Later Octo-Blizzard

The Octo-blizzard has said its good byes, the sun is smiling down on Denver, temps are in the 5-0s and the white stuff is half melted. So, before it's no longer appropriate, here are a few final photos from our Fall Wonderland adventure.

Tonight we'll finally get around to carving pumpkins, which I'm sure Dude will have not one morsel of interest in, given the pure guckiness of the situation. I'll let you know how it goes.

That "yellow tape" as Dude calls it, reads 30 inches.

24 hours and 24 inches later

Really? It's not even Halloween yet and we're buried. In 24 inches of snow, with 5 more expected today. Last night measured 15 inches at our house and at least 8 fluffy inches graced us last night. Yesterday, as we drove to purchase a sled, dude said, "Holy shmokes Mommy! Holy Shmokes! Big snow! It's snowing on stop sign! Silly stop sign! Oh, I hear ice cream twuck!" I don't know. He always thinks he hears the ice cream truck.

Needless to say, I didn't go to my conference today and Tim did NOT make the blizzardy haul to Broomfield. It's a snow day of all snow days. And it's awesome. We're supposed to be in the upper 50's by Halloween with 60's next week. Whatever! We love our moody weather out here fo sho!

Our 8 year old patio set is always the gauge for how many inches have dropped.

Sledding down the Shea's driveway.

Dude wasn't digging the restriction of the gloves.

Sledding is definitely in the cards for dude's future fun.

Expecting, minus the baby bump

2.5 years ago we adopted our dude. Best day ever. Best dude ever. After trying to get prego for the past few months, God has once again confirmed that pregnancy just isn't in the cards for us. Most days we're okay with that and on the days when we're not, the dude tends to bring us back to the okay camp.


Dude needs a play mate and we're feeling the itch to clean up projectile spit up again, so we're starting the adoption process again. We've been hesitant to blab it to the world because it's kinda scary and kinda tedious at the beginning. But we're getting to the "being excited about it" point and wanted to share it with our fam, friends and complete strangers. Read on to find out how we're going to accomplish that task.


Mile High Mamas is a website here in Denver that's a part of the Denver Post, dedicated to Mom bloggers. Thousands of them. I approached them with an idea and they bit. I'm now a regular guest blogger to the site with a new blog, dedicated to telling our adoption story. We're starting with the paperwork and will hopefully end with announcing a little bambino joining our family. A lot of people don't know what this process entails and don't know whether it's appropriate to ask and what to ask and when to ask. SO...this blog will open up our world of adoption for the world to follow.


Add it to your blog stalking list! I'll do most adoption related updates on that blog (http://www.expectingminusthebabybump.blogspot.com/) rather than this one. The blog post will link you to the Mile High Mama's site for this first post, but regular updates will be done in full on the blog itself. If you're a Denver mom, take some time with the MHM site. It's pretty rockin' for mommas in general.


On a final note, and this may sound a little weird, but if you know anyone who is pregnant and looking to make an adoption plan, keep us in mind. It's not uncommon in this arena to "market" yourself to those in your world. Referrals are great for jobs and, in our case, for babies too.

Chailuah & Rock Stars

I'm sitting in the basement, wrapped up in a cozy red blanket and drinking a chailuah (my signature chai tea, Kahlua mix that our pal Eric so kindly named for me). Yes, a shot of Kahlua on a Wednesday afternoon. A random October day with over 7 inches of snow on the ground with 7 more to come makes today a Chailuah kind of day.

Yesterday was a Red Bull kind of day. I was surrounded by lights, camera and rock stars. A week ago, a call came through from my work's parent company, "Feeding America," while I was stalking the aisles of the Dollar Store with the dude. They asked if we would be willing to host the band One Republic and crews from The Biggest Loser at our food bank. The band wanted to volunteer and tour the facility and the Biggest Loser wanted to shoot footage to air nationally in November. After 0.4 seconds of deliberation, I said "Yes. I'm pretty sure we'd welcome national television coverage and a chart topping band."

It all happened yesterday. They interviewed our CEO and shot the band packing boxes with a bunch of food bank staff. Other than insisting to myself that I needed to wear "cute shoes" and having torn up feet by the end of the day, it was a huge success:) The band was awesome and incredibly interested in what we do. They gave shout outs to us at their concert last night and encouraged everyone to give back to our community. The Biggest Loser will air November 17th, so check it out! You just might see the back of my head.

So Close Daddy

Daddy was in command on getting dude ready for our Halloween festival with the Syers clan on Friday night. Dude came downstairs looking like this. A valiant effort on dad's part, but the hat was more like a visor than a pirate's cap. So close Daddy!

The hat's true form.

The kiddos had a blast romping around the rec center. Noly won the prize for cutest kid in the joint. He couldn't quite see out from under his monkey face, so there was a lot of stumbling around and grunting:) Say some prayers for Noly's mom who is currently in the hospital with early labor. We need that little man to stay put for a couple more weeks!

A Day to Top All Days

Where to start....

#1- We have a brand spanking new nephew as of 11:00am Chicago time today. Hudson James was born, healthy and perfect to my brother and sister-in-law. Big brother D's world is now officially rocked! My fam now has 3 grandsons in the mix. We're so grateful that mom and babe are doing well. Congrats guys!

#2 - Tonight we celebrated our second adoption day with dude. He doesn't understand what that means yet, but it's an excuse to give him extra love and a kid-friendly dinner out to Red Robin. Balloons, plastic horses, crayons and grilled cheese. What else could a kid ask for? Time has gone by so rapidly, but we're more grateful today for the miracle of adoption than ever before. Where would our lives be without our little man? I can't even imagine.

#3 - It was 80 and sunny again today. 'Nouf said.

#4 - For the second night in a row, dude sat on the couch with us, insisting on holding my hand the entire time, to watch football. He claps, yells for the appropriate teams (Bears and Broncos) and asks "where the football team went" when it goes to commercial. Every now and then he'd look up at us and say, "Hi Mommy! Hi Daddy! We snuggle!" Priceless.

That's all the bliss we have to share for today.

Dude's Itsy Girlfriends

Our friend's twin munchkins are too precious not to post, so here they are. We picniced at the park on Sunday, given the 80 degree crazy awesome weather, and treated them to their first swinging experience. Dude wanted to push them, but that would have scared them away from ever swinging again.

De-passified

The new proud owner of the passie can be seen in the background.

When dude turned oneish, we quarantined the passie to bedtime bliss. He quickly learned that he wasn't allowed out of his crib until he threw the passies, in touchdown fashion, down to the depths of his resting place. Now that he's encroaching on year number three of life, we've decided that even bedtime passies need to be retired. For months we've been talking about this with quivering voices...we've heard nightmare stories about de-passifiying.

I've read articles about methods for accomplishing this major milestone and chose one that we thought might work for the dude. We cut them. Sucking is no longer an option, but the passie still looks like a passie. I handed them to him on Friday and we laughed and laughed about how the passies were "broken." He didn't seem bothered, which was miracle #1.

Then he went to bed. And here, folks, is what transpired.....
He sang "Jesus love me" for 45 minutes and would mix in "passies broken now. give to snuggle puppy! throw in garbage!" Then he slept. Just like that. He slept. And he went to bed that night, singing again and laughing at his passies and slept. Again. He slept. He woke up 20 minutes earlier than normal, but that's cool. We'll take it. He's no longer interested in what used to be a very important bed time fixture and hasn't even asked about their former existence. In fact, when we put him to bed last night, in his prayers he said, "God bless mommy, daddy, wylan, broken passies and all our friends and family. And forgive us for our sins, Amen."

Hallelujah for whoever gave me the idea to chop the passie. Pure genius. Potty training is up next. I don't suspect there will be any "hallelujahs" in mastering that milestone, but another miracle could happen. We'll see.

Aye Maitee!

I know this is a huge spoiler for Halloween, but you can just act surprised on Oct 31st. We'll add an eye patch or something crazy like that. We met our buds Eric, Megan and Jack at Pumpkin Fest near the foothills on Saturday for some festive fall fun. And that it was. Dude's favorite part was watching the ferriswheel (big wheel in sky), but we got him to at least walk through the pumpkins while he talked about the big wheel in the sky. Oh, and a kid dressed like Elmo walked by, which meant we had to "find Elmo" the rest of the morning. We never did, so that was super sad for him. Jack was an impossibly cute elephant and the dude pulled off a pirate like a real champ. The best part of the day was watching the two dudes giggle their little fannies off on the tractor ride to the car. Fun times for all.

Lachey Day

If you tuned in to the show "Newlyweds" or jammed out to the sizzling sounds of boy band 98 Degrees, you'll know who Nick Lachey(luhshay) is. If you didn't, oh well, life goes on. He was in town yesterday to promote his new website, www.winnit.com, and stopped by Food Bank for 20 minutes to pack a few boxes. He was a gent and seemed to be pretty genuine, but I was taller than him by a good 2 inches (I did have my hooker knee high boots on). That's the end of my story.

Puff the Magic Dude

When I saw news coverage that Peter Yarrow of Peter, Paul and Mary was coming to a bookstore near our hood, I thought it would be a fun-filled family outing for a random Monday night. I figured we'd sit in the back, trying to keep dude somewhat civil, listen to a catchy version of Puff the Magic Dragon and head home. What happened was this....

Dude RAN to the front of the couple hundred onlookers and started dancing with the other 8 children yelling, at the top of his lungs, "Come on Mommy! Come on Daddy! Let's dance!" He ran circles around Peter while we said silent prayers that he wouldn't knock over the 3 mic stands or poop (he makes formal announcement when he poops). When the audience laughed, dude would bend over, grab his knees and let out his loudest, fakest laugh. When the children decided that crawling was extra fun, dude would crawl. When they hid under the table, he would hide under that table. When they decided to sit down, he would...yeah, no. He wouldn't sit down. He would then become the one child still circling Peter and his famous lyrics. At one point, when Peter was having a quiet moment, remembering his late band mate Mary, dude approached another 2 year old and said, "Hi! What's yo name? My name Wylan James!"

Needless to say, we stood there laughing under our breath the entire time. M&M's were the only ploy that succeeded in getting him away from the hilarity When we got in the car he said, "Guitar man, SO FUN!" How's that for random Monday night?

This is dude, trying to yank Peter's guitar case.

Wylan pease (I let him name this post)

It's Monday morning and I'm thoroughly enjoying my day off thus far. Just watching my child run around the house being himself. The kid makes for great commentary. Here are a few key phrases from the past couple of days...

This morning, from across the house, "Mommy! Here!" Mommy take it!" I open my hand to whatever it is that he so desperately needs me to take. It's a booger, the size of a spec of dust.

What I'm currently looking at....Dude in his monkey PJ's, wearing the purple Dora backpack, filled with balls, and sporting his newly discovered red rain boots. He's running around the island, dancing (running at rapid pace) to the first 30 seconds of his fav Janet Jackson song. I don't know about this whole "having an opinion about what he wears" issue.

I struggle to open a thing of Gatorade, finally get it and dude pats me on the leg saying, in his most high pitched voice, "Good job Mommy!"

As dude's playing with a neighbor friend....he says AT the TOP OF HIS LUNGS..."Stop sceeming! Too loud! Stop sceeming!" In reality, no one was ever screaming, other than him.

Dude's remote control car gets stuck under the chair. He looks at me and says, "Go get it!" I look at him with the "you don't talk to Mommy like that look" and he giggles, saying, "Ok, Wylan get it."

Again, the yellow remote control car goes flying off the flight of stairs down to the living room. Dude says, "Woah!!!! Howy Shmoke!" I guess I say "holy smoke" a lot?

That's all for today. More to come as the spirit moves me.

Our 3 Weekend Munchkins

Our neighbor buds got their weekend of heaven in Aspen this weekend. Which means....we were a family of 5 for 2 days. Whew! I thought one pip squeak was work. Luckily, the girls were little angels and even brought out dude's angelic side. When the girls are around, he puts on the Vogel charm and does his darndest to make them giggle as much as humanly possible. Which means, if he gets a laugh out of them, he'll repeat the same thing over and over and over and over...you get the idea. Unfortunately, they think it's funnier the more he does it.

Tim and I had a humorous weekend laughing at the 3 kiddos and their antics. Dude had the time of his life with his playmates who ate, slept, laughed and partied hard with him every waking minute of the 2 days. We managed to keep them busy and, despite the ridiculous 20 degree temps, got them out of the house as much as possible. One of the highlights...DUDE LET SOMEONE PAINT HIS FACE! She grabbed his face, put slimy paint on it and he sat through the whole thing. Our jaws were on the ground the entire 2 minutes he sat on the hot seat.

A successful weekend for all.

Evidence of the face paint miracle. It's a race car, which he thought was awesome.

He can't look adorable in EVERY picture.

Then n Now

I didn't start this blog until our dude was quite the little man already, so you all missed out on some pretty darn cute stuff, if I must say so myself. We were looking through old video clips and came across some real keepers. I thought I'd share an old one, during the days when Dude did what we called "jazz hands" constantly and refused to crawl or walk. Hes always been on his own time. The next reel is our little man singing his latest song of the day. The kiddo is constantly singing and dancing and definitely expects the same caliber out of us. Too bad his dadio is a bit on the tone deaf spectrum:)

Enjoy!

Fall...ing temperatures

Before the potential of s-n-o-w becomes a reality, oh tomorrow, I decided to do a post of all things happy and fall-like. I love Fall in Denver. It's my fav time of year. The rustling of leaves under your feet, the beginning of snotty noses and hacking up a lung, a light jacket one minute, stocking hat the next and maybe shorts following that, pumpkins and talking skeleton skulls (okay, not so much into Halloween...just Fall).

Its been a lovely week here...sun shining, 70 degrees, neighbors smiling and cheerful...and then tomorrow is supposed to happen. Cold. Potential for snow. Blah. I'll look back on this post with fondness until the next round of blessed weather hits us.