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!

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 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.....

Christmas '08

This year, Christmas actually seemed a little more relaxed than years past. Not exactly sure why since we still did the same routine. We open presents and have breakfast here at home and then sometime in the afternoon we head to Nana's house for more presents and dinner. My dad lives close to her so we usually go to his house to visit after dinner. Naturally, the kids had a blast and got lots of cool things. Emma is getting more into opening things and was trying to help Hailey with her stuff too. Anyways, here are a few pictures from the day.

The tree after Santa's visit

The stockings were laid out on the couch with care...we have a chimney but it is downstairs and we don't use that area!

Kayla's ultimate present....a gift certificate for Tangles Salon and Day Spa to get her hair done by my friend Sue

One of Eli's ultimate gifts from Darlin...it has this little alien with a UFO that sounds like the Jetsons vehicles!

Eli's ultimate, ultimate gift...a Nintendo DS. This is the first game system we have purchased for any of the kids!

Emma with her baby doll from Santa. Whenever you would ask her what Santa was going to bring her, the response was always "Santa's gonna bring me a baby doll"! So naturally that was what he had to do! The funny thing was that I went out one night to buy this thing and promptly showed JR and the big kids because I thought it was too darn cute. Eli is getting to the age now where he isn't sure if he believes in Santa or not. So he immediately looks up at me when she opens this thing and says something about me getting it but how can it be from Santa! Oops! And the really funny thing about this doll is that it says 5 different cheers and my 12 yr old has all of them memorized and moves to go along with them! I swear Kayla plays with this doll way more than Emma!

Hailey with her cool Peek-a-blocks from Darlin

Eli with his Nerf Vulcan from Nana....he also has a Nerf bow (he calls it his big, bad bow) so I have seriously been dealing with not just Eli playing with this thing....his father has been playing too! They love to have wars with them and we all get stuck in the middle! I even got ambushed one day by JR when I came in the front door.

One last little gift from Santa! This was at the end of the day when we finally got home from Nana's. Hailey under the tree with a portion of loot collected throughout the day!

Happy Thanksgiving!

Today was a nice relaxing, laid back day like any Thanksgiving should be! We went to Nana's house for dinner. She cooked all the food with the exception of the green bean casserole which was what we brought. And my step-sister Ayrah brought a pumpkin pie.

Yep...that's an H on her head...you see when you have 4 children it gets hard to remember who is who..... :)

So naturally we all stuffed ourselves silly and then the kids got out Nana's Wii to play for a bit. She has had this thing for over a year and this was actually the first time I had ever played! I can see why the kids love it so much!

Kayla and Eli playing Mario Kart....and Emma with her Dora game thinking that is going to allow her to play too!

And now, Emma is sleeping at Nana's house tonight so that JR and I can go shopping in the morning! Yep, you read that right, we are braving the crowds. His idea...not mine if you can believe that!


Oh yeah and the good news, it is FINALLY snowing here! It's coming down pretty slow so we will just have to see what it does overnight. But maybe there is hope that JR will have to plow at least once this winter! :)

Busy day

Man! Today ended up being a not so lazy Sunday for us. It did at least start out slow. But then we went to Eddie and Carla's house and had him cut Eli's hair and Kayla hung out with her friend Janae there. We also got the opportunity to visit with Rosie, who is the lady that babysat Kayla and Eli for 6 yrs! She unfortunately broke her back a few weeks ago so she is staying with them (he is her son). Her first comment when she saw Hailey was "She looks just like Eli"! No surprise there! The girl does look just like her brother! Anyways, Kayla stayed at their house to hang out for a bit. In the meantime, we went to lunch.

After lunch we came home and put Emma down for a nap. She only got to sleep for about an hour before we had to wake her up so that we could go pick Kayla up. We then had to go pick up her friend Kadejah so she could borrow our computer and printer to do her homework. While the girls were working, JR and Eli were grocery shopping. Then we had to take Kadejah back home so we could get home and finish up cooking dinner (pot of beans) and actually eat it! After all was said and done, I didn't actually get to sit and relax until about 9:45! Phew! I think we were all worn out and ready for bed! :)

Leaves!

Today was yet another gorgeous day here in beautiful Colorado! According to my computer the high was 72. Remember, this is Nov 2nd! The only way you can even tell it's fall around here is because the yards and now streets are starting to fill up with leaves. So the kids decided to make the most of it and went outside to play in the leaves. I swear this is the only time of year you will find kids everywhere WILLING to do some yard work! The kids would rake the leaves into a pile and then jump into them or throw them at each other. I think I will be picking leaves out of Emma's hair days! And you should have seen the tub at bath time! I don't know where she was hiding them!

Kayla jumping in

Emma "jumping" in. She is a little too short to jump so it was more like a run.

Eli jumping in. I LOVE this picture. It shows his care-free nature and the smile on his face is priceless.

Eli, Cassidy (lives next door), Kailey (lives across the street and I'm not entirely sure I spelled her name right!), Emma, Kayla and Hailey. The were taking a candy break here!

While this nice weather was good for Halloween and this whole weekend....enough already! We need snow!

Happy Halloween!

So despite the fact that I live in Colorado, have lived in Colorado for almost 31 yrs now (I was around 5 mo old when my family moved here) I just didn't feel like it was truly Halloween in Colorado. You see, Halloween to me always meant that it was either snowing, had been snowing or there was still ice on the ground from a snow fall a couple of days prior. Heck for years we would have had a snow fall by my birthday on the 18th! This year, we haven't even had a single snowflake hit the ground yet! Weird, very weird. As a matter of fact, it was so nice last night that JR and I only had to wear sweatshirts (matching I might add!) and the kids were fine without having to have layers on underneath the costumes! And typically, here in Colorado, we have to plan costumes for getting at least one warm layer under whatever you wear!

We usually trick-or-treat down our street and then one other street to the east of us. Don't know how we started going to the east except for maybe that you have to tackle a hill, albeit a small one, to go that direction and we didn't want to bother! Anyways, we obviously had Hailey in the stroller because I wasn't too interested in carrying her in the Bjorn. I debated on whether Emma should even participate since is only 2 and won't be eating most of the candy she gets. But I figured since she was able to say "trick-or-treat" and "thank you" that she could go ahead and do it. We started her out in her stroller but as soon as she got out at the first house, she didn't get back in! I think she walked about 3/4 of a mile once all was said and done! And we didn't even do both sides of the other street because it was so late! Of course, Kayla and Eli could have kept going. But every year we go to Nana's house so she can see the kids all dressed up.

Eli's costume from the front view.

And then the side view. That is a green glow stick in the jar to make it look like his head is in formaldehyde. However, it fell out a couple of houses down the street so it was in his candy bag the rest of the time.

Here are all 4 of them all dressed up and ready to start walking! Or riding! Kayla is dressed up as one of those High Voltage boxes, Eli is a man carrying his head in a jar, Emma is a dalmation and Hailey is Tigger.

This was some hard work for Hailey! She had to take a nap after a while!

All in all, it was a good night. Nice weather. Happy kids. Well until the end of the night and Emma was up past 8! JR did have to run back home halfway through to poke some more holes in Eli's costume because it was fogging up from him breathing!

Sky Sox

So apparently we haven't done our parental duty with Eli by taking him to a baseball game of our local team the Sky Sox. Let alone the Rockies! Well the kids participated in the Summer Reading Program at our local library and the final reward was 2 tickets to a Sky Sox game. So we decided to have a night with just JR and I and Kayla and Eli since that is a rare occurrence these days. I don't know that Eli would want to go back because he didn't seem to really find it very exciting. But at least now he can say he has been to a baseball game!

Kayla and Eli at the beginning of the game

Can she be any more of a teenager than this?! Talking on the phone during a baseball game!

Eli being goofy

Busy!

It has been a while since I have had the chance to do a post because we have apparently been a little more busy than I realized!

On Friday the 25th was JR's birthday. We took him out to dinner and made him birthday brownies. Though his dad gave him a homemade cheesecake which tasted way better than our box brownies so that really ended up being his birthday cake!

In the meantime, my step brother and his family came home from Alaska (he was in the Army) and was spending the week here before moving on to Delta to live there. So we spent some time with them and went to a couple of parks so the kids could all play together along with his mom and my nephew. My step brother's birthday was the 28th so the entire family plus a couple family friends all went out to dinner. Was fun times for sure!

So now we are just going to take it easy for the next couple of weeks before school starts here. Kayla is very much excited for it, Eli, not so much!

Hailey is getting fatter by the day. I took a couple of pictures that I would have loved to share last night but for some reason my other camera is starting to act up so I lost the pictures! Ugh! She is still waking up twice a night but she is doing good on her routine/schedule. And Emma is still doing great with her. Hailey loves to lay on her brothers chest in the morning after her bottle while I eat breakfast with Emma. And of course Kayla is always a HUGE help with both the girls! I don't know what I would do without her!

Emma is pretty much talking in full sentences now. It is sometimes entertaining to listen to her try to form it. She will repeat the words until they come out sounding just right to her. It may take her 5 tries but until it's perfect she will not quit! And for the most part, you can understand what she is saying. Of course there is still the occasional word that you just can't make out though.

A day at the park with friends

I met up with my friend Jessica at our favorite park here in town, America the Beautiful, so that our kids could play and cool off in the fountain. We have been friends since we were in 5th grade so not only did we basically watch each other grow up but we have watched our children grow up. Jessica has 5 children of her own plus my 4 kids so it makes it a little bit of a challenge to try to coordinate our schedules and get the kids together to play. But we were able to do it on Tuesday afternoon. And boy was it a scorcher! Phew I am done with this heat. It has been in the 90's all week long here which seems too hot for me!

Emma on the big girl swing

Allorah hanging out in her stroller....she doesn't like cold water so she wouldn't play in the fountain

Gabby, Zander and Christian playing in the water

Zander, Kayla, Emma, Christian and Eli playing in the water....not really sure why it is fun because they basically just run around and around the fountain kicking the water...guess you gotta be a kid to appreciate it!

Emma followed Zander every where he went! Made it nice to keep track of her since I just had to look for him and she would be right there!

Cool Water

I learned about a new park here in town last summer but we never made it down that way. So I figured since I had most of the summer off of work, I would take the kids down there. We finally made it today and the kids loved the place! They have a spray park for the kids to run around and play in the water. The only bad thing is that there really isn't much shade for us parents to sit in around the area which wouldn't be so bad if it weren't for having Hailey and not wanting to roast her! Even Emma enjoyed playing in the water despite the fact that the girl was turning purple from being so cold! She did finally decide to get out and stand by me but still wouldn't let me wrap her towel around her. Eli found these giant water gun things to play with and that was pretty much what he did the entire time. Kayla got to follow Emma all over the place and even tried to knock herself out from not ducking when going through this rainbow thing! We will definitely be going back at the kids' request!

They had to check it out before they could really get in there and play according to Kayla

Trying it out

That rainbow thing in the background is what Kayla hit her head on....

And here is what Hailey got to do....

See her purple face! This was on our way out when she finally let me wrap her up

Big Sis/Little Sis

My friend Valerie found these adorable shirts for Emma and Hailey when I was pregnant and I couldn't wait to put the girls in them! Too bad they don't make them big enough for Kayla to wear! It was near impossible to find something that a newborn and a toddler could wear that would match. I could get kind of close but that was it. Nothing really cute or special either. But the problem was solved! And you can't really tell in the picture but the pigtails on the girl are actual pieces of string that stick out of the shirt like real hair. OK that is one of those you would have to see it for it to make sense but it is cute!

Zoo trip!

My sister and brother-in-law wanted to go the zoo and decided to not only treat us to that trip but also purchased a membership for us so we can go all we want for the next year. So the kids and I will have something to do this summer for sure! We have the best zoo in my opinion compared to other zoo's that I have been to in other cities or states. They have done a ton of work there over the last 7 yrs or so and it is turning out to be even better!

Anyways, we had a good time despite the heat and managed to walk almost the entire zoo. And while that might not sound like a big deal, you have to know that our zoo is on a mountain so it is all hills. So much so that they have put in "Sky High Adventure" which is a ski lift that goes from the bottom to the top of the zoo.

The sad part of all of this....my camera broke after taking 1 picture. I'm not sure what is wrong with it and I am hoping and praying that it will be an easy fix. Fortunately I have an old camera that I can use but obviously didn't have it there with me! So sorry that I don't have any pictures to share with you!

Happy Birthday Lorie!

We got to celebrate Lorie's birthday with her this year since she was in town. Her birthday is July 5th but we did cake on the 4th since we were all together. Here are a few pictures from the evening.

Emma being very shy of Grandpa Patty (my father)

A good portion of the group (several people missing like my mom and step-dad and my brother-in-law)

Lorie dishing out her own cake! Geez we are mean!

Happy 4th of July

My sister, brother-in-law and brother were all in town over the last week so we celebrated the 4th at my moms house. We had a BBQ and then went down to their neighbors house to light off some fireworks. JR and Hailey stayed in my moms house because of the noise and excessive amount of sulfur in the air! Emma was either up on the front porch or in Aunt Lorie's arms most of the time because of the noise. JR and I ended up taking the 2 little girls home to go to bed and let the big kids stay with Nana and come home after all the fireworks. It was a little surreal for me to wait until after 11 for my kids to come home! :) Here are a couple of pictures.

Nothing goes together better than fireworks and beer right?!

The kids with their sparklers

Front view of the kids with their sparklers....the girl in the white shirt is the granddaughter of the people who's house we were at