Just some random things.....

So the kids are gearing up and getting ready and excited for school to start in 18 days! Yes you read that right, my kids start school in mid August! There are other schools here that start at the beginning of August! Crazy but it makes Kayla happy! Thanks to the generosity of grandparents the kids did most of their shopping today. They had a blast, and so did I. This has always been one of my most favorite things to do. Anyways, not only does Kayla have the milestone of starting middle school, she did half of her shopping in the juniors section! Now, I don't know if this is just some wierd thing with me, but it is a sad day when my kids start shopping in the next size section! And I just realized that I have 1 kid in the baby/toddler section, one in the boys section and now one in the junior section. Way to stretch that out Angie!

After our shopping trip Kayla got to go to a birthday/slumber party. She has been looking forward to this thing all summer long. This girls mom was smart and sent out invitations before school was over! So it has been hanging on our fridge since May and Kayla has been counting down the days! Kayla and friends were supposed to be sleeping on this girls trampoline tonight but I am guessing that since it is raining now and there is the occassional bolt of lightening, they are in the house now! Bummer!

The family, minus Kayla, went to dinner at Brooklyns (this great hole in the wall Italian eatery here). We decided to go all out and even ordered dessert! The funny part of that was Eli and I decided to share (and try for the first time) tiramisu and apparently Emma couldn't stand the fact that we weren't sharing with her. She would watch me and everytime I dipped my spoon in to it she would grab my arm and pull it towards her so she could have a bite! I am guessing that this is Emma's favorite dessert! What a turd that baby is! She certainly knows how to get what she wants!

Needless to say I think this day wore poor Eli out because after we got home from dinner he went into my room and turned on a movie and I didn't hear from him again until bed time!

That's it for now! The big kids will probably do their yearly school clothes fashion show for me tomorrow and I will post some pictures of that!

A Trip to the Zoo

We took the kids to the zoo on Sunday. We have the best zoo in my opinion. It's the Cheyenne Mountain Zoo and for those of you who don't know it (which I think Cheryl may be the only one!) I recommend going there (or looking it up online for those of you who don't live here http://www.cmzoo.org/). They have made alot of changes to it over the last 5 yrs or so and I think they did a great job with the African Rift Valley! Anyways, here are some pictures from the trip!

Kayla feeding the giraffes

Eli feeding the giraffesEmma hanging out in her stroller while everyone else gets to feed the giraffes - if only she knew the fun she is missing out on!

This is our new baby giraffe - only 1 month old! This thing weighed 160 lbs at birth! Could you imagine?Kayla and Eli in the mister - oh what a great invention those are!
JR in the mister - doesn't that look like relief?Me and Kayla in the mister - yeah we spent some time in that thing! It felt great!Kayla and Eli posingJR, Kayla and Eli watching for the tiger - and taking advantage of a cool resting spot!The mommy of this baby had trouble bonding with him so this lady gets to be a monkey mom! Taking a nap so baby will sleep! Haven't we all been there?!Kayla and Eli posing againPoor baby couldn't make it till the end!

Overall it was quite a fun day and I can't wait to go again! Despite the heat!

Returning Nana's hair ties

When my mom babysits the kids she has to fix Emma's hair (of course I usually drop her off with her hair all over the place cause Nana does a better job of fixing hair). In order to keep track of Nana's hair ties we keep them in their own bucket. The kids were going to my moms house today so I figured today would be a good day to return the hair ties. Here is how I decided to do it....

This child will have a sense of humor for sure!

Saturday Part 2

So the 2nd half of our day was my nephew Joey's 2nd bday party. Here are the pictures from that:

Kayla and Joey in the pool - cooling off.

Kayla about to fall asleep - it was a looooong day

Joey playing with his new baseball toy - way cool!

Ice cream is Heaven - ahhhhhhh

Kayla, Eli, Joey and Emily in the pool. Looks like the 3 younger ones are about to race - or they could be lining up for spankings from Kayla....hmmm which is it?

Saturday part 1

We had quite the fun filled day on Saturday. Here is part 1:

We took JR's little sister Katy to lunch at Subway (her choice) and then to Hitt's Miniature Golf right next door for her 10th birthday. This was Kayla and Eli's first time playing and they had lots of fun! Here are the pictures from that.

Emma, Kayla and Katy all loaded in the Suburban and ready to go!

JR and Eli ready to go!

Eli taking his first shot EVER!

There goes Katy!

Kayla was supposed to be taking her first shot EVER but had to stop and pose of course!

Me taking my first shot in at least 11 yrs!

JR giving orders :)

This is what Emma got to do the whole time! And they certainly do not make mini golf courses stroller friendly! She got to go 4-wheeling at times!

This is Kayla chasing after her ball that she shot into the bushes!

Eli and JR - Eli is looking like a little pro down there!

A trip to Boulder

Last Sunday we took the kids to Boulder for the day. It was really for Kayla because she was the only one that hadn't been there yet and we were celebrating her having a short story published in a book!

For some dumb (yep I said dumb) reason we decided it would be a good idea to take our bikes and ride along Boulder Creek to the local mall. We were told by our dear friend up there that it was only about a mile. According to mapquest and the Boulder bike trail map - yeah it's closer to 3-4 miles! And that really wasn't so much the reason I say it was a dumb idea. I say it was dumb because JR and I haven't been on a bike for as long as we have been together (which would be 12+ yrs). Kind of ambitious don't ya think?! And I got to be the lucky one to tow Emma in the bike trailer behind me! The baby weighs 23 lbs 6 oz! The trailer weighs on average 20-25 lbs! Add that together and it equals - yep you guessed it - almost 50 extra lbs! Oh yeah and to top that off, it was one of the hottest days - it had to be between 95-100 degrees! I had stopped at some point and my poor Emma baby looked like she was about to pass out from the heat! Her eyes were turning red and getting puffy and she looked like she couldn't take a second more in that trailer. Once I got her out of it and let her crawl around, she was a different baby!

So all that complaining is to lead up to these pictures. Going along the creek we would see people basking in the song, frolicking in the water, and inner tubing down the creek! Oh to be one of those people instead. Once I finally got everyone to stop and get JR and Mark to go get the vehicle the kids and I stayed behind to put our feet in the nice cool water.

Eli getting ready to go into the creek

Kayla getting ready to go into the creek

Emma putting her feet in (with a little help of course)

Once the boys came and got us, we went to Pearl St and the kids played in the fountain there. Here are those pictures.

She is my little water baby!

Kayla poised for attack!

And she dumps the cup!

It was a fun day as soon as we had the chance to get cool. Everyone was pooped once we got home! Including JR and I!

Family visit

So my step-brother and his wife and baby were here visiting from Alaska. We had a bbq at our parents house last Sat and got to hang with them all day. Here are some pictures from that visit.

Ty, Tanya and Jordan

Eli, Kayla and Emma all in a row and cousin Joey (who refused to look at the camera all day!)

Jordan (isn't that smile contagious) and Eli doing who knows what in the background

Ty, Emma and Jordan - you wouldn't know that those girls are only a month apart! Emma was born in Sept and Jordan in Oct!

Eli - now THIS is deep sea diving! Oh to have the imagination of a kid again.....

Emma sleeping on Lisa - now that is one sleepy baby! She had only just met Lisa that afternoon!

And then of course my memory card in my camera freaked out so once I get some pics from my mom then I will add those too.

Here goes nothing

So the myspace plan didn't work like I wanted it to because you have to have your own profile to view my profile. I figured with a blog, everyone can get to it and view it so this would be best! So let's see how this goes!

I will still be using my myspace page but I will keep this updated too.