August 29, 2007

Livi's 2!

Last Tuesday we celebrated our little girl's second birthday!!! Wow...I can't believe our baby is 2 now. I just love our little Livi, sometimes I just want to eat her up, she's so darn cute! We had a little birthday celebration in Colorado and then on her birthday morning we made blueberry muffins and she opened a few presents. We went to the beach for a few hours and then out for ice cream after dinner. It was a fun day. Then a couple days later we had a little playgroup party at the park with a few friends, so she really got an extended b-day celebration this year. We are so thankful God's given us this little girl to bring up, she's a treasure.








hard days

The age of 3 has been really hard for us. 2 was tough in that he often didn't have the verbal skills to get across what he needed to, but then 3's been hard cuz he has great verbal skills, but along with it a nasty attitude flares up, the last couple days especially! It truly wears me down and out. I feel like almost every response is an argument or disagreement or a whine or complaint or gripe. I have a great book on my nightstand called ......"Say Goodbye to Whining, Complaining and Bad Attitudes...in You and Your Kids".....I started it a while ago and then got preoccupied with other books (and blogging!)....but I think I might need to pick it up again. I also like Love and Logic's philosophy, so I think I need to get a refresher thru some books or tapes or something...I just need some tangible tools to combat the negativity. And I need to remember to rely on the Holy Spirit to help me respond the right way.

We started a sticker chart this morning to help reward him for things (like how today he made his bed before he even came upstairs!) or helping out around the house or whatever, and also that if he has a bad attitude we'll have to take the stickers off the chart. So he started off great with a couple stickers, but shortly afterwards we had to take them down and throw them in the trash because he had a 30 minute tantrum because I wouldn't carry him up the stairs. I know it sounds dumb, but it was one of those silly battles that I just couldn't give in to. Poor guy, I know it wears him out, too, and he's just trying to learn how to behave the right way. I've always heard that 4 is such a sweet and precious age, maybe things will get better soon. :-)

August 25, 2007

Our trip to Colorado

We had a great visit to Colorado recently and we have so many fun pictures, but I'll just post a few of the highlights. It's so fun visiting CO, but it's also hard because there are always so many friends that I want to see that I don't get a chance to. So for all my friends that I didn't get to hang out with and those babies I didn't get to meet...hopefully next time. Don't forget there is always an open invitation to come out here to visit!

We went swimming with my mom in their neighborhood one day, they had a great water slide that Carson could go down. He's getting to be a good swimmer, so it's fun to play with him in the water.


We got to have lunch with my friends Gary and John who I used to work with at First Presbyterian Church in Boulder and that was fun, I always enjoy their company.

We went down to Boulder Creek and took a walk on the trail with my friend Kathleen who I hadn't seen in many, many years and who now has an adorable baby boy, Charlie, so it was fun to meet him and catch up with her. We spent a lot of time playing in the water, both kids were loving climbing on the rocks and wading in the water. We went and got delicious bread from the Great Harvest Bread Co....yum...warm bread with butter, so good.

Saturday we went down to the Farmer's Market in Boulder and got some corn and peaches for dinner. While my mom and brother and Livi and I did that, my dad took Carson fishing. It was Carson's first time fishing, and I guess they caught 1 small trout and a bunch of crawdads! He had fun with those. :-)

We went into Louisville to the street fair to see the Subdudes play, they have great music that always reminds me of summer, and I love going to things like that. And....I finally got one of those little tattoos (kind of like Henna in that it is temporary, but it was spray on). I've always wanted to try that out, I got a little flower on my ankle. It lasted just shy of a week, but it was fun to have for a bit!

We went to the Denver zoo, and the kids loved that. It's changed a little bit since I was last there, years and years ago, it's really nice.

Jason and I got away for a night while my parents watched the kids, and we had so much fun together!

I got to hang out with my friend, Angie, which is always great. Our trips (her out of town, me in town) overlapped by a day, so we got to spend a few precious hours together and the kids had a blast on their humongous blow-up waterslide. We were so busy chatting we only got 1 picture of Carson and Emma as we were leaving.

We also went to the County Fair and saw the animals and Carson rode on a few rides. Livi was terrified in the petting zoo.

We spent the rest of our time in Breckenridge with Jason's family. It's super pretty up there in the summertime, they do an amazing job with the flowers all around town, it's just wonderful. We had a good time reconnecting with everyone and the kids loved playing with their cousins. Anyone looking for a new fun dice game, Pocket Farkel's where it's at!

August 24, 2007

The beach

We've been having a lot of fun at the beach this summer. It's such a great place for the kids to play. Carson loves the water and all the sand to play with and push around with his digger and shovels. Livi mainly loves to relax on the blanket, but she does also enjoy putting her feet in the water.

Long Time Comin'

I haven't blogged in quite a while now. We've been busy I guess. :-) My brother came to visit us for a week while my parents went on vacation to Mexico. We had a great week with Matt and the kids just loved having him around to play with. We had great intentions of doing all kinds of fun things, but we only managed to get to the aquarium, which he had never been to before, so that was a lot of fun. Otherwise we just went shopping and went to the beach and out to eat a couple times. There's only so much you can do in one week with little ones in tow. :-) It was a fun visit with Uncle Matt.



Carson's holding a snake that he bought at the aquarium gift shop and Livi's holding a "Nemo" fish.

August 2, 2007

Laundry

Here's the post I promised I'd write a couple months ago. Laundry. I was wondering how much laundry I actually do each week, sometimes it feels like mountains worth. So I decided to chart it. For 8 weeks I put a tally mark each time I did a load. In 8 weeks, I did 51 loads. The highest was 10 loads in 1 week, the lowest was 4. So it came to an average of 6ish loads a week. That's about what I had figured before I started tracking it. And I tell you, it was pretty satisfying putting a mark down each time a load went in...I like seeing on paper what I'm actually accomplishing, more than just a full drawer of clean clothes. :-)

August 1, 2007

I might just win!

You know that game where you have someone come up with things that you have to find in your purse and you race to see who can find it (if they have it!) in their purse first? I think I have a pretty good shot at winning! (if anyone wants to play) :-) I went out with my brother last night (who's visiting from Colorado) and as we were walking thru the mall, the weight on my shoulder was feeling heavier than normal, so I decided to see if there were a couple things I could take out and leave in the car before we went anywhere else....here's what I found (keep in mind, my purse is not very big):

2 chapsticks
lipgloss
4 pens
sunscreen stick
a chip clip
a hot wheels truck
a pocket knife
Livi's hair clip
used kleenex
1 sock
loose receipts
a pacifier (neither of my kids use them, so I'm not sure about this one!)
a gum wrapper
half a bag of almonds
my small Bible
2 rocks, not small ones, pretty good sized ones that the kids like to collect from church
some loose change
my wallet

So...I cleaned out my purse today and it's so much better, especially with the weight of those rocks out of there!