Chinese New Year!

We decided to head to CA for Chinese New Year last weekend and we picked a perfect weekend to go!  Castle Rock was forecast to get anywhere from 9-18 inches of snow starting late Friday going through the weekend.  Luckily our flight left at 2 pm.  We saw cloudy skies and a chill in the air as we left but nary a snowflake. 

 My parents hosted both Will and my families.  It was a full house but the kids loved it!

Saturday was the big celebration.  I didn't get a chance to count everyone but I'm thinking it was somewhere in the close to 90 people.  We were just missing a small handful of cousins.  Have I ever mentioned how much I love my family.  Seriously!!!!  One of our cousins made a pedigree chart and we are at 98.  Pretty amazing!

Brooke and Connor loved the free reign of the the backyard and all the fun toys.  The thing Connor is riding in is sooo old.  I remember riding that thing around when I was a kid.

Dylan enjoyed being passed off.  He got a little overwhelmed at times but for the most part was pretty content especially of you had something to feed him.

All the kids were excited to see Coco.  It's been almost 2 years since he finished up school but the every time we pass by his old apartment Brooke makes sure to point it out.  Another fun tid bit - Dylan knows how to ham it up for the camera.  It's pretty cute.

 Out of the 90 people I would probably say 2/3 was represented by the 3rd generation. 

Chinese New Year wouldn't be complete without confetti.  And yes...we're still finding some here.  Yeesh!

My mom even got into the action which is pretty amazing.  The next morning while at church I showed her a pocket in my bag that had a ton of confetti in it and she said that it gave her the heeby jeebies. 

We were kind enough to leave some at my house so mom and dad could remember the fun times had this past weekend.

Brooke and Connor loved playing with their cousins.  Connor even managed to finally exhaust himself and took a quick snooze Sunday afternoon.

 Jason was super cute with Dylan and kept him entertained the whole weekend.

I love that Brooke and Sierra are so close in age.  They loved playing together and running around the house.

I started my training for the Ogden Half while in CA and noticed a few things while on my runs.  1) Everything is so green.  I forget that during the winter I can see other colors besides white and brown.  2) The smell of Simi Valley was so pleasant. I would catch whiffs of honeysuckle, plumeria, and eucalyptus. I loved it.  3)  There aren't many runners or at least morning runners.  I think I saw maybe 2.  In fact, there weren't a lot of people out doing anything besides driving.  4) It was great running at sea level and not sucking wind at 6200 ft.  Bliss!  4) There are a lot more bugs in CA.  I almost stepped on a snail (never see those in CO) and saw plenty of dead crickets.  Kinda glad that we don't have a lot of bugs in CO.

When we got back to CO we were welcomed with brown and white.  It definitely snowed while we were gone but thankfully none of the weather affected our travels.  I think we came home to at least a foot of snow and a tall pile alongside our driveway that was not there when we left. 

We Love Colorado

In typical Colorado fashion within the last week we have experienced highs in the 70s and the lows in the 20s with snow but we love it.

Since there was no school today, the kids and I laid low and hung out at home.  The weather people said that we could expect up to 6-8" of snow but I think it was just a few inches.  Enough for both Brooke and Connor to have fun playing out in it.

 Connor somehow face planted in the snow but enjoyed licking off the snowflakes from his red face.

Earlier in the week, Brooke and Connor were playing in the front yard with what we had left of the previous snow.  Poor Dylan wanted to go out there so badly but had to settle for watching out the window.

Connor got to celebrate Valentine's Day at preschool.  He loved handing out Valentines and especially loved receiving them.

Pinterest came to the rescue again in giving me ideas for a V-day box.  Brooke loved decorating it.  Hopefully she'll go for making another one next year.  :)

This Thursday is Chinese New Year so we decided to celebrate both Chinese New Year and Valentine's Day with friends.  I wish I had a picture of the whole spread but this was by far my pièce de résistance.  Once again, it was a pinterest find and I was worried that it would become a classic pinterest fail but it actually turned out.

 Just don't ask Brooke what it looks like.  She said that it looked like shells.

The past couple of weeks Brooke has been learning about different artists.  To kickstart the subject the class had a fieldtrip to a painting class place.  I am so impressed with what she came home with.  She definitely gets her artistic ability from Popo.

So far she has studied Leonardo DaVinci, Vincent Van Gogh, Georgia O'Keefe, Andy Warhol, Claude Monet.  I love her class and teacher.

For Christmas Troy had a friend of ours build a spice rack for me so I could finally organize my spices.  We finally got it installed and I love it and all the extra space I have in my cupboard now.

With all the organizing going on Dylan wanted to help out to. 

Dylan has been working on some of his chompers.  He currently has 4 teeth coming in but luckily he still remains his happy, cheerful self.

With the new found teeth he's been loving all the table foods he can get to.  And who doesn't love eating naked!