Homecoming at TCU

We were in Fort Worth this past weekend for TCU's Homecoming. This was my 10 year reunion so it was a great opportunity to get together with my old roommates (thank you Dalis for convincing us all to come). We had the best time and the boys had an absolute blast. TCU games are very family friendly, so there was a Frog Fest on Friday night complete with a Homecoming Parade and bounce houses. The boys had so much fun at the game on Saturday. All the kids (called the Bleacher Creatures) are given a TCU jersey to wear and then they can run on the football field with the football players at the beginning of the game. The boys thought that was the coolest thing ever and Ryan was so cute running the entire 100 yards down the field before kick-off. The game was even complete with an Air Force fly-over during the National Anthem - which was really loud but the boys thought it was really neat.

Me and my boys in front of Frog Fountain. Greg missed the Friday night festivities because he was meeting with our tenant - but I was glad to get a picture of the boys with the fountain, which is a landmark on campus.

Ryan, Luke and Mackenna hanging out before the parade on Friday.


Luke was pretty fascinated with the seal.

At the game, after our run down the field. Be sure to check out the video below of our run.

The boys even got to meet the Air Force Falcon.

Lunch (at our absolute favorite restaurant, Mi Concina) before the game with my old roommates. We all lived in our first college apartment together during our Junior year. Above is Ines and her son, Nash, Kim, Dalis and baby to be, and me with Ryan and Luke. We had a monsoon rain come in all day on Saturday and we were afraid that we were all going to get drenched that night, but the skies cleared about an hour before the game.

Tim, Stephanie and Mackenna in front of Frog Fountain - they are another couple that met at TCU - so the campus means a lot to them, just like it does to us. It was funny walking to the game with them on Saturday. We were pointing out all of the important buildings to the boys (who didn't give a flip) - like my dorm, Greg's dorm, the building where I had most of my history classes, and the chapel where we got married. Stephanie pointed out her dorm and to the door where Tim almost kissed her for the first time, but chickened out. Tim said he was probably afraid that Stephanie wasn't going to let him kiss her and she said that he was probably right.

We went over to Tim and Stephanie's house for breakfast on Saturday and the boys had a great time making their own Belgian Waffle. Their favorite part was putting the whipped cream and chocolate chips on their waffle before eating it.

Mackenna enjoyed the book that Greg read to her.

The 3 kids in their TCU garb.

Video of the boys running down the football field. The kids are allowed on the field while the band plays their pregame stuff and then they run to the right of the band while the football team runs through the middle of band. It is really a very cool thing, especially to kids who get to do it in front of 40,000+ cheering fans.

Video of the boys playing with Tim before the parade. We had been in the car all day so they were so glad to have the opportunity to run around and be crazy - and Tim was willing to do it with them.

We left for Texas Thursday night after school and drove to Dumas (which is about 6 hours away). The boys did so well with 2 days in the car. They entertained themselves by drawing and watching movies. Ryan had the best time. We don't ever let them eat in the car or eat dinner with the TV on, so when we stopped at Sonic in Pueblo and allowed them to eat junky fast food in the car while watching a movie, it was Ryan's dream come true. If he were given the opportunity to be a couch potato, he would be a very good one.

We didn't get into Dumas until midnight - but both boys fell asleep long before that.

I am so glad that we were able to take the boys to our college campus and to a football game. I know they had a great time. Before we fell asleep on Saturday night after the game, Ryan whispered to me, "Mama, the TCU game was so much fun. My favorite part was running on the football field."

Fall Harvest Fun

The boys' school had a Fall Harvest Festival on Sunday. We had a great turnout and the boys had a blast with all of the fun activities.

Ryan built a pencil organizer and then got to paint it. Luke built a butterfly house and then proceeded to paint all over his arm.



Tommy and Jenny joined us for part of the time - Tommy was a big fan of the boys' classrooms and the petting zoo. He liked picking up the hay off the ground and feeding it to the animals.



Both boys had their arms painted, neither liked the idea of having paint on their face (which would have been more painful to remove later). Ryan wanted a ghost that Boo and Luke wanted an Eagle.

Other activities that they enjoyed - petting zoo, band, balloon master (who worked her rear end off the entire 3 hours with no break), arts and crafts, pumpkin painting and a storyteller.

Last weekend the boys created their own store out of their playset. Luke made the King Soopers sign (our local supermarket) and both boys stocked it full of toys from the house. They then gave Greg and I money and credit cards to go shopping.



Another recent game has been building spaceships out of Legos for their friends. Below is Ryan's spaceship for Bear and Luke's Borg like spaceship Baby Tiger.



We are going to Texas this weekend to visit Fort Worth and take the boys to a TCU game and then spending some time in Lubbock for a few days.

Our Little Artist

Luke has started an art class at school. Most days when he comes from school, he pulls out his crayons, pencils and paper and goes to town drawing a variety of pictures. He also brings home a portfolio of drawings and paintings every day from school. Because the boys go to a Montessori preschool, Luke is free to spend every day creating pictures if he so desires. They are often a variation of a car that can fly or of a person - but he loves it and he comes up with some pretty creative things (like the laptop that he made, for example). I left work early today so I could see him do his art class - it was really cool and I can tell that he loves it.

Week 1 - this is either a panda bear or a lion - I've heard him say both.

Week 2 - a Bald Eagle (they are focusing on endangered species the first few weeks) - apparently the tail is on the bottom and the wings are on the top.

Today - a buffalo's head. The art teacher talked to the kids about buffaloes and that they are really bison in the North America. She then asked the kids if they could give him a name. One little girl named him Sylvester. Luke raised his hand and named him Baby Buffalo.

Today's medium were pastels and colored pencils.

This is a sweet picture that Luke made for my Aunt Jane earlier this week.

Ryan is taking gymnastics at school. He is loving that - he likes to demonstrate what he gets to do each week. I'll have to send Greg to watch and take pictures one day - it is right after lunch and I'd have to take off a whole day to see him (I took him to gymnastics for 6 weeks earlier this year). I love that they have their own distinct personalities and interests in things.

Saturday TCU Game

Greg and I went to Ft. Collins today for the TCU v. CSU game. The weather was beautiful and it reminded us of the game we went to this same time last year at the Air Force Academy. It was so miserably cold - I think the official temperature was something like 15 degrees and there was freezing rain the whole game. Today, we both got sunburned enjoying a nice fall afternoon. TCU played ok - not the most exciting game, but we were glad to be able to go.



I love SuperFrog - I especially love how he always comes up in the stands during away games. I think the boys are going to have a blast when we take them to Ft. Worth in a few weeks to see a game at TCU.

And just to highlight the difference in weather - here we are last year in Colorado Springs in early October. Boy were we miserable.

Birthday Weekend and a Hike

I had a great birthday last weekend. On Saturday, the four of us went out for breakfast, watched the TCU game in the afternoon, and then Greg's family joined us that evening for dinner. I volunteered for something for the boys' school on Sunday and that evening the 4 of us went out to the Melting Pot for dinner. It was a much better experience than it was 2 years ago when Conny and I took the 4 kids. The boys really thought it was cool to cook their own food and they totally loved the chocolate fondue.

Luke requested a picture of just me with him and Ryan after he saw the pictures of Greg with the boys on opening day.

Ryan was really good with the fondue - he had a great time cooking his meat and he loved the dessert.

Luke was a big fan of the chocolate.

Luke and his Daddy and below me and silly Ryan.

After a busy week for me at work and Greg out of town, we took the opportunity this morning of having the time and good weather to go for a hike. We drove up to Boulder and hiked an easy nature trail in the foothills.

Luke spent much of the hike consulting with the map.

Luke also wanted to take a picture of me, Greg and Ryan.

Sweetest boys -they are doing such a great job with hikes. Last summer we often didn't make it more than a quarter of mile before they started asking to be held - today Ryan spent most of the hike running and Luke collected dozens of rocks.


Thank you everyone for a great birthday. Thank you Jonny and Jenny for the subscription to Cook's Illustrated (and I loved the appropriate birthday card) and Wayne and Linda for the new beverage thermometer (for my morning mocha) and the gift card to Sur la Table. Thank you also to my sister for my super cute purse and to my parents for the Wii Fit. Thank you to my sweet boys who gave me a new backpack (because I've been using the same one since the 9th grade) and to my sweet husband who got me a Kindle.

Opening Day Weekend 2010

Time for the 5th annual NFL Opening Day Weekend picture of Greg and his boys.


2009

2008

2007

2006

This last one is for Ryan and Luke who wanted to take a picture with their Daddy on the swingset.

No Free Time Lately

Since school has started, we've had something going on every weekend. The boys' school is in the process of improving the playground. So a couple of Saturdays ago, we spent the day painting the fence. Today we spent the day covering up the existing pea gravel and putting down new rubber mulch. It looks great and I'm excited that the boys will no longer be coming home with rocks in their pockets and shoes.
Last weekend (Labor Day) we had our last few days at the pool for the summer-so I took the boys all 3 days. Greg came with us on Saturday, Jenny and Tommy joined us on Sunday, and on Monday we went to the end of summer pool party for our neighborhood. I love how much they love to swim - Ryan loves to swim more than anything else we have done with him and he has improved so much over the summer. Luke started to confuse swimming with treading water in the last couple of weeks - so he had a hard time trying to swim while keeping his legs down vertically-but he has done great, too. Ryan asked me yesterday if we could go to the pool today - I told him it was now closed and he quickly pointed out that we could go to an indoor pool. I guess we'll do that in a few weeks-that would probably be a good activity on a Sunday football day. I think we'll also do a round of swim lessons later in the fall - they can start at level 2, they almost have all of the skills for level 3-so hopefully we can do that next summer.

Soccer ended 2 weeks ago - the boys didn't have a very motivated team this year-they were all much more interested in playing on these rocks than playing soccer most days.

Recent things:
Tonight Luke had a little meltdown at the dinner table and responded disrespectfully to Greg when he told him to calm down. I told Luke he needed to say yes Daddy and Luke shrugged and said, "I have issues." He said it in a way to excuse his own behavior - Luke definitely has some issues, but I told him that we all have issues but that is no excuse.

Both boys give me a daily guilt trip for no longer being able to pick them up from school. Luke even told one of the other mothers about it and she told me he acted heart broken when he told her.

We are planning on taking the boys to a TCU game this year. We had initially planned on taking them to the TCU v. CSU game in October, but now we think we're going to take them to the Homecoming game in Fort Worth. I think they'll have a ton more fun at that game. TCU games are very family friendly-they even let the kids run onto the field with the football players at the beginning of the game. The boys are excited about it and asked me several times today when we're going to go. Greg asked them a few weeks ago if they wanted to go to a Broncos game or a TCU game, they both said TCU - smart boys.

Luke spends his days at school drawing pictures-he comes home with a portfolio every day. Last week he came home with this one below - it is a laptop computer. He also made 2 paper cell phones so we could have a phone conversation with each other. Ryan has been drawing super cute pictures of all 4 of us on a boat - he even includes a telescope, the sail, water, and himself driving.


I'll try and do a better job taking pictures and blogging - things should calm down some in the next few weeks.