinn (cousins) they are welcome to come back anytime!!
We went to the Rec Center to go rock climbing and swimming, the Butterfly Pavillion, and canoeing. Michael took the older kids on a ghost tour up in Estes Park as well.

This is at Union Reservoir, Michael did take the kids to the river a couple times.

Papillion

"Mom, what's the French word for butterfly?"

Emma, my Parisian tomboy, caught a butterfly and wanted to keep it as a pet. Thankfully she decided to release it into the wild, aka, my neighbor's yard.