Highs - and lows - of the week

One winter day in Colorado you find yourself outside in shorts pulling sleds across the dry, brown grass (and watching geese fly overhead?) It looks something like this:
and the next thing you know - BAM! - you wake up to this:

OK, so it wasn't quite that cold (although at my parents' house it was), but we did get down to something like -18, which is cold for Colorado. Therefore, we had school canceled for 2 days this week. I got a bit of razzing from Minnesotans, as my family always lived by the rule that we could go out and play up until about -20; after that, it got kinda cold. This is one reason we had a sauna in our home, I guess. It's all about surviving the elements.

Anywho, we stayed entertained by doing a variety of activities like calisthenics, doing the hokey pokey, having a John Denver hoedown (Isabel has mad love for J.D.), doing some Groundhog Day coloring activities and baking shadow cookies, playing board games, watching movies and going on a scavenger hunt. It worked out.

While school was canceled, activities were not; as a result, we got to see what Isabel's costume for her spring dance recital looks like (oh, we had both been highly anticipating this!). It didn't disappoint. Think purple and black and bling. Yep. And Connor has his first basketball practice this week! He really wanted to play, and the first practice went great. Very proud of him. Team sports haven't always worked out so hot for him, but he is really excited about basketball so we're giving it a go. Brian and I really don't care what activities our children like (and yes, this includes sports) and want to support them in whatever they like, and we believe in exposing them to different things to see what takes. He loves to run, and is really good at it, and might run track this summer in a summer league. We are all excited to cheer him on in his first game next weekend!

My kids have a strange fascination with uvulas (???). This might trace its roots to Finding Nemo, I'm not sure. Anywho, one of them (Connor I believe) realized that if you put a Bumbo seat upside down on your head you look like a uvula head. Except if you're Lucas, in which case you pronounce it luvea head. I mean, we are talking mad skills here. Strange, but true. It looks something like this:

We had a fun preschool field trip to the Planetarium at CU Boulder. We saw a fun and super interesting space show in the theater, and did some fun activities. My kids are all about space this days, and thought it was great. Esp. when they felt like they were moving as the stars moved on the ceiling as we blasted off. I don't know why these two won't take off their winter gear inside. And the Flatirons made such a lovely winter backdrop.

Mason is 8 months old today. He loves eating, feeding himself, exploring, getting into things, being entertained by his siblings, snuggling, playing, going places. Everyone in my household is nuts about him. They all hold him, make him laugh, play with him every chance they get. If you are Mason, life is good. The other day Brian was holding Mason and said to him, "I gotta give your mom credit on this one. She was sure right about having you." If you recall, a year ago there was some major fence sitting (OK, I was sitting, Brian was running the other way from the fence and didn't even want to look at it). We are so very, very glad we crossed over. Mason brings us all so much joy.

He has been army crawling for a few weeks, and just started getting up on his hands on knees and rocking, so I anticipate full-on crawling soon.

Stock Show 2011

Another January, another National Western Stock Show...

We have gone every year since Connor was Mason's age, making this our 8th consecutive Stock Show outing. We have our routine down to a science; as a result, our pics are pretty much the same each year, except the children are that much older and taller each year. We always love our day spent celebrating life in the West!

There is sunshine...

We've had some very spring-like weather the past week or so, creating melting - and then non-existent -snow, perfect for wearing new galoshes. Galoshes are magical to kids, at least mine anyway. I even remember having some as a child and thinking it was the greatest thing ever to walk in puddles and stay dry. Simple joys. There has been trampoline jumping, backyard soccer playing, and general adventure making, all while wearing T-shirts - in January!

Then it turned to winter again, for a day, and we went from a warm and sunny morning to a snow-blowing-sideways freezing afternoon. It was exactly the weather I needed to create the perfect ambiance for my final dessert of the month club, which I woke with a start earlier in January remembering I had forgotten to do in December. Oops. I chose to make a coconut tres leches cake (this might have been the hardest one to give away. Wow.) as a little culinary mid-winter tropical getaway. So delivering it during a snowstorm was perfect. This one is a from-scratch yellow cake, soaked in a coconut milk syrup (cream of coconut, evaporated milk, whipping cream and vanilla) and topped with whipped cream, bananas and toasted coconut. I didn't fully assemble it, as I didn't want the bananas to go bad, so the picture of the assembled piece of cake I snagged from Mel's Kitchen Cafe, my fave foodie blog from whence the recipe came.

On Monday the children and I did some projects about Martin Luther King, Jr. One of them involved drawing/writing their ideas of helping children get along. I am posting them here because what each child drew is so telling about them and their personalities.
Lucas "drew" guns, tanks and bees. I think he might have missed the message of peace...? But he did spell and write the word MOM all on his own (encircled), which I thought was pretty darn impressive for a 3-year-old:

Isabel's was all about - what else? - candy! She dictated the story to me to write on the back; it is written hurriedly, hence the sloppy handwriting. Actually, who am I kidding? I never have good handwriting, but esp. when I'm in a hurry. Hopefully it can be deciphered. Oh, and "mama's sweet box of candy love" is how the children refer to a Tupperware I have filled with the sad few remnants of Halloween candy. It's all in how you spin it, I suppose.

Connor depicted three children holding hands and saying "let's not fight" (what a concept! gee, we should try that at home), and then a map of the world. He is developing a love of geography; we love to study his new globe together.

On the back he wrote about wanting to celebrate Martin Luther King Jr.'s birthday by doing service. That boy is very service oriented. A month or so ago I was in the grocery store checkout line with all 4 kids. Connor stepped away for a couple of minutes, I presumed to look at the Hot Wheels cars he had been admiring. When he came back, he pointed to an elderly lady and said, "do you see that lady? She had to put her cane in her cart so she could push her cart, and she was having a hard time walking, so I pushed her cart for a while to help her."

Nothing fills my soul with sunshine like a baby's laughter. And you never know what's going to bring it on. This time it was Brian whistling. I think this is the hardest I have heard Mason laugh.