A Girl and Her Shoes

I had some quality Squirt time today while Dude spent the afternoon at Brady's house (thank you Aunt Cara), so I just sat on the floor for an hour and watched her do her thing.  The video below documents what "her thing" is and it makes my heart smile.  Life is so simple.  All a girl needs is a few shoes and a step to make her world a happy happy place (and maybe a sock too). 

A 60 Degree Snow Day

We were blessed with a beautiful, sunny, balmy, February day this past weekend.  And I mean "blessed."  Oh how we need days when we can hang outside and breathe in fresh air.  And get the heck out of the house.  Despite the feeling you get from the photo above, Squirt did actually enjoy her outdoor day o fun.  She and Mr. SnowFace (named by Dude) didn't really get along. 

Dude and Dad spent an hour bonding over Mr. SnowFace.  As he began to take shape, Dude's imagination ran wild.  He gave Mr. SnowFace hips and bones, which he dug out spots for and buried in the snow man's body.  It took a good 45 minutes to adequately equip him with enough bones to make him complete.  Next he informed me that he gave SnowFace spikes in the back of his head.  Sure enough.  6 wood chips protruded out the back of the head.  I received a tutorial of said buttons....#1 made him able to dance and move around.  #2 made him run SUPER fast.  #3 made him run SUPER slow.  #4 made him get rid of his stink???? and #5 helped him go pee.  Practicality friends. 

 Later, Squirt got dolled up in a rather irresistible outfit.  I had to capture her. 

If one child is receiving a more than normal amount of attention, the other is right there expecting nothing less. Lucky Dad can still hold both of them at once.  Not so much for Mama.

For Your Viewing Pleasure

I'm not so good at uploading video regularly, so here's a conglomeration of random footage from the past couple months.  Since the last video of Squirt walking a week ago, she's vertical about 80% of the time now.  It happens so fast - we still look at her and just laugh at the fact that she's a little person now.  And we laugh at Dude just because he's Dude.  No one on this planet like our little man. 

Starbucks for you?

I know, it took forever and a day, but I had my children choose our 3 Starbucks winners.  I was tempted to leave out the video, due to the obnoxious screaming over who got to be the dominator of all the oh so exciting slips of papers with names on them.  Ya know, if one child has power over something, the other automatically feels the need to start a small war.  Anyway, congrats to our three blog stalker winners and apologies to all those who stalk us regularly and didn't win (Cara).  You WILL have to watch the video to find out your fate.  Gift cards will be mailed in the next, oh, weekish. 

Note...my precious Duder is starting to read and you'll notice him trying to sound out the winning names.  Squirt just tried to eat them. 

Since the video didn't display my children's most shiniest of moments, I'll leave you with these shots of the kids, snapped just minutes later.  They sure know how to be priceless when they want to be.

You can tell the difference between the shots above taken with no flash and the flash ones below.  The more movement, the fuzzier the no flash ones get, but they're still my favorite. 

The Sweetest Outing EVER

On our fourth day home without school or daycare as a distraction we headed out on a "reventure," as Dude calls it.  When I explained to him that we were going to a candy factory, he replied, "EXCLAMATION MARK!!!!"  (We've been talking about punctuation lately).  The Hammond Candy Factory is a mere 20 minutes from home and is FREE, our favorite type of outing.  They give a 15 minute tour where the kids can watch candy being made and they conveniently dump you into a large square room, chock full of candy.  Wall to wall, floor to ceiling.  Candy canes, lollipops, chocolate, pez dispensers, candy by the pound, toffee...do you get the drift?  Dude walked around dazed and slightly in love with his surroundings.  He only broke 3 lollipops.  Shhhhh. 

I had a hay day with the camera.  My little poster children for Hammonds Candy.  I'm expecting a call from the owners once they get wind of these darling little babes, donning their paper hats. 

The First Chapter of our Fam

I came across a video we had done for us, documenting our fairy tale adoption with our Duder way back nearly 5 years ago.  I couldn't get it to download from the DVD, but the company who created it, Life Cairn, sent us a link.  


Click here if you'd like to watch the first chapter of our family's story.   

Happy Love Day from our Little Loves

From our house to yours, happy love day.  

Medium and Little Swimmers

We met the Foremans at our favorite spot for water fun on Saturday night.  Squirt acted like she owned the place.  Water in her face, fountains up her nose, kids splashing her...she took it all in and loved every minute of it.  Little Harper Grace was a trooper for her first trip to the big bad pool and kept a general look of neutrality through it all.  Dude and Jack took advantage of every single second they were given.  Duder made enormous strides in his swimming and independent navigation of the deep end.  See the video below for little highlights from each of our little water lovers. 

 The random rosy cheek helped make these shots rather priceless. 

Look What I Can Do Friends!

Our baby is becoming mobile.  Quickly.  Of course she did this for the first time while I was in another time zone, but she has showed off these skiiiils to her Mama this week too.  I LOVE this wobbly baby walking phase.  It's when they're able to run away at lightening speed that I start wishing they couldn't move.  The determination in this video is my favorite.  She may fall, but our Squirt gets back up again.  Sometimes.

28 inches

Massive amounts of snow tend to gravitate to Denver. Every year we have a blizzard to brag about - twice we've had upwards of 4 feet at a given time. Last week we got a doozy (not 4 feet, but a solid 28 inches). Every school shut down and a bunch of businesses too, which left my children and me stuck in our house. As much as I would have loved to take Dude out and build a massive snow man and a snow fort to top all snow forts, we had our little Squirt to consider. She's not quite at the "romp around in the snow" age and I wouldn't have been able to shovel 20 inches with a baby on my back, so we watched the white stuff grow taller and taller from inside all day long.


When Tim got home from work, I busted outside with Dude for an hour of shoveling. It was still coming down in sheets, so we were wet. 

My Girl

In looooove with this baby girl (and this photo).