Rodeo Parade and Rodeo

This year we were invited to be on my company's float in the rodeo parade. The theme was Bring Your Wild Bunch so we made cardboard cutouts that looked like various bugs and animals. And we had a cow (the son of one of my coworkers) sitting at the back. Of course everyone thought it was the Chick-fil-a cow so the kids watching would get super excited. Oh and we had to dress like rodeo clowns. I don't think I will share those pictures here...... :) It was fun for me and Hailey. She got the pageant wave down pat by the end! Emma didn't smile because she was a little scared to be riding on this trailer with no real seat or stability like a car and Eli and Kayla apparently didn't realize just what they had signed up for to begin with! It has to be said that it was their idea to do it! I was asked, I asked them and they both got very excited, said yes and promptly got to work on their costumes.

We were given tickets to the rodeo by one of my coworkers that plays a big role in the rodeo even taking place here. I had taken Kayla and Eli only once before and they were both too young to really remember it. They have also changed venue's since then so it is much easier to see the whole thing now. For some reason this town decided to have our rodeo indoors in an arena for a few years but changed it to an outdoor stadium. Which makes a lot more sense! Anyways, I took my 4 kids plus my neighbor's 12 yr old son who was visiting from Houston, TX for the summer. The kid lives in Houston and his dad has never taken him to the rodeo! I couldn't get over it! But I was glad to help him experience his first rodeo! Oh and I didn't mention that our seats were in the front row next to the shoots for bull riding. The kids all had a great time and loved seeing the fireworks at the very end (we didn't get any on the 4th because of budget cuts). It rained on us for a few minutes but the majority of the seating is covered so the little girls and I just moved back a bit. The big kids didn't care that they were getting wet! and the funny thing was that at one point Hailey was on my lap to where she could see the crowd on the opposite side of the arena and started doing her little pageant wave!

It's finally off!

Emma's tape and glue was supposed to fall off in 5-10 days. It apparently had other plans! She busted her head open on June 10th. My mom and I both cleaned around it several times because it had that band-aid like sticky stuff that was collecting all the worlds dirt in it. Still, the thing didn't budge. So when I took Hailey in for her well-baby he told me to use something like nail polish remover to make the glue unstick. He said that wound was healed probably in 5 days but the glue was just hanging on. It had been driving JR nuts and he had been wanting to pull it off so you better believe as soon as I told him that he was going to get to work immediately! He somehow convinced Emma to lay on his lap while he just pulled it off. She squirmed a little but was fine when it was done!

So now, we call her #1 because it looks like she has the #1 on her head! We figure she just wants to make sure that nobody can forget her status! :)

Hailey's well baby & birth mark check-up

Yesterday was the appt for the birth mark check-up in Denver. The Dr. said it isn't as red as it was when he first saw her back in November which is a good sign. That basically means there isn't as much blood flowing to it. And for those who don't remember, this birth mark is formed by a bunch of little capillaries (hence the blood flow, heat and color). I had noticed that it doesn't feel quite so hot to the touch like it did for a while. Other than that, there have not been any changes which is good in that it isn't growing. They did go ahead and get another picture of it just to have some comparisons but I don't take her back til she is 2.

Today was her 1 yr well baby check-up. Of course she has a clean bill of health. Which I am very thankful and blessed for that! My baby girl weighs 26 lbs still! She hasn't gained any weight over the last 3 months. So it looks like she is going to do what Emma did and stop gaining weight and start gaining inches in height. She was 29" long too. Now that she is walking she is loosing her awesome chub thighs though!

Manitou Arcade

I had today off so I took the kids to Manitou to the coolest arcade this afternoon! It's still called the Penny Arcade even though the price is far from that. But what makes it so cool is that they have some super old games and some brand new games. They have this bank of "rides" that I swear are some of the same that I used to ride in when I was little. Like the helicopter that goes up and down...I'm pretty sure I rode that in King Soopers! And they have a "boardwalk" that all of these rides are on with a little creek that runs below it. Of course that kind of freaked out the kids a little bit!

Happy 1st Birthday Hailey Sophia!

WOW....just wow. I cannot believe my baby girl is 1 yr old already. This past year has flown by! Hailey is such a sweet baby girl and loves to come cuddle with me. She is very much a mama's girl. She is funny when it comes to people that are strangers to her. Sometimes she will be fine and be their friend but most of the time if they so much as look at her she will start bawling. With the exception of my friend next door. She loves her and is always actually happy to see her! The girl didn't start getting mobile til she was around 10 months old. That was when she started crawling. Then she took a few steps on her first birthday but waited for a few days to really try again. Now, she is full on walking and it is too cute. She has a small vocabulary. The words she can say are mama, da (for dada), mma (for Emma), lijah (for Eli), lala (for Kayla), no no, hi, dat (for that). She will point to everything and say "dat" so we find ourselves explaining everything in sight. She now has 9 teeth and her favorite food to chew with those teeth is cheese. Any form and kind of cheese.

We decided not to have a birthday party for her this year because there was too much going on around that same time. So we just celebrated as a family with pizza and cake. Kayla baked and decorated Hailey's cake and it was yummy! My dad, step-mom and little brother came over for a bit to give Hailey her present and watch her open it. So in all it was a pretty relaxed day for all of us.

Emma's 1st ER Trip

Most of you know this story already because I put the pics on Facebook but I have to put it here for the main records! :)

This evening Emma somehow managed to trip over herself, fall and bang her forehead right on the corner of the wall in the kitchen. Eli was in there and saw the whole thing and as soon as he saw the blood pouring out of her head he started freaking out and yelling that she was bleeding. Then Kayla gets to her and does the same thing. It did look nasty simply because of the amount of blood that was coming out of it but as we know, head wounds bleed a ton no matter how big or little the cut is! Anyways, once JR and I got her sitting down in the bathroom and got most of the blood off of her face Kayla and I took her to the emergency room for stitches. After waiting for who knows how long in the waiting room and listening to some poor woman throw up in a tiny bag they gave her and all the other hustle and bustle of your typical ER they finally get us back to be seen by the doctor. Fortunately he gave us 2 choices...we could either do stitches or Dermabond. I certainly didn't want to put her through the trauma of stitches if I didn't have to so we opted for the Dermabond. Emma did great through the whole thing because she is so dang shy. She wouldn't say a word or move an inch. She just stared at him while he got her all taped and glued together! And all in all I think we were there for 3-4 hrs and we hadn't eaten dinner. So we stopped and got her a special post ER visit Happy Meal. :)

Still alive!

I knew it had been a while since I had posted last but I didn't realize just how long! Sorry about that! So here is a quick update (no pics because they are on my computer and I am doing this from JR's).

Kayla is all done with school. She now gets to move on to 8th grade. She is switching schools for 2 reasons. The first being that her old school closed it's doors for good on May 28th. The district has been shrinking since the 70's and had to take some drastic measures over the next few years to clean it up a bit. Her school was in an old building with A/C in only 1 room (the computer room for obvious reasons) and they felt other facilities were in better condition so hers was one to go! The other reason for her switch is because she decided she wanted to be in the IB program which is housed in one of the other middle schools within our district. This is a challenging program compared to the one she was in these last couple of years but she says she is up for it!

Eli is done with school too. Fortunately his school was one that was spared as they were cutting several elementary schools. They will actually be taking on most of the students from one of the schools that closed on May 22nd. He is now a 4th grader! Holy cow time flies! He is very glad it is summer because it means he gets to spend most of his time outside. He didn't get to do soccer this year because we totally missed the deadline...and then some...on signing him up. So he is waiting until fall to do that. Which he seemed fine with so maybe he was already ready for a break!

Emma is still a 2 yr old through and through. She can go from sweet to typical terrible two at the drop of a hat! Her favorite thing to do lately is play with her brother. She can't seem to get enough of him. Even though she fights with him alot! :) Even tonight, she was invited to spend the night with Nana and then backed out at the last minute because she wanted to see Eli. The other thing she likes to do is play outside. She has made friends with the little girl next door and always asks for her. Trouble is, the girl lives with her dad so she isn't always with her mom and Emma just doesn't understand that!

Hailey is huge! The last time she was weighed she was 25 lbs! Not fun to carry around for long periods let me tell you. She finally started crawling about 3 weeks ago and is now already pulling herself to a stand. She will get brave and cruise along a piece of furniture on occasion but that doesn't happen often. Tonight she was standing up holding onto me and would let go for several seconds and just stand there. I think she thought she was pretty cool because she kept doing it over and over. So I suppose it won't be long before she is walking too! Yikes! She can say mama, dada, Elijah (which sounds kind of like e-da-da). She will try to say Emma but it usually comes out mama and we are trying to teach her to say lala for Kayla. She waves goodbye and will clap her hands when you say "yay Hailey". She is starting to get cuddly. She will lay her head on my chest and I hug her and say "Oh sweet Hailey, I love you" and rock her back and forth. She says some gibberish after I do that and I think it's her version of "I love you". It's too cute! I love this time when you get to watch them develop a personality. She is a happy go lucky baby (most of the time) and will give you the cheesiest grin! I will have to try to get it on camera at some point because it makes me laugh every time.

Anyways, that's all I can think of at this point. I'm quite sure there is lots more....it may or may not make it onto here! We will see! At some point I will try to get some pictures on here too! :)

Happy Easter!

We had a pretty low key Easter this year. Of course the fact that it was snowing all day long was part of the blame there since we couldn't even head to Nana's house for a bit. We colored eggs in the morning, had dinner later and then did the egg hunt. Emma woke up at 7 and begged and begged to be able to check out her Easter basket. It's fun to watch the kids when they start really getting the concept of things like the Easter bunny and Santa Clause! And even though it was snowing outside she insisted on wearing the tank top and shorts the Easter bunny put in her basket!

Easter egg hunting in our house isn't like other egg hunts. We have to keep it fair so we "hide" the eggs for Emma in almost plain view and we have the kids take turns each looking for an egg. It was driving Eli crazy to see the eggs for Emma! But the first one she found she said "yes!" like she had just scored big time! Too cute!

This is what happens when your 2 yr old doesn't get a nap....she beats up the poor innocent bunny cake that Nana made! This picture really doesn't do it justice but you can at least see the whisker's are a little off and one eyeball is missing! She took a nap after this.....

Where's Hailey?!

First of all, she has finally started saying Nana and mama! Of course she said Nana first though! Which made Nana happy! So we started taking this little video trying to get her to say mama and Nana on it. She ended up playing her version of peek-a-boo though. It is too darn cute to not share with everyone! She has been playing this game with us for months where we could cover her with her blanket or whatever else we had and say "where's Hailey?" and she would pull it down so she could see us. It has now evolved into her pulling her chubby hand up to her face and usually only gets it as high as her mouth. But she will sometimes get it up to cover one eye while she peeks at you with the other. The when she pulls it down we say "there she is!" and she gets excited to do it all over again.

This is my first attempt at doing a video on the blog so hopefully I do it right!

Oh yeah and pay no attention to Emma yelling at the dog at the end of the video! :)

1st zoo trip of the year

My friend Jessica M and I decided to get together and go to the zoo on Sunday with her mom and aunt. We had unusually nice weather all last week. The weekend was supposed to be cooler but not so cold you couldn't go outside. Typically, the zoo is a bit cooler because it is on a mountain (hence the name Cheyenne Mountain Zoo) but that so was not the case on Sunday! It was a cloudy day and cool in the morning but by lunchtime the sun was shining and the temps were rising. It got hot enough that I took Hailey's pants off and let her hang out in the stroller with just her shirt and diaper on. And I had to push her sleeves up! Of course, Kayla and I left with sunburned shoulders and faces. Oops!

We had 4 adults and 9 kids with us on this trip. The kids ages were from 13 yrs old all the way down to 8 months old. Oldest and youngest being mine. Hmm I had never realized that before. Anyways, we had a great time and managed to not lose a single kid! Our a single strand of hair! :)

The boys - Sam 3 yrs old, Zander 5 yrs old, Christian 9 yrs old, Eli 9 yrs old

The girls - Hailey 8 mo old, Kayla 13 yrs old, Emma 2 yrs old, Allorah 1-1/2 yrs old and Gabby 10 yrs old

And all of us together. Her and I have been friends since we were Kayla's age!

Emma with Sam and Zander. They are both holding her hands! I think I am in trouble....

The kids on the big chair

This picture is funny. If you notice, most of the kids are all looking off in the side...this is in the petting zoo area and they have loose chickens in there. One was near us and coming up to our legs...the kids were all watching to make sure it didn't come to the chair!

Jessica and I

Jessica and her mom Kim - boy don't they look alike?!

Poor teething baby

My poor Hailey is working on getting one of her top teeth. She already has 2 on the bottom. Seems like it has taken forever for her to get one on the top! This is the first tooth from all of my kids that has caused this kind of trouble! You can see a little blister on her gums where the tooth will be. Not soon enough for Hailey...but it will come! I have heard of this happening with other kids. In fact, I have a friend who's son would get a rather large, painful blister before his tooth would come in each time! All I have to say right now is thank God for teething tablets! Add a couple of those to her bottle at night and she can sleep peacefully for a few hours.

Happy 13th Birthday Kayla!

Man. I cannot believe it. I know I say this every year but it's true. Time really does fly. When they are babies, you don't necessarily realize just how little time you get to "have" your kids. 18 yrs is nothing compared to the average life span! And really, they start breaking away from you when they hit middle school at 11 or so yrs old. And naturally, Kayla is still working on that process. Since she is the first born she kind of gets the short end of the stick when it comes to certain freedoms. Which is fine by me! Because while she is breaking away, JR and I have to learn to let go little bits at a time. And boy is that hard sometimes! At the same time, it is fun watching her grow both physically but emotionally and mentally as well. She is officially taller than me by 1 inch! No surprise really but I surely didn't want to admit it at first! She is such a smart girl and is a good kid too. Of course she has the attitude but that is to be expected! Not always excused, but expected for sure! I know I dished out my fair share of 'tude to my parents when I was that age! I love that she is still open with me and willing to share stuff with me. And I will hold on to that for as long as she is comfortable talking to me. I hope that never ends but I do have to be realistic!

We celebrated her birthday with the grandparents on Wed the 11th. My mom is taking cake decorating classes so we had her make the cake. Kayla requested an i-pod cake. And of course Nana did an awesome job!

Darlin and Emma

Grandpa and Grandma (my dad and step-mom)

Nana, Hailey, Kayla, grandpa and Eli and my little brother Chris in the background

Kayla's cook i-pod cake. Nana even put the little ear buds on the side!

Blowing out her candles. She had the plan to have a 1 and a 3 candle for her cake so that I could use the 1 for Hailey's bday and the 3 for Emma's!

On her actual birthday (the 12th) we took her out to dinner. Her request was IHOP and there was no changing her mind! She gave herself away that it was her birthday though because she was wearing a bow from a present around her neck. So they came and sang to her and gave the kids this huge hot fudge sundae. Earlier in the day I picked her up from school and took her out to lunch. Then after dinner we came home and she opened her presents. Between her grandparents and us she ended up with $85! Of course she spent it all today when we went shopping.

Her and her friends always joke that they are nerds since they are in the gifted and talented program. Isn't this shirt fitting for that?!

I gave her the option to either have a birthday party with her friends this weekend or go to the Fall Out Boys concert coming up in April. She chose the concert! And is super excited about it since that is her favorite band.

Look Where I Found Her!

Earlier this week when I went into the girls' room to wake them up I noticed Emma's bed was empty. At first it freaked me out because that was where she should be, obviously! I went back to my room to check that she wasn't in there and I just missed her. Nope. I checked closer in her bed. Nope. I checked Eli's bed. Nope. The last place I figured she may have gone was to Kayla's room to her bed. On my way to Kayla's room....

Here is where I found her!

She had grabbed both of her pillows (yep she sleeps like that every night!) and went to the couch! When I woke her up and asked her what she was doing out there her response was "because I was hangin' out"! Not sure who she thought she was going to hang out with in the early morning hours but she must have gotten bored!

Updates on the family

Long time no blog! It's been longer than I realized since I had posted anything on here. Sorry about that! :) I don't seem to have much computer time at night these days. Anyways, here are some random updates for you.

Kayla made the honor roll at school this semester. We went to the awards ceremony at her school a few weeks ago to see her get it. She also just had her science fair last week. Her project was pretty cool. She would have the person sit at her desk and give them a sheet of various math problems, and while you were doing that she was also playing different songs and telling you the name of the song. Afterwards, you had to name the songs in order. Basically it was testing multi-tasking. And guess who did better?! The younger ones! The adults didn't do so well at that!


Elijah has been working at mastering his Lego Star Wars game on his DS. :) He hasn't had a whole lot of exciting things going on. Our main focus with him right now is organization and mastering his routine. He is an extremely smart kid, just lacks what he needs to help him along!

Emma is...well what can I say....Emma. She is deep in the throes of being 2 for sure! The things that come of that girls mouth sometimes either causes our jaw to drop on the floor or we double over in laughter. Like, for instance, when she told Kayla and I that boogers don't taste good, food tastes good! Very wise little girl. :) She went through a short period of time while she was sick getting out of bed every night several times a night until she would finally crash out. Thankfully that was short lived! She is doing great potty training. We still put her in a diaper at night and sometimes at nap time too. She also has to be in a diaper if we are going to be in public doing anything that will distract her. She tends to forget to go potty and she has a fear of big toilets. So we are working on that part with her!

Hailey has come leaps and bounds over the last month. She can now roll over front to back and back to front. She had mastered back to front long before the other direction. Which is strange because going front to back is way easier! She can sit up on her own for quite some time before she topples over. She babbles a lot now too. Her first "word" already was dada. Of course! And I swear it has sounded like she said Elijah and Kayla at some point too! We recently started feeding her baby food again. Oh and she had her very first ear infection last month...not fun! Her weight is...drum roll please...22 lbs! My mom had her at the UPS store recently and the lady behind the counter didn't believe she really weighed that much. So she put her on the scale there and sure enough that was her weight!

Welcome to the world Aiden James!

My step-brother and his wife had their 2nd baby on the 1st. Yep a New Years baby! And the first one for their county (it's a smaller area) of the year! He weighed 6lbs 7oz and was 19" long.

He is quite the handsome boy isn't he?! And you gotta love the hat!