We Started this month off with a BANG that's for sure! All through April we did swimming lessons, and Riley had Running Club with his school. So Mondays and Wednesdays were a bit crazy for us!
Riley did awesome at Running Club! Running more laps than he did last year! And of course they were able to end the season with a Fun Run around Windsor Lake. Last year during the fun run Daddy was running the Mini with Grandpa Louie and Uncle Stan (literally at the same time!) so he missed out on Riley's first run. This year though, not only did he see it, but he RAN it with Riley! It was so great to have him help motivate Riley and keep him going. They finished the almost 5k around 26 minutes! Great Job Riley! I'm sure this will be the first of many races run together! (And Mommy is thinking about volunteering to organize the run next year. For calling it a FUN run, they don't do much to make it FUN for kids.)
Everyone did swimming lessons this year! Riley did Level 2: Beginning Swimmers (alone swimming) which he apparently did last year too, oops! But it never hurts to work on the basics! He really excelled this year in his group, probably a product of doing it twice. So much that his teacher sought me out after class to say how good he is at backstroke! Way to go Riley!!
Jayce was in Preschool 1 (again like last year - but he was recommended to do it again.) Jayce does ok with the swimming part, in fact he is already sticking his head underwater and opening his eyes! His issue is staying with the group and following directions. (which is the main reason he's in regular preschool as well!) But he did graduate to preschool level 2 for next time. We may do another round of lessons with him in the fall if we can. (and if you are wondering he put two big Fish tattoos on his stomach this week, so that's what's in the pictures!)
Amara was quite the little Fish, tadfish that is! lol. The parent/child class for older kids (2-4) is called Tadfish. Daddy and Mommy split the time with Amara in the pool. She LOVED jumping off the sides, and playing with the toys. She's already "blowing bubbles" and putting her face in the water. She doesn't like water in her ears, so laying on her back is not a favorite. And apparently she is DEATHLY afraid of swimming on a pool noodle! The first day they brought them out she was already having a tough time, but the second day she threw an all out fit! Jayce style fit. So both days we had to leave early to get her calmed down. And even then she screamed all through getting dressed and all the way to the car! So that is something we will definitely have to work on this summer, hopefully when she sees Jayce and Riley playing on them she will realize they aren't scary.
Stuff Coming up . . . We are getting our house painted!! Completely NEW colors, so I'll be sure to take some before and after photos for everyone to see. We will soon be the only house of this color on our block, which will help in telling people which is ours (just a bonus of course, we are really excited for the change.) Even the color guy who helped us pick them out thought we made a really good choice!
And, just 2 more weeks of school! I can't believe this year has flown by like this! Riley has a few fun things the last week of school, and I'm hoping I can find someone to watch the little ones so I can go with him. And Jayce has a lot of fun stuff that last week too. Water days, and a family invited picnic the last day of school. I can't believe these guys are growing up so fast! We have a TON of fun stuff planned for this summer too. A couple of road trips to around Colorado and Utah (our favorite place -Moab!) and of course a trip to Indy. But also a few day camps for the kids, movies like last year, and swimming with our good friend Jan. And I'm sure we'll throw a few trips to the zoo and museum in there too! ;) So keep checking back for updates! I'm trying to get back on the Photo-A-Day bandwagon, I feel like I document things so much better when I have a focus like that. And I didn't take as many pictures last year as I wanted. So I'm not making that mistake again this year! I love taking photos, especially of the kids, and I want to be able to look back on every adventure we had! So I'll do my best at adding more photos and keeping you all up to date!
Ok, I know I’ve been slacking lately. March just got really
crazy, and April of course has gotten away from me to!
Lets see . . . Where to start. March I decided to give Amara
her first “haircut”. If you can even call it that. She had this distinct
rightwards slant on the back of her hair, so while I was cutting the boys’ hair
I thought I would even it out some. It was literally just snipping a line
across the back.Of course now it slants
the other direction!!So I’ve decided
that I need to stop trying to use scissors to cut hair. I do ok on the boys
because I just use clippers. So Amara will get her first taste of a Hairdresser
soon enough. No more mommy cuts for this girl!
The big event for March though was a last minute trip to
Indy for me. My mom was going through some infections and ended up in emergency
care. So I came out to spend the week in the hospital with her. Showing her
updated pictures of her grandkids, and funny videos on you tube. (there’s not a
whole lot to do while confined to a hospital bed for 2 weeks!) but we still had
a good time! The one bad part about living in Colorado is that I can’t do that
more often. She is healing nicely and is now in a new (Better) facility. The
care she’s receiving is a lot better than what she was getting. At least it is
now. And we (my sister, Rodger, and some other close friends) seem to have a
better communication system in place too, to make sure it stays that way. She
is now at University Heights, next to Community South Hospital for those of you
in Indy that would like to visit her. She could use some company, any
transition is difficult. We are just glad that she’s up and moving about again!
After I got home from Indy I was able to see one of my
FAVORITE country singers!!!Garth
Brooks!!He came to Denver and a friend
of mine scored some tickets for us! Cameron doesn’t really do the country music
thing, but he loves me, and I’m glad I was able spend some time with him after
being gone for a week. It was an absolutely AMAZING concert! Even if we didn’t
have the greatest seats, I wouldn’t have passed up being there for anything!
Spring Break was an amazing week!Riley had off the end of March beginning of
April, and with Easter falling at the end of the week, Cam was able to tack on
a few vacation days to make it a quality family time! The beginning of the week we had some
GORGEOUS weather! Nice, sunny, 70 degree days . . . what spring should be like!
So we made sure to take advantage and went on a hike with our adopted grandma,
Jan. She’s as outdoorsy as we are, and we love spending time with her. She
teaches skiing in the winter, so we don’t get to see as much of her during
those months, but nice weather means more time with Jan! We can’t wait!
After our hike, the weather wanted to remind
us that winter wasn’t quite over. And it snowed.So, we had some INDOOR fun! For some reason
we always take a trip to the indoor pool in Greeley over spring break, and this
year wasn’t any different. Daddy was able to come with us and we had a lot of
fun! Jayce is getting more bold, and went down the waterslides all by himself
(the little kid sized ones, not quite tall enough for the big ones). Riley
spent the whole time in the lazy river or on the big water slides. Even Daddy
took a few turns! We had a lot of fun for sure! And everyone took great naps
that day. (sorry for the blurry phone pics, I'm hoping to get a quality waterproof camera before this summer so we can get some good swimming pictures!)
After getting all that snow, we thought it would be fun to
go sledding one last time! So we packed up the sleds and headed to Rocky
Mountain National Park. There is an area there that is a former ski area,
called Hidden Valley. Because of the nicely cleared runs already there, they
turned it into a snow play area. The little bunny hill has become a good
sledding hill, but we kinda skipped out on the rules and headed to one of the
abandoned runs to sled. I’m not sure who had more fun, the kids, or Cameron! We
couldn’t get Amara to go down. I think Jayce did only once. Riley only did once
on the sled, saying it was too fast for him and he slid on his butt the rest of
the time. But Mom and Dad had a fun time! After about an hour and a half of
sledding on all the fresh powder, we headed to Starbucks for some hot
chocolate! It was a nice treat for everyone! We may have to make this one a
Spring Break Tradition as well!
Easter was another nice day (thank goodness). We didn’t ever
make it to an egg hunt that week, so we did one in the backyard as usual. This
year I did the hiding a little different though. Last year we separated out the
egg colors so that each kid had 2 colors and they hunted only for their colors.
It worked out great because then everyone got the same amount and Amara can
find the easy ones without the bigger kids taking them first. So we did that
again, but this year I let the boys hide them for their younger sibling. So
Jayce went first and hid all of Amara’s eggs. He did great making them easy
(unintentionally) for her, which was my plan. Then Riley hid Jayce’s eggs.
Making them a little harder, but not too hard for him. Then I hid all of Riley’s.
Of course making them as hard as I could! J
They all had fun, and everyone did good finding all their eggs. (the plus side
to this is we know exactly how many eggs were hidden so we can make sure to
find them all and there aren’t any surprises 2 months later!
The next weekend was Cameron’s first race of the year. It
was just a little “Fun Run” put on by his work, but even a 10K is an
accomplishment in my mind! He did great, coming in at 1 hour flat. He’s not
signed up to do many races this year right now, but I’m sure the running will
continue. He was hoping to do a run up Pike’s Peak, but that one filled up
before he got his registration in. There’s always next year. So he’s working
toward some other runs in the fall, and I’m sure he’ll find some little ones to
keep him busy this summer too.
We didn’t do much for my birthday again this year. A dinner
at a new restaurant in town, Tom & Chee (because all they serve is TOMato
soup and grilled CHEEse, and yes it’s really good! There’s a few different
kinds of soup – chunky, creamy, basil, etc.; and more types of grilled cheese
than I knew possible! Along with a “build your own” choosing your types of
cheese and add-ons.). And then Cam made me Brownies instead of cake this year –
YUM!!!Because I was talking earlier
that week about how we hadn’t made brownies in a while. My gift this year . . .
A chest Freezer!!I know, you are
probably thinking, what? That’s like getting a blender for a wedding gift, no
one wants that! But I DO!!I’m so
excited! Being the grocery shopper (and coupon clipper) in the family made me
realize that we could save a lot more money (and gas to the grocery) if I had a
freezer to buy things in bulk when they are on sale. No too mention that we
have 3 hungry kids to feed and I feel like I have to run to the grocery 3 times
a week just to keep bread and milk in stock! (thankfully my friend Trista only
lives a few miles down the road and her chickens keep us pretty well stocked in
the egg department!) So I’ve been asking for a freezer for a while now. It’s
supposed to be delivered any day now, so I’ll update again when it gets here.
That is providing we can fit it in the basement!
Last update I have is our Butterflies! Jan got the kids some
caterpillars for Easter, the kind you can watch grow into butterflies. So we
watched them eat and grow, spin their chrysalises (not cocoons – they are
butterflies) and they are now emerging as butterflies! We started out with 5
caterpillars, and 4 have emerged already. (one didn’t make it) And we are
waiting for the last one to emerge. The kids have been so excited watching them
grow, and come out. Luckily they started emerging on Sunday, so we were home
and they were able to witness one come out! It was really neat!
Well, now we are all caught up on March and April!!Yay!!Next month is another busy month, so I’ll try my best to keep up with
the updates and photos. Between all the end of school fun, and summer starting
(not to mention Riley turning 8) it’s going to be crazy. They kids are already
itching for summer, and we have a lot of fun things planned!
