Colorado Summer 2011

We took a trip to Colorado after Jason's mom suddenly and unexpectedly passed away. It was so surreal being there for this reason. It was a crazy week, completely cleaning out her entire house and dealing with all that comes with such a loss. Jason and his 3 sisters put together a very nice memorial service for her. It was in a beautiful garden setting, full of gorgeous blooming flowers, perfect for her, as she loved gardening and always had pretty blooms in her maple sap buckets and around her yard. Patti was a very kind and generous person, a fabulous cook, a hard worker, and she loved her family. She will be greatly missed.

The back range was gorgeous, still had so much snow!

This is Spencer (Bozo) pre-first-haircut

After!: He looks so much older! I trimmed up the sides quite a bit but just couldn't bare to cut off his gorgeous curls in back. Now it's getting a little long, and someday soon I might have to trim those up a little bit too. None of the other kids had any sort of curl, so it's cute to see him with them. :-)

My dear, sweet Angie:

So wish we lived closer together.

All of Jason's family:

The Cousins:

Spencer was just beginning to learn to walk

Bumpa makes awesome pancakes:

Hanging out at Pearl Street:

Livi wanted to get a feather in her hair....we walked by and she was eyeing another girl getting one so intently, she was thrilled and surprised when I said yes.

Breakfast with Uncle Matt!

Getting the moving truck all ready, Livi's all set in grandma's golden high heels. :-)

Jason and Carson drove the moving truck back to California with some appliances and furniture and other belongings. It was quite a fun adventure for them.

Somewhere in the middle of nowhere.

Salt Flats in Utah! We had just been watching a car racing show on Discovery a few days before, so it was cool for the boys to actually get to stop there on their way home and experience it!

I will always love Colorado summer sunsets.

Camping in Big Basin

We had a wonderful camping trip with the Mathison Family last weekend up at Big Basin Redwood state park. This was our 3rd year of camping together and it was such fun! Our kids get along so well together and we enjoy being with their family so much!

This was Spencer's first camping trip....actually he came with us 2 years ago, but he was probably smaller than a poppy seed at that point (we came home and took a pregnancy test and found out we were expecting him!)

He loved it. Since he's not walking yet (13 mos.), he was a little dirt ball all weekend, but he had so much fun crawling all around playing with sticks and rocks and rope. He slept pretty well the first night, at first I was nervous cuz he woke up when we all came in to the tent to go to bed and was confused that we were all sleeping in there with him, but after nursing him he settled back down pretty well, and then the second night I nursed him before I put him in his pack and play and he slept ALL NIGHT LONG! He wasn't even doing that at home, and since that night he has slept thru the night every night.....and that also was the last time I nursed him. Sort of sad, but kind of nice as well. :-) I can tell he still wants to nurse every once in a while, but he's pretty satisfied with his milk and water.

Here he's enjoying a donut:

This is the adorable Breck....having a spoonful of Nutella:

Look at all that dirt all over us! What fun!

It's so hard to get good pictures of this boy....he's constantly moving, but he stopped for a minute to give me a s'more face....this boy loves the campfire, that's where he spent almost all weekend.
These girls all had their Binky Bunnies. I made one for Breck and brought it camping, she was thrilled to get it. I love the fabric for hers. They all were very loved and dirty by the end of the weekend!

We took a great hike up to a waterfall.....don't mind me picking a mango out of my tooth: :-)

Livi found a way to entertain herself by creatively tying up her shoelaces....
Beautiful little girls, such sweet friends:

My boys:
All 6 kids:

The boys:

Wonderful way to start the summer:

Love, love, love being in God's beautiful creation with such great friends.

My life in tweets

Okay, so here are some random thoughts I've had today..there were many more, but these are the ones I made time to come to the computer and jot down. :-)

Gosh, I really like our new bath towels I got at Costco! (After 11 years, our white towels have gotten very drab.)

Carson and Livi chose to eat 16 carrots for dinner last night instead of the leftover lasagna I served them. At least they got their dose of vitamin A!

Big dog + no yard + rainstorm + baby = no fun, or a lot of fun if I try to make it fun by letting the kids bring lego airplanes or cars along to send worms sailing down the hills in the rain. ha!

Look over and see Spencer drooling orange drool on the floor, and then he spit out an orange Valentine's conversation heart...great! Wonder what it said? Maybe "I'm cute"?

Pound Plus chocolate at TJ's...wishing it had lasted longer than a week in our pantry, I could use some right now. :-)


Time is such a strange thing, the way I have such a hard time managing it, the way it goes by so fast some times, and slower at other times. Sometimes it doesn't seem like there is enough time to do the things I want because I haven't managed well the things I "have" to do.

I love this new dental floss....it actually makes me want to floss every night.



More thoughts to come...

More Than Half a Year

Can't believe this sweet boy is 7 months old already! I think I'll say that forever, but seriously, time is going by so quickly!
His favorite things to play with are electrical cords, electrical outlets, the dog bone, the fireplace, the toilet, the dirt in the plants, anything he shouldn't, of course. He also enjoys bowls and measuring spoons, those keep him occupied for a long time. :-)
But he's still such an easy baby, so content and happy most of the time. He's crawling all over the place (has for almost 2 months!), has 2 bottom teeth, loves to pull up on things and stand there, enjoys his food, still wakes up at least twice at night to nurse and loves to get up at 6am! Needless to say, I'm tired, but I've found a new love for coffee (with cream and agave) in the mornings, which I often start looking forward to at night. :-)

Notice Jason installing the gate behind Spencer at the top of our stairs. Even after it was up, it mistakenly got left open and he snuck over there when I was cooking in the kitchen and managed to fall down all 12 stairs to the bottom. Thank God he was okay, just lots of tears, but not even any bruises or bumps.

This picture was an attempt to get a shot of his 2 teeth on the bottom, but I couldn't get him to show me, and then when did, the picture came out totally blurry. There have been many times since his birth that I have wished I had a better camera, it's a little slow, and I can't catch him very well since he's usually moving!

I think this picture of him standing up from behind is so funny for some reason.

Thanksgiving 2010

We were on our own for Thanksgiving this year, celebrating with our family of 5. It had been a few crazy weeks leading up to the end of November, so it was nice to have a relaxing day at home with the fam (and long weekend with Jason home). I made a small turkey breast, mashed potatoes, stuffing, sweet potatoes, and green beans. It wasn't quite the same as having a whole roasted turkey and all the yumminess that comes with my mom helping me make the meal, but it was good and fun. The apple pie is always a highlight at the end, but we had quite an adventure with that as you can see from this picture:

I was taking it out of the oven and the oven mitt wasn't completely covering my hand, so I burned my finger and let go of the pan and all the insides of the pie slid right out of the crust and onto the stove, into the oven, on the oven door, on the cabinet, into the oven drawer and on the floor....it was a mess! But fortunately I had just scrubbed the inside of my oven door (I got some new cleanser I was excited to try that is food safe, so that was good timing!), and so I was able to scoop a lot of the insides back into the pie pan. I was just so glad I wasn't taking it anywhere or having people over to enjoy it with us, I think I would have cried then. But I just stood there speechless and then laughed and took a picture. :-)

Didn't get many other pictures from the day, but we had a nice relaxing time, and the kids enjoyed collecting leaves that morning and decorating the table.

Spencer's gearing up for his sweet potatoes!

Making placemats

Livi's turkey centerpiece

We have SO much to be thankful for!!

Spencer 6 months

I can't believe our little boy is 6 months old already!!!

He's sitting up now and eating solid foods and crawling! He's such a joy.
He had his check-up this week and measured 26 1/2 inches (50%) and weighed 17lbs 12oz. (50%). He got 3 shots and has been feeling pretty miserable the past few days since he's battling a cold on top of that.
What a little love, every day I'm so thankful he's ours.

4 month Hughesies

Spencer turned 4 months a couple weeks ago! He's growing so fast and I'm just trying to soak up every minute with him. I love the way he smells, his smile absolutely melts me, he's so happy and easy and fun. He's becoming so aware of his surroundings and wanting to explore. His hands are usually in his mouth, I wonder if he might be working on some teeth. He's still waking up at least twice a night to nurse and is ready to begin his day just after 6 (when we usually pull him into bed with us and try to eek out a few more minutes of rest, especially now that it's so dark later into the morning as we get deeper into fall.)

Last week at the doctor visit he weighed 16 lbs 1 oz and had grown 5 inches since birth. That's really quite amazing, isn't it??
Spencer's signature feature is his little button nose. Each of our children has had something that everyone always commented on....for Carson it was his massive cheeks, for Livi it was her beautiful bright eyes, and Spencer...it's his nose. It's really cute.

I though it would be fun to compare the three Hughes kids' pictures at 4 months old:

I sure love my family!