Because I Promised

In August we moved to Dallas. It has been a tough move for our family. I think frequently about updating the blog, calling old friends, or looking at facebook, but instead I turn my back on the computer and open a book because just the thought of Denver makes me cry. I miss it terribly. There have been some who have requested updated pictures of the kids though and I promised I would post some. Hopefully I can pull myself together soon and update my blog starting with April, but for now this is all I can do.

Cute flower

Lots of rain here.

At the circus.

First day of school!

I found Camille licking a plastic strip of watercolors.

I found that I have a backyard and can hose Camille off now. :)

We are building an entertainment center in our family room. This is a picture of it about half done.

Happy birthday Caleb! You can see the painted entertainment center in the background. I will post another picture when it is completely finished. It still needs the bookshelves and the cabinet doors. I can't seem to get the spacing right on Blogger. The captions are confusing and squished, but I couldn't figure out how to fix it.

Professional Cruiser

Here is a little update on Camille at 11 months:

Camille loves to push things around. She is not walking on her own yet.


She is a snuggler. I love it! Camille's first word was "Hi," said in varying pitches. She starts low and goes really high so that her voice squeaks and then the pitch lowers at the end again.


She is a good eater and not picky. Hallelujah!


She is a professional cruiser.


Here are the kids helping with laundry. Camille is really good at emptying the baskets and pulling clothes out of the dryer. And boys will be boys.

St Patrick's Day

We set a trap for those sneaky leprechauns. The kids had such a good time! Here is a link to how we made the trap.
http://www.notmartha.org/archives/2011/03/16/leprechaun-trap-cake/


But that clever leprechaun got out of our trap by eating his way out of the cake and taking the coins with him. He tracked frosting all over the dining room, the little beastie.


That afternoon we went hiking as a family. What better way to spend St Patrick's Day than be surrounded by green.


Camille's a good hiker. In fact, all of our kids are good hikers. It is one of our favorite things to do as a family.


The boys found water. Big surprise! They thought it was cool to throw chunks of snow in and watch it melt as it floated away.


It was a pretty area. Sad thing is the weekend after we were there a wildfire swept through the place we were hiking.

Littleton Museum

We went to a local museum that lets kids do many things hands-on. There is an old homestead with a farm. They milk cows and everything. There is a section that is designed for imagination play and the kids could have played there all day.


The kids are playing in the barn waiting to milk the cow.


Camille had a good time playing with the pretend food.


Caleb has a fabulous imagination and he loves pretending to cook. This kitchen was heavenly for him. I wanted to get Camille a play kitchen for her birthday, but I couldn't justify it because Camille is still a little young for it, but Caleb would get a lot of use out of it. Maybe for Christmas, or maybe for Caleb's birthday. Is that weird to get your little boy a kitchen?


Having a pretend picnic complete with a butter churn.

Skiing at Breckenridge

I had intended to get lots of pictures of Paul's first time skiing and am pretty sad that I was too preoccupied to think about it when the time came. Paul did great! He and the bunny hill were one. I skied by myself for a large portion of day though. I haven't skied in years and it felt nice to be there. The hotel we stayed at, The Lodge, was right off the lift and they had an amazing pool that the kids and dad were more than happy to play in all day.

The kids making themselves at home in our room. I wish we could have stayed for several nights. There is quite a bit to do in Breckenridge, but Pat couldn't take the time off.

We went with some good friends of ours Jeff and Michele. The block of ice behind us is the beginnings of an ice sculpture and you can see the ski slope in the distance. Good times!

Santa

Camille's first Christmas and Santa. She was oblivious of the whole experience.

Caleb was actually very excited to talk to Santa this year. He wanted Legos. I think he is too young for them, but he just plays with the Lego guys. The boy version of Polly Pocket I guess.


All Paul wanted was bubblegum. Santa came through and he was one happy kiddo.

A Lousiana Christmas

So we bought a new van and we drove to Baton Rouge. Yes, I think we were not thinking too clearly at the time. Driving it instantly aged me 10 years, but it is such a practical car. It took over 20 hours each way to drive. It was funny when we had 4 more hours to go it felt like we were in the home stretch, "We are almost there!" It is all perspective. The DVD player in the van was a huge hit. This is a picture of the kids washing the car while we were in Lousiana. Note: the weather was fantastic!


:) If you could just sleep another 10 hours that would make this whole experience a little easier.


We went to a nature preserve center near grandpa's house (also near the Baton Rouge LDS temple). Caleb touched a couple snakes. He was proud of himself.


Our nature hike. The kids kept asking if we would see an alligator. Thank goodness alligators are dormant this time of year, or I would have been a wreck.


Maisy, Emmy, Paul, and Caleb. Speaking of wrecks, if you will notice on the right side of the photo there is no guardrail below the upper one. Bekah and I were constantly worried that the little ones were going to walk right off the boardwalk and into the swamp. As soon as we were off the boardwalk we sighed relief, and then Maisy instantly stepped into a patch of poison ivy. Relief dissipated.


It is tradition to visit Mike-the-Tiger the LSU mascot whenever we visit. The kids love it.


Mike was very playful that day and the kids were hyper. I dare you to run in 100 circles.


Then we took all the kids to see grandma. Emmy, Neela, Grandma, Maisy, Paul, Camille, and Caleb. Merry Christmas!


I guess we can't all be happy all the time.


She did not care for the swing. What kid doesn't like swings?


We went to the New Orleans Children's Museum. It was a lot of fun. The kids liked to shop in the grocery section.


Paul enjoyed shopping for crab and all the other types of sea food they had there. The museum had an entire nautical exhibit. I thought it was cool.


There was a restaurant as well. The kids prepared what I ordered and I was served in the dining area. They had a good time.


This is an example of what a color blindness test looks like to someone who can see colors normally.


This is what it might look like to someone who is color blind. They can't see the number 5, just dots. We have had Paul tested in the past with these, but was still learning his numbers.


At the museum they had a section about the eyes and had a LARGE picture in one of these tests. I took Paul over to it because this would be his first time doing the test with objects he can for sure recognize like a car, a plane, a smiley face, etc. This is a rough depiction of what the picture the New Orleans Children's museum had in color blindness dots. Paul could only see the squiggly lines at the bottom corners (the control that everyone can see). Caleb could see all the pictures. So Paul is for sure color blind and Caleb is not. Paul understands that he can't see colors correctly. When he gets a color wrong he'll say, "that's okay because my eyes see colors different."

I Give Up

So here was my brilliant attempt at taking my own Christmas card picture. Neither of which happened; a good picture or a card. In the 8 years Pat and I have been together I have never sent Christmas cards and every year I intend to.

The white on white looked awful for starters and my camera kept over exposing, but most of all I couldn't even get all three to smile at the same time.





Nevermind. I give up. I have 10 more months to pull something together for Christmas next year.