Mattea's Question of the Day

So, the other day, Mattea came up with a question out of the blue. She said, "Mommy, how did I get made?" I thought... holy cow, how do I answer THAT question? So, I said "From God". I didn't know if she'd accept that answer and of course, she didn't. "No", she said. "Like, how did my fingers get here and stuff?" She was really amazed at how she came to be. So, I told her she was a miracle and left it at that. I think this question may have come about because we had written a letter to Mattea about the day she was born. They read them to the kids at preschool. I was curious whether those letters would draw out any interesting questions. I told Jeff about it later and his male response was "Why didn't you explain DNA and chromosomes to her?" Ahhhhhhh! SERIOUSLY.

A Visit from the Harron's

Tim, Katie and the boys came out to visit us over Labor Day weekend. It was SO awesome to have them here. The weather cooperated and we had a really nice time. They arrived on Friday, August 29th and stayed till Monday, September 1st.

While they were here, we played kickball, sat around the fire pit and had s'mores, walked to the park, went to Heritage Square and went hiking. Heritage Square was like going to the fair... there was a street juggler, kettle corn & turkey legs (plus lots of other food), a magic show, quaint shops, rides, go-karts and an alpine slide. We hiked at Golden Gate Canyon Park. The kids all did pretty well considering the trail we took had some aggressive inclines!!! Jake and Justin liked seeing the mountains, too. The boys spent a lot of time down at the creek behind our house. They caught crawdads and minnows and got dirty! I think that was their favorite part of the trip!!!

We were all sad to see the Harron's go home on Monday. However, the boys and I will get to see them again at the end of September, so we are looking forward to that!

Bronco Day at Preschool

Today is Bronco Day at Mattea's preschool. She has outgrown her little Bronco cheerleader outfit, so we had to improvise. She is wearing Josh's jersey and belt with her Augie bloomers underneath. I put her hair up in messy buns and told her they were her pompoms! She is delighted with her look and, of course, we think she looks adorable too!!!

Where has the summer gone???

I realized it's been almost a month since I've posted and a lot has happened. I can't possibly document it all, but here's a summary.

• The boys went back to school on July 8th. I am liking this year round school schedule.



• We have been so lucky with all of the friends and family that have come to visit since we moved. July was the first month we didn't have visitors! We spent time at home, getting settled and did some fun stuff on the weekends with the kids.



• In August, Pete & Carol came to visit for about 10 days. It was a great trip! Pete retired from the Adams Company and was also celebrating his birthday. Marilyn & Steve stopped in for a visit as well. Mattea gave them the tour of the house and had some funny things to say... right, Uncle Steve??? We spent a weekend at a cabin in Estes Park with Pete & Carol. We visited Rocky Mountain National Park while we were there. It was amazing! We drove on Trail Ridge Road and our timing was perfect... just a week later, they closed it due to 6 inches of snow!!!



• Later in August, the Jacobsen's traveled from Illinois to come visit us. My bragging of the sunny days we have in Colorado backfired because we had 2 1/2 straight days of rain while they were here. It was very disappointing, but we made the best of it. While we were at work, they went whitewater rafting, to an indoor amusement park and did some shopping. On the weekend, we went to the aquarium, Garden of the Gods and Pike's Peak. We were also able to spend some time with Denise's friend Jenn and her family. Good times!



• Uncle Terry also came for a visit while the Jacobsen's were here. He came along with us on all of our weekend adventures. Josh was his shadow. Uncle Terry had to be within Josh's eye sight or Josh started wondering where he was. It was adorable! The boys had some wrestling time... probably not enough if you ask any of them. But, Uncle Terry dominated in the end.


• We are looking forward now to a visit from Tim, Katie, Jake & Justin and a long Labor Day weekend. Enjoy and be safe!

It's Aunt Julie's fault...

Yesterday, we cleaned out our laundry/mud room. We had 2 huge baskets of shoes in there that we went through to sort out what doesn't fit, what's trashed and what isn't being worn. As I organized Mattea's shoes, I realized she has quite a few. So, I decided to collect them all and just see how bad it had gotten. Weeeeeeeellllll.... I'm embarrassed to say that I found 24 pairs of shoes. I later found one unmatched shoe and another pair, so she has at least 26 pairs of shoes. A bit much for a 3 1/2 year old, don't you think? So, after I lined them all up and took pictures to make a scrapbook page, I thought back to how this could have happened. I realized it's not really my fault... it's Aunt Julie's fault!!! You see, when Mattea was just hours old, Aunt Julie started talking to Mattea about shoes, accessorizing, purses, etc. I am sure this is where this obsession came from, however, I suppose I'm partly to blame since I'm the one that keeps buying her more. : (

Joshie's new glasses

Unfortunately, our kids don't have much of a chance with having good eye sight! We found this out firsthand when Josh said he was having trouble seeing the board at school. We had his eyes examined and sure enough... he is a bit near-sighted. It's not too bad yet, but the doc prescribed glasses to help him at school. Josh picked out a cute pair of Converse frames and anxiously waited a week for the lenses to be put in. We picked them up on Friday. The kids were at VBS this week and it was Crazy Hair Day, so you'll see in the picture that his hair is spiked and GREEN! But, doesn't he look adorable with his new glasses (and a missing bottom tooth)???

A valuable lesson from a 7 year old

The kids are attending Vacation Bible School (VBS) this week. I'm not always sure that the lessons they teach each night are being heard by the kids or whether the kids are more focused on the cool crafts they got to make. Josh proved this morning that the lessons are being heard!!! Here's the story...


Picture this scene. It's 7am and the Dolan house is already busy. I'm running around helping with breakfast, locating lost homework folders and filling water bottles. The kids are eating breakfast, talking, singing (Mattea) and looking for lost homework folders! It's getting close to the time the bus picks up the boys, so I'm shuffling them out the door. Mattea is moving pretty slow, so I tell her "Mattea, let's go. Mommy needs to get you to school because I have a meeting at 8:00am and I'm really nervous about it." Joshie turns to me and says "Don't worry, Mommy. Jesus gives us the power to be brave." Oh my gosh... that was last night's lesson at VBS. I was touched and my heart got 2 sizes bigger. I turned back to Josh wanting him to know that we're never to old to "use our powers" and said "You are right, Josh. I will be brave."

I was so proud of Josh and how he related what he learned to a real life situation.