Magical Mountain Monday

Flashback to my parents visit. Again....

A visit to Denver wouldn't be complete without a trip up to the Jansen's cabin. My parents consider this magical spot to be one of their very favorite places on God's earth. For good reason. It's peaceful, rustic, serene, natural and a much needed taste of life outside of the rigmarole. Yes, I just used the word rigmarole.

We met Bruce and Barb downtown Littleton for breakfast and headed up for the day. It was 60 degrees, so we were lucky enough to be able to hike around and enjoy the sunshiny mountain air. Dude had an absolute blast picking up pine cones, throwing snow balls, hiking around and sleeping soundly after inhaling all that mountain fun. It was another great day with Nanna and Pappa. Thanks for treating us Oma and Opa!

Hikin' with my Nanna. She's the best.

Pappa was warming up Dude's little hands- he thought it was quite endearing.


The 3 stooges taking a break.

Father, daughter, son.

Whippin' snowballs at Pappa and Pappa being very dramatic about the whole experience. Dude eats it up & thinks Pappa is just the funniest man on earth.

Aren't they so cute?

Long time friends. They planned the wardrobe. I know, super cheesy.

My little man n me on a hike.

Peek E You! (Peek a boo)

Believe it or not, they're both married. To women.

We all have that special someone in life that takes us to places the general public really doesn't need to witness. This person brings us back to our toddler roots, makes us giggle like squeaky school girls, speak in voices and languages only recognizable to each other and cuddle shamelessly. All behaviors appropriate if on a short bus, but probably nowhere else.

My dad's special someone's name is Bruce. By day, Bruce is an administrator at an esteemed local high school. But when my dad's around, that prestigious position goes to shit. As does my father's long held position of leading high school students into adulthood and maturity. Thank goodness they live in different states - their students would see them in a whole new light if they witnessed the "Amos and Andy" act they put on. I've been blessed to experience their mutual glee for each other all my life and have many fond memories of their "manly love." Only a couple times has their been actual concern that they might run off together. Good thing they both married hotties.

Amos and Andy were fortunate enough to spend some quality time together over Christmas break. The cabin was the perfect backdrop. Hence the unbelievably gay picture above. The idea was to have the dude peak around the tree for a cute shot. You can see where that lead.


Here's hoping that you too find that special "Bruce" in your life. And may you have the good fortune of someone documenting your "short bus" relationship on a blog for the world to see.

Our Very Favorite Nanna-Pappa Present

Early Christmas with Pappa & Nanna

Christmas is over...wow. We're home now and done with all our hosting, partying and vacationing. Flashback to what kept us busy these past couple of weeks....

We dedicated one day of Mom and Dad's visit to hangin' at home, eating, playing, resting, cooking and opening presents. A good day. A very very, very good day. Stay tuned to the next post for a visual of dude's very favorite present from that perfect day.

Oh happy day. Nanna and Pappa bring Dude to his most happiest place. He has the joy joy joy joy down in his heart when they're in town.

We gave Dude a talking alphabet game for car rides so we no longer have to listen to the monotonous sounds of his current game. There's typically a selfish motive behind our dude gift giving.

I got the softest blanket on earth for my cozy chair. My happy place is now even happier.

The $1 whistle kept Dude busy for a good half hour. We're finding that the mo cheaper the gift the mo better.


Mom and Dad's new Sony Reader.

I love Christmas. Mom and Dad keep telling me that it's baby Jesus' birthday, but I sure do get a whole lot of sweet presents!

Blessed

It's Christmas Eve. Dad, Diane, Brendan and Steph are in town to spend Christmas with us. They just left for their hotel, the dude is fast asleep, countless gifts are stacked around the house waiting to be played with, my stomach is full and I'm feeling blessed. So incredibly blessed. I don't get mushy on this thing very often...I'm actually quite opposed to having mush fests, but this quiet snowy night is calling for it.

Christmas is filled with chaos and planning and cooking and spending wads of cash, but really that's all you need is to be surrounded by people who love you and care about you and love your kid and make him laugh and giggle uncontrollably until he lays on the kitchen floor and tells us to turn off the lights so he can sleep. Jesus came as a sweet baby boy and opened the door for us to love and be loved and know that we have heaven waiting for us. And that's pretty cool.

Between my parents being here for a perfect 5 day visit, Tim's fam here now, special gifts arriving at our doorstep and through text messages from Grandma V and uncles and aunts, we just feel blessed and loved. Thanks for stalking my blog and I promise to do my very best to keep you entertained until the next mush fest Christmas Eve post. Merry Christmas to all and to all a good night.

Pickle Party

You'll have to excuse the mass postings. I'm trying to only post one or so per day. It's the holidays, so tons of happiness and blessings are taking place. And I feel the need to share. My parents have arrived and departed....extreme happiness and now extreme sadness. We'll get more into their visit soon, but if I'm to go in chronological order, we need to start with the Syers Christmas partayyyy.


We arrived at the Syers home Saturday night (the day after Pappa and Nanna's arrival) for food, festivities and the unveiling of their newly remodeled living room. Wes did most of it himself and really outdid himself this go around. Beautiful work friends. Impressed is putting it mildly. The party was fun too! Lots of food, festive drinky drinks and the traditional pickle hunt in the Christmas tree.

The new room. Used to have green carpet, popcorn ceilings, a white brick wall and fluorescent lighting. Not so much anymore!

The kids made a train to begin their pickle hunt -Dude thought this was quite entertaining.


The adults get to play their own round. Prego Kim won the bottle of wine.

Santa, Meet Dude

Dude's very first trip to see Santa went a little something like this.....

In line to see Mr. Santa. We talked about this for an hour leading up and he was SO excited to meet the man in the red shirt and white hair!

Wait, you actually want me to SIT on this guy's lap? Yeah, no. Get me outa here Mom. Fast.

We watch the other children sit on Santa's lap with wonder. Ok, I'm ready now. Put me down Dad! Let me at um!

I fooled um! I have no plans of really sitting on his lap. I just wanted a piece of this yummy candy in Santa's box. (Actually, he took a piece, threw it at Santa and ran back to us).

Mom, Dad, are you so proud of me? I saw Santa! Can we go home now? The entire ride home he sat in deep thought and kept saying, "I go see Santa again now."

So glad we didn't wait in line at the mall for 3.5 hours for this monumental occasion. Would have tied him down on Santa's lap if that was the case.

Good Salsa, Good Margaritas & Great Friends..Oh & Cookies Too

We live in a neighborhood full of rad neighbor friends. The co-op of women I'm lucky enough to be a part of gets together once every couple months for ladies' night. This past one was at Casa Mile High Vogels. Everyone brought their favorite salsa, I provided the blender and makings for margaritas and we all exchanged cookies. Yes, another cookie extravaganza. We haven't been lacking for cookies 'round here this holiday season.

It was a lovely night of girly time. Thanks for coming co-op girls!

Where are the Mile High Vogels?

I'm hosting a contest all you blog stalkers. Our little fam went on a festive outing last weekend - drove 30 minutes to get there and had to take a crying boy out the front doors when it was time to depart. Needless to say, he thought it was pretty rad. Remote control cars, pretend guns, Santa, snowmen, tractors, snowball fights in a netted winter wonderland, fish tanks, stuffed cougars and antelope, Christmas music....the list goes on and on and on. Well worth the 30 minute drive.

First one to guess where we were gets....yeah, you don't get anything. You'll just be my coolest blog stalker of the day.

The New Feet of Fashion

Ladies, be alarmed. Very alarmed. A certain worldwide retail outfit that starts with a "J" and ends in "Crew" has apparently hired designers who have smoked more than one too many dubes. Or maybe they're just trying to use a dramatic effect to see if people do indeed look at their mailers. Their newest catalogue, depicting their very finest fashion trends and garments, left me wide eyed and gaping. And laughing out loud. I think (hope) you'll see what I mean below. Focus on the feet. There were many more where these came from.

It's like grown women playing dress up for your feet in a 5 year old's closet. Try one of these out on your hubbies and let me know how lucky you get. Or maybe we can use this as a reverse tactic!

Update on our Yellow Brick Road

Check out our adoption blog...new post on the status of our waiting game. So close to being approved to parent again friends, so close.

Expecting, Minus the Baby Bump and the Stretchmarks

Tis the Season to Party with the Syers

So much Syers fun to cover in one post. Last weekend we did something very unusual...we actually hung out without our children in tow. Us adults drove up to Blackhawk (gambling town in the mountains) for a night of food, drinks, moderate gambling, swimming, hot tubbing and just plain ole' hangin out. Jeremy and Lindsay joined in the festivities too, which just added to the fun factor.

You see, Tim and Wes consider a night up at Blackhawk to be a hot commodity and something they talk about more often than we care to hear about, so we figured we'd get it out of their system and be there to help create the memories. The Ameristar Casino just opened a top notch hotel with a sweet roof top pool and hot tubs, so Tim and I stayed overnight and ditched the dude on his favorite little girlfriends across the street. We love our neighbors. A lot. Only one of us couples came out on top of the gambling game (hint, it wasn't us and it wasn't Jer and Lindsay). All in all, it was 20 hours of adult bliss.

I would be remiss if I didn't share my "lucky" story from the night, pertaining to the above photo. We bought an auction item 2 years ago that included a steak dinner for four, bottle of wine with dinner and $50 in Red Dolly Casino bucks. We hadn't used it, so Cara and I went to check out the place. It was disgusting, to put it mildly. SO...I asked the manager if we could just have the casino bucks. He proceeded to hand me $50 in cash. Sweet. Then I asked if we could take the bottle of wine to go. He then proceeded to ask the bar tender to give me a bottle of wine. It was a magnum (aka HUGE bottle). I walked out proudly with $50 and a ginormous bottle of wine with Cara mumbling behind me, "Only you. Only you." It never hurts to ask!

We had icicles on our faces in the hot tub, but it was so worth it.

Last night we did our annual gift exchange in their newly remodeled house...lookin' good! Dude was blessed with a new remote control car (the current one was driven off the 5 tile stairs one too many times) and a puzzle that we're already completed 3 times today. The kids favorite gift of the night was the snowman poop (marshmallows) that I put under the tree for them. Hopefully Brady has stopped telling everyone that he's eating poop by now. Sorry guys!

Last night's prayers

Every night, we put dude to bed and he squints his eyes as tight as he can (while peeking every few seconds to see if our eyes are closed) and says his prayers. We can no longer say them along with him as he has to do it by himself. Every night he throws in something important to his day - we look forward to this every night. Last night's prayers incorporated Dick's Sporting Goods and a few pages from his favorite book. It went a little something like this.

"Now I lay me, down sleep. I pway the Lord soul to keep. Bless Mommy, Daddy, Wylan, (pause).....the ball store, tacos, my spoon, and down once more but not so fast, on my way to bed at last. The moon is high, sea deep, we wock and wock and wock to seep. And all our friends and family. And fogive us for sins, AMEN!"

Another noteworthy Dudeism from yesterday....Tim picked him up from daycare, which is out of routine.
"Daddy, I want to see Gwen."
"Who's Gwen?"
"Gwen is Mommy. Daddy is babe."

BitterSweet Thursday

This past Thursday was a big day round here. After a very filling farewell lunch out with his work gang, my dear hubby completed his very last hour and 15 minute commute from the land of Broomfield. A land so VERY far away from home. His job and fellow employees have been a big part of our lives these past 3 years. He honestly did love going to work every day (minus the commute) and the staff there became like an extension of our little family. BUT...job stability became an issue and the commute started to wear on my incredibly tolerant and patient hubby.

Tim starts a new job on Wednesday and the location is....wait for it...only 15-20 minutes from home! That's the very best part. He'll be doing similar work, but will only have to take one highway to get there. We'll miss all our Broomfield buddies and appreciate everything they've done for us these past 3 years. Here's hoping the next venture will follow in their very big footsteps.

Only my better half is lovable enough to get both of us taken out for a gourmet lunch by all his co-workers for QUITTING.

Note the chair.

A Moment of Silence for 3 Hour Naps & 8:00am Risings

We've always held our heads high when it comes to our sons glorious sleeping habits. 3-4 hour naps, 7:30 bedtime with an 8:00am rising. We would wake up to 2 year old renditions of Twinkle Twinkle and the ABS's. Eventually, we would hear little squeaks announcing he was ready to get up. Life, from a sleep standpoint, was at its best. I didn't understand my friends informing me that their children woke up at 5, 6, even 6:30! Just tell them to go back to bed for crap sake.

Yeah. I've been following my own advice this past week and it SO isn't working. 6:00am. We awake to sounds similar to what I would imagine a hyena in labor would sound like. And it doesn't go away. It gets louder and louder and eventually, the labor hits its peak and we have no choice but to go relieve the situation. Then we bring the little hyena into bed with us and one of two things happens. #1. We listen to the hyena ask for milk and a waffle with lots of syrup 87 times in a row. #2. We turn on Dora the Explorer. Choose your evil.

By 1:00pm, the hyena is bound to be exhausted, right? Not so much. After 30 minutes of singing his version of Jingle Bells, he does fall asleep. For about an hour. Then the labor commences and we're forced to get him up. By 8:00pm we figure sleep will catch up with him. No. He's rearing to go and sings in bed for another half hour before finally finding his REM sleep pattern.

One week of this is proving to be incredibly discouraging for our past fantasy sleep life. It's dead. Buried. And we feel pretty bad for ourselves. We're not asking you to feel bad for us, so just shut up.

It's a good thing the hyena is so darn cute.