Dex is 2

On October 21st, Declan turned 2. It also happened to be a free day at the Denver Zoo and the weather was perfect so we headed there bright and early.

Declan was the most excited about seeing the elephants. Notice he is holding one in his hand. (The new exhibit they are building looks amazing. Can't wait until it's completed)

Later that evening once Daddy got home, he opened gifts. One of them was a baby, to help prepare him for his new little brother or sister.

What a fun 2 years it's been! Declan is a very busy boy, and it takes all of us to keep track of him most days. One of my very favorite things is coming home and having him yell, "Mommy!" with the biggest smile, and then him running up for a hug.

Happy Birthday, sweet boy! We love you so much, and you brighten every day with your amazing personality.

Halloween '10

The traditional pumpkin carving:

Zane wanted nothing whatsoever to do with touching the pumpkin guts. Declan dove right in, though:

Our church has a fall fest every year and we always take the kids. This year it was on Friday and there was a record turnout: and estimated 8,000-10,000 kids. Inside the church they have inflatables, a cake walk, and many games. Outside they have a trunk-or-treat. Anyone who wants to can decorate their car and hand out candy. The youth groups always have several cars, too. This year Brenna and Chase were with the same group and their theme was snowboarding/skiing:

Conner's group did a Christmas theme. His elf hat danced and played Jingle Bell Rock:

The three younger ones got to walk around and collect all the loot.

It was a very fun night with friends:

On Halloween, we went to my brother-in-law's house for a BBQ, then went out trick-or-treating. My kids have WAY too much candy. We'll give them a few days to enjoy and then let Scott take it to work.

It was fun, but I'm very happy Halloween is over and we can move on to planning for Thanksgiving.

Pikes Peak

The summer rushed by so fast, I realized we hadn't made it to the mountains at all except for going up to my parents' house. So on Sunday, despite the dismal weather forecast, we headed down to Colorado Springs to drive up Pikes Peak. I had been there before, but for Scott and the kids it was the first time.

I'm so glad we didn't let the cloudy/rainy weather stop us. Once we started climbing, the clouds ended up below us and we had clear, sunny skies. The clouds also made for an amazing view.

One more thing marked off our summer list. I'm almost ready for fall to arrive.

big trucks

Every Christmas we give the kids 2 coupons each: one for a dinner out with a parent and one for an activity. This year Aiden decided to forego the restaurant and do two activities instead.

He and I saw "How to Train Your Dragon" a couple months ago, and the other thing he really wanted to do was see a monster truck show. It turned out we missed the big one that comes to Denver at the beginning of the year, so I was afraid he'd have to think of something else.

Then Conner saw that at the Adams County Fairgrounds this year they had a monster truck event. It is really close to where we live and pretty darn cheap too.

So last Thursday Scott hurried home from work, ate a quick dinner and told Aiden to come with him. He had no idea where they were going. Scott said he was pretty surprised and very excited when they got there and he realized what it was. To make it even sweeter -- when they were in line to buy tickets, Scott was given a free one courtesy of Rocky's Auto. So the whole night only cost $8.

And the pictures are priceless. =)

This is him with one of the drivers:

park and bowling

We have good friends that we meet up with once a week in the summer. For our first outing this year, we met at a new park for lunch.

It's a great park with fun water features but, being new, it was very crowded. The kids had fun anyway; the little ones in the water, the bigger ones playing frisbee.

Afterward, to escape the heat, we used our free bowling coupons from AMF.

the one-armed owl

On a recent Saturday, we visited a nearby nature preserve that was hosting free tours. We arrived one hour before it closed since I didn't check the hours ahead of time -- oops!

So our time there was brief, but Zane was able to devour a hot dog:

and we got to meet and hear the tale of Frosty the owl.

He was initially hit by a car and the family that hit him took him home, where their dog attacked him and ripped his wing off. They then decided to place him in their freezer. ?? After a couple days, they finally called somebody and he was rescued. So they gave him the name Frosty. He was just beautiful with those huge, golden eyes.

I was able to take a nice shot of my boys:

I'm hoping to take advantage of more free activities this summer. If you know of any, please share. =)

Summer!

I finally feel like our summer has arrived. Last week we finished up Options and the kids work here at home. Over the holiday weekend, Scott took the kids up to my parents house in the mountains and I had the house ALL TO MYSELF. I got a lot of cleaning done and it stayed clean for 3 whole days! Until they arrived back home. LOL I also got some good reading time in, which was very nice.

By Monday, though, the house felt lonely and WAY too quiet. I was ready to welcome them home when they arrived in the afternoon. Brenna is staying with her grandparent until next weekend, so it's all boys this week!

We had our first summer dinner on the grill and spent the evening enjoying the outdoors and doing some yard work.

Yesterday we went to the first of the cheap kids movies. We saw Charlotte's Web. I talked Aiden and Zane into posing by the water in front of the theater.

I'm always looking for things for the kids to do around the house in summer. I saw this idea for sidewalk paint on Pink and Green Mama's blog and we tried it today.

It worked great and Aiden spent a good hour painting away. Here is his first creation. Gotta love that I was mentioned. =)

Next time I'll work on making the colors darker and getting more of a variety of colors. But this was definitely an easy idea to implement.

Then tonight we went and watched Conner and Scott at their weekly bowling league.

So that's our summer off to a good start!