Birthday Bash for Lil Monkey

Today we had a birthday party for Blake's 5th birthday which is on September 30th.  We have been calling him our lil monkey lately since he is so energetic and climbs on everything.  We used that as the inspiration for his party.  This is the first year we have made our cake.  Usually we just buy them from the bakery since that is a lot less stressful, but we got brave this year (and saved some money too!).

Blake was really concentrating on his monkey.

They kinda look alike!

 

Madison added earrings to her monkey.

  For some reason Brady's monkey was sad.

 We were happy with how they turned out!

 One more candle to go....

 Blake with his cousins and buddies Dalton and Dawson!

 Madison was a great big sister and read his cards to him.

This was a fun puzzle to put together!

 

 This smiles sums up the day!

Camping weekend.

Just FYI - Blake still have TWO legs.  His leg must be bent back.  Doesn't it look like he just has one leg?!?!

First Day of School - 8/26/10

Brady's first day at Edison School.  He is a 4th grader this year.

Madison's first day in second grade at Lincoln School.

Blake's first day at Catch a Star which is a preschool in the morning and daycare in the afternoon.  He doesn't need a backpack this year, but he may carry one anyway just so he'll stop talking about it!

Getting this picture of the 3 of them was a challenge that day.

Piano started back up on Tuesday.  Brady started about 2 1/2 years ago.  This was Madison's first year.  The teacher was pleased with how quickly she catches on!

Madison had homework to take on the second day of school.  She had a do a personality box.  She included St. Basil Cathedral from Moscow as one of her important photos!

We realized that Madison and I had the same colors on on Wednesday.  So we posed for a couple of mother daughter photos!

More to come

I should have more pictures to come this week.  As I was preparing my camera for the upcoming big week, I found these two photos.  This is Brady's first time ever mowing the lawn.  He did a great job and thought it was fun (I am sure that will change soon!).  I have no idea what the helmet is on his head, but I love that covers his ears and eyes!  It takes Justin about 6 hours by himself to mow our yard so it will be a huge help to have Brady lending a hand!

And here is our little diva playing dress up and giving us one of her performances!

Thursday, July 29th

This was our last day with the True’s. It was hard to say goodbye. It was so great of them to open up their home to us and be such great hosts and tour guides. We miss them a lot! Just to make sure we were completely worn out before coming home we decided to go to Elitch Gardens which is owned by Six Flags. We had a good time but were exhausted! Ohhh and to make the day even better Justin and I both had two mishaps. The first happened at the very end of our time at Elitch Gardens. The kids wanted to ride the carousel with Blake before heading out. It clearly says on the sign Absolutely No Food or Drink on the ride. I had not planned on riding the carousel, but I wanted to help Blake get situated. I had put my shake I was drinking in the back pocket of my backpack. After getting Blake on his horse I saw a piece of paper on the floor so I bent over to pick it up, and the next thing I knew the shake popped out of my backpack and spilled out on the wooden floor of the nearly 100 year old carousel. I was horrified. I quickly went and told the worker and ran to grab napkins. I heard someone say in a snide voice, “The sign said no food or drink!” They were right! I ran back with tons of napkins and about had it cleaned up when the worker said, “I’m sorry but the maintenance crew says we have to get everyone off and have the spill cleaned.” I told him that I had it cleaned and to please not make all of these kids get off. I felt horrible. Of course I got a “the rules are the rules” look and he got on the speaker and told everyone they had to get off because someone spilt a milkshake. I told Brady, Madison, and Blake I was so sorry. They were sweet and said, “Mom, you didn’t know it was going to happen. It’s ok.” I overheard one lady tell the worker that I had done a great job cleaning it up and that there was no reason to not run the ride, but I got some dirty looks from other people. Ugh!

Then at 8:40 p.m. we pulled into a little town of Stasburg, CO to eat dinner at a cafe called the Patio. Justin was pulling through the parking lot and misjudged the height of the camper and hit their roof. It splintered some of the wooden shingles and made a horrible noise. He offered to fix it for them, but they declined the offer!

Wednesday, July 28th

We all had to pack up and leave as there was a vacation renter coming in later in the day. We decided to ride horses before heading to Denver. Madison rode on Star. Brady was on Sundance. Justin and Blake were on Max. I rode Phoebe. Sandy was on J.J. and we don’t know the name of Ryan and Bodi’s horse.
After the horseback ride we went to the Air Force base. Ryan is a pilot in the Air Force and Sandy was a navigator. She now investigates any time there is a crash or mechanical problem or accident involving an air craft. They downplay how important their jobs are, but we were honored to get an inside peak at a C130 that they have both flown in.

And then after that we went to a Colorado Rockies game in downtown Denver.  Justin ended up hitting a telephone pole guidewire in the parking lot with the camper!  We are just lucky it didn't bring down the entire phone line!! It was a busy day!

Tuesday, July 27th

We called this our chill day. We went to a park and everyone but me got in the Arkansas River and floated for awhile. Even Summit (Ryan and Sandy’s dog) got in on the action. The two snakes that we spotted in the river were a bit much for me to take. Brady and Blake both caught fish which Brady cleaned and we cooked up for supper!