Fun with Family!

We had a busy week and took lots of pictures!  Monday was my birthday!  I'm now officially 36!  Dan made me a pineapple upside-down cake and the yummiest dinner ever!  He found a recipe for Chicken Tiki Masala and Naan bread and he cooked a wonderful meal that I've been happily enjoying the leftovers from all week!!!  

I have a good friend with a son about James' age who she needed some help with picking up and dropping him off at preschool on Mondays and Tuesdays.  He and James had SO much FUN together in the morning before I took him to preschool that when I found out I was dropping him off for an early drop off and picking him up for a late pick up - I let her know that we would be happy to have her son stay at our house in the extra hours - so on Tuesday, he came and hung out at our house and the boys had so much fun together!  

James' preschool was also at our house this week - so on Tuesday and Thursday, we had friends over for preschool and James misses having his siblings around when they are at school, so he likes having friends over.  

Wednesday was Evie's birthday, Dan made her a pretty pink cake that she loved and she chose Ribs for her birthday dinner.  She loved opening her birthday presents and especially loved being at the center of attention.   She also got her yearly birthday ice cream with Grandpa.  She came home with a GIANT beanie-boo.

In the morning, James and I went to the library as usual and he really enjoys it now and participates and everything!  Then we headed over to my doctors appointment before finally rushing to pick the kids up from school.

Thursday was the annual school carnival.  We headed over a little after 4 and stayed until 7 playing games and jumping up and down and playing around.  The kids always love going to the carnival, and James was actually old enough to really enjoy it this year.

Friday the kids had off of school.  In the morning, Becky dropped Adena off to stay the weekend with us.  The kids loved having her here and all wanted to play with her.  She especially took to Eileen who happens to look a bit like her big sister!

Saturday was crazy.  Eileen had flute at 10, then we headed to Casa Bonita for a company party.  The kids loved it!  They got to drink lemonade, get flashy light toys, play as much as they wanted in the arcade and watch diving shows.

We got home from Casa Bonita just in time for me to mow the lawn then head over to the ward party.  I took most of the kids on bike (or in my bike trailer) and Dan and Evie went in the car.  We all had fun at the party eating more food and more desserts - don't think my kids have gotten that much spoiling in a long time!!  

Today we had a wonderful day at church and a fun afternoon playing together and enjoying the weather.  After dinner we had a surprise visit from some friends!  (It was only a surprise because I hadn't checked my phone) Our friends Mark and Marie stopped by with their cute kiddos and they all had lots of fun playing together.  The adults (and Eileen) also had lots of fun playing together, we pulled out Guillotine and played a couple games.

Labor Day!

Monday was Labor day and since the kids had the day off school and Dan had the day off work, we all decided to take a trip down to Garden of the Gods for the day.  We started out at the visitors center and enjoyed walking around the exhibits.  Then we drove around to find a picnic spot and sat down for lunch.  After lunch, we spent a couple hours hiking around and enjoying the beautiful scenery and each other's company.  I had fun taking pictures and the kids all had tons of fun posing for me.  We even managed to get someone to take a picture for us so we could all be in a picture together.  

We had fun talking together and got some good hiking in - the weather was perfect - warm but not sweltering.  We stopped in the gift shop and got a little family souvenir and a bit of fudge to share for a treat after FHE.  It was a little crowded, but miraculously, we never had problems finding a parking spot - we always seemed to arrive with just one spot left, or someone just leaving - so we got to enjoy it all with low stress.

Tuesday, we had preschool here since Christina's youngest was a bit under the weather.  We all had fun together - the kids wanted to spend the whole time playing outside though and didn't want to stop to come back in for more preschool :)  Anna had her second trumpet lesson - she's improving each week.  The kids all love getting to play on the playground while she's at lessons.

Wednesday James and I went to the library with Nicole and Tayanna.  We all had a great time together.  In the afternoon, I mowed the lawn and in the evening  I had choir - we got some new music!

Thursday, preschool was back at Christina's.  Instead of driving all the way home, I just hung out in the area and got some stuff done in the car so I didn't have to drive all the way home and all the way back.  Then afterschool, the kids had piano lessons.

Friday was mostly just James and I taking it easy during the day.  After school, we just played and cleaned up.  Valerie came over and watched the kids for a couple hours.  Dan and I went and helped set up chairs for Stake Conference, then we got a Jamba Juice and walked around Barnes and Noble for a bit.  Finally we stopped for some groceries and then went home, dropped Val off and made treats.  :)

Saturday we spent most of the day cleaning the house.  We invited people to come to our house for deserts after.  We also had Anaiya, Riley and Tayanna over to play to keep them out of Dwayne and Nicole's hair while they were moving to their new house!  Dan spent some time helping them move the big stuff, then I brought them the kids and dinner.  Their new house is beautiful and is going to be perfect for them!  Then in the evening, Mallory came and babysat the kids so that we could go to Stake Conference.  I was leading the music, so we needed to be there a bit early.  Only the Johnson's ended up eating dessert with us (and that's partially because we held their daughter hostage and wouldn't let them take her home until that ate some) but we still had a great time chatting with them.

Stake Conference today was wonderful.  We walked and the weather was beautiful.  The music went well and the talks were wonderful.  James and I spent at least half of it in the foyer because he refused to sit still on the stand, and he wouldn't sit with Dan in the pews at all.  After church, James and I took naps and the kids and Dan played quietly for a bit.  Then after dinner, we all enjoyed the weather and played outside - acting out fairy tales - I got to be a little piggy, red riding hood's mother and Hansel and Gretel's Evil Stepmother.  :)

Sleep... I need sleep...

This week has been rather crazy....  Monday, we had some new friends over for dinner and games and had a lot of fun hanging out with them and getting to know them.  They joined us for family home evening and scriptures, then we got the kids to bed and played games.  Eileen was not happy to be left out of the playing games, but it was a school night.  

Since Monday had been rather crazy, we didn't get our usual Monday stuff done, so laundry was finished up on Tuesday and shopping wasn't done until Tuesday.  Tuesday morning, we had a meeting to get things up and going for preschool.  The kids all had a blast playing together and I think everything is going to be great!  Tuesday I also was babysitting a couple extra kids and we had fun together playing and hanging out.  Tuesday afternoon, we took Anna for her first Trumpet lesson.  I took the kids to a nearby park for the few minutes that we could go play before we had to pick her up again.  It went well and she's been having a great time practicing all week!  

Wednesday was the kids late start day.  After dropping the kids off at school, James and I picked up Nicole and Tayanna and headed to the library!  It was fun to start getting back into the swing of our usual library story time, but odd not having Riley there now that he's in kindergarten. Wednesday evening, was my choir practice.   

Thursday morning, James got to go to Preschool.  Dan made him a sack lunch to put in his back pack and he got himself dressed and ready to go.  He was so excited and got mad at me when we didn't go with his older siblings.  He loved preschool and loved to talk about it after and wanted to go back again the next day.  He didn't want to go eat his sack lunch at home though, so we went to a park on our way home so he could eat his sack lunch.  While there, another family with little kids came to play and we spent some time walking around with them looking at all the grasshoppers.  We finally left so I could grab some lunch before getting the rest of the kids from school.  After school was out we had piano lessons.  We rearranged the set up of things so the piano is now in a separate room - the old school room is now the music room - it's an easier place to keep all the music stuff and it makes a better place to do piano lessons and keep the kids out of Stephanie's hair.  

Friday morning, Steve and Claire came down.  We watched the boys while they went to the temple and Elise cared for Ruth.  Their boys are so well behaved and the kids all had a great time playing together.  Dan got home from work early so I could go sing with the Chorale.  We were singing the national anthem at the Rockies game. It went well and was a lot of fun!  I got home in time to enjoy some lava cakes with Steve and Claire and family before they headed back home.

Saturday started off bright and early with me taking Eileen and Anna down to help me clean the building for the chorale.  We had lots of help and it went fast!  We got back home and I got some stuff done and got things ready for a baby shower I was going to in the afternoon.  The baby shower was fun - then I headed home to cook and get ready for Nate and Ally and Adeline to come over for dinner.  We had fun eating and chatting, then Dan and Nate set up a huge screen outside to watch My Little Pony's on.

Church today was great!  Wonderful fast and testimony meeting, great lessons and amazing people.  After church, I went to stake choir practice with Eileen and Anna.  Eileen sang with us, and Anna was an amazing helper who watched the Bishop and Crockett boys so their parents could sing.  We came home to a very yummy dinner, followed by some games and goofing off and then bed.  Since the kids don't have school tomorrow for labor day, Eileen stayed up with us and played 7 Wonders.

Let the Craziness Begin

Bring on the fall crazies!  Some how this time of year always sees a ratcheting up of business.  And it doesn't seem to slow down until after the new year starts.

Monday I watched a friends son during the morning - he was sweet and easy and tired from being woken up early, so he spent at least an hour and a half of the time he was here taking a nap on my couch.  That evening, for FHE, we went to Nickel-A-Play (as seen below)  we had a great time - Anna showed a knack for winning lots of tickets, which none of the rest of were able to duplicate....  Aaron mostly spent his time at the free arcade games.  All in all, we had a lot of fun together!

Tuesday night was the kids first skate city night.  Dan had meetings, so i packed all the kids up after dinner and we headed to Skate City.  James really wanted to skate too, so I got skates and we got him some clip on over the shoes skates (thankfully they locked some, so he was fairly steady on them.)  He loved skating on the rink and while i was holding his hands, he would go around and around and jump and everything - he just had the biggest grin.  The other kids had a blast too - Eileen got some blisters on her ankles from wearing ankle socks, and Aaron spent a lot of the time watching other kids play games - but we had a good time, saw friends and went home very tired.  

Wednesday was the usual late start for the kids, then I went over to visit teach.  After, James and I went home to hang out and eat lunch.  I had choir in the evening.  

Thursday, I went to get my allergy shot and James and I made a quick Costco stop and then went to play at the playground and eat the sack lunch daddy packed for him.  He's so excited, we are getting ready to start preschool with him next week and he is so excited about it!  

Friday, I picked weeds and in the evening, Dan and I just camped out downstairs and watched "Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles" together and tried to get some things ready for Saturday.  

Saturday, I started off early driving into Denver and singing with the Chorale for the Ralston House .5K run.  It went well and we got pancakes after :)  Then I ran home, grabbed the food for the baby shower and headed over to Nikki's for Brittney's baby shower.  In the afternoon, I spent some time working in my craft room and then we headed over to the church for the barbeque.  The stake had a huge party - there was tons of food, tons of people and tons of fun! By the time we started walking home, the kids were exhausted!

Church today was wonderful (except for James' huge tantrum early on, but he was tired and he settled down in time for me to sing with the choir.  After church, we came home and relaxed and ate lunch, then Eileen and I headed back to the church for Stake Choir practice.

Love at Home

We've been keeping busy this week!  Monday was school for the older kids, and James has been substituting me for the 4 siblings he's had to play with.  So we've been playing lots of cars and lots of monsters and doing lots of coloring.  Monday night, we had family home evening.  Dan had gotten some wood to use in our back yard to go around the play area, and he let the kids have fun painting them.  They got covered in paint and had a blast.  

Tuesday, James and I had a nice relaxing day at home.  We did some clean up and James played with play-doh and had tons of fun showing me everything he made.

Wednesday we went to the library with some friends - Storytime hasn't started back up yet, but James and I still enjoy going and checking out books and reading together.  In the evening, I had choir and I had a great time singing and getting to know our new members.

Thursday was a busy day.  James and I went to go get my allergy shot and then went to Costco for some things we needed.  After school, I worked in the yard a bit, then the kids had piano lessons.  Dan came home early and his cousin Shaylie came over to watch the kids for us so we could go to the temple.  We went and did sealings.  After we got some dinner then headed home and played games with Shaylie for a while before bed.

Friday, James spent the day insisting that I go get another allergy shot (he loves going and getting his sticker and sucker - and he likes the "zamples" at Costco almost as much)  After school, I set the kids to piano practicing and went out in the back yard to mow the lawn... 3/12 hours later, I was mostly done....  Dan got me a new lawn mower - an electric (battery operated) one that actually cuts the grass.  Dan got home later than usual due to a rafter "team building exercise" he's been tired ever since :)

Saturday morning, Eileen had flute lessons.  Saturday afternoon, I had a baby shower that I got to go to, and other than that, we all spent most of the day working and playing outside.  Dan put in the border around the play area - and it looks great!  I mostly picked weeds and mowed again with my new mower.  The kids had fun getting into swimsuits and washing the car (after cleaning it out!)

Church today was wonderful!  I got to sing during Sacrament and there were some wonderful talks given.  The kids were mostly well behaved too!  Anna gave a wonderful talk during primary today.  I think my Sunday School lesson went really well - I am amazed at the amazing youth in our ward!  We had a great lesson in Relief Society, then we all went home for lunch.  After lunch, James and I took a little nap - the only problem was that I slept through choir.  :(  The kids were "bored" so they decided that they wanted to make cookies to take to people.  They made the cookies almost entirely by themselves.  Dan observed to make sure the right stuff went into the dough and did the stuff that involved hot ovens or hot pans - but they did the rest.  After the cookies were done, the kids walked a plate of cookies over to our sweet neighbor Jan.  When they got back, James was up, so we all went together to take a plate over to Sister Olsen in our ward.  We ended up staying for half an hour chatting while she let the kids roll down the slope in her back yard wrapped up in blankets.  They had tons of fun and it was a really nice visit!  In the evening, we made jelly filled muffins that were really good, and chatted with Grandma and Grandpa Jones for a bit.  Then our home teachers came over for a bit for a lesson.

Back to School

This week, summer vacation ended and the kids are officially back in school.  We ended the summer with a bang.  My mom took me out for pedi's and mani's and a massage and a facial in the morning.  It was really nice to get a little spoiled and despite that fact that I usually don't like my nails touched, she did a nice job of not butchering them too badly.  

After lunch, I took the kids to the museum of Nature and Science.  The kids just love this huge dinosaur outside.  When we got there, they were all unanimous in wanting to go to the space area first.

The kids had a blast playing with the "mars sand" and water and spent nearly an hour there.   James just loves making piles and calling them his "sand snow men" The older kids were trying to build a dam.  

James had fun dressing up and playing astronaut too - he looked so cute in his space gear and was really good at sharing and playing with the other kids there.

After, we went to the new poisions exhibit which was really cool, then we mad a quick run through of the Mythical Creatures since it will be gone soon.  

Tuesday morning, bright and early, my mom headed home to Texas, and these two beautiful girls headed to school.  It was a bit lonely with them gone and we were all excited to pick them up at the end of the school day.

Wednesday was piano lessons, and choir for me.  Thursday saw these two cuties off for their first day of school, so now it's just James and me.  It is a lot easier to run errands now - it was rather nice to get my allergy shot with just James, not 5 kids.  The kids were so excited about their new back packs, that I had a hard time getting them to show their faces to the camera for pictures.  

Saturday, Dan and I took the kids and headed up to Vail.  A friend of Dan's was running a 6 day mountain race and one leg of the race was finishing in Vail.  We went up and waited for them to come in and worried when we didn't see them early on since they should have been some of the first across.  We found out that his brother and team member had gotten a bit lost and a bit hurt and it had lost them 2 hours.  The kids were already going crazy, so we headed back down to Denver and spent our afternoon relaxing and getting ready for Sunday

We stopped and got the kids ice cream on the way back.  :)  We thought they deserved a cool treat.

Today was wonderful.  Church was great, lessons were great, ward choir practice was great and well attended and I got to go visiting teaching in the evening!

Fun with Family

We've had a fun and exhausting week!  I told the kids I would talk them to the Molly Brown house - Aaron threw a fit, so he stayed home with Dan while the rest of us went.  We all had a great time, and when I got home, Aaron had written a sweet apology note for me.  

Tuesday morning, bright and early, we packed up the car and headed for Laramie - on the way, we made a stop at the new temple to look around.  We ran into one of our Stake Councilors who is in charge of the landscaping.  It was neat to talk to them about the temple and to see the progress.

We brought tons of food and spent all that day and the morning of the next day helping to unpack and clean and just do whatever we could to help them get moved into their beautiful new home!  It was tons of fun hanging out with the family - Gene and Ann were there too and we all worked ourselves to exhaustion!  We headed back late Wednesday morning - in time to get stuff ready for my mom's arrival and then for me to head out to Choir.

Thursday was piano lessons in the afternoon, and then I had a concert in the evening that went well!  Then Friday morning, we all drove up to spend the day at the cabin.  The kids wanted to do everything all in one day, so we walked down to see the horses, hiked up to the mine, went down to South Park City and then had dinner and went home.  As we were walking to the restaurant, I was carrying James and noticed that I was getting wet - realized that he had had an accident on me and put him down.  A kind shop owner let us use his toilet.  As I waited for James, I looked around the store and saw some beautiful wood working and got us a gorgeous tree puzzle and a wooden ornament.  The kids loved South Park City, but would probably have liked to stay a bit longer.  After dinner, we headed back to Denver and got home just in time for bed!  

Saturday was our usual busy - grocery shopping, flute lessons, cleaning up.  Anna has decided that she wants a kindle and has been working VERY hard to earn money - and in earning money for her Kindle, she has shown a LOT of responsibility by still putting a lot of money into her savings for her mission and college - more than we generally require them to - and telling us that she did it because those things were more important than her kindle!  

Sunday was wonderful - church was wonderful.  The musical number was fantastic, the talks and lessons were wonderful and the kids were well behaved - enough so that a sweet kind visitor turned and told me I was a wonderful mother.  

After church, we had the Francone side of the family over to hang out and eat dinner and visit.  It was a lot of fun having them over!

Busy Busy!

Well, I missed a week due to being up at the cabin with no internet last Sunday.  So here's a long post about 2 weeks worth of fun!  Last Monday, the kids managed to get the house clean and piano done early enough that we got to go somewhere fun!  We headed up to the Butterfly Pavilion with lunches in tow.  We got there just in time to get to see all their special presentations and still have lots of fun just checking stuff out.  We got to do an outdoor bug hunt, hear a story time, watched a butterfly releasing, and learn about superhero bugs!  

The kids loved this area - they had dirt filled with worms and the kids could go dig for them.  My kids spent half the day there!  They just loved it.

At the butterfly releasing, one flew out and straight to Aaron's forhead - I just love the look on his face - he loved it though.  

This is their other favorite area - getting to hold Rosie the Tarantula.  They all loved it, but Evie and James especially wanted to keep going back over and over to hold her.

Tuesday we tried a couple things, we started with a quick trip to the library, then we tried to go to the Rocky Mountain Wildlife Refuge, but after driving around, we headed to the visitor's center only to find that it's closed on Tuesdays.  :(  We were all a bit bummed.  Then we tried the museum of nature and science, but by the time we got there (after searching for a gas station) we realized that we would only be able to be there for 10-15 minutes before we had to leave so we could be home in time for Morgan to be dropped off.  

Morgan spent the night Tuesday and went with Eileen and Anna to Girls Activity Days, which was a fun afternoon swimming at a local lake.  I told Aaron, Evie and James that I would take them somewhere while the girls were gone if they got piano and some clean up done, but they didn't.  Morgan went home Thursday evening.  Friday was mostly spent trying to get ready for going up to the cabin and getting ready for Friday night and Saturday.  I needed to get as much done on Friday as I could, since I would have no time on Saturday and we would be leaving Sunday after church. 

Friday night was my craft night with Becky!  We brought out projects and showed off and worked on stuff while watching Jane Austen movies and snacking.  We grabbed a take out dinner and had a fun evening chatting and working on our projects!  We slept in Saturday morning, then packed up and headed home.  Dan had spent his morning helping some friends move, then Eileen had flute lessons, I had a long arm quilting session.  I quilted Kai's quilt - now I just need to do the binding.  Then I picked up our babysitter.  Dan and I grabbed a quick dinner before heading over to chaperon the youth dance.  We got to see some of Dan's cousins and kids from the ward, we also got to hang out with the Ker's a bit since they were the other chaperons.  It was a fun evening!  

Sunday was a wonderful church day with wonderful talks and lessons.  After church, we went home and loaded up the car and headed to the cabin.  Weather was beautiful while we were there!  Monday we did some hiking and running around and playing.  We spent time playing games, singing songs and just chatting.  Uncle Doug and Mark and Julia were there and so was Grandpa Francone.  It was neat to sit chatting with Julia and Doug - kinda interesting to look at Doug and my mom's relationship with Grandma Los and their relationships with their kids - made me think about what sort of legacy was handed down to me and what legacy I am handing down to my kids.  

We did some fun hiking around the mine and some of the other trails.  Grandpa took Eileen, Anna and Aaron fishing - they caught 3 fish and brought them home and cooked and ate them!

Some of the neighbors have a horse and they let us all have a turn getting led up and down the driveway on the horse - the kids LOVED it - James did NOT want to get off!!  It made Eileen's whole week!

We spent evenings playing Killer Bunnies with Eileen and had a great time.  Eileen really loves that game right now!  Wednesday after lunch, we headed back towards Denver.  We stopped at Tiny town on the way - it's their 100th anniversary and we had a great time looking at some new houses and riding the train.  Wednesday evening, I had my first choir practice of the season - it was a lot of fun to be back singing with the Chorale again.

Thurdsay was piano lessons in the afternoon, the on Friday, we headed to the splash park once they had finished their piano.  Weather was perfect for it and the kids had a blast.

 After the splash park, we headed to the library to return some books and pick out some new ones.

Saturday, Eileen had flute lessons, I did yard work, Eileen and Anna did some great work to earn some extra money and then in the evening, Dan and I went out with Newell and Becky for our anniversary date.  We went out to dinner, then went minature golfing!  It was a ton of fun - we really haven't gone mini-golfing like this we lived in Utah.  Newell creamed us all - twice, then we got some ice cream before heading home.

Dan decided after the first game that he needed to change clubs so he would play better - this was his choice - surprisingly, he did do better with the mini-me club than with a regular one :)

Today was a wonderful day at church.  It was wonderful to listen to testimonies.  During Sunday School, we talked about journal/record keeping.  I showed my class this blog and some of my scrapbooking pages and talked about personal record keeping and I also talked a bit about my ancestors account of the Chicago fire and how reading it has blessed me.  It was really neat - then I closed the lesson by asking them to take some time each day this week to think about things that have happened and how we have seen the Lord's hand in our lives. We then had a wonderful lesson in Relief Society about families and strengthening our relationship with our families.  I was touched by the spirit and I am grateful for those hints and helps and nudges as I try to be a better mom and try to teach my kids the happiness that comes from choosing the right.

After church, we headed to Frank and Tina's to visit with family and eat dinner.  It's always fun getting together with them!