The Week That Can End

Well, my friends, we are in the midst of one of those weeks.  Whew--it's been a doozy!  Sick kid, sick kid towed into work, broken printer at work with looming deadline, field trip, teaching in Denver multiple days and hence multiple days of juggling poor sick kid, broken sprinklers, not enough hours in the day, etc., etc., etc.  Friday can't come soon enough as far as I'm concerned!

So, now that I've got that off my chest, let's talk about at all the wonderful things that are going on in the midst of our chaos:

Jacoby made it to 100 miles in the 100-Mile Club!!  We're so, so proud of him.  He's had a great time and has done such a good job with setting weekly running/walking goals for himself.  He continues to earn miles each week, so we're excited to see what the total comes to by the end of the school year.

This one has been sick and is stuck with me most of the week while Justin teaches his course in Denver.  Most of the class is online except for the days this week.

We had a lovely Easter.  Our Easter eggs were filled with Lego pieces this year.  Each boy got a mini set and had to find all of the eggs in order to put them together.

Scrabble Junior is one of our favorite games right now.  I found it for $2 at the thrift store and it had all of the pieces!

Morgan loves Candy Land.  And because Candy Land has a peanut card and peanuts on the board, anytime one of the boys draws the card we say "Grab the Epi-Pen and don't eat anything!".  Wierd for most, but perfectly normal for us.  (:

I finished my rain barrel this weekend.

Jacoby and Justin ran in a school 5k race that was dedicated to a little girl badly hurt in a skiing accident over spring break.

Justin was the lucky winner of a bus ride and all-day field trip with 50 first graders this week.  They went to the Butterfly Pavilion and had a great time.

Jacoby and one of his BFFs...love this little guy.

Finally, I got to see this wonderful, spontaneous show while I was volunteering at preschool last week:  http://youtu.be/wJBHy5UN86E

Hope your week is going better than ours! (:

Happy Easter

Happy Easter from our family to yours!

Spring Break

We hope you all are doing well and are enjoying signs of spring!  We are just about at the end of two very busy spring breaks (Morgan's last week, and Jacoby's this past week)--lots of schedule juggling and I had a boy at work with me several days.  The boys got a fair amount of skiing in.  Jacoby logged tons of miles this week to get closer to his goal of getting to 100 miles by the end of the school year.  I think he should have 75 - 80 miles now!  We also made the big decision to have Morgan finish up at preschool at the end of May.  We will definitely enjoy a tuition-free summer!

Here are a few pics:

  

We've been spending time at our favorite garden center, making plans for our own garden and just relishing all of the green growing things.  The very nice employees let the kids feed the fish.

 

 The boys love the nursery--they smell everything and point out interesting things they think we should add to our garden.

 Jacoby running around the track at school.  We've spent a lot of time here this week logging miles.

Eating a snack at the park...something we do best!

 We enjoyed an awesome day on the slopes this week.  The boys had a great time "racing" each other and put in around 8 runs over 4 hours...quite a lot of skiing for their little legs!  They slept the entire way home.  Morgan has come a long way but still prefers to keep his skis straight and shoot right down the hill.

 Jacoby is doing turns and really enjoys being on skis.  He's developed a lot of stamina since joining the 100-mile club this year!

 A nice little spot for a lunch break

 Here we come!
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Speedy Morgan!
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Our Days of Late

We've come out of birthday season another year older, fully celebrated, and ready for another year!  We're enjoying longer days and signs of spring everywhere!  And as much as I want to get out my shovel and start planting things, I realize there are at least several more snow storms in our future--March is the snowiest month in Colorado, after all. We've got our sights set on one more ski day, maybe two.

Here are some things going on in our world these days:

Jacoby had to have endocrinology testing done at the end of February.  Several recent blood tests came back showing low morning cortisol levels, which raised some concern among our doctors.  Our tough guy handled getting an IV on his own, followed by about 90 minutes of periodic blood draws.  And in the end, it all came back perfectly normal.  It's just a tad frustrating he had to go through the whole thing in the first place, but we never complain about normal results!  We went to the Lego Movie that afternoon, which we all really enjoyed, and it chased all our testing blues away.

Morgan is the master builder behind many forts and various creations using all of the living room furniture.  Don't plan to sit down at our house if you visit.  (:

And lest you think Justin was forgotten on his birthday, he was celebrated with a special dinner, cake, and new pull-up bar thingy.

 

I have enjoyed beautiful sunrises on my long, early morning runs.  These, along with pounding out many miles of pavement under my feet, have been my sanity-savers of late.  However, nothing has tested my sanity more in the past 10 days than this deplorable rash covering 85% of my body.  TMI?  Let me just say after literally wanting to peel every inch of skin off of my body, I have a new-found sympathy for those who struggle with chronic skin issues.  The diagnosis: atopic excema.  Really?!  That's just fabulous.  I finally got the prescription today and am hoping to finally sleep without the aid of expired children's benadryl and maybe wake up feeling like a more normal human being tomorrow.

On a much brighter note, the boys and I visited our favorite garden center this last weekend to pick out seeds for our garden.  I'm hoping to grow flowers from seeds this year too and plan on trying out DIY seed tapes.

The boys, very delicately handling the seeds.  They definitely know the drill now that we've done this a few years in a row.  We have lots of bulbs coming up all over our yard and the grass is turning green.  I love these early signs of spring!

Here are our mini green houses

Jacoby loves to read.  We are so, so grateful for this.  Morgan cannot wait to be able to read like his brother.  He's already doing it a fair bit with small words.  That boy is definitely ready for school!

Jacoby has run 50 miles in the 100-mile club!  He earned a special pencil.  

Best conversation this week:

Jacoby: "Mommy, what are the small guys called, the ones that are green and are about 2 inches tall?"

Mommy:  Huh?

Jacoby:  "Oh, I know!  They're leprechans!  They came out last night while we were asleep and left cookies for our class on Ms. O's desk.  And they knew about me, Mommy, because they left one of my special cookies for me."

Mommy:  Sniff.  Tears.  Sniff.  Note to self: write a thank you to the teacher for doing such a good job with Jacoby's allergies this year

I forgot to post Morgan's birthday interview last week, so here it is:

What is your favorite thing to do?  Play with Legos

What do you want to be when you grow up?  A Jedi

What is your favorite food?  Cookies

Who do you like to spend time with?  Mommy (:

What do you really do well?  Build with blocks

What makes you laugh?  Doing something naughty with Jacoby

What is the best time of day?  Afternoon and going outside

What are you afraid of?  Zombies, monsters, and vampires

Who is your best friend?  J, G, and L (preschool friends)

What do you like to do with your family?  Go camping

What do you love to learn about?  Rockets

Where do you like to go?  Montana

What is your favorite book?  Star Wars

If you had one wish what would it be?  To have another Lego set

Are you excited for Kindergarten?  "I want to be in first grade with Jacoby"

Morgan E. is Five!

 Well, friends, my little one is five years old.  Can you believe it?!  He's a special kiddo and we love him to pieces.  His birthday fell on a preschool day, so he received lots of special attention.  He also brought Lego crayons and notebooks to school, which were a hit.

 Legos were on the top of the gift list, and Morgan was proud to finally receive a couple of his own "big" sets.  Big Brother did a lot of helping and instructing as Morgan put the sets together.

 A camping, cookie cake

Then we invited our esteemed guests over for a camping party today

 No party at our house is complete without cake pushpops...these were s'mores.  Yum!

 The tent and a few trees came out to create Camp Morgan.

 All set to paint bird houses for one of our activities

 One happy, five-year old, camper

 Cake pushpops, roasted marshmallows, and popcorn for treats

 Busy campers at work

 Morgan brought out his fishing pole and showed M. and A. how to catch the magnetic fish.  They set up camp and were cooking fish over the campfire for quite awhile.

 We roasted marshmallows, which was fun and dangerous all at the same time!

We went outside for a nature scavenger hunt. Party favors were binoculars, collapsible canteens, and chapstick.

 The four friends

Love this pic!

Jacoby and Morgan's birdhouses.  These will find a home in our garden this spring.  Morgan says a blue jay will probably live in his blue house.  I agree.

And that, my friends, concludes the 2014 birthday season.  

This mama is on her way to bed for some recovery.  Over and out.