The end of summer was filled with
kite flying....
cousin time, sand between the toes and fingers, screams of laughter, swimming, bike riding,
trampoline jumps, wonderful food.......
and bubbles.
Nice way to spend the warm windy days with family.
My girl is one year closer to going to the big school.
But for now PreK is caller her and I will enjoy that.
She actually started her first day, a day before her brother.
Which provided an opportunity to have one on one time with my big guy before his first day of school. A second grader.....
My boys biggest concern this morning was that his teacher had given him the wrong seating.
"I'm totally girl trapped!" he exclaimed this morning while getting ready for school. Two evenings ago, we attended the 'Meet Your Teacher Night' where my boy discovered he was sitting in between two girls. I guess being girl trapped is not a great thing for a second grade boy.
Boys are a different breed of species.
Being raised with sisters, I have learned by trial and error of raising my boy.
One of my boy's interests as of late is
Bodily noises.
Under arm pit noises, under the knee noises.
In fact when the fascination hit, it was nonstop.
My son would wake up making the noises and giggle with glee doing the noises as I tucked him into bed at night.
This week during a shopping spree, my boy decided to buy this with his allowance:
Of course my daughter had to have some as well.
Well you can guess that my house has not stopped with the bodily noises.
But I do have a confession. Last night I was chuckling with fascination as my husband and myself played with this FLaRp.
This is our third year at the Baker's Cabin.
I love Estes Park, the mountains, the views.
The continuous rain didn't dampen our Fourth of July festivities.
Our family crew sat in the garage and waited for the rain to slow down and then
BOOM, the fireworks showed their splendor.
I was raised going to fireworks displays where fireworks were considered illegal.
It amazes me every year especially in my neighborhood how much people will spend
on the big professional fireworks.
Around 10:30 in the evening the rain had stopped and our neighborhood was one fireworks display in the sky. I literally turned a full 360 to see all the displays around me. AMAZING!
A few weeks ago my kids and I headed off to a local farm to
pick some yummy berries.
Those buckets of berries were gobbled up within a day or two.
Our blueberry bushes are about ready for picking.
If you are a local and love blackberries. Give me a shout out.
Gallons upon gallons of blackberries will be ripe in a few weeks.
I still have 0ver 20 cups of frozen berries from last years crop.
I would love to give some blackberries away.
I sat down with them one afternoon to discuss
eliminating name calling from their daily activities.
I began by stating that calling each other names is not nice and hurtful.
My son with a tear in his eye, exclaimed "but you call us names."
Horrified, I asked what name I had called him and my son replied, "sweetie."
Kudos to the home school moms out there.
Picture by Nick Krug from ljworld.comI'm a Kansas Jayhawk's basketball fan.
In college I was extreme.
I went to almost every game.
I would sit for hours waiting to get in, or better yet,
I would sit by some nice guy who sat for hours to get in.
I wore the Jayhawk tattoo on my cheek during the games.
I was thrown up during the Jayhawk cheer, before it got banned.
If the game was close near the end, I would close my eyes until I would hear cheers.
One of the games in the early 90's when we played Indiana, I nearly passed out for screaming so loud after Jacque Vaughn hit a three point shot winning the game.
yeah... that was me.
So yesterday when a friend of mine ask me if I wanted to go to last night's KU game,
I was on it!
Called my hubby, called the baby sitter.
Bam. I was going.
Nostalgia.
The last time I went to a KU game was after my daughter was born.
During the scoreboard introduction, I cried.
Yes, cried. Yes, I cry a lot since having kids, but during the intro to the start of the game?
Having kids, I forgot a piece of me.
I piece of me that loved sports, loved KU basketball.
It brought me to tears, because I remembered. I liked that part of me.
Last night I didn't cry, I had a lump in my throat during the introduction,
but I didn't cry. The intro is that good.
The game was great. I enjoyed it with some wonderful gals.
I love KU basketball.
I'm not the fanatic, like I once was.
I'm okay with that.
Once everyone got into their pajamas we played games.
The rest of the day was spent with my family (my sisters and their family).
My most memorable things about Christmas 09
If you missed the making of this card, check this out.
My son is currently playing outside in the snow.This is how our last minute Christmas card photo shoot went since I decided I didn't want any of the gazillion pictures that I have of my kids this past year.
In order of events:
3:15 Pick up son from school. Realize my daughter is asleep. Deep sigh.
3:30 Arrive home. Tell son that I need a big favor and would like to do a photo shoot after he relaxes and eat a snack. Try to wake up daughter. No use.
4:00 Place props and camera in car.
4:10 Tell son to get on his photo shoot clothes. Realizing that he will grumble about the outfit, I immediately tell him that he can change his clothes after the photo shoot, and he will get something sweet for his modeling job.
4:12 Pick daughter up from her sleeping state and place her on the toilet. Hoping that she will go since I know she will need to in the near future. No such luck.
4:14 Dress, brush and curl daughter's hair while she is laying on her bed still wanting to sleep.
4:15 Load kids in the car.
4:25 Unload props at an uninhabited home.
4:26 Kids complain its too cold.
4:27 Daughter says she need to go the bathroom. Exhibit A:
He is one of the most loyal and dedicated men I know. 
My brother-n-law had the privilege of baptizing his own daughter.
My niece just beamed. God's definitely got a plan for this sweet child. 
Hope you are having a great weekend. Blessings - Jen
It had an amazing view. 
This was the backyard landscape.
The cabin's backyard was literally a playground for the kids to climb, swing, and play pretend in the "caves."
Less than 1/2 mile down from the cabin was Estes Lake. We went there daily to either jog, bike, fish, ride a boat or play on the playground.
We also did some sight seeing and took a train from Georgetown to Silver Plume, CO.
Here's some shots of a lovely church that I fell in love with.
Oh to be back there again.
