Mountain fresh air and great friends

On Labor day we went with some friends of ours, the Russell's, to Lost Lake up Poudre Canyon outside of Fort Collins, it was beautiful- but very windy!!

Here the kids are getting up close to the lake to see if they can see any fish, I am pretty sure that they saw several minnows swimming around

James and Brinley being so cute despite the awful wind gusts that kept sweeping by. While I was trying to nurse Lucas, my friend Jill was so kind to let James climb up on her lap and hide from the wind under a blanket.

All of our cute kids sitting on a big log by the trail. I think they all have great smiles, except Shawn who of course has a goofy grin. This was the best one out of all the ones I took. Shawn was not in a picture mood today, nor has he been for a while now. I guess I have to take what I can get.

Isn't it beautiful!

I think this picture is hilarious, both Chris and Derek with all their fishing gear, I guess Chris looks a little more funny with the shorts, jacket, wool socks and sandals. Oh well he loves to fly fish so whatever works.

James was so proud that he was climbing to top of this rock over and over, it was very cute. It wasn't a very large rock, but I guess for him it was.

Shawn and Chandler whittling while we waited for the guys to fish a little bit. The boys both got their whittling chip pin at scouts this Summer, so Shawn was excited to use his pocket knife that his uncle Jake got for him for Christmas.

It was so nice to get up into the mountains and feel the amazing fresh, cool air, I am so very glad that we live so close to them again, and you will see in posts to come that I have been going up to the mountains as much as possible lately.

James is potty trained!!!

(This was September 15th-18th and he has been doing great- barely any accidents!!!)
Well, the first day was pretty funny because he was sitting on his little potty in front of the TV watching Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (with his Ninja Turtle underwear-of course) drinking lots of Gatorade, soda and water. Chris got quite a laugh with this picture and I am sure he will hate me for taking it when he is 16, but I could not resist. Even thought the first couple of days were hard he finally got it by the third day. The first day I could only handle the underwear for a few hours and after 4 accidents we were both done. The second day was difficult because he remembered the first day and didn't want anything to do with the underwear. But I persevered and tried again, and I also read some more online stuff to make it so I didn't cry all day again:) I read Dr. Phil's potty train in 1 day and wow- it actually worked! By the third day he had done it and was thrilled about doing it from then on.

As you can see lots of sitting on the potty really helps that muscle memory and and he was so proud!! He didn't go all those times that is just if he sits on the potty and "trys" to go.

Yea James I am so proud of you!!

James turns 3!!!

I can not believe that James is three! It has gone so fast. He is such a wonderful little boy with quite the imagination and desires so much attention, and he seems to get it when he really wants it. Here he is wearing a costume as all the family came to the party, he loved wearing his cape and he really liked the Batman mask that he found in the dress up box.
I originally wanted to tell everyone that I am sick of toys and never want to see another one in this house because we have so darn many, but how can you do that to a 3 year old, so here we are again with bucket loads of toys and me having to find a place to put them all, oh well he loved all his gifts- that is what counts -right?

Cool cake that Grandma Jo and Uncle Brett made. The joy of being close to my mom- she gets to make all my kids birthday cakes that actually are cool, I just make the 9 X 12 cakes and frost them in the pan, or maybe if they are lucky they get cupcakes. Yea for Grandma's cake decorating abilities.

Grandma Jo got him a Darth Vader Pinata full of yummy candy, this was his first one and he did a good job. (it also helped that the top of the head is only fastened by a few staples and wacked off after about 3 hits, but he is three and he didn't care.)

Oh the candy!!

Everytime some one brought a gift he would get up to the table and say I love this one and give it a big hug- it was too cute!!

Another toy to hug:)

I originally wanted to tell everyone that I am sick of toys and never want to see another one in this house again because we have so darn many, but how can you do that to a 3 year old? So here we are again with bucket loads of toys and me having to find a place to put them all, oh well he loved all his gifts and that is what counts-right?

Look another Nerf gun- how many does that make- 101?

He got lots of Star Wars guys and loved them all, he loves to make them fight. I hope you had a great birthday buddy, we love you very much!

Rocky Mountain National Park

Saying goodbye:(

We had the opportunity to move back to Colorado with Chris' job and we took it. But it was a very hard thing to leave so many great friends. We didn't think that Kansas would be all that great when we got there and boy were we wrong. It was a wonderful experience for our family to be in such a great place surrounded by wonderful people for 2 whole years. We wish we could pick up Olathe and set it down in Colorado. My amazing friends had a little going away party for me, it was a lot of fun to get together and just hang out and talk and talk about all the pointless things that we like to talk about- true friends I will miss dearly!


Here is James with his "girlfriend" Kennedy. James absolutely adores her and played with her and Claire at every soccer game. We went out to dinner with the Ruarck family before we left, the kids had a lot of fun together eating pizza at Spin, and cupcakes at Small Cakes.

Here is Kennedy, James, Claire and Mikey the night before we left. They had a little goodbye party for us, plus we had none of our kitchen stuff or food anymore at that point.

Good Friends!

Kyle, Shawn and Colin

They played on the Comets together (Soccer)

Another one of Shawn's good friends,Nile, he lived closer to us and they went to school and church together, they played any chance they could get. His mom is Carolyn, one of my really good friends.

Below is Brent as we all call him "B", James loved to play with "B" any chance he could get, this is Nile's little brother.

All the kids Parks' and Maddox's, we had a lot of fun with their family and miss them a lot. We would always spend holidays together that we didn't go to be with family, they were like our adopted family while in Kansas.

This is on the drive to Colorado, we always drove past this huge jet and never stopped to let the boys look at it, this time we actually stopped and let the boys run around and got a few cute pictures while I was feeding the baby.

I really like this one, good lookin' boys.

Well, here we are back in Colorful Colorado, although I think that Kansas is much more green than Colorado, oh well, the mountains are so beautiful, we are so glad to be back to seeing those every day.

Happy 4th of July

We had a pretty nice 4th of July. The boys and I went to church, James stayed home with Chris because he had a horrible runny nose and I thought that the kids in nursery did not need to be around that. Chris smoked a very delicious pork tenderloin ad it was so good, h says it is the best he has ever made, I think everything he makes is great, but this was especially delicious. We then went to a friends house for diner and had some more very yummy food. I made a berry cobbler, and Chris' favorite food- Bierocs. We had a lot of fun with our friends and played some games instead of going to watch the fireworks, since it was raining and storming. The kids were pretty disappointed that we couldn't go see them, but we didn't want to sit under the rain. The kids had fun eating mostly desserts and soda and hot dogs and playing with their friends. Overall it was a good day and I am very happy to be living in this wonderful Country with all it's freedoms. We are very blessed to be here. James and I after church, the older boys took off their patriotic shirts as soon as we walked in the door, so they weren't in the picture.

Lucas' Tummy Time and Smiles

I had a really cute video, but I could not figure out how to put it on, it wasn't working when I tried it. So here are a few pictures.

He is 7 weeks old in these pictures.He had a good time on his tummy, I had him on his tummy for quite awhile and he did great, we are trying to do that everyday so he can get used to it.
He really liked the blanket, he kept holding on to it . He also moves his feet a lot and it looks like he is trying to go somewhere.

He is so darn cute, I thought I would try and get me in a picture, but he is way more cute!!

His worried look.

Cute little smile, he just started doing this about 1 week ago and it is so darn cute, I love it! After he eats he will sit and talk to you and smile and chew on his hands. I am going to miss this stage, but there is always a new stage that is great as well.

Arms are always flailing about.

He is so cute!!