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

Happy Fall!

Things are gettin' sort of busy around here! Justin and I are pretty much whipped by the time Friday rolls around at the end of the week. But despite the busyness of our schedules, the boys are doing well, we're staying healthy, and life is pretty good these days. Our fall weather has been beautiful (and quite warm)--kind of hard to believe the snow might start to fly as soon as next month.

Justin's classes are keeping him on his toes. He has a couple of challenging students, but hopefully in the end he'll come out a better teacher. He's also doing a lot of reading for his dissertation proposal to make sure he's got a solid argument to make on his topic. And I'm not sure, but it's possible he's also doing some daydreaming about the upcoming ski season. Did we mention we're going to try and get both boys on skis this year? Are we a bit crazy? Probably.

I was up in Fort Collins most of today to tour meeting facilities at CSU for our board meeting next spring. It's a lovely campus and it was a great day to be up there. It sort of reminded me of my days at SPU about 100 years ago. I'm actually feeling pretty good about my meeting in Hawaii next month. There's still a lot of work to be done, but overall I don't feel like I'm about to lose my head at the moment.

Jacoby's class is finishing up the letter B this week. Today they rode the bus to Barnes & Noble for story time. His teachers have said he's quite a rock star with his letters and the in-depth study of the alphabet seems to really interest him.

And oh the things to say about Morgan! He's definitely 2.5 years old. He definitely has his own little agenda for most things in life right now. He definitely has strong opinions on a lot of matters. He's definitely the most messy eater I've ever encountered. And he's most definitely too smart for his own good.

Here are a few pics:

After haircuts they had to run to the car to brush off and get the wiggles out.

Jacoby's city

Painting

Morgan giving the camera a sly look...pretty much captures the mischievousness of his little being over the past few weeks.

Aahh. Organized bliss for Mommy. My project is complete, and now we're in training to undo old habits of coming in and flinging coats, hats, and belongings anywhere (Daddy is totally included in the training too).

And back to this child...he's recently learned to climb bookshelves to reach objects purposefully placed out of his reach. His puppy is put up on one of our taller bookshelves when Puppy needs a time-out (i.e., Mommy can't take it any more with the bickering between 2 boys over him). Tonight Morgan waltzed into the living room holding Puppy after I had just put him up on the bookshelf. When I asked how in the world he came to have Puppy in his possession, Jacoby told me in all seriousness that Morgan climbed up and got him (like, duh Mommy). Morgan offered to show me, and sure enough, the child can scale the bookshelf like nobody's business. It left me sort of speechless when he turned around, while the bookshelf swayed back and forth, and grinned at me.

Hope you all have a good week!