Back 2 School

The day I have been waiting for since July has finally arrived. Cecily has AM kindergarten and Jocelyn is in 2nd grade. They both loved their first days. Cecily heard a story about a raccoon and then colored a picture. Jocelyn came home with a back to school poem that we're trying to figure out if she's supposed to memorize it or not.
I don't know what the deal is with my girls and goofy smilies. Jocelyn looks like Gilly from SNL.

Chris dropped the girls off at school today. Which I am grateful for because I did the meet the teacher by myself with all the kids last night and it was pretty stressful. He made them pancakes with peaches from our tree and non-fancy eggs. We also got some great photos of them. I didn't want to leave my studly little man out.

I walked the long way to pick up Cecily from school. It's 1.3 miles the long way and then I walked .4 miles from the school cul-de-sac to our house.

 I hope these make sense. The cul-de-sac is closer to our house but because of how the neighbor road is to get to the front of the school it's 1.3 miles from our house. I could cut through to get to the front but the whole point is to walk the long way. It was HOT in the sun (it's actually 98 right now which is the hottest it's been all summer) so I was nice and sweaty when I got there.

 Anyone want to move by us? This awesome house is for rent....

 ALMOST THERE! (I'm totally dramatizing this...)

 Waiting for Cecily, Asher is actually yelling "out!" here.

 Cecily is the slowest walker known to man so I make her get in the stroller too. Don't worry she's not crying cause I insulted her. She was smiling and looking at the camera when I realized it was on the viewer and from the time it took me to switch the little thing her eyes were hurting from the bright sun.

And here's Jocelyn after a nice first day!

Another weekend another story

Friday Chris and I were at a loss of what to do. We thought it would be fun to go to the drive in again but they didn't get a good combo of movies so we just ended up doing school again.

Saturday we spent a good couple hours weeding and mowing the lawn. It was becoming a freakin' jungle out there! Growing up with 4 older brothers I never had to mow the lawn or do any weeding. Plus I really can't stand the feel of dirt in my hands. Chris has been working every Saturday this month so things were a little out of control and I knew I needed to help him out with his "man work". So I pulled weeds till my legs felt like rubber and my hands were all cut up from the too small leather gloves. Chris taught me how to use our mower. It was the second time I ever mowed the lawn in my life! He got a kick out of it and sent a couple pictures to my mom who got a good laugh herself. I told Chris that only in Colorado will I help with yard work. It was a blissful 75 degrees, slightly cloudy with an amazing breeze. It was hot in the sun if that makes you feel better. But once I was done mowing I grabbed my jug of water and sat on the porch to cool off in the nice breeze. (If that doesn't convince you to move up here then I give up).

Here's some pictures of all the fruit growing on our trees. We missed getting pictures of our apricot tree because the birds attacked it. They tasted so good! So there's apples and peaches in the backyard. The purple plums are actually our neighbors tree but a branch is hanging over in our yard. And then on the side of the house we got what we think are plums, they taste like plums but they are red and not purple.

For Molly

We wanted to do something fun to celebrate our last summer weekend but we couldn't think of anything except chick-fil-a and smash burger. We let the kids play at CFA and then Chris and I got the delicious oh so juicy Smash burger. Along the way we stopped and bought a double jogging stroller and a new toy for Fiona.

My new goal is to walk the girls to school everyday and pick them up. Cecily has morning kindergarten so that means 3 trips down to the school. And if I go the long way at least one of the trips I will be walking for than 3 miles a day. Which means exercise, and book listening time. Chris and I took the long walk home from the school yesterday and it was awesome! There's hills so we get a good work out and cool down.

Tomorrow is testing for the girls and then they start school on Wednesday. I couldn't be more excited. Cecily is the most excited. Every morning this past week she woke up ready to go to school but we had to keep telling her "next Wednesday Cecily".

HAVE A GREAT WEEK!

Random post

Sometimes not much happens in a week but a few random things. Stuff I would only tell you if we were hanging out, chatting on my couch one evening. So here's the random for this week.

Chris and I work on school every night from 7ish - 10pm. He's taking TWO classes at once right now. Since the classes are 5 weeks long each they are intense but we're both determined to get our degrees by spring. I passed by Business Law class (which was surprisingly interesting and not hard at all) with a B and Chris got a B+ in his health and nutrition class and an A- in his psych class. We're pretty dang happy about these grades because in both our first weeks we had low Ds. (thanks to the spontaneous trip to Arizona) And we brought them up.  I'll be finishing up my human resource class next week. I start a new class on the 24 and the classes after that I'll be doubling up for a graduation date of Feb 7! Right now Chris is in another PSY class (can't remember which one) and a U.S. Constitution class for elective credits. (which is turning out to be a lot more work than the psych class). He is also studying for the GRE every morning. He's amazing.

Here's our school set up. It's fun to sit next to each other and chat about drama going on on our learning teams, or something someone crazy said in a discussion (Chris had a very interesting lady in his psy class who said something about how we need to forgive Arab people for 9/11).

We put the kids in bed no later than 7:30pm, especially since school starts on the 18th.
What do we do with Fiona you ask?

Another awesome purpose for the iPad. She's watching a slide show of family photos. It actually entertained her for a good 15 minutes. She's usually napping while we work on school.

-We're selling our video camera I used to film weddings. Yep, The video biz is officially over. I will still edit family stuff or anything anyone wants done. I just won't have my big camera to lug around.

-Since I've gone digital with my scrapbooking I'm selling all my paper and crafty stuff. There's a TON of stuff! A lady on craigslist just offered me $40 bucks for it. No thanks, maybe I will keep it around for the girls after all...

-Chris bought this HUGE thing of garlic cloves cause he said we're ghetto cookers only using powder. They are fresh and the expiration date is September. So needless to say he's finding ways to add garlic to everything. Just so we don't waste it I might pick up eating them raw to build up our immune systems for the fall.

-Asher has claimed my blanket. I was ok with it at first but then I noticed he's kinda crazy with it. And the poor thing (blanket, not Asher) is so old already I don't know how much longer it will last. So I decided I would rather keep the blanket for myself and make him a car blanket. (Since the kid is freakin' psycho about cars). Well, he was excited while I made it but when it came time to trade he was not ok with that. So now he has two blankets.
I tried to make it Molly style but it was a nightmare. I almost quit 3 times but I decided it already looks bad I might as well finish it. I ran out of binding, went to walmart where they surprisingly had triple the color selection than that of Hobby Lobby and guess what, I got the wrong freakin' shade of blue!!!! Oh well!

Was that random enough?

Happy Hump Day

Here's a little somethin' somethin' to give you a little laugh. I like to call it Asher's no pants dance. (Please excuse my obnoxious commentary and Cecily's middle child attention deprivation in all its glory.)

the best weekend

Living in Colorado has been amazing. We haven't been able to explore more than our town because I was pregnant and uncomfortable. But now that I'm free of pregnancy woes I'm ready to get out and have some fun! We had planned to go camping Friday night but decided not to since we didn't have any of the camping essentials but two sleeping bags and we'd have to borrow everything.

FRIDAY

We ate dinner and headed out to a new park we haven't been to yet with ice cream. It's in Loveland and has TONS of statues. (I don't know which sister-in-law left these awesome glasses in the back of my van but thanks!)

SATURDAY

We took a drive to Walden (which is basically at the top of the Rockies) on the way up we stopped to eat lunch and play in the Poudre river. So cold, and so fun! While playing in the water a little 7 year old caught a fish and then another person caught one. Asher thought it was pretty cool but not as cool as the remote hummer toy that fish-kid had.

This is one of the most beautiful drives I have ever taken. GREEN, beautiful pine trees, streams and rivers everywhere. The kids got bored but Chris and I totally enjoyed the drive just talking and looking out the windows. Once in Walden there wasn't much to see. It's a dinky little town with about 4 antique shops. One called Hoopla was actually really fun to walk through. I was hoping for a candy shop but they had ice cream so we all got some and then walked around. The weather was Ah-maz-ing. 

These pictures can't even do the beauty of the drive justice. I'm going to try anyway...

And then we saw a moose, Chris was SOOOO happy. We watched some special on them on the discovery channel and moose are actually pretty freaky animals. This one looked like a teenager-moose.

Besides Fiona crying non-stop the drive home it was a really really fun day trip.

SUNDAY

Another beautiful day for weather. After dinner we went outside and sat in the yard and played with the kids. And let them put stickers all over Fiona...

We were having fun until we killed the 2nd spider that was hanging out on Chris. (So far the only bad side about living in Colorado. The insects here are crazy. Time to call pest control.)

It was an amazing weekend and I was so sad when it ended.
ps: Darcy, we got some fun stuff planned for you!

HAVE A GREAT WEEK!!!!

Inception

Chris and I tried to go on a date on Saturday. We've been DYING to see Inception since we first saw the trailer. We had plans since it opened up and Saturday was the first day we could get a sitter and go out. Well, our date night curse still reigns supreme. We had to bring Fiona with us since I'm breast feeding and I don't want to worry about a 13 year-old watching a newborn with a bottle. We got to the theatre 30 mins early. Got seats up high so we could stand with her if needed. And she ended up fussing all through the previews and the first 5 minutes of the movie. It was jam packed and I could feel the annoyance of the girl sitting next to me. Chris and I would hate it if someone stayed at the movie with a crying baby so we grabbed our bag and left. Very sad moment. We still had fun together. Walking around stores and eating ice cream in the beautiful misty rain.

Chris told a co-worker about our sad date and she suggested the drive in. Ummm. GENIUS! They were playing Despicable Me and Inception. Double Feature for less money for the whole family than it would have cost me and Chris to go to the theatre to see it. It took a lot of convincing to get Chris to ditch school work and to do it that night. I told him I already bought cookies for it PLUS it the anniversary of our first date where we went and saw "Signs"so going to see a movie as a family was a perfect idea. He agreed and at dusk we packed up the kids, tons of blankets and pillows and went to the drive in. SO MUCH FUN! And a really awesome retro drive in. 

The kids and I watched despicable me while Chris worked on pictures. Then we moved them to the front seats to sleep while Chris, Fiona, and I cuddled during Inception. The only problem was our car battery died half way through but thankfully we had parked right by a speaker. The movie was, I'll admit, MIND BLOWING! It's a little over two hours and felt like 1 hour. And the more I think about it the more I want to watch it again.

All these pictures are setting up the car and waiting for the movie to start. It's fun letting the kids take over the camera to see what they get. And Fiona got passed around a lot. She's such a good sport.