my birthday

So I am a little behind on blogging. My birthday was last month. I turned 36, in case you are wondering. Feeling very old, but I'll get into that some other time. Old, but happy. For now, pictures!

My birthday was the Friday before the Lion's birthday, so I brought Spider-Man cupcakes to his preschool. They were red velvet cupcakes. They turned all of the kids' teeth purple.


Since it was my birthday, Miss Heather whipped out their cardboard birthday cake and the kids sang "Happy Birthday" to me. It was very cute. Then we all sang to the Lion. And ate Spider-Man cupcakes.


That night we went to dinner at the Wazee Supper Club in Denver and had my favorite pizza. Jonathan's sister, Mary, and his mom were visiting, and I think Susan and I got a little tipsy over a pitcher of beer. She'll deny it, but I was there. I saw her rosy cheeks. I'm just telling it like it was.

Jonathan made me a tres leches cake. Here he is topping it with fresh raspberries:


Here's Lion admiring the raspberries:


And then, possibly my favorite part of the day. Sitting with Jonathan, sipping coffee, painfully full of delicious pizza and cake, feeling utterly happy and loved:


That was my birthday. I had a great day. So far, 36 is feeling pretty good!

visitors

Jonathan's mom (aka Susan) (aka Grammy) was here for two weeks.


We had a lovely visit with her. She got to volunteer at Lion's preschool several times. She went to Blue's Valentine's Day party and had lunch with her at school one day.


She was here for my birthday and Lion's birthday and even got to be here when one of Blue's teeth fell out! It is very hard being so far away from our family. I have lots of guilt over our decision to move here and take the children so far away from everyone. Visits like that help.

My mom comes out next. She'll be here next weekend. I can't wait to see her!

tick tock

Sigh. So I have not blogged in a long time. A very very long time. I have been busy, yes, but mostly I have been battling an epic case of homesickness. And have just been blue and not in a sharing mood. That is all.

But I am staying busy. This semester I am taking two evening classes, Algebra and Pathophysiology, and I am really enjoying both of them. (Yes, even the Algebra!) But it is rough, being in school four nights a week...

We are still number four on the list to adopt. I hate waiting.

And the kids have grown up practically overnight.  Lion  is in preschool now. And he told me he likes it "a little bit."


Blue turned six a few weeks ago and is in first grade.


She is gorgeous, high-spirited, loving school and she told me the other night that I am lame. I feel like I am grasping onto their childhood with both sweaty hands and it is just slipping away from me...

Denver Botanic Gardens at Chatfield

father's day camping trip

For Father's Day we went camping in Rocky Mountain National Park.

our campsite

We went for a hike on Cub Lake Trail. It was gorgeous.


But unfortunately it was dusk and even with bug spray on, the mosquitoes were as bad as back in Virginia so we eventually turned back. We saw a bull elk on the way back, though. It was very close to us and it lifted his huge head and just stared at us. It was a bit eerie...

I have to admit, it was not as perfect as our camping trip last year. Lion was a little moody. That made all of us a little moody...

Wait! Is that a smile?!

And he woke up at around 4 am because he had gotten out of his sleeping bag. I think he said he got out of it because he was hot. But whatever the reason, Lion woke us all up screaming and crying because he was cold. He was sitting in the corner of the tent over by our duffel bags (perhaps planning to grab more clothes?) and wouldn't get back into his sleeping bag. Or let me put him in his sleeping bag. Or touch him. Or look at him. He just screamed and cried. I thought Jonathan was going to implode.

I finally got him to be quiet and get back into his sleeping bag. I fell immediately back asleep, but Jonathan was wide awake so he just stayed up until the rest of us got up. Not a very fun time.

Lion was pretty crabby in the car on the way home, too. And Jonathan and I decided to go a long way home. We wanted to drive Trail Ridge Road, since it is closed most of the year and had just opened up again for the summer.

the view from Trail Ridge Road

It was gorgeous, but Lion was such a pill! There was one point where our car was ridiculously high up on this windy road with no guard rail and Lion wouldn't stop yelling and I just looked at his angry little face and I was feeling extremely carsick and therefore clutching a lukewarm can of Coke in my hand and I just seriously wanted to pour my Coke all over him. Sigh. Not a great Mommy moment for me. I didn't, of course, and I am appalled that I even felt that way, but there you have it.

We saw this camera-shy moose on the way home by the side of the road! He is the first moose I have ever seen outside of a zoo.

Anyway. I hope Jonathan had a decent Father's Day. We all survived. And we are all still speaking to each other! We are camping again in August so we'll see how that goes...

garden

Jonathan and the kids are planting our vegetable garden! Last year we grew tomatoes, squash, zucchini, peppers, pumpkins, cilantro, mint and basil. We would have had strawberries, too, but the damn bunnies ate them all. There is an abundance of bunnies in Colorado. At first I thought they were cute. Now I just think they are pests.

This year the strawberries and the mint grew back. And we bought another pumpkin plant and more tomatoes and cilantro and a loooooot more basil. We eat a lot of tomatoes and basil. My grandfather would approve. Last year the kids would just pick the cherry tomatoes and eat them while they were playing in the back yard.


I would have liked to have gotten some lettuce, too, but, like I said, the damn bunnies...

brave new boy

We left Colorado in May and headed to Disney World with a little boy. A little boy who hates being off of the ground. Who does not go on carousels or swings or down slides.

We left Disney World with a Lion who has grown up so much!

Here he is going down a slide:

Riding a carousel:

Going down a water slide:

If you look closely, you can see him riding his very first roller coaster:

It was an amazing week, watching him evolve. On the very first day in the Magic Kingdom, we walked into the park and saw a show at Cinderella's castle called "Dreams Come True." The witch from "Sleeping Beauty" appeared on stage and Lion freaked out. He grabbed my hand and dragged me away, crying and just seriously freaking out. I brought him over to some bushes so the witch couldn't see him. He told me later he thought she was going to turn into a dragon (like she does in the movie) and breathe fire on everyone.

That was the first day. And it was a huge reminder to all of us that Lion is only four and that we should not try to talk him into any ride or attraction that might be too scary for him.

But by the end of the week, Lion chose to try so many new things. And he loved them all.

This last picture sums up Lion's adventure in Disney World perfectly. Climbing, exploring on his own. Headed away from Mommy.

Disney World

Mother's Day

It is Mother's Day and I am having a lovely day. The kids (and Jonathan) made me French toast this morning for breakfast and gave me their cards. Two big events there: this was the first time the Lion cracked eggs and he spelled his name all by himself in the card!


We went on a short hike in Golden Gate Canyon State Park with Mabel and tonight we are going to Cinzzetti's for some delicious Italian food.


I am having the perfect Mother's Day. But I also cannot help wondering about Mother's Day next year... Will we have three children? Has our son been born already?

If you have been born already, little man, wherever you are, whoever you are, I am thinking of you today.

dinosaur ridge

We took the kids to Dinosaur Ridge today.

I have been wanting to go there ever since we moved to Colorado, but for some reason or other we have never gone before today. It is only about half an hour's drive away so it is pretty pathetic that we hadn't been there before. What a fun day!

Dinosaur Ridge is where the very first Stegosaurus fossils were found in 1877.


It was a bit chilly and cloudy and we were supposed to get rained on. So the kids ate their peanut butter and jelly sandwiches and we waited to ride a little tour bus up the ridge.


Thank goodness we opted to take the bus! It is a very short walk up the ridge, but the tourguide explained everything to us and I think if we had just trekked up the ridge on our own we would have missed some amazing sights.

These are some Iguanodon footprints. They are from the late Jurassic period.


Here is a gigantic Diplodocus footprint. See how the layers of rock sink down where the ground gave way under the weight of the dinosaur? So incredible.

But I think my favorite part of the tour was learning about the history of the land. We saw ripples in the rock and scratches made by crocodile claws because Colorado used to be underwater.

Lion's favorite part was riding on the bus. And Blue liked this colorful dinosaur: