Thursday, April 29, 2010

Poor, gorgeous Kiley

Kiley was really sick on Wednesday and had ot stay home from school. She fell asleep in the bathroom upstairs. She is feeling much better today.










I think I know why our friends call Kiley "Jean Benet". Not my favorite, but a compliment I suppose. She is so gorgeous. I am so glad my friend gave me the idea to buy some fabric from Hobby Lobby and take pics at home. I love to take pics of her and I think I am getting good at it. It saves us tons of money and we have albums full of pics of the kids. One time, when we were at the suite at the Pepsi Center, someone came up and said Kiley was the most beautiful kid they had ever seen. I think so too!









Tuesday, April 27, 2010

What a busy couple of weeks

We have definitely been keeping busy now that spring is here. We have been doing projects around the house and helping our neighbors with their projects. These past couple weeks have flown by, we have had a lot of fun though. Last weekend, Kiley had a great time with friends. On Friday, it seemed like all the kids on our street played in my driveway. There were tons of them gathered there. I like to see them all getting along so well and Kiley has so much fun. Early Sat. morning, Kiley went to the aquarium with her friend, Sabrina. The girls were supposed to swim with the fish. Kiley chickened out when she got there. I probably would have too. She did have fun watching Sabrina do it and then walking around for a couple of hours. She got home at 1pm and I had to take her immediately to a b-day party at Jungle Quest. It's an indoor jungle where kids can climb trees, zip line, rock climb, etc. She had a blast. I picked her up from there and she went right over to meet a friend for a mani- pedi. Kiley didn't get home until around 8:30 and went straight to bed. She had a really fun time. Next weekend, Chad is taking her to Elich gardens on Sat. with a few friends. I am staying back with the boys, but I know they will have a blast.

Chad and I have been trying our culinary skills with making homemade sushi. We don't go out often because we don't like to hire sitters. We took a menu (just a paper one) from our favorite sushi restaurant here and tried to make them at home. They turned out AWESOME!! Our neighbors have been over for a "sushi party" twice. We get together and make a bunch of rolls and talk. It's been really fun. Our neighbor, Jeff, who we see all the time has been asking me to teach him piano for some time now. I am going to teach Kiley when I can get a piano or keyboard. I was going to wait for the community garage sales in June to see if I could find one. Jeff is getting one so I can teach them now. I taught him some basics last night on Cort's toy piano, but I was able to teach him "Mary had a little lamb" and "brother John". It will be nice to work on my own skills again. I haven't played in over 10 years, but it's like riding a bike.

The next couple of weekends are going to be busy too. This weekend Cooper is flying in. Cooper is our chocolate lab who has to make the trip from Ohio. We are going to take Kiley to the airport with us to pick him up, but leave the boys at home. The next weekend, we have some family members coming to visit and to help put up our play set for the kids. We also have our monthly church get together.

On a not so near future note, my sister, Meghan, is getting married. Her wedding is on New Years Eve this year in Omaha. Chad and I are planning to attend. I will have to find a sitter for the kids though because it's only for adults. It's a nearly $60,000 wedding. I am very excited to have such a nice evening out. Chad has to wear a tux and I have to wear a formal gown (everyone does). Usually, we attend this charity event every year over St. Patrick's day that is formal and we get to wear a tux and gown. We didn't go this year though. I am hoping to be able to fit into a size 2 gown by then. I have plenty of notice. I have been working out and eating healthy all week and lost 5lbs this week. I am excited. I have finally found something that works well for me. I just need to stick to it, which I find is easier to do during the summer. It's time to say good-bye to the baby weight (I know, just to put it back on next year). This wedding is something I am looking forward to. It will bring back some good and bad memories. Chad and I had our first kiss on New Years Eve, but it will also be a sad reminder that Mark is not with us. The third anniversary of Mark's death was a week and a half ago. Hard to believe it's been that long. I anticipate that the wedding will be here before we know it. This year has flown by so fast. We are having such a wonderful time in Denver. I feel so very blessed to live here. Whenever I am driving on this certain overpass getting onto 225, there is a moment of breathlessness when I can see a beautiful lake, the mountain range, and downtown all at once and it's so picturesque. What a wonderful time in our lives!

Wednesday, April 21, 2010

Lots of new pictures!



Sabrina and the instructors swimming with the fish. Kiley was supposed to go too, but she chickened out. I can't blame her. There were some pretty big fish in there, including some small sharks. She thought is was cool to watch her friend do it though and had a really good time.





















Creighton and his friend, Addison. He made he wear a hat too and he sat on her lap while they drove in the car. Silly kids.














Our little guy is on the move. He army crawls and rolls all over the place and has recently started to master the art of crawling. He gets up on his knees and rocks back and forth. Sometimes he crawls backwards and sometimes he face plants....it won't be long until he figures it all out. He might be the earliest crawler of my kids. Kiley and Creighton were both about 8 months. Kiley walked around 1 year and Creighton walked at 9 months. Cort just turned 6 months and he should have it down in a week or two. I am excited. I love it when they get mobile.








hmmm...this was no accident. He wanted to be like daddy and have some facial hair. Chads looks a lot nicer than Creighton's handy work with a marker :)









He dressed himself-in a painting apron and snow boots....whatever. Like always, he was vacuuming for me.






















Always has to have a blanket near his face when he sleeps. We may need great Grandma to make us some more since both boys cover their faces with these when they sleep.












Such a good big brother. He loves to take care of Cort.














This is the only pic Kiley would let me take of her. I am waiting for a weekend that is stormy so that I can keep her inside and take some more pics of her.




































































































































Sweet Baby Cort







































































Monday, April 12, 2010

weekend pictures

Creighton still is slightly possessive of "his" toys. He is always supervising and often disrupting Cort when he is trying to play.


hahaha...Cort sits up really well. Occasionally, he still tumbles. His face is so cute in this pic.






Kiley and Tazzy.




Creighton and his friend, Emily, in the church nursery. They like to get in the baby toys, including the baby swings. You can see how they are much to tall for these, but they hang out like this a lot. Too funny.





Sweet baby Cort-sitting up. He is growing up so fast. I am going to try to get some more "portrait-like" pics of all three kids this weekend.






A great weekend.....

I was sad to see the weekend end. We enjoyed it so much. Friday, Chad was off of work (he has three day weekends while work is slow). We did things around the house, ran errands, played with the kids outside and then drove to Lakewood to spend time with some friends from church. One of the younger couples at our church has organized a young couples group. We meet once a month. The kids played in the basement with a sitter and the adults gathered upstairs over pizza and dessert. It was nice to see our friends from church outside of a church setting and have a good conversation about our faith. Chad really liked it too and the kids (especially Kiley) had fun playing for a couple of hours.

On Saturday, we spent most of the day outside. Kiley has 3 friends that live either next door or a couple houses down. The girls play every day after school and most of the day on weekends. We have had to set some rules so that Kiley is still spending time at home too. During the week, she has to do her homework, tidy her room, and do some chores and then she can go out from 4:00-5:45pm. Then we eat dinner, she takes a bath, and the kids get ready for bed. Now that they are spending so much time running around, they all crash at 7pm and are eager to get to bed and rest. On Saturdays, Kiley can play from 10am-5:30pm and on Sunday, she can play after we get home from church until 5:30pm. The girls ride their bikes, play tag, jump on McKenna's trampoline, and play inside-mostly in my house. I find myself feeding 3 extra children often, but don't mind at all. I make sure they all have water bottles on my front porch and I set out snacks for them. Two of the girls are 11 and 12 and one is the same age as Kiley. With the older kids, I don't feel like I need to supervise as much. We let them ride their bikes around our houses and in the cul de sac one house down from ours. Plus, Chad and our neighbor, Jeff, are outside a lot during the day and we open up all the doors and windows and can hear everything they are doing. We live on a very quiet street with hardly any traffic, so it's very safe for them. It reminds me of my childhood, when I would be gone all day playing. I am glad Kiley is getting to experience that too. Sat. night we had our neighbors over for a BBQ.



Sunday, I took the boys to church. Chad and Kiley stayed back. Kiley was up late the night before with a friend and I let her off the hook. When I woke up Sunday morning, I was walking through the kitchen and stepped in a puddle of water. I looked up and there was a big leak in our ceiling. I went upstairs and told Chad. This is how our conversation went: "honey, there is a leak." (Chad) "okay" and he rolled over in bed. (me) "hey babe, we have a leak". (Chad) "yep". (me) "hmmm....are you not concerned about a leak?" (Chad) "Like a leak with the baby?" (me) "no, like a leak from the ceiling"? Chad then said "oh" and got out of bed quickly. I said "not to distract you from fixing the leak, but why would I wake you up at 6am to tell you if our baby had a leak....and, what exactly is a leaking baby?" I guess it was too early for him to comprehend...lol. By the time I got home from church, Chad and Jeff had fixed the leak. They went to Home Depot and picked up some piping and replaced the leaking section. We have to wait a few days for the ceiling to dry out and then we can repair the big hole. It only cost us about $50.00. I though we would have to have our home warranty company come out to fix the pipe (we have a 50.00 deductible) and then also have our home owners insurance repair the ceiling. Nope, my handy husband and our handy neighbor can fix about anything. We also bought a treadmill on Sunday. It is really nice and I am looking forward to using it. Our home gym is in the basement, but I asked if we could put the treadmill in our room for a couple months. We have a big room with a sitting area. We don't have a table and chairs yet for that area, so there is plenty of room for a treadmill. My thinking is that if it's in our room, I can walk or run on it for an hour and hear the kids and watch T.V. We have DVR in our room, so I can record shows and then watch them when I work out. It will be easier for me in the beginning. We do have a T.V in the basement too, but no cable. It's just for movies and the Wii. Once I am in a good routine of working out, we will move it to the basement with the other equipment. I am excited to get on it. I have a huge closet full of size 2/4 clothes that are calling my name. :) We also found out we are getting a dog. He is a 2 year old Chocolate lab named Cooper. Chad has been wanting to get a lab for a while, but I didn't have time to train a puppy. Cooper is already trained and has been around kids. He belonged to our best friends sister. She moved into an apartment and Cooper went to live with our friend's dad. Our friend, Jeremy, was going to take Cooper, but his job requires him to travel a lot. So, we are taking him. Cooper has to fly from Ohio to Denver. I hope he does okay. We are very excited to meet him and think he will be a great addition to our family.

Thursday, April 8, 2010

Wednesday, April 7, 2010

Pictures

Sorry. I just noticed that the pictures showed up before the story of our week. The two posts should be flip-flopped. O'well. Here are a few pics of Kiley. I love taking pictures of her. She picked out her own outfit, hair style, and poses.





This was a night when Cort had slept all day and I was trying to keep him up for a couple of hours in the evening. He made it about 30 min. I tried to sit him up and he still fell asleep...poor guy.






































Cort in the swing and Creighton getting books.









Chad rocking Cort in the church nursery. This is where everyone comes to see the babies (mostly my kids, since I make up about 90% of the 2 and under kid population at our church) and to chit chat.










A couple pics of the view from my parents yard. It looks boring, but it's relaxing to watch the sun go down behind the hills. Now, if they could just get rid of the gnats, flies, and mosquitoes that buzz around you when you sit outside :) Another plus for Denver....no bugs!
























We hung out on the steps a lot and just enjoyed the view. It's peaceful to look out into a cornfield.....(not said sarcastically)













He seems to always have a tool near by to do some handy work.














Check out his form!!! I can't believe how he actually swings and hits the ball....in perfect form! I think he is destined to be a golfer. My mom actually wanted to buy him this jumbo golf club and jumbo ball and I said "he can hit a regular ball, with a regular club and hardly ever misses....we should keep working on that with him". This weekend we are going to set up our golf net in the backyard and we can start practicing and working with Creighton. He is so cute.















Baby Cort sitting up. He is getting so big!
















Kiley and Sabrina sledding. After about an hour, the 18 inches of snow we got started to melt pretty quickly as the temp. rose. Only in CO. do you see people sledding with a t-shirt on!