Family Recap

I had to take a brief blog hiatus to get caught up on the homefront. Here's what we've been up to:

Justin:
Justin's giving a final to his grad students at Iliff this week and then has a break until January. His Augustine Institute class finishes up sometime in early December. I'm getting reports from him on how many lifts are open up at Winter Park, so I think he's also getting anxious to hit the slopes. Justin also recently discovered that one of Morgan's assistant preschool teachers is wife to one of his colleagues at school. He's an Imam in Denver and in the same PhD program as Justin, with a different concentration since he does a lot of work on Christian-Muslim-Jewish dialogues and relationships. Small world!

Jacoby:
Jacoby's class is studying the letter F, so they took the bus to visit a fire station in Boulder today. I should also mention that the preschool had a real-life evacuation last week when the cook smelled burning in one of the walls. Three fire trucks, 1 ambulance, and 1 police car later, the kids were let back in to carry on with their day (a faulty wire was discovered and repaired). When I asked them what exciting thing happened to them that day, Jacoby reported that Miss Amy came (the music teacher). So, I guess when it comes to fire trucks or music, music is winning these days. Jacoby is also having fun in swimming lessons and is a pro at getting his ski boots and skis on all by himself. He has a 3-hour evaluation at Children's Hospital tomorrow with the allergist, gastroenterologist, and nutritionist. I am guessing that more allergy testing and another endoscopy are in his near future. Jacoby came down with pneumonia last week and has recovered fine, but he's had allergic reactions to 2 antibiotics which is a little unsettling. He's talking a lot about kindergarten and has several interesting theories on what goes down in elementary school. Justin and I start open houses at the schools in a few weeks and will finally start to get a better sense of what our options are.

Me:
My second trip to Hawaii was lovely, and the board meeting went about as smoothly as I could have hoped. I really enjoy hanging out with (most of) my colleagues outside of work, so we had a great time and may have enjoyed a fruity drink (or two) beside the beach. A highlight for me was seeing sea turtles in the bay, but my boys thought me getting bit by a tiger shark would have been much more exciting. Sheesh! I am SO glad to have the meeting behind me and am now playing catch-up at work and at home. I'm also doing some planning for the holidays since we're hosting next week and in December. And I've also started converting our blog into a book--it will be a great family memoir for us and something I hope to do annually to have a written and pictorial record of life here on the funny farm.

Morgan:
Morgan is hugely into music right now. He beats on everything, organizes parades and marching bands at preschool, and tries his best to dance like the Polynesian dancers he sees in a cool DVD I brought back from Hawaii. We met with his teachers last week, and they have nothing but love for this little boy which warms my heart. He's also doing great with potty training, and I'm hopeful that the end of the diaper era is coming soon. Morgan is in the same swimming class with Jacoby, so he's thrilled to be getting in the water with his brother. I don't think they're going to learn any stellar swimming skills in this class, but at least they're getting used to the water and comfortable with a teacher. Morgan is very proud of his ski boots and skis, and he asks us several times a week when we're going to go skiing. We're trying out a new strategy this year and are hopeful that we'll have a great time.

That's about all of our news for now. Here are a few pics:

Jacoby swimming with his teacher

Showing some bottom while playing guitars with Daddy

The boys and I visited the Denver Fire Fighter Museum after I returned from Hawaii. It was very cool and the boys had a blast.

Showing off his boots and skis

He is so excited to be skiing this year!

I predict Jacoby may be skiing by himself at the end of the season

Showing us what he's going to do to slow down on the slopes

Halloween 2011

First Snow!

It snowed, and snowed, and snowed Tuesday night. The boys were thrilled and could not wait to get outside to play. But before they could play, they had to endure flu shots at the allergist's office that went something like this:
1. Morgan informs Daddy that he's staying home while Daddy and Jacoby go get flu shots.
2. They drive into Boulder at the end of the snow storm--trees are down, and the power's out.
3. We check in and get allergy testing done for egg and the flu shot. The boys are still allergic to eggs but not to the flu shot. No surprises there.
4. Finally, it's time for the flu shot. Jacoby informed me the day before that I would be bringing ice for these shots or he wasn't coming (I'm not sure at what point the 4.5 and 2.5 year olds decided they could just opt out of certain events). So we bring ice, the nurse is cool with it, the boys were champs, and the shots are done. Yay!
5. The boys went home and played for a long time in the snow and had a ball.

The power is still out at preschool, so they're closed and that's sort of messed up Justin and my plans for the day. But, oh well. Justin has a dissertation committee all lined up and ready to go. His proposal will get submitted in January (hopefully). His classes are keeping him busy, but his students are doing well and progressing nicely with the language. I leave for Hawaii tomorrow morning and am feeling pretty good about the meeting. I'm going to miss my family like crazy, but I'm hoping for a little R & R on the beach. The last 6 weeks have been way too busy. Morgan informed me last weekend that when he gets to be a mommy, he's going to work on a computer too...effectively sending my mommy guilt-o-meter off the charts.

In other news, we finally got our family pictures taken last week. We'll see how they turned out sometime next week. I liked what she did with us, but there were some wild cards at play like starting 30 minutes late, 40 mph wind (effecting only the one person in the family with hair), restless boys, a CU game, and a few people who thought they belonged in our family pictures as well.

Here are a few pics of the snow storm:

Eating snow together

This kid definitely inherited the same snow gene his dad has

Love, love, love this boy

Love, love, love this boy too

Having a great time in all their winter garb

Beware

The dragons have come to play...

Busy Times

Suffice it to say that we are BUSY! Also slightly weary, but overall doing great. Here is a look back over the past week or so in pics:

Our family pictures got canceled (and rescheduled), so we opted for the annual pumpkin patch outing instead.

The boys were sort of into the pumpkins but were mostly excited about the bouncy castles. At what point did bouncy castles become part of the pumpkin patch/farm theme?!

On the hunt for the biggest pumpkins

Our friends M. and A. came over for an afternoon/evening while their parents were busy. We did lots of coloring, hide and seek, and playing.

Making music together...it's so fun to see pink in our house! (:

They gobbled up mass quantities of spaghetti. It was interesting trying to prepare supper with 4 kids in the house...I'm pretty sure I'm happy to not be out-numbered on most days.

And of course the second child has mastered this new trick and enjoys showing it off and stopping his Mommy's heart.

A different view in case you like this better

Helping Mommy with the weekly batch of muffins

Have a great week everyone!

Our Special Visitors

We had a wonderful weekend with Aunt Kenzie and Ben. We took a drive on the Peak to Peak Highway to see the beautiful fall colors. It was a gorgeous day up in the Colorado high country and the color of the turning aspens was amazing.

Our preschool held a harvest festival on Saturday, so we spent time chatting with friends and teachers while the boys joined in some of the activities. The highlight was a performance by Miss A. and the Oonie Koonie Cowgirls--they of course were a hit. One of Jacoby's best friends came and sat by him during the performance, and he about turned inside out from being bashful and completely smitten! Then we were off to the Denver Museum of Nature and Science. They have a new T-Rex robotic exhibit that was pretty cool. Morgan is in a phase where he's quite afraid of becoming the prey of something, so he wanted nothing to do with this part of our visit and actually demanded that we take him to the Children's Museum instead! We had a good time walking through the exhibits with Kenzie and Ben, and Jacoby walked the entire time (the first time a parent didn't cart him around--big milestone!)!

On Sunday we enjoyed a lazy morning at home. Aunt Kenzie had the boys laughing, screaming, and running around the backyard like crazy. She had to take a nap with them to recover. (: We visited the zoo that afternoon and got to see some fun new things. They do a lot of feedings in the late afternoon, so we were lucky to see quite a few of those and a lot of active animals. The boys were sad to say good-bye to our special visitors but we're looking forward to seeing them again at Christmas.

The week has flown by. Morgan's class has a field trip to the zoo on Friday. Jacoby's class started learning about the letter C. Justin and I were asked to be parent mentors for new families starting at our preschool. We're apparently veterans now that we've had two kids go through the entire track (Infant - Prek). So, we were introduced to our first family this week and will probably be getting together with them sometime in the near future. The preschool was awarded nearly $1 million by the City Council to open a new early childhood education center about a block from my office. The center will focus a lot of outreach to Head Start kiddos and those from low-income/at-risk backgrounds. It's very exciting and we're proud to be a part of such a cool school!

We don't have much planned for the weekend except for the dreaded event on Sunday involving us all looking our best, smiling appropriately, the 2 small people (who will be bribed...I mean given a worthwhile incentive) cooperating, the weather holding, and a photographer. Sigh. Having pictures taken is about as much fun for me as recovering from a C-section, but I think I and all involved will survive and hopefully get a couple of good photos from the thing. (:

A few notable quotes:
Morgan: "Mommy, you're Erin. You're Erin the Mommy."
Jacoby (referring to the color of slides): "There are black parks and purple parks in North America." It was news to me that he is familiar with our continent!

Here are some pictures from our adventures:

We really enjoyed getting to know Ben and spending time with these two. They were always quick to lend a hand with the boys.

We stopped for a picnic during our drive in the mountains and had fun climbing on the rocks.

Here we are

Lovely fall colors

I love Jacoby's smile in this pic

One of our favorite places along the Peak to Peak Highway

Reading with Jacoby

Two very busy boys in the backyard

Kenzie learning about something

Lots of loves were given whenever she could catch a boy

Morgan hitching a ride at the zoo

More snuggles

Morgan leaping into my picture

A wrestling match

Reading together