April Showers

We had an action packed an fun April. Some days it feels like the only time we are together as a family is when we are putting the kids to bed.

 Earlier this year Brooke's class learned about being an arborist. Brooke loved the unit, and has been talking about trees ever since. On Friday, her class was able to go on a field trip and plant a tree with a real arborist to celebrate Arbor Day.

She had a blast and was able to bring home a couple of pine tree saplings. I'm sure our grandkids will enjoy the shade they generate!

At our local mall, there was a Lego exhibit of a bunch of US historical sites, made from Legos. It was very cool, and the kids really enjoyed it, including the small lego set they got for free. It made Tracie and I excited to take our kids to DC at some point when they get older.

On the 16th, the April Showers turned to snow overnight. Tracie had gone to a cooking class that night, so she drove home through the slushy snow. I woke up early on Friday to go to work. I looked outside and saw this.

Needless to say, I opted to stay home. Kids didn't have the same option, as school was eventually cancelled. That should be the last snow of the season, right?

Dylan is growing up quickly right in front of our eyes. These past couple of weeks he has started to take a couple of steps. Within the last week, he has started standing by himself.

Of course, he remains as cute as ever.

Spring Break

And just like that Spring Break is over.  I must admit that the 2 weeks felt a little long but it was nice to have the kids home and not have a schedule to adhere to.  And really, Dylan loved it!!!!!  Brooke and Connor are so much more entertaining than I could ever be. The first week we pretty much stayed home and chilled.  I learned very quickly that that is NOT what to do during spring break so we headed out the following week.

Tuesday was a gorgeous and perfect day to go the zoo with friends. 

A trip to the zoo isn't complete until they get to ride the carousel or the train.  Unfortunately Connor couldn't go without an adult so I was the lucky one.  I was reminded again how much I dislike like going around in circle whilst moving up and down.  Pretty much stared at the ground the whole time to keep me from getting sick.

Brooke and Connor could have stayed at the zoo all day long.  Dylan finally got tuckered out and fell asleep.  He was a true champ. 

Brooke and I got to go out on 2 dates.  One to the Colorado Ballet's Peter and the Wolf and the other one to see Cinderella.  Both were fantastic and I loved having that one-on-one time with Brooke.

Thursday, we decided to go visit Troy at work and eat lunch downtown.  The kids had never ridden the lightrail so that's what we did.  They loved it.  Makes me even more excited for our trip to Hong Kong/Japan at the end of the year.

Connor kept asking me at every stop if this was our stop.  Thankfully Brooke can read and also listen carefully.  Nonetheless I think the train ride was the highlight of that day.

 

My highlight was winning a radio contest!!!  It's called Rattle Off and I had 10 seconds to name 5 things you traditionally put butter on.  Toast, bread, corn, potatoes, carrots.  I was on the radio and I actually won!!!!

While Brooke and I were off on our dates, Connor and Troy got to go out for frozen yogurt and Home Depot for their monthly project.

Both Troy and I realized how important it is to take the kids out individually and let them just be them.  All in all Spring Break was a lot of fun.  The kids did really well playing with each other.  Makes me a little excited for Summer. 

Happy Birthday!!!!

Our little boy is not so little anymore. We celebrated Dylan's first birthday a couple of weeks ago. Here's a little trip down memory lane. A picture from each month of his life.

Such a sweet newborn. He was great from day one, despite the jack-hammering at the hospital and hanging out under the blue lights for an extra day.

Dylan quickly had a lot more hair than Connor, and was a very happy baby.

The kids enjoy playing with Dylan, and for the most part he is happy to follow the kids around.

He's also a great helper around the house.

Then he started to get mobile. Rolling over, then some scooting.

The backwards scooting had a few mishaps. He forgot the upgrade to the backup camera.

The smiles got bigger and more frequent.

He started pulling himself up, and we realized we needed to lower the crib.

More mobility = more trouble. I think we have the same toilet paper picture with Brooke, Connor and Lexie.

Then the laughing started. I think over Chinese New Year, thanks to all the attention from Jason, Dylan realized that he could command an audience.

He's been a ham ever since.

We love our little (bit bigger) guy. He is a great kid! Excited for what the next year holds.

Sick Free!!!!

I'm hoping that I don't jinx this but we're finally sick-free in this house.  Hooray!!!!  It seems like at least one of us (mainly Dylan) has been sick since Christmas with a nasty cold/runny/stuffy nose.  Poor Dylan seems to have gotten the brunt of all the sick bugs but I think we're finally seeing clear skies!

This last bout seemed to have me the most concerned.  A few days after coming home from CA Dylan started burning up with a crazy high fever, ranging anywhere from ~102.5-103.5.  He had woken up in the middle of the night but in my delirious state I just assumed that he was hot from being under his covers.  It wasn't until the morning that I checked his temp and saw that he was burning hot.  Poor guy!!!

But he didn't even complain.  I can only imagine how uncomfortable he felt but you would never guess.  He continued having high fevers from Wednesday through Saturday.  Sunday was the day that it finally broke.  I had taken him to the Dr. but all the tests came back negative (this was the one time I wished that it was another double ear infection or strep or the flu...at least a definite answer of some sort).  I even had to get urine test.  That was fun!  Alas, Sunday came and he was finally fever free.  Yahoo!!!!  But then a nice rash started to develop.

I remember Brooke doing the same thing (high fever and rash) and being diagnosed with roseola so I figured Dylan was in the same boat.  Not so much.

Monday morning I found him covered in hives.  Poor guy had no idea what was going on just that he was so uncomfortable and itchy.  I took him back in to the Dr. and was told that it was probably some nasty virus and this was how it was manifested.  Poor kid is like me.  I break out in hives after having a cold sometimes.  Sorry Bud!

With some help of Benadryl we were finally able to get him happy and comfortable.  We've now been sick free for over a week.  Let the celebration begin.  Just in time for someone's birthday!!!!

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!