Maggie is a Trooper

Bless her little heart, Maggie broke her arm! She was at a sleepover and they were playing chase outside in the dark and she tripped over a bush and landed on one of those metal landscape edge things! Ouch! We kept ice on it the whole next day and the swelling went down quite a bit. That night was her very first basketball practice of the season so I made her go, just hoping that her hurt arm was just a sore muscle or something. She was so excited to be starting basketball again. But it took no time at all before she was almost in tears from the pain. So we headed to the doctor the next morning and sure enough, it was a broken arm. Boy did I feel like the worst mom in the world - making her play basketball with a broken arm! She got a bright pink cast. She's been so good about not being needy or relying on us to do things for her. She can pretty much still do everything with one arm except get her shoes on and tied. She is a trooper!

Fall 2010

Here are some pictures from some of the fun stuff we did in September and October.

San Diego Bound!

Sea World

Shamu Show

Lego Land

This is made out of Legos!

Girls Scout outing to Ringling Bros. & Barnum & Bailey Circus

Cog Railway Car that took us to top of Pike's Peak

On top of Pike's Peak

Giant S'more Muffin Tops

I was looking at someone else's blog and read about a muffin top pan. It looks like a muffin tin but only wider and more shallow. So, I found one at Home Goods and bought it. Then I borrowed this recipe from that blog for giant s'more chocolate chip cookies. They're huge and fluffy and really easy to make! S'mores are my absolute favorite dessert so this is right up my alley.

Apple Jelly Weekend

I'm pretty sure I've turned into a granny because I actually made home-made crab apple jelly this weekend! I'm not sure what compelled me to make home-made jelly, maybe it was the giant apple tree in my yard with hundreds of big apples just looking neglected. So, I googled recipes for jellies and decided that was my goal for the weekend. My first attempt did not turn out so good, then I tried again the next day and I think maybe, just maybe, it was a success! It seems to be jelling and I should know for sure by tomorrow. By the way, in previous years this apple tree produced tiny little green apples and all my neighbors said it was a crab-apple tree. Well, this year it produced some pretty big red ones so now I'm wondering if it isn't a real apple tree?

Lucille

Lucy told me the other day that she wants to start being called Lucille. She has all sorts of nicknames at her school. Somehow, I don't think she will want Lucille to stick with her for very long.

I haven't had a Lucy posting in a while so here she is wearing her pre-school uniform and all smiles. Her classmates look so darn cute in their uniforms and school colors, I can hardly stand it!

Pikes Peak...uh, Maybe Not

So we set out to go to Pikes Peak a few Sundays ago. We can actually see Pikes Peak from our house, well, our neighborhood actually. It's beautiful. You can see mountains in almost any direction that you look. We've been wanting to go to Pikes Peak and we allowed ourselves an hour to get there from home but we didn't count on traffic and other things so we were late and missed the time that we were planning to catch the cog railway to the top of the peak. But we were actually glad it didn't work out because by the time we got there it was so overcast and yucky out that we don't think we would have had a good view if we had gone up. Colorado Springs has many different tourist attractions so we headed over to the Cave of the Winds and toured caves, which sounds creepy, but was actually very cool and the kids loved it! I didn't get very many photos of us in the cave, but yes, we are suckers for paying $10 for a photo that they took of us!

Back to School

First day of school

The kids on our street holding up the number
of the grade they are starting

Maggie and her friend Ryan

Arkansas in July

Here are a few of the pictures I took while we were in Arkansas in July visiting family.

Maggie and Betsy

My birthday cake

Me eating my birthday cake at Hawg's Pizza

Grant and Ryan

Betsy, Maggie, Ryan and Lucy

Lucy on Marmee's dock

Lucy and my mom

Ethan, Maggie, Olivia, Lucy and Noah

Maggie and Lucy with Nana on the morning we left

Hot Springs Weekend With Friends

Here are my best buds from college. We had a great time together. I think they all look amazing and two of them just had babies!

Me, Catherine Hubbard Adams, Carrie White Teeter,

Megan McKinnon & Misty Sullivan Freeman

Countdown to 35

Oh boy, it is July 1st and there are 22 days until my 35th birthday. Boo hoo.

This wouldn't bother me so much if I looked 25. But I look 35. I'm definitely experiencing the wrinkles on my forehead, crows feet around my eyes, and massive dark circles and bags under the eyes. I have cellulite - it's in my genes, and it's in my jeans! Gasp! I literally woke up one morning ten months ago and looked in the mirror and thought, where'd I go? This is sooooooooo not cool.

Ian says Colorado women look harsh. Too much sun. Too much exposure to the elements. Cold winters = dry, hard looking faces. Guess I'm officially "Colorado women."

Boo hoo.

Oh well. I'm healthy. I have two amazing, healthy, happy kids that I'm incredibly proud of. Ian and I are still married after ten years and have a wonderful relationship and an awesome life together. We both have jobs when so many others don't. All of our parents are incredible grandparents. I have so many friends from childhood, high school and college that I know would be here tomorrow if I needed them. So....Yay me, yay us...maybe 35 isn't so bad - look at what all I have!

I'm looking forward to spending my 35th birthday with my college girlfriends later this month in Hot Springs. All five of us turn 35 in the months of July, August and September. Can't wait to see those girls.

Summa, Summa, Summatime!

Maggie's Softball Team

Pearl Street in Boulder, CO

Driving home from Estes Park, CO

Estes Park, CO

Movie Night across the street on our neighbor's garage

Movie Night with neighbor girls

Rockies Game (wearing coats in mid-June)

Rockies Game

Water fun in the yard

Wow, we've been busy this summer! I can't believe June is almost over, then July will be here and then Maggie starts back to school the first week in August. Lucy is starting her 4K class this week at pre-school. Here are some pictures of us doing some fun stuff this summer.