Hear ye, hear ye! The Renaissance Fair...

Colorado has a wonderful Renaissance Fair in Larkspur, about a 30 minute drive North from the Springs.

July 19, we were invited to the Renaissance Fair for our friends Josh and Bree's wedding. I was really excited because I have never been to a Renaissance Fair, and now I get to go and get the full experience with a wedding too.

I decided to try my hand at making out costumes, Chris said he didn't want me to make his because he didn't want it to look cheap, so I agreed in letting him buy his shirt. I made Austin a shirt that looked exactly like Chris' (by the way it looked just as good, maybe he will let me sew for him now...) Aaron wore a D&D onsie that was given to use, and I made my corset, shirt and dress. (My corset was fine for the day, but I now have my heart set on one of these for next time).

We had a fun day, first we had the wedding ceremony, where Josh the groom flipped a coin before saying I do (great laugh), then we headed to the party area where there was delicious food and cold drinks (definitely needed in the heat). After that we were free to roam the area, and then the Bride and Groom rode and elephant through the fair, it was neat to see. We watched a jousting tournament, and had fun looking at all the neat shops and fun(and some interesting) costumes. Enjoy a little glimpse of what we had fun seeing.

Eat Mor Chikin!

Friday, July 11, Chick-fil-a had free meals for any one who dressed as a cow from head to toe, or a free entree for those who had on something cowish. We decided to go all out. Austin and I created our costumes to go to the restraunt. Austin had fun coloring the cow spots I made on his old white shirt. I made some short for him out of cheap muslim (the waist to crouch was a little small, but he still love it. For Aaron I took a white onesie and colored black spots on it. For me I basted black spots on a white shirt. I made tails for all of us, and Austin and I wore headbands with ears. We had a ton of fun, our total meal costed $.32 cents, because I like the lettuce and tomato on my sandwich. We are definately going to make this a tradition.

Here is Austin posing as a cow

Here is the back of his shirt and you can also see his shorts, and the tail (My favorite part)

Aaron loved his tail also, the front of his outfit said Cowz Rool, and the back said Chikinz Drule

Here are both of the boys enjoying there free food

I love to see the temple...

We went up to Denver to pick up our car (it was fixed by Katjaana's husband Dustin - THANK YOU!) While we were in Denver, we decided to stop by the Denver Temple and walk around. It was a georgeously hot day, but we had fun walking around and talking about the temple. Here is a cute picture of Austin and Aaron in front.

Do ducks sleep on water?

I just love it when Austin asks me intelligent questions. (what I mean by intellegent questions is when he honestly doesn't know the answer, not like when he has seen a movie a billion time and knows it by heart, yet he still ask what is happening). Tonight when we were driving home he asked me: Do ducks sleep on water? I honestly don't know, so I told he we would look it up when we got home. Well, here is what we found, for those of you who didn't already know.

Here is the answer and here is where I found it:

Ducks generally use three types of areas: open fields (for food), a wetland near their feeding field (also for feeding, as well as washing and drinking), and a roost site (for sleeping). Roosts are found in areas where the birds feel safe and are seldom disturbed. These resting areas may be found over a mile from the feeding field. Depending on what is available, roost sites are usually medium to large ponds, or wide rivers.
To avoid predators, waterfowl are most often seen sleeping on the water, with their head turned around backwards and nestled into their feathers, to keep their unfeathered bill warm. As if sleeping on the water isn’t safe enough, ducks also have a habit of sleeping in a line where the ducks on the ends sleep with one eye open, watching for predators.
Many duck species may also be seen sleeping on land near their roosting pond, often standing on one leg with the other tucked up into its feathers. Again, this is done to stay warm.
Exceptions to these sleeping habits include the Harlequin Duck, which tend to roost on rocky shores to avoid sleeping in rough water, and Wood Ducks, who usually roost in trees. Stiff-tailed ducks, such as Ruddy Ducks, have difficulty walking on land because their legs are set far back on their body and are almost never seen sleeping out of the water. In fact, Ruddy Ducks are so comfortable sleeping in the water that, if you’re very quiet, you may see one blowing across a wavy pond!
-Darren Wiens, M.S. Candidate

Breaking Dawn Contest

Alright, I am a big fan of Stephenie Meyers, I love the Twilight Series and The Host Book (I even was blessed to be able to go to her The Host book signing in Denver. We Breaking Dawn's, the forth book in the Twilight series, release date is August 2. With that they are having a contest to win tickets to go to New York, NY for a Twilight Concert (it includes airfare, tickets, hotel and V.I.P treatment). So if you would like to sign up, here is the link. I have already put mine in the mail!

Cheyenne Mountain Zoo

We have a membership to our Zoo in the Springs, and love it. The other day we went to see there new Rocky Mountain Exhibit. It was pretty amazing, the go rid of a lot of the hills. They brought in two grizzly bears, a moose, mountian lions, and porcupines. We were also there when they were feeding the hippos, I think that was Austin's favorite. Aaron's favorite was this little monkey that kept looking at him. I held him up to the window, and this little monkey kept tilting his head back and forth - Aaron LOVED it!
These Grizzys were having a blast wrestling with eachother, thier energy reminds me of Austin.

Here is the hippo getting a drink before he came into eat.

This Orangutan had at least 8 carrots in his mouth!

Here is Aaron making friends with this cute little monkey.

Here is Alvin as Austin says.

Messy Baby

Aaron has really been enjoying the babyfood lately, here is a couple of pictures of him after he is done eating. Good thing we had a bib on.

ALERT: What I would LOVE for my Birthday!!!

Ok, I know these are hard to come by, but I would LOVE this! PLEASE go in together to get me this. *puppy dog face*

My child is weird.

As I was putting Austin to bed here is a short convo we had.

Me: Austin what would you like for breakfast?

Austin: Broccoli

Me: Broccoli, we don't have any.

Austin: We need to go to the store to get some. I need it to be like Spiderman. Because it helps me get webs.

Me: Ok, we will get some at the store tomorrow. So what would you like for breakfast?

Austin: Carrots

Me: How about some Spiderman pancakes also.

Austin: Yeah, that would be good.

Thought it was too cute, the broccoli thing. Austin went to Durango around the end of April beginning of May. He was down with visiting with his Aunt Amy and Uncle Kermitt. Amy got him stuck on broccoli because of the way it looks like webs, and that is what Spiderman eats to get his webs. He bought it, and was dissapointed we didn' t have any broccoli.

Thanks Amy!

Too Cute...

It was sooo cute. Austin, Aaron and I went to the park the other day to play. While Austin was running around making new friends, Aaron and I sat down and observed. It was getting ready to rain, so the wind was blowing pretty good. I got a great picture of Aaron when the wind blew at the right moment. Enjoy, you can see his tuft of hair blowing pretty good.

Anything NOT to crawl

Aaron just doesn't want to crawl. The kid will be 10 months on the 2oth of June, and has absolutely no desire. I try to encourage it by putting him on his hand and knees. This morning he didn't bend his knees and this is what we got.

As you can see in his face, he got unhappy real quickly.

Father Son CampOut

It looks to me as if everyone is having one of these in the ward. A brother in our ward owns a ranch, and every year they have a Father & Son campout. This is the 3rd year Austin has gone (his first one was at 2.5 years, we start 'em young). They had such a fun time, and came back filthy as ever.

Austin loved checking out anything he could climb, run on and jump off.

What kid doesn't love a lake...

Don't worry, that is a rootbeer.

What a neat pan...

I ran into this Brownie pan when I was blog surfing. Isn't neat, I added it to my wishlist...

Teething Terror -- Poor baby

I feel soooo bad for Aaron. He is teething, and not enjoying it one bit. Poor little boy has trouble sleeping, and doesn't want to eat unless he has to. Doesn't want his pacifier or anything to chew on. I just want him to be happy again.

(Photo courtesy of Lisa Crane)

Book Signing - Stephenie Meyer

Monday May 19, Stephenie Meyer was in Denver, doing a book signing for her new book "The Host" (you might recognize her as the author for the Twilight Series). I found this out the Saturday before and thought this would be fun to do (I have never done a book signing before). It was really fun... My mother-in-law Jean and I went. I was kind of worried how late we would be there, because our tickets were numbers 699 and 700. There was about a total of 850 persons there, it was pretty crazy. They went in order of the numbers on your tickets to get your books signed. It started at 7pm and we got out around 10pm. I have to say I am impressed, 700 signatures in 3 hours. It was neat to see the dads who brought there daughters there for the signing, and the crowed seemed to be decent, which was great. It was a pretty fun evening. By the way, I loved the book. She did a great job.

ER - Take Two

What is better than going to the ER once, how about twice within a week and a half for the same wound. That is right Austin split his head open again. Him and his cousin Emmalee were playing cats and dogs and he rubbed/hit his head underneath the table and re-opened it. It was bleeding more this time than last time. In the picture below you can see how well his head was healing. This visit didn't take as long as the one in Denver, thank goodness. Austin really liked the bandage on his head, he called himself a pirate.

His head is all better now, and he will be able to play hockey again (he is very happy about that).

It was bound to happen someday, surprised it wasn't sooner...

We had a wonderful Friday. Amy, Chris' sister came to town as a chaperon/piano player with a middle school group for a competition on Saturday. They had a lot of fun things planned for Friday. First we went to the Denver Zoo, it was a mad house there. I think every school was there on a field trip. It was tons of fun. The Denver Zoo is much bigger than the Cheyenne Mountain Zoo, and it didn't have as many hills also, which is very nice when you are pushing two kids around. We saw tons of fun animals, lots that we don't have at the Cheyenne Mountain Zoo. Some of the kids favorites were the Nemo fish (clown fish) and the Polar Bears, one of which was playing in the water with a big plastic thing. We were there for about 4 hours (definitely not enough time to see all of them, so we need to go back).

Next we went to the Cherry Creek Mall (these middle school kids don't have a big mall where they come from -- Farmington, New Mexico) so the really enjoy this. I had fun finding fun stuff on sale for Chris at Macy's, then we took the kids to the big play area to play in. It is a nice big area, they have breakfast food for the kids to play on, waffles with butter, eggs, bacon, bowl of shredded wheat and blueberries, etc... Well towards they end some little kid brought a football (and we all know Austin LOVES any type of sport) and they started playing together. A couple of minutes later Austin smacks his head on the side of the play area and literally cracks his head open. So after getting some ice and TONS of napkins for the blood, my mother-in-law (wonderful lady) drives me to the Children's Hospital. It took us about 30-40 minutes to get there, so the whole time I keep asking Austin all these question to keep him awake (he has already had a long tiring day before the incident happened), the only thing I am afraid of is him falling asleep and not waking up because of a concussion. (first time I ever thought of my kid dying, I know a little overboard for a cracked head). We get to the hospital for a long 5 hours before we get to go home.

The Children's Hospital (definately different than a regular hospital) was very nice, the food was actually very good (We had dinner there instead of Casa Bonita --huge Mexican restraunt with cliff divers). Austin recieved 3 staples to the head (staples work better than stitches on the head), poor kid. It was about 3.5 hours in the waiting room, we had to keep Austin from running around, you would have never thought he was hurt the way he was acting, he made new friends. Once they took us back they had to irrigate the wound they staple it. It was really neat, there was a lady named Roni whose job was to destract the kids while they fixed the wound. She had a huge backpack full of all kinds of neat toys, Austin really enjoyed that and I think it really helped him till they had to staple his head. But after it was over he was able to pick out a toy from the treasure chest, he chose the yoyo (he was very excited)

On our way home (11pm) Austin told me that he was tired and wanted to go to sleep. It was too precious, he thought I was going to still try to keep him awake like I did earlier...He was out cold.

What a fun day, something I will never forget. As for the ER visit, it was bound to happen, sooner than later with a kid like Austin...Actually surprised it didn't happen sooner.

We are slowly shaving (to help the tape stick with the guaze) and trying to wash out the dried blood from his hair. While shaving we had fun and gave him a mohawk for the day, we will be shaving it tomorrow.

I would like to take a small moment to thank Chris' sisters Amy and Lisa for ALL the wonderful help they gave in taking care of all my stuff and little Aaron while i rushed to the ER, and for Jean in taking me to the ER -- THANK YOU!!!

Just a small note...Do you know how hard it is to keep an extremely active boy not to be active? VERY HARD, and DARN NEAR IMMPOSSIBLE!

Here are some pictures from the zoo and Austin's battle wound...

Wow, I haven't updated in a while!

Wow sorry about not updating in a while (I know I have said this a lot) I will try to get better. So many thing have been happening since "a while ago" so please make sure you scroll down.

HOCKEY - Austin has started hockey (he is the shortest one out there, but not the youngest)! Colorado Springs Armature Hockey Association (CSAHA) has a Spring League Training type camp. It is and 8 and under league, they have beginner (which Austin is in) and advance. He is having such a ball! He loves playing hockey for the Jr. Tigers. They teach them a lot of exercises to teach them how to play hockey. They put cones down and the kids slalom through, skate on one leg, hop on one leg, pull each other on the ice, to do a fast side stop, handle the puck, moving from a standing position to sliding and back up. It is pretty facisinating how much Austin has progressed since his first to his fifth practice.
Here is Austin showing off his jersey

Here he is all ready to play, we even had to buy him a mouth guard (and a cup).

Austin scored a goal the first night when they had a little scrimmage! What a stud!

Here he is in his hockey stance listening to the coach. (First thing he learned)

Here is his hockey stance, bend the knees but not too far.

Here he is skating with the puck. He actually is pretty good at this. (Chris has been practicing at home with him, on our wooden floor)

Here is Chris and Aaron being Austin's support squad. (Isn't Aaron SOOOO cute!, We call him Jack Jack - from The Incredibles)



SPAGHETTI DINNER - I made a cake for the auction

I did my traditional spaghetti cake, I destroyed the first half of the cake, so I let Austin decorate it. Here are some fun pictures of our cakes, I bet you can't tell who did what cake.

Daughter's Poo as Keepsake, YUCK!

Ok, so I like to go and look at Esty every once in a while, especially the Etsy Alchemy part where people ask for bids from creators to do projects for them. I ran across a really odd one just a few minutes ago, and found it fairly disturbing! Now tell me, would you do this with your child's first poo? http://www.etsy.com/alchemy/request.php?id=3392

Happy Birthday Mother!!!

Today is my WONDERFUL mother's Birthday, Yes, she was a St. Patty baby. I want to share with you her birthday gift, that I had fun making. She was supposed to recieve it yesterday at our family dinner, but she it sick with that yucky flu thing.

It is a reversable apron... Tell me what you think