Picture of the Day -- Week 20

May 15th – This was the scene in Josh’s room this morning. His lovely sister finagled her way into his bed to sleep last night and then ended up sprawled over him while he slept. Sibling love at its best. (Although, I’m sure he gave her a good shove when he woke up to that!)


May 16th - Alex’s creativity never ceases to amaze me. His Lego creations are always very cool! I hope he never stops playing with Legos.


May 17th – Mattea likes her hamburgers with extra pickles. Today, she had me put even more on her burger and the pickles seemed to overwhelm the burger, but she was a happy girl. Hey – whatever sizzles your bacon!


May 18th – Josh’s best buddy turned ten, so Josh made his “famous” cake. Justin and his family (including the dog!) enjoyed the cake very much! Josh is such a sweet friend.


May 19th – Mattea helps around the house when she is asked… most of the time! One of her jobs is putting away the clean silverware from the dishwasher. She does a great job and is very happy to help out the family.


May 20th – I just love this picture of Josh rollerblading. It’s totally him… messy hair, cute smile, peace signs and wearing about 6 lei’s.


May 21st – Tonight, the Thomas family came over for a fire. We had a wonderful grilled steak dinner and then enjoyed a nice night chatting by the fire. Oh, and yes, there were s’mores!!!

Picture of the Day -- Week 19

May 8th – Mattea made this gift in preschool for me for Mother’s Day. She was SO proud and it made me so happy! I have it hanging on the door to my office so I can see it everyday!


May 9th – I signed up for the Mother’s Day 5k race at City Park in Denver. I have been running at least 4 times a week since mid-March, so I decided it was time to put my training to the test. My family (including Uncle Terry) came to cheer me on. It was so motivating to have their support. Josh even ran with me for the last mile and a half. The day was beautiful and spending the day with family was priceless.


May 10th – I got my legs totally fried at one of Josh’s baseball games. I had lathered up the kids with sunscreen and forgot about myself. As you can see, I was wearing capri pants, so I have ridiculous looking tan lines.


May 11th – Mattea was having a tantrum about not being able to play with Hanna, so I decided to find the humor in the moment instead of letting her antics get me all worked up, too. She was NOT happy when she heard the camera click!


May 12th – This morning we woke up to a lovely snowfall. Oh wait… it wasn’t so lovely BECAUSE IT’S MAY!!! I don’t understand snow in May. May is supposed to be flowers and sunshine. Okay, I’m done with my tantrum now. : )


May 13th – Alex is really stretching out. I remember when the top of his head came to the bottom of my chin and all of a sudden, he’s up to my nose! Of course, his “Q-Tip” hair in this picture gives him a couple inches!


May 14th – Mattea loves to be creative! She loves to color, draw, write and paint.

Yeah, it's been awhile...

Sorry about my lack of posting lately. I had some laptop issues which have since been resolved (THANKS, KEVIN!!!) and I got really, really, really behind on my POTD (picture-of-the-day) project. Apparently, it's been since May 7th that I have posted. Luckily, I haven't stopped taking pictures, so I just need to get them organized and posted. We also attended a family wedding recently and I must post about that, too, because it was so much fun! Updates soon, I promise! TTFN...

Alex is SOOOOOO done with elementary school

On Friday, May 28th, we attended the 5th Grade Continuation Ceremony at Rolling Hills Elementary. Alex's class walked into the gymnasium all dressed up and looking like graduates! Alex downplays his emotions quite a bit, but I know he felt very proud and was so happy that we were there to watch him finish up his last day of elementary school. The principal said some words and read a poem that made me cry. Shocking? Not really. Then Alex's teacher, Mrs. Nolte said some very nice things about the school year and made me cry again. [sigh] After that, we watched a slide show containing pictures of the kids throughout the school year. It was highly entertaining and very touching. More tears. Alex received his diploma and I completely missed taking a picture of it because my camera somehow got set on the self-timer option and I couldn't get it off fast enough. I was totally bummed, but Jeff got a kick out of it. After the ceremony, Alex's class went to The Trails Recreation Center for a pool party. It was a totally awesome day!

Mattea's Preschool Graduation

Mattea graduated from preschool on Saturday. Her class performed several songs complete with actions (and a little sass!). They recited the Pledge of Allegiance and also helped their teacher read a book. She looked so adorable with her "Taylor Swift hair" and her red cap & gown. She is counting down the days until she starts kindergarten. I might have to add a counter to the blog because she is always asking me to figure out how many more days until she starts! We are so proud of her!!!

The graduate!

Alex insisted on taking a picture of us. Josh is hiding under Mattea's graduation gown.

Mattea is looking to the future... that sounded good, but she was actually just looking at the pool in the back of the clubhouse!!!

Joshie was very proud of his little sister!

Mattea "shakin' her groove thing" during the preschool rendition of N' Sync's "Bye, Bye, Bye"!

This is a shot of Mattea as she walked in with her graduating class. Doesn't she look SO proud???

Mattea & Alexis - best friends at preschool

This is the questionnaire Mattea filled out for the graduation slide show.

Picture of the Day -- Week 18

May 1st – Uncle Terry must be a good luck charm. He was at Josh’s baseball game today and Josh had the best game he’s ever had! He did great at catcher, but his batting was really impressive. He hit a double that had the crowd on their feet cheering and then he had another hit that drove in the winning run.


May 2nd – This morning, Mattea and I got up early to participate in the Furry Scurry. It’s a walk to raise money for the Denver Dumb Friends League. Alex ended up bailing at the last minute and I made the HUGE mistake of taking both dogs with me. Yes… it was me, Mattea, Indy and Cody. How did I think this was going to turn out??? Well, as you might have guessed, it was disastrous. Cody was extremely overwhelmed at all the dogs and the smells. He was barking at other dogs and acting much differently than he normally does. By the time we picked up our race bibs and t-shirts, I was done. We skipped the race altogether and went back home! (Oh, did I mention that we had gotten lost along the way there and had gone 10 miles out of our way?)


May 3rd – My kids LOVE strawberries! We go through cartons of them every week. I bought these strawberries and couldn’t believe the size of them. I had Mattea hold them for a picture and afterwards she said “Mom, since I touched these, I have to eat them.” Smart little girl!


May 4th – Mattea does NOT like to sleep by herself. She will come up with any excuse to snuggle Daddy or Mommy and will even be satisfied if the boys will let her snuggle them. I’m not sure what happened, but when I went up to check on her, I found her asleep in the hallway. She hasn’t done that since she was probably two years old.


May 5th – I made a chocolate cake and Mattea happened to be in the right place at the right time, so she was the lucky one that got to lick the beaters! She was quite happy that the boys were nowhere in sight so she didn't have to share.


May 6th – Josh sliced his knee open while playing "pickle" in the yard. He was so brave about it... I can’t believe he didn’t cry because it looked like it hurt a lot! He’s a tough little cookie. I’m sure he’ll have quite the scar.


May 7th – The boys attended the Sock Hop tonight with Justin. It’s Alex’s last Sock Hop as an elementary school student! They played games, ran around with their friends, danced a little bit and filled up on sugar. What a fun night!

Picture of the Day -- Week 17

April 24th – I have decided that there is no reason the kids can’t help out with the laundry. I am no longer going to sort their socks for them, so Mattea did her own today. We are lucky that the style these days is to wear different colored socks!


April 25th – Josh & Alex tagged along to the roller skating party that Mattea attended today. They both went out during the speed skate and I was so impressed by their skating abilities. I think it’s time for me to buy some roller blades and get out there with them!


April 26th – Jeff has been annoyed with Comcast Cable for quite some time, so we decided to ditch them and go to Dish Network for our cable. The kids are fascinated with our new array of channels.


April 27th – I started making smoothies for breakfast and snacks lately. The kids and I have been having them at least once a day. They consist of frozen berries, yogurt, ice & water, vanilla protein powder and fresh spinach. I only get away with the spinach because it’s all ground up and you can only see tiny green flecks. YUMMY!


April 28th – Mattea has preschool graduation pictures today, so she wore her pretty dress (the one that is supposed to be saved for Christmas) and I curled her hair. She looked so beautiful and Jeff told her she looked like Taylor Swift... which of course made her SO happy.


April 29th – Today, I found Mattea in the bathroom getting ready. Typically this means she gets dressed and brushes her teeth. Apparently today there was something special going on because she had her big shiny makeup case (thanks Uncle Tom & Aunt Jenny!) and was applying purple eye shadow.


April 30th – Mattea has this fuse bead set that she gets out every once in a while. I was delighted when Josh got down to help her with her project. I was even more delighted when she LET him!!! (PS - HAPPY BIRTHDAY, AUNT JULIE!!!)