Colorado Family Trip

This has been a very busy month for us! Besides moving to our new home, we also spent a week on vacation in Breckenridge with Amy's side of the family.

The best part of the trip was being with all of our brothers, sisters, nieces and nephews and of course, time with Nana and Paca. Yes, Colorado was beautiful, but we are kinda spoiled living in the Northwest and actually think its prettier here than in CO. We also have the luxury of sleep when residing at home... not so when we are just about anywhere other than home! I'm not really sure why that is, but even my pediatrician said that's just how it goes with little ones {sigh}. I guess it will a few more years before we have a 'real' vacation with our kids!

Highlights from our trip:

White Water Rafting! Amy's first time... not Jeremy's. It was super fun! Our guide, Randy Eddie, as we called him, was quite knowledgeable and entertained our thrill seeking ideas such as rafting backwards through some of the rapids and some other dangerous stunts. He also let Paco (aka Jeremy) ride on the front end of the raft through that last rapid. Despite the dreary start to the day that you see here in this picture, once we got down to the river, it was GORGEOUS and warm through the entire 3 hours that we were on the river.

One of Colden's favorite activites was riding the Gondola up the mountain. When it made stops, he did not want to get off! At the top, Jeremy and I each took a turn taking him up the ski lift to the top where we rode the alpine slide with him. He went a lot faster with daddy than with mommy. They made a lot of money off of the family at $15 per ride!

Second to the gondola and alpine slides was playing with the pool balls at the vacation home! Rolling the balls into the baskets and pulling them out never got old.

For Mom's birthday, we took her to a ranch to ride... this wasn't a trail ride. We were supposed to ride in formation, however, that wasn't super successful! It was a lot of fun... we took of cantering and galloping through the woods where it was safe for the horses to run.

A great trip with many memories... good to be back to a normal sleep schedule in our new home!

Blakely - 4 Months Old

Even thought I've come to expect that time with our little guy will fly by and he is still growing up too fast. I wish I could freeze him right now as he is at such a sweet age! He has started grabbing his feet--which is one of my favorite stages-- cannot keep his hands out of his mouth and is just so happy. He also sleeps a lot, which gives me a break and time for just Colden and I.

I captured this video of our happy little 'Blakers' last week...

4 month stats (really taken at 4 1/2 months)

26.5 inches tall - 95th percentile

16 pounds

Our long and lean guy is on track to be the tallest in the family (so far)!

Goodbye Alley

We are saying goodbye to our second home...

We are excited to be moving into a new home about a quarter mile away from our current home. We were blessed to be able to sell our home very quickly (3 weeks) which was a relief for me wanting to have the house perfect while keeping busy with my two boys. Our new house is spacious, has a nice big yard and sits on the greenbelt! The only thing it's missing is a pool and some sisters to live next door!

Today, garbage day, I am reminded of how thankful I am to be moving to a house that is NOT on an alley! We have 3 big WM trucks that have to go down the alley each way--that's 6 very loud and long disruptions that inevitably occur every Friday during nap time!

Sorry, I don't have any pictures of our new house yet... I'll be sending out our new contact information within a few weeks and will have a picture or two to share at that time.

My Big Boys

Colden got to do one of his favorite things this morning... get his hair cut. This time was different though... he didn't just get the trim around the edges... he got a real hair cut. It makes him look a lot older. He told me "Cole handsome" all morning. Yes, Colden, you are SO handsome!

Even little Blakely is getting big--too fast. He started playing in his walker this week. I fully expected to put him in and let him enjoy the lights and sounds... didn't even think he would move himself. I was wrong! He can already move around!

Better than the lights and sounds is his brother who thinks he is showing Blakely how to do it, but really Blakely just loves watching Colden!

Making Jam

One of my favorite hobbies in the summer is picking berries and making jam. My friends and neighbors all like it too :)

My hobby started three years ago with wild blackberries when my mom came to visit. Last year I picked blueberries and made 6 small jars of blueberry jam. It was so precious, I only gave away 3 jars and that was tough to do since it was our favorite of the jams. So, this year, despite everything we have going on right now, I managed to can 18 jars of blueberry jam. It doesn't seem like that much with as many PB + J sandwiches that Colden and I eat. I have to admit that these are the first berries that I've canned that were not hand picked... but I couldn't miss the opportunity and it wasn't realistic to pick, can jam, move to a new house and leave for vacation all in 1 weeks time!