Five days of fun

There are a few things in life that you look back on and remember that you truly enjoyed without a shadow of any negativity over them. This trip to Denver this past weekend was one of them for me. I have never gone on a trip away from my children. I did miss them so much and you know how you always talk about them the entire time you are away, but it was a breather that I needed. Life has just been crazy for the past six months and this was just was I needed. We spent a day riding in the car for 12 hours. We took our time and stopped whenever we felt like getting coffee or whatever. I scrapbooked in the back seat for a lot of the way. I got a few pages done. Nothing great but just uninterrupted crop time.

I was able to see my brothers house for the first time. It is such a cute little house and he has done such a great job remodeling the bathroom and laundry area. He is so handy and is going to make a good husband some day. Thanksgiving day we went to a football game in this huge park in Littleton at Columbine Park that they have every year for his church. What a gorgeous day out. We spent Thanksgiving afternoon at my Nobody's house. We went for a long walk through their neighborhood just enjoying the view of the mountains. Fun. The next day was a day to shop and crop. We set out early to get some steals and then were off to Archiver's. After a long day of scrapbooking with my Nobody and my Amos, it was time to be off to brother's house again. I seriously wish I could have scrapbooked for another week or so, but I had to go.

The next morning we drove down toColorado Springs to go to the mountains. My dad went to the Air Force Academy there for a short time and he had fun showing me the different places he stayed and went while he was there. We went up to Pike's Peak, but we didn't ride the train up. I'm not a train type or the type to go to the top of a really huge mountain. Also it was full, so we went on a shopping trip. There are about 100 little shops in Manitou Springs and another 100 in Colorado City which is right down the street. We went to about half of them and enjoyed every minute of it. There were shops for Christmas, toy stores, knittting shops, antique stores, trading posts, hemp shops, candy stores, arcades and everything else you can imagine. Mom and I had funtaking different pictures of things that we want to make out the shops. They were things that would be easy to make but were ouragously priced. We would find something andthen find a way to take a pic of it without the person working seeing us. Also, there are springs everywhere that you can taste the water from. They are cool to see, but totally disgusting. It was such a fun fun weekend and one that I would like to revisit again.

Here are some wassailers that came into the BBQ diner we were in in Manitou. They sang and sang. And they were good!

This was a very old "arcade game" in a dime game shop. It was one where you put a penny in to read a fortune. I thought the name was so funny though. Bunghole. I don't know what you call a bunghole, but for our family it is not a knothole in a barrel.

Here we are at the Thanksgiving football game. My brother is so tall!

We were trying to take a picture with the timer and everytime I just couldn't get it right. This is one that we took last second right before the camera clicked. Pretty cute.

Denver, teeth, birthday, and a house?

I thought I'd look at my blog and i realized how much time has gone by since I posted last. Life has just been plain crazy. I didn't know how boring my life was in T-town I guess. Not much going on ever. Always just sitting around waiting for Micah to get home it seemed. This is the very first day in two weeks (literally) that we have not gone anywhere. I have to change my schedule somehow.

Anyway, I am very very excited because I am riding down with my rents to go to Denver next week for Thanksgiving!! Ahhhh! I am looking forward to seeing two of my very close friends Guru and Amos. It has been 3 months since I have seen either of them and it is long overdue. We are driving down starting out on Tuesday and finishing on Wednesday and coming back on Sunday. I am planning on doing a lot of nothing in the car without kids. This will be the first trip I have taken since I was prego with Ella that is simply a joytrip by myself. No kids in teh car. No work. Nothing. Just silence. Very exciting.

My big boy turned 5 on Wednesday. Yuck. I cannot believe that little baby of mine is five. Seriously...where does the time go? He is going to kindergarten next year! I'm going to die. We had a little bowling party for him and went to CiCi's afterwards. He had such a good time with his little friends. Ella gave him a Spiderman backpack and he carries it everywhere. Full of stuff. And Guru gave me the idea to give him Magnetix since JJ got them last year for Christmas. Let me tell you that if you have a boy who is 4 or 5 and does not have Magnetix, shame shame. You have got to get some. He will sit there for hours playing twith those little things. Pretty creative too. He also got a book from his grandma and grandpa that you can draw pics and then record your voice telling the story. Very cool.

I took the kiddos to the dentist the other day. Gabe had 2 cavities. Joy. And Ella has to have her front tooth pulled. Even bigger joy. She had cracked it on the floor over a year ago and we had a dentist look at it at that time. He said to just leave it and it would befine. Well this dentist took an x-ray of it and said that it is abscessed and infected under the root. If we don't have it pulled, then her permanent tooth will come in all decayed. So we are getting it yanked. With how emotional that little beauty of mine is, it should be every mother's nightmare. I'm just very grateful that I took her to the dentist and they found it. Otherwise her teeth would be so yucky when they grew in and I would be so mad at myself. Praise God.

We are still living with ma and pa and enjoying it. The kids just love it here and their Papa and LoLo do too. Micah is doing great also. Everyone gets along great and it really is just fine. However, I am ready to have my own house. There really is no urgency in getting something because it is too crazy cold to move int he winter anyway, but I need my own space. I want to be ableto spread all my scrap crap across the floor and work until 2:00 in the morning with the tv on and then leave it all out for the next day without feeling like I'm in someone's way. I love my parents and we are really having a wonderful time, but I think we may need to find something. Micah is just fine here though. I think he really likes it. He loves to stay up with my mom and I to play board games anddrink hot tea. We'll probably all cry when we get our own place. And it'll probably be only a mile away. ha!

I guessthis is justa catch up post. Nothing great going on. Just life.

Harvest Festival...finally

My little kangaroo. It was so cute to watch Ella put her hands together and jump like a kangaroo. And she was so proud of the little baby in her pouch.

Corrie put a butterfly on Ella's cheek, so then it was Ella's turn. She said it was a butterfly...but I'm not so sure about that. corrie is such a nice auntie to let her just draw in black all over her face. Ha!

And then there is my giraffe. He thought it was so funny to pull the giraffe face over his and scare his little sister. I don't understand how she can watch him put the costume on and pull it over his face, and still be scared when he growls at her.
The day after the harvest fest, Ella found the face paints and put them on "just like daddy did." Let's just say it wasn't quite the same nose as daddy put on her.

Family fun

Everytime I start taking pictures of the kids, this is what it turns into. Every single time. Oh well, they are the most beautiful funny faces I've ever seen.

I took the kids to the park over the weekend. It has just been so nice here every weekend it is crazy. We go to open houses all weekend and it is just gorgeous. So here we are on yet another fall day. Fall has seemed to last and last this year. I'm not complaining.

Wow Ella's hair is getting long.

Women...women...women

So we went to open gym today at the community center. They have it open on Tuesdays and Fridays for stay-at-homes who need to get out of the house. Well, women are interesting I decided. THere are three groups of people at stay-at-home mom functions. First, there is the group that wears jogging pants everywhere and no make-up with the excuse that they don't have time because of the kids. They don't comb their hair or put their contacts in. (I sometimes wonder if they even brush their teeth.) This is fine except they ALWAYS are like that. It's the norm and not the exception. Then, there's the primped group. They get their kids in their best Gymboree outfits and where their best articles and stand around gabbing with eachother. They don't even acknowledge there is even anyone else in the room. And if one of the jogging pants' ladies children touches their GAP baby---watchout. And then there's the group that just want to get their kids out of the house to wear them out so they take a great nap that afternoon and so they can play with other kids. That's where I fit in. Just a normal person with normal kids playing normal games in a normal neighborhood. I don't want it any other way. I try to talk to eveyone there (at least a smile and a 'hi') and always end up talking with someone who just moved here. Something I can relate to after living in a foreign city for two years.

The kids always have a great time though. Ella loves cooking things for me and Gabe seems to connect with another boy wanting to play football or basketball. Afterwards, Sally Bell and I went and got "Disney on Ice" tickets for our families. It is something that I have always wanted to take the kids to, but somehow hear about it after it's sold out. So we went on ticket opening day. We got pretty good seats and it happened that the only night that worked for both of us was on the cheap night. Great!

Okay so I am starting this new Bible study next week. It is called Bible Study Fellowship (BSF) and it has been around for a long time. Sally invited me to go with her this week because they were having an intro session for people who were interested. I made the cut and my kids did too into the children's program. It is every Wednesday morning from 9-11am and it is interdemoninational, so there are a lot of different breeds there. But it is a study where they just study the Bible and not talk about this thing or that thing. You really aren't even to talk about what your pastor says or anything else. Kind of refreshing.

I still can't upload our harvest festival pics. I'll try later.

Unknown territory

So it's harvest festival time and my good friend Corrie is putting on the show. I decide that I will at least sign up on the volunteer sheet to bring the easiest thing and the most difficult thing just to ease some of the burden a bit. So I sign up to bring googly eyes and popcorn balls. And here is yet another one of my top ten lists. It is all the things that I learned from preparing the popcorn balls for the harvest festival yesterday. This is between the hours of 1:05 and 4:26. That's right....3-1/2 hours people.

1. Read the reviews off of any recipe you randomly decide to use off the internet--specifically cooks.com. It could have come from any kitchen in any area of the country (or world and people in Austria probably don't know how to make American popcorn balls), from man or woman, smart person or moron, mansion or trailer park (nothing wrong with trailer parks--no offense guru). You really really never know.

2. Find the candy thermometer before boiling the heck out of any sugar mixture. It turns to "hard crack" stage very quickly when the boil starts rolling.

3. When trying to get rid of any botched sugar substance that you were supposed to get to "hard ball" stage but instead got to "rip your teeth out of you mouth and leave cuts all over your toungue" stage, dispose of properly. Do not pour it directly onto waxed paper on the kitchen counter as it will burn the paper and wind up crystalized on your countertop to where you have to use a razor blade to get it off.

4. Do not call anybody while making something you have not mastered or they will laugh at your ignorance (and insanity).

5. DO buy your popcorn from a popcorn store. And buy a lot of extra so you can have THREE trial batches before finding the "perfect" recipe that you don't even like in the end because you slaved for hours and are tired of the taste and smell of popcorn.

6. Never think that making popcorn balls for a harvest fesival would be a wonderful "mommy" thing to do with your 3 and 4 year old that will give them wonderful memories of October 31. It just stresses you out and it turns into a "Do NOT bug mommy because she is going to have a meltdown right here in the kitchen and we won't be able to go to the festival tonight, and you won't be able to wear your costumes, you won't be able to paint your faces, or play games, or get candy, or see any of your friends dressed up, or have any fun at all because you will have to stay in your room all night long reading books that you have read forty times each and I'm not reading them to you because you are kids and kids just look at the pictures and if you want someone to read them then ask your dad!" moment. (It didn't happen for me because they were taking a nap--at least Ella was. But this conversation would have happened if they had not been sleeping or in their rooms.)

7. If you make a special trip in the freezing cold to Hobby Lobby with your two kids bundled up yet still screaming that it is freezing to get cute treat bags to place all of the balls in, make sure they come with twist ties. Make no assumptions.

8. Make sure that any sugar overflow does not drip onto the burner or the floor. If it is on the burner it will make your clothes stink like a Mexican bakery and if it is on your sock, you will track it through the kitchen before realizing that you have left a sticky trail all they way down the hall.

9. Do not sign up for popcorn balls.

10. But if you do, just buy the stupid things.

I will post pics of my beautiful babies all dressed up when Blogger lets me.