Colorado Vacation

At the end of June/beginning of July, we took our first-ever family road trip all the way up to Denver, Colorado.  I felt pretty brave to drive all that way with four small children in tow (without a portable DVD player!), but it actually was a really nice trip. The kids were great in the car --probably for two main reasons: 1) we did the bulk of the driving at night while they were asleep and 2) we listened to The Wizard of Oz and Chronicles of Narnia audiobooks whenever they weren't asleep.  When it was all said and done, I think the kids' favorite part of the trip was getting to sleep in hotels every night with all-you-can-eat continental breakfasts every morning, but aside from that, we did a lot of other fun things as well.

After driving straight through the night, we arrived safely (though wearily) in Colorado City. We checked into our hotel, then headed straight to Bishop's Castle. An immense, real-life castle Mr. Bishop has built with his own two hands over the course of his life --and it's still a work in progress. It's definitely not up to the local safety codes, but it is really cool. I wouldn't let the girls go all the way to the top, but Matt took Michael and got some really cool shots.

The portcullis 

Up at the top, Michael felt safer in the little guard tower.

Notice the dragon?

Sadly, Joseph's internal clock did not adjust to local time, so I was up with him reeeeeeally early every morning. Here we are in the hotel lobby for the 5:00 a.m. sunrise. . . . We had already been up an hour.

Once we got to Denver, our first priority was to tour the Hammond's Candy Factory. Yum!

The kids and I hiked up a mountain near Boulder to see the Flatirons. We didn't quite make it to the top; little legs give out pretty quickly. But now they can at least say they have climbed a mountain.

We also visited the Denver Butterfly Pavilion. They actually had all kinds of invertebrates, including Rosie the Tarantula.

Ada loved the butterlies and chased them all over trying to get one to land on her hand. Eventually, one did  --resulting in supreme happiness for this little girl.

On our last day in Denver, we canvassed the Botanical Gardens. My friend Julie, said we HAD to go see the Dale Chihuly exhibit there.  It was pretty amazing.  The whole garden was full of these huge hand-blown glass sculptures.

They blended in beautifully with the landscapes. . . . 

We did too. 

Aside from waking up insanely early every morning, Joseph was great on the trip. He was as happy as could be as we drug him from place to place, hotel to hotel. What an amazing little trooper!

Here's Sadie doing an awesome modeling pose.

My favorite was the boat full of balls. Such beautiful colors!

Driving down from Denver, we stopped by to see my cousin JB and his family. These cousins finally got to meet, and had a great, though short, visit.  We definitely need to get these kids together again soon.

In Southern Colorado, near Alamosa, are the Great Sand Dunes. Huge sand dunes seemingly dumped there by accident, surrounded by mountains.  Matt took Michael and Sadie to climb it as far as they could while I stayed down below with Ada and Joseph.

From the mountains flows a river that simply disappears into the sand.  But before it disappeared completely, we had some fun playing in it. --Especially Joseph.

Spring is a Wonderful Thing

My big boy turned 6 in February. We had a very fun "Scientist" party for him, complete with blue ice fog, explosions, slime, and other experiments. The kids loved it!

Look at those muscles in action!  We love pinatas at our house! I think we started a birthday tradition when we made one for Sadie.

I have loved helping out in Michael's kindergarten class this year. Here's a snap of our Valentine's party.

Monkey Man --This kid has inherited all the climbing prowess of his father. He loves climbing trees, monkey bars, and anything else he can clamber up on. And he's very proud of himself for doing so. 

This is Joseph enjoying his first "solid" meal at four months. He's come along way since then, and now enjoys a variety of pureed fruits and veggies, and even rice puffs on occasion. 

He loves swinging at the park and doing anything outside.

He loves his siblings, and they love him, as you can see. They never seem to get tired of cuddling him and trying to make him laugh and smile. I love how loving they are!

During Spring Break, my nephew and neice, Cole and Kylie, came for a visit. We did fun stuff every day and had sleepovers at night. (Switching off with my mom, we did boys night or girls night almost every night.)  The picture above is on a boat tour of the Port of Houston.  We also played at parks and went to the rodeo.

One of the funnest things was a tea party at Nana's house. Almost all the girls in the family (sorry Megan and Emma, we missed you :(   ), enjoyed a fancy, frilly, feminine fete.

Nana planned, decorated, and cooked everything, and it was beautiful! The girls loved it!

Ever since we moved into our house, the kids have wanted to have a camp out in the backyard. They also loooove going out on the balcony in the front. So, I let them combine the two and camp out on the balcony. They didn't actually sleep out there; I think they lasted about 20 minutes after I tucked them in. (I didn't plan on them actually staying out there, which is why I let do it.) But they had fun bringing out all their sleeping gear and setting up the "tent." Maybe we'll try it again next year.

I let Joesph join the fun while I set up the tent.

We had a lovely Easter at my cousin Charlotte's house. It was so good to see everybody. This has turned into our annual family reunion.

Our neighbors, the McCanns, brought this Easter cake over for us. --It was sooo cute and sooo yummy!

Sadie is always a delight. Here, I think she looks like pictures of Lisa, Matt's sister, when she was young.  Maybe a little?  And I always love the clothes combinations she comes up with. Very nouveau.

She's always eager to please and help around the house.  Last week she volunteered to clean the windows for me. What a sweetie!

Ada is Ada. 

She is learning to help around the house (she loves peeling cucumbers and potatoes for me)  . . . and is starting to show signs of growing out of the "terrible twos." I was starting to worry if fickleness, flightiness, and fighting-ness was a permanent part of her personality. But I am breathing a sigh of relief in the hopes that she will yet grown into a gentle, empathetic, and rational young girl.

Our ward (church) had a daddy-daughter dance a few weeks ago. The girls loved getting all dressed up for a date with their dad.

Matt is such a wonderful man -a kind husband, loving father, and a whiz at Excell.  We finally bought him a new car last week. After months of careful research and plugging numbers into an Excell spreadsheet, he finally decided on (drum roll please . . . ) a 2012 Honda Civic: dark gray, with leather and a sunroof. And it gets nearly 40 mpg. It's going to cut his gas bill in half.  He loves it!

Our first day at the pool . . .  Here comes summer!

This is our current science project. (I'll spare you the pictures and explanation of our adventure with petri-dishes and household germs.)  We found two caterpillars in our garden and have watched both of them grow from teeny-tiny to long and plump. In the picture, you can see one has already turned into a chrysalis. The other one did as well a week later. We're still waiting for them to emerge as beautiful butterflies. . . .  I hope it actually works.

Michael received this beautiful charm from his Sunday School teacher as a birthday present.  A certain sibling liked it so much she started playing with and, whoops!, lost it in the abyss under our pantry shelves. It's hard to explain how they're set up, but I had a one-inch gap through which to "fish" for this thing laying flat on my belly juggling a flashlight and a little wire hook. It took a while, but I managed to rescue it from 40 years worth of filthy, dust-bunny build-up.  The irony struck me hard. Families are meant to be forever; and they are worth every effort to rescue and preserve.

I am so grateful for my own family. I love them more than words can express.  

Thanksgiving, Christmas --and a Rampaging Moose!

One of my friends regularly sends out a "Valentine's Letter" rather than a "Christmas Letter," simply because the holidays are always such a rush. -- Maybe this is the start of a new tradition for us too. . . .

Sadie's birthday (these pictures have been hanging out on Matt's phone for a while) was a huge success --as she considers it. We had six little girls all dressed up as princesses dancing, playing, and eating together. We even did a pinata (homemade!!! It was so much fun, we're going to have another go at it for Michael's birthday) 

I have to admit to being proud of the way the castle cake turned out. It was probably more fun to make than to eat.

Here's Michael at his school's Thanksgiving Feast. . . . We celebrated Thanksgiving dinner the following week at my parent's house. (Sorry, no pictures.)

Happy Birthday, dear Matt!  Thirty-five is a beautiful age to be.

The day before our first freeze of the winter, my dad and I picked all the tangerines and lemons off of our trees. There were four buckets this size. We enjoyed fresh squeezed orange juice every morning for weeks! YUM!

One of Sadie's birthday presents was a little cash register.  Here, the girls were playing grocery shopping when they got an even better idea --food castles!

The night we decorated our Christmas tree, Joseph was really fussy, so I had to hold him the entire time. (I didn't even have a spare hand to put a shirt back on Adelaide.)  I let the kids do all the decorating, and they loved it! --And did a pretty good job, I must say.

Like Daddy, like daughter!

For playgroup, we invited everyone over to build graham cracker "gingerbread" houses. It was good, messy, sugary fun!

Michael build his after school.

Adelaide has recently taken an interest in making funny faces. This was her first -and most gruesome.

Christmas Eve, we enjoyed having my good friend Ellen over. Ellen was our neighbor for the three years Matt was going to law school, and I'm so glad we have kept in touch!

Christmas morning . . . stockings always come first,

This was our room before  . . .

and after!

After all the presents were opened, we headed to Grandma's house in San Antonio . . . where we got to open more presents!  We stayed with Grandma for a few days, then on Fri
day went over to Great-Grandma Lamm's house for a backyard picnic. What fun!

We got to play with cousins,

swing with aunts,

play pin-ball,

and, best of all, have time with family.

We got to meet John's son, Tristan, for the first time this trip. What a cutie!

Much later, back at home, we had fun while making vegetable soup . . .

maybe a little too much fun.

Cabbage hats could come into fashion --you never know.

I took Michael to get his hair cut after school one day, and Sadie said she wanted to get hers cut too, sooooo

we did it. You can see her in the background of the picture above. I think it came out adorable.

I found some cute children's yoga shows online, and the girls love them.  Here, they are making a pyrimid.

A nice, docile solitary moose . . .

becomes a terrifying, rampaging creature of destruction, bent on the annihilation of her rival.

What a handsome boy he's growing into!

Just a funny picture we took at the zoo.--The frogs were sitting so still, giving us a perfect front and back view.

This girl loves her brother!

It has been unusually dry here lately (and cold, for Houston) so static is something of an anomaly for the kids. They had lots of fun seeing what they could get their balloons to stick to.

Like I said, it has been unusually cold here lately.  A few days ago, we had freezing rain and ice on the streets, so school was cancelled and Matt worked from home. (Go ahead and laugh, all you folks in the frigid north. --Yes, that includes Utah and D.C.) The downstairs was freezing, so we had a breakfast picnic upstairs in Michael's room.

Michael is crazy about food. Sometimes it seems like his whole world revolves around food. If I serve him things he likes, he is the happiest little kid in the world. If I serve him things he doesn't like, he throws a fit and tells me he's having "the worst day ever." This night, I earned "Best Mom in the World" by serving pizza, hold the sauce and cheese.