First Day of School

The boys were thrilled to go back to school on Tuesday. They have had a good summer, but they are sick of each other - so it is a great that they are now back in their separate classrooms and are able to get some space from one another for at least a few hours a day. They have quickly adjusted back into the routine and have been eager to go each morning.

The first day for students at my school was on Monday and I got sick. I haven't had to take a sick day for myself in almost 5 years - so it was great timing that I was sick Monday morning. I did manage to make it to school but I only stayed a couple of hours before coming home. I spent the rest of the day in bed and then took a Tylenol PM that night, slept great and then felt back to normal the next morning. The rest of this week has been good and I think I will like working there - it seems to be a much more financially secure school district (which also helps with teacher morale) - plus they gave every new employee (all 300) a new laptop with a writing tablet.

Because of my new schedule, Greg has to take the boys to school every morning. I hated not being able to take the boys on their first day but I will definitely be there next year when they go to Kindergarten. Greg did his best to take the annual first day of school picture - but Luke was kind of grumpy.



Previous years' first day of school picture:





Below - a video of the boys dancing. Greg bought himself a new TV and surround system system (don't ask me why) - and the boys have been pretty fascinated with the music.



Lastly - a picture of the boys at one of their soccer games this summer. Ryan does great as long as no one takes the ball from him.

Weekend with Friends

We were fortunate this weekend to spend some time with three of our friends from college. Tim and Stephanie were in town on their way back home to Texas. It was great to see them again and to see how much Mackenna has grown since we last saw her in April. My college roommate, Dalis, was also in town last week. We were able to have lunch together one day without the boys and spend some additional time together before we had dinner with her and her husband on Saturday. It was great to reconnect with old friends. It is always so nice to pick up with friends that you haven't seen in quite some time as if no time has passed at all.


Mackenna is really growing up. She is super cute and looks just like Stephanie. The picture above is similar to the one that we took last summer of the 3 kids.

The playset got quite a work out this weekend. Ryan greets every new person in the house by telling them about his new playset and then says, "do you want me to show you?" Once he gets that person out there, he suckers them into swinging him - for as long as he is able to keep them or I rescue that person, whichever comes first.

The boys were in love with Dalis. She laughed at everything that Ryan did and he thought he was the coolest and funniest kid ever. The morning after they left he mentioned how he liked to make her laugh. Luke gave her the complete tour of the house, complete with a tour of his underwear and pajama drawer.

Dalis and I met our freshman year at TCU. We were roommates when we were juniors and I've always considered her to be one of my closest college friends. I had a great time hanging out and I hope to see her again in October for TCU's homecoming.

Total sidenote - I had my first attempt at making a pie this weekend. This is really a fruit tart, but I still had to make the dough in my food processor, roll it out, put it in the tart pan and then bake it complete with pie stones. It was really good and I look forward to doing it again.

We enjoyed spending part of the day on Sunday with Tommy. He was really fascinated by what his crazy cousins were up to and spent most of the day watching them with amazement.


He even enjoyed reading the paper with Uncle Greg.


Lastly - 2 videos of the boys at the pool. Luke has become really good at floating on his back and can do so longer than many adults, his record is 20 seconds. The second video is of Ryan swimming - he has really good form and is more coordinated than Luke.

Summer Fun

I can't believe our summer has almost come to an end. Technically, there is still about a month and half left of summer, but for me, it ends when I have to go back to work. I know that I am very blessed to have a job that allows me to have time off to spend with my kids. It is one of the perks for being in education and a big reason why I went into it. The boys and I have spent much of our summer at the pool. It is a short walk from our house, they have a blast, it wears them out, and they then take a great nap. As for how their swimming skills are going, they are doing great. Ryan's form is better than Luke's, but he doesn't have the courage to swim in the deep end like Luke does. They are swimming about 2 or 3 body lengths and the next step is to teach them how to tread water and come up for a breath when they are swimming.

We have been to a nearby park a few times that has a clean creek and water features for kids to play in, as well as a neat playground.


Ryan drew this picture for one of his teachers - I took a picture of it because he wrote his name for the first time.

I set up these tents in the backyard before Conny and the kids were here. I wanted to see if they would work for the 7 of us - we determined that they were too small, but the boys enjoyed playing in them for a couple of days.

Sorry for the picture of food in Ryan's mouth - but I thought this was a sweet picture of the boys and their cousin Thomas. He and Jenny joined us at the pool a few weeks ago and Tommy really loved the water. Hopefully they can come again before the pool closes.


We are now in our second summer of soccer. The boys' skills have greatly improved since last summer but there is still alot of room for improvement, especially in stamina. Another problem is that we teach our children to share and to take turns, but in soccer (as in other sports) the purpose is take the ball away from the other team - that is a hard concept to get them to understand. They both are pretty good at kicking the ball and heading for the goal, but they don't understand how to keep the ball and then to try and get it back.

Below - last year's soccer picture.



Recent cookies and such:

I made these cookies for an open house at the boys' school. A parent painted a mural in the library based on the Kevin Henke's book Brown Bear, so the cookies are based on the mural (part of it involves raining blueberries).

I also made cupcakes - Snickerdoodle cupcakes with Vanilla Bean Buttercream frosting and Oreo cupcakes.

And these cookies were for the school director who retired this summer.


Random video of Ryan being silly tonight on the swing set. I wish I had gotten a video the first time he ran onto the swing because he was flying. He was more cautious the second time because he said it hurt just a little bit.


Lastly - pictures of boys at the pool the last few summers.

2009

2008

2007

The Rest of Our Visit

I don't even know where to begin. We did so many things when Conny, Jacob and Olivia were here. We went to the pool a couple of times and on Sunday we went to Heritage Square in Golden to ride the alpine slides and amusement park rides. During the week, we went to the Children's Museum, the Wildlife Experience, Pirates Cove water park, Washington Park for a bike ride, and a bakery to decorate cupcakes. The kids had a great time and Ryan cried all the way home from the airport when we dropped them off.

Dancing at the Children's Museum - the tap shoes were the best part.

Luke, my little scientist. He really liked the bubble exhibit.


Ryan loves to blow the bubbles.

I love this picture that Jacob painted.

Silly boys. These 3 feed off of each other and it turns into crazy boy chaos (Olivia retreated upstairs a few times to have some quiet time to herself).



All the kids loved Greg's nightly bedtime story.

We went to Washington Park one day and Conny and I bicycled these 4 large kids around the park. It was pretty funny and the kids had a good time. Conny had to get out and push us up any kind of hill, but as long as it was flat, it was fine - we made it around the park twice.

Greg and Luke on the way up to the alpine slide. Ryan rode with me and loved it.

Conny and Olivia heading down. Olivia was so scared to go up on the chairlift and then down the slide, but she loved it and it was one of her favorite things the whole trip.

Cupcake decorating. I must say that Luke was really pretty good. He was great at using the star tip. I will also say that next time, we'll do this at home, but I was feeling lazy and liked the idea of a bakery that will do all of this for you and then clean it up.



The annual Children's Museum picture along with the ones from the last 2 years.

2009: Last year's picture and post

2008 picture and post

Last - a video of Luke from a nearby park. We went to play on the cool playground and water features and he loved this. Ryan tried it out as well but he flew off and landed on his head, so he is not a fan.