New School

So this week was Wes & Mia's first week at their new school. We decided to move them to this new school because they were pretty much at the top of where they could go at the old school and they were starting to misbehave. The new school is right in our neighborhood and is an offical "school". They are in a private pre-k program and are required to wear uniforms. At first I wasn't quite sure how they would react to uniforms, but after this first week I can see that they really like it. They both said how cool it was that other kids were wearing the same shirt as them. The great thing for Chris & I is how tired they have been this last week. Our kids are pretty good sleepers to begin with, but this new school is really tiring them out. We put them to bed and usually there is a little bit of talking between them, sometimes we have to go in there a couple of times to get them to settle down......not this past week. In fact a couple of nights Wes crawled into bed before Chris was finished reading bedtime stories......that NEVER happens. Anyways, so far so good. Below is a picture of them in their uniforms, and the photo with Santa was from a lunch their new school hosted complete with a visit from Santa.

I do have some sad news to share. Many of you may know that my father has been really sick over the past year. He was placed in a nursing home about a year ago and has had many close calls since then. Yesterday morning he lost his battle. I hope you are somewhere that you feel better now dad - you will be missed. So, if you can when you read this, please take a moment to put some prayers out there for my dad.

Happy 4th Wes & Mia

Well, Wes & Mia are officially 4 today. We had a fun party yesterday to celebrate with friends. They got tons of cool new toys and cuddley jammies that they can't wait to wear tonight. Thanks to everyone who came to celebrate with us. Here are a few pics from the party.....

Dude Wheres my Car

Been a while since that last blog. The hard part is that I cant remember what has happened since we last checked in. I know there has been a lot of yelling, kids not listening, timeouts, go to your rooms and wine, beer and ice cream. People say we are so lucky to have had twins. At times I would agree, but when the kids are being bad, not so much. People with just one kid or when they have them with a couple years or more apart have it much easier in my opinion. The kids used to play and get along great. Now they like to get into trouble together or fight. They know what buttons to push for each other, when they create a mess it is twice as big, twice as much kids screaming, twice as many he/she hit me. Trying times sometimes, but that is why we have the wine, beer and ice cream included in the list. I think after the kids bedtime, it always tastes so much better after a bad day.

Mia and Wes had their second sleepover a couple of weeks ago. Our friends the Nuetzels brought their two girls over for some cookie making, movies, playtime and overall good times. They all got along great and had a great time. They played upstairs in the loft and then worked their way to the basement for some pool and foosball. I'm sure Tim and Reynee enjoyed a whole evening without kids and being able to sleep in in the morning. The best part of the whole sleepover thing is that we get to drop our kids over there for a night next time....cant wait.

My parents came over for a visit for a couple of weeks. Always good to have them spend some quality time. My dad assumed him usual position on the corner of the kitchen bar. I think we will have to have that chair replaced sometime soon since it is getting worn out from all his sitting and reading a book on it. My dad was able to waterproof the ballasters on our deck and the adirondack chairs. I dont think the deck was done since he did it last. I put that on Di's honeydo list at the beginning of spring, but she never bothered to do it. She was more interested in shoe shopping. Next time I will have to entice her with a shoe shopping trip if she does it.

The basement is 100% finished finally. Yeah. So I decided to finish the drywall in the garages and have been working here and there on them. I almost have the first coat of mud on all the joints and seams. I'm hoping to be able to finish up all the mudding over turkey weekend and be ready to paint.

Speaking of turkeys, the kids birthday is coming up next weekend. Having a big 4th bday party on saturday. I volunteered to smoke something on my fabulous smoker, but di said we didnt have to smoke everytime we have people over. She dont know.

Halloween wasnt too long ago. Wes was Elmo and Mia was a purple fairy with wings and all. They had a great time collecting candy and we promptly let them keep a small bag a piece and di took the rest into work.

Funny story....I had a recall on my truck so we were all headed to pick it up from the dealer. On the way there, Mia asked when we were getting on the ship. We were both like, what are you talking about? She said ship....arent we going to the dealership?

We went to MO on vacation to visit my college roommate Skip and his wife Beth. They bought some more acres and are building a house. It has a great view over Shoal Creek. The house was supposed to be finished so we could stay there, but the Contractor wasnt able to get it done on time. Last I checked, it still isnt finished. The 5 month schedule has turned into 10....hopefully they will soon be able to celebrate with a double wide sacrifice and roast some wieners and marshmallows in the flames.

Our annual Octepenfest was a grand success. We had around 50 adults and kids there. I smoked a couple of briskets and a couple of pork butts. Had a couple of 5 gallon kegs filled with beer from the local brewery just up the road. All the food turned out fabulous and I think everyone enjoyed themselves. We didnt have any food left. So if you ever want to come on out and have some good BBQ with us, it is always the first weekend in October. Consider yourself invited.

This is for my brother Brian..... DUDE !!!!! Inside joke, but him and his kids will get it.

That is all for now....Tepen's out....

Trick or treatin' Tepens...look out Tallgrass !!!

Elephants and Cats can play baseball

First snow of the season

Mia and Wes really like our new babysitter

How could the Cardinals not win the WS when you have a pink princess rooting for you...

End of Summer Fun

Holly cow, the kids are soooo in to the water slide this year. It took them a while to warm up to it. Last year they had a pretty good time on it, so we thought this year would be even better. However, the first couple of times we set it up, neither one of them really wanted anything to do with it. So we didn't set it up until recently again and they were like crazy people on it. I don't know what flipped the switch for them, but I'm glad it happened. The last time the slide was out, it produced about an hour of nothing but laughing.

Over Labor Day weekend we went to this cool little amusment park called The North Pole. It is a Christmas themed park geared for little kids with lots of rides their size and complete with a Santa Clause. We all had a great time riding the rides. It was the first Santa that Wes didn't run away from too. I think we will definietly go back next year.

I'm a Big Kid Now

So we finally got the kids out on their new, well new to us, bikes that we scored at a community garage sale a few weeks ago. We decided for the first outting to head down to our mailbox and back....about a block and a half from the house. The kids were soooo excited. They did pretty well for their first time. Mia really had it figured out by the time we were on the way back. Wes was having a few issues as he is not as coordinated as Mia, but seemed to be doing alright. Here is a photo of them after the big ride.....

So yesterday we decided to have another go at riding down to the mailbox and back. Mia raced to get on her shoes and grab her helmet.....the anticipation of adventure was clearly in her eyes. Wes on the other hand ran out of the room saying NO! After much prodding, he confessed he was scared of his big bike, so we put him on his tri-cycle and he was happy as a clam again. Maybe next time Wes :)

I remembered

So summer is officially in full swing here in beautiful Colorado. We had a long cold spring, but the heat is on now.....guess we'll get to see how well those solar panels are working and if they are gonna save us some big bucks on the old electricity bill.

So let's see, what has happened since the last post...... We drove back to St. Louis at the end of May for a wedding. Chris' brother David and his lovely bride Beth tied the knot. A good time was had by all. I regret not fitting in a little euchre with my arch rival Uncle Tom and his side-kick Stoneface(Chris' dad)........it's game on the next time I visit! Mia managed to stick her finger in David and Beth's wedding cake before the official cake cutting with pictures happened. Sorry about that guys - but honestly, after having had a generous piece of that wedding cake, I have to say I don't blame her for diving in. That was probably the best wedding cake I have ever had. Kudos!

I also flew back to Ohio to visit with my dad and grandma. They are both in the same nursing home for broken hips. Dad has good days and bad days. He has a slow recovery due to diabetes. I am hoping he will continue to get stronger. My grandma, who is 95 years old, seems to be doing a bit better than my dad. The staff seems to think that she may be a candidtate for assissted living. Please keep them both in your thoughts....they need all the positive energy that they can get. And thanks to my fabulous Uncle Jo for handling the situation single handedly. I did get to see a few old friends during my visit. It was good to catch up with everyone from Shadyside. Also a big thanks to my friend Sharon and her family for letting me stay at their house and drive their car around on my trip. You guys are the best.

My friend Deni came out for a visit about 2 weeks ago. I took took some desperately needed time off at work and Deni and I did whatever we wanted for a week. We even managed to fit in a trip to Santa Fe with 2 other friends, Reynee and Andrea. I got a couple of cool new things on the trip. It was great to be able to relax a little and have some girlie time.

Last weekend for Father's Day we took the kids to a new park. Then, we drove around a huge community garage sale and scored some sweet new big kids bikes for Wes and Mia. one of the bikes needed a new tire. Chris just fixed that and we haven't had a chance to get them on the bikes yet, but I'll have to snap some pics when we do. I don't anticipate things to go that smoothly for Wes. You see, right after we bought the bikes we went to a sporting store to get helmets. They had a big row of bikes set up, and after circling them for a few minutes, the kids both hopped up on a couple of them. Mia picked a cute little pink princess bike and drove it around the store pretty successfully. Wes, on the other hand, climbs up on a big 16 " bike. He's all perched up there as happy as a lark.......and then you guessed it.......without even pedeling the bike, falls off of it and gives himself a big scratch next to his eye and a soon to be bruise. I'm like really?? We're not even riding the darn thing yet and you manage to pile it up right here in the store. Maybe I need to get a big roll of bubble wrap for him and mummifly him up before we send him out on it.

So about the title......no, it's not about remembering to finally post a blog. As many of you read last year about this time, Chris claims I forgot our wedding anniversary. I still say technically I didn't, but we will never agree on the truth of the story. Anyways, this year I was sure to remember.....I even had the card several days in advance. My friend Joleen came over last night to watch the kids for us and we went out for a big fancy dinner. Happy 6 years babe.

When I grow up....

So, the cutest thing happend last week. Every day on the way to and from the kid's daycare, we drive past this Walgreens that is being constructed. Every day we comment on the new building and take notice of what has changed since the last time we saw it. The other day as we were driving home Wes noticed that some of the windows were installed. From time to time the kids play the old "when I grow up" game and name all of the typical stuff that they would like to be.....fireman, trashman, doctor, etc. Well after seeing the guy putting in the shiney windows at the Walreen's, Wes declared that when he grows up he wants to put windows in buildings. And then the cute part happened.....after a short pause, Mia says "mom, when I grow up I want help Wes put up windows so he wont be lonley at work." How cute is that??

Happy Easter

Wow, has it really been 3 months since the last blog entry?? I've been catching a lot of heat about it recently so I thought it was time to get on here and do the deed.

So what's been happening to the Colorado Tepen's for the past few months? Well, we had an extremely mild winter out here this year. Besides the last blog post, I think we only had measureable snow like one or two other times. The mountains on the other hand have had a record snowfall season. Crazy how that works out here.

Spring has been on the cool side so far. In fact, the Easter bunny had to make an early visit this year for the egg hunt as we are actually expecting snow tonight - yikes! Wes and Mia had a pretty good time finding eggs in the backyard this afternoon. Although they have been going through a pretty rough time in the behavior department recently. And they were in rare form when they got up from nap today. Almost lost the couple of new things that the Easter bunny brought them because of the fighting. So my question is, who the heck named the "two's" as being so "terrible". I mean, the two's were a breeze for us.......the three's on the other hand........I don't even know what to say about the three's. It's like one minute they are laughing and having a great time and saying funny things, and the next they are hitting each other and screaming and crying. I'm sure all of you out there with kids can relate......just picture those moments with 2 kids at exactly the same age......just trying to catch a little sympathy here.

Wes and Mia have been really making leaps in the vocabulary department. A couple of weeks ago we enrolled them in a phonics program through their daycare. They have lots of 1 on 1 time with their teacher and they are learning all the sounds that the letters make. They are especially good at recognizing other words that have any of the letters of their names in it.

The kiddos have been pretty healthy this year. We had a short bout of the throw up's in December, and then nothing until last week when they decided it would be fun to have Strep throat. Chris and I managed to avoid it, and they are feeling back to normal now thank goodness.
Chris and I have been doing pretty good too. Chris has been trying to finish up the bar facing for a few weeks now. He is almost ready to hammer the new facing in place and then I'll be able to get down there and stain it. We will post final pics of the basement once it is all finished. It has turned out even better than I had thought so far.

Well, I'll put a few pics on now and I promise to try and not let the blog go for so long with out a new post. Happy Easter everyone!

Wes and Mia after the hunt.

Wes' new dump truck and Mia's new fairy dress from Grandma and GrandpaTepen.

Police woman Mia and Fireman Wes to the rescue!

Let There Be Snowmen!

About a week ago we got our first measurable snowfall here in Denver. I know, you say "what! Denver hasn't had any snow yet?? Don't you get tons of snow out there!?" The answer is, no, we do not get a ton of snow in Denver. The mountains on the other hand usually get hammered with storms and we rarely get any in town. We had one little snow during the first week of November, and until last week, we seriously have had exactly zero snowfall here in town. Anyways, the kids were sooo excited because they desperately wanted to make a snowman after seeing "Frosty the Snowman" for the first time. Unfortunately, the kids were only able to help do a little shoveling before heading back indoors. The temps were in the single didgets and the wind was really blowing hard, so it was just too darn cold for them to be outside for that long. A few days after the snow storm the temps finally got up in the 30's, so Chris bundled up the kiddos and headed out to the front yard to craft our first snowman. Wes and Mia decided that a 3 ball snowman was lame and that only cool snowmen were constructed of 4 snowballs. I had just enough time to snap a few photos of the snowman before Wes and Mia went all Hannibal Lecter on him.....I think Mia started by eating his nose, then Wes started punching him and in about 30 seconds our cool snowman had been mowed down to a measly blob. Poor snowman! I guess we will have another chance to make more snowmen as we are getting another storm here today. It has been snowing all morning and is very cold. Anyways, enjoy the photos!