Thankful Moments

 November FLEW BY!

WOWZER...

Grant and Billie went to their first Middle School Dance.

All the kids wanted to wear white because 

it was black lighted.  

James celebrated his 10th Birthday on 

11/11/11

We talked to Grandma & Grandpa's

and then we skyped with G&G Daniel

because:

Our cousin came to share his birthday with James. 

They were born on the same day.  

It was so much fun.  

We played, had dinner at Red Robin (YUM!), shopped at the Lego store,

Opened Gifts, Had Dairy Queen Ice Cream Cake,

Played XBOX Kinnect, legos, watched Cars 2, swam at the hotel

and most of all made wonderful memories!

HAPPY HALLOWEEN!

Pumpkin Spice Waffles for Breakfast....

(My sad attempt to make a jackolantern out of them 

the kids didn't care they weren't perfect

I had em at waffles and chocolate chips.)

 For 13 years I have dodged the bullet 

on having to do 

major face painting...

(Thank you Billie for thinking enough to grab the camera and get some progress shots!)

 Pretty Tabby Cat

 Stealthy Ninja

Zombie Skateboarder

(aka candy passer outer)

 

2011 Halloween

We had a terrific night.  We have such a fun active neighborhood.

And I guess now that Halloween is over, 

winter can officially start!  

Happy Anniversary COLORADO

On October 23rd. 2010 we said good bye to Arizona early in the morning.

We pulled into our new home @ 12:30 am

(I guess traveling with 2 vehicles, 3 kids and 2 dogs is slow going.)

On October 26th, 2010 our things arrived a Bekins moving truck.

They removed all the doors on the house 

and for a good part of the day, brought all our things in. 

The weather that day was in the high 40's and the house was chilled.

Nothing like October 26th, 2011

Where we woke up to this:

 Good thing we blew out the sprinklers,

Dug out the snow shovels

and put the ice scrapers in the vehicles.

 It continued the whole day....

 But it's okay.

Cause this is why we moved here. 

And I am ready...set...go!  

Halloween-ish house

Last year, at Halloween, we were still surrounded in box after box.

(Wow!  Does time fly.  I can't believe we have been Coloradans for 1 year now.)

This year I determined to be decorated by the middle of October. 

(It helped I was hosting the neighborhood Halloween Bunco party on the 15th)

 I love my fireplace....

It is really hard to decorate though 

because it is massive

& 

because it is a 2 story room, it goes all the way up!

 One of my obsessions this season is 3D letters. 

 I made these fall letters

out of old shoe boxes and cereal boxes.

(Now I want a whole 3D alphabet wall, watch for XYZ to come first.)

 These are my take on a Pinterest find.  

It took 1/8 of a yard of stripe fabric, and some black scrap fabric.

I sewed little magnets into the the top 

so we can rip em down when we need/want the fireplace on.

And the pumpkins in the tub...

in 2009 I had a great idea to have the kids write what they were thankful for.

We then embroidered them into the stripes. (Grant and Billie did their own sewing

and I helped James do his.)

I wanted a little keepsake of their handwriting and their thankfulness.

(This will probably be the last time with THIS particular tradition. It was time consuming)

 I used up the leftover strips from the thankful pumpkins to make a runner for my end tables.

I love stripes.

 18 foot ghosts...

 Ginormo Jack o lantern...

one of my favorite decorations EVER...

Even though Bill hates storing and moving it. 

 Replaced all the picture frames with Halloween pictures past. 

I am embarrassed that I have

NOT ONE

Picture of halloween last year.  Grrrr. 

I know this is the bathroom, but this is one of my favorite views.  

Or maybe because I have a Apple Cider Warmer in here, so it always smells like fall. 

First Snow of the Season

We woke up to rain yesterday

which quickly turned into

SNOW! 

 I am sure we were the 

ONLY 

excited family on the block.

The boys took a quick trip up to

Cheyenne to watch uncle Mikey

coach a football game.

It snowed the whole way to Wyoming

and continued the whole day.

There was only a slight delay in the game 

for the Thunder and Lightening 

to pass. 

Who knew it could snow AND thunder and lightening. 

Billie and I held down the fort here.

We heated up the house by making a batch of

Oatmeal Chocolate Chip Cookies

and a big crock pot of chili.

Today:

The snow is gone and the sun is shining.  

Signs of Fall

The high today was 64 degrees

Perfect to put these:

Into These.

Perfect for homemade chicken noodle soup simmering on the stove

 and PERFECT for homemade bread baking in the oven.

Aspen in the summer.

We took an early anniversary trip and drove up to beautiful Aspen.

I mean, what says I love you for 16 years more than a trip with your children. ;)

We picked Bill up from work in Downtown,

armed with an iced venti white chocolate mocha

I took on the mountain with my little nissan

It was a "fun" little drive up to Independence Pass.

The Colorado Department of Transportation

must have decided it was easier to leave the guard rails off

the twisty, turny, windy road

than to have to replace them.

It was a beautiful afternoon at 12,095 feet.

The kids (and I) thought it was so cool

that there was still snow on the ground

at the end of July.

Aspen is an amazingly gorgeous mountain town.

The kiddos got a kick out of the winding stream through the middle of downtown.

The dogs kepts jumping all the way in to cool off.

We road the gondola up to Apen Mountain.

F-A-N-T-A-S-T-C

Nothing says summer vacation

like an ice cream bar on the top of a mountain.

Bungee Jumping for the kids.

James flipping out. :-)

Chair lifts in the summer.

Bill drove down the mountain, and thank goodness he did.

We were stuck in traffic for an hour and a half.

And if you are going to be "stuck" you might as well be coming down the mountain.

*Grant was with G&G Daniel this weekend

so we can't wait to be able to take him back to Aspen.

Summer Art Festivals

Bill has a childhood friend who is an amazing artist.

(You can check him out here)

He came and did several shows here in CO

So we took the kids for some culture.

This guy *below* was amazing.

He is covered all in mirror.

He had an assistant that was

armed with a windex bottle

keeping him shiny and clean.

Grant loved this target. *grin*

Billie loved everything.

(a girl after her mom's heart)

James really "really" wanted

to bring this guy home.

It is amazing to see lots of talented people in one place.

Just goes to show that you can really do anything you put your mind to.

Welcome Back to Winter

Just for fun, I took some pictures that pretty much defined our week:

The kids spent Tuesday on a "too cold for school" day.
We watched movies, played legos and liv dolls and ate breakfast at 11.

Wednesday it was still below zero at going to school time, so the district canceled school again. We spent the day doing much of the same thing as Tuesday.

On Thursday the kids went back to school
and
I drove around town doing errands in the
blustery snowy "not supposed to snow" day.

Friday it snowed on and off all afternoon.
And today was picture perfect dropping fluffy, yummy big flakes.

Winter has welcomed us to Colorado with open arms.
And we are so happy it has graced us with some real winter weather.

Tidbits of Life

The "little" kids love their short walk to and from school.
Especially when there is ice to crunch along the way.


Found a new hair stylist...finally!
I needed it.
She gave me great tips on how to care for my locks in the dry mile high city!
And she gave me great tips like Hair spray is no good here because it drys and then flakes off. Who knew!!
I am super happy with my new light layers though!!

Adjustment

We have been in our new place for 3 weeks. Parts of the house are totally unpacked and parts of the house are still filled with boxes. I set my goal to be unpacked before Thanksgiving. I will definitely reach it in the areas that are important to eat a meal! :-)

Lots of people have asked how the kids are adjusting and I have to say that at this point it appears to be the best adjustment we have had. The kids have had a lot of changes in the last 3 years. We were not happy with our first neighborhood school in AZ so after 2 years we found a wonderful charter school 20 miles in town that we commuted them to. They left all their neighborhood friends and had to make great new ones. Then we made the decision to leave our far west valley home and move closer to work so we could have dad home more often (his commute was 1 1/2 to 2 1/2 hours one way). Once again we decided to pull them from the Charter school we loved and put them in our neighborhood school. The kids made more great friends their and we loved that we lived in the same neighborhood as most of them, so we had lots of play dates and walk home companions.

We are 2 weeks into school here, Billie and James had 3 days of school before they went off track but so far Billie has been on the phone with one of her new friends everyday and they have all made friends with a couple of the neighborhood kids. I had parent/teacher conferences with Grant's teachers and he is doing okay too. We have some things to work on, but for the most part he is making friends and jumping right in.

I don't think it is ever easy to make changes in life. Changes make you reach, stretch and grow. About 2 years into our time in Arizona we started talking about moving back north near our families and snow and the mountains. We wanted to make the change before the kids were in jr high so that this could be our "last" change. And here we are (4 1 /2 years later) and this change is good. The kids will do more than survive, they will thrive. We have been able to visit with family and friends. And it is so nice to be within 6-8 hours of our families. Because really when it comes down to it, that is what it important in our lives.

Life is an adventure just waiting to happen.

You can either be the driver of your own adventure

or you can take a back seat

and let someone else do the driving.

Our first snow!

Snowing on the house!

I have some pretty excited people at my house.

Soup is simmering on the stove.

Biscuits are baking in the oven.

I know it is crazy to be excited to be cold,

but after 6.5 years in the blasted heat,

this is definitely a welcome change.

And I am sure that

our mountain view will return

tomorrow.

After the snow shoveling lessons have been given!