To Blog or Not to Blog

Well, I'm told that I have to blog. Evidentally, one of Diane's good friends daughters was complaining about not having updated the blog in a while. I told her to tell her that if they would have come out here to visit like they promised (twice in the past two years) they would be updated with everything. We are still waiting for their promised visit.

What is new in the Colorado Tepen's world. Absolutely nothing. The basement is still not finished. The kids are still the kids and believe it or not, Diane is still the same.

I was upstairs folding laundry and looked out the window this afternoon and couldnt believe what I saw outside in our backyard. Diane was holding a bag of dog poop....you say, big deal; you have dogs so I'm sure you see that all the time. Well, in the past six years or so, I dont think she has picked it up a single time. I know for sure that is true since we've lived in this house. I'm hoping this becomes a habit for her.

The kids are growing like weeds. They constantly want to be outside. It has finally been warming up enough outside to let them out of the friendly confines inside the house. They love to go into the backyard and play in the sandbox and kick the ball. They both like to kick the ball, whether it is back and forth with me or just down the hill where they will chase it and bring it back up to do all over again.

How many bites does it take to eat an M&M? For most people it is just a single bite. For Mia it is usually three or four. She likes to enjoy each one as much as she can. In our war against diapers, we have been enticing them to use the potty by giving them an M&M each time they use the potty. Mia has been pretty good about it, when she feels like it. Wes, on the other hand really had no interest at all until lately. He would sit on it, but it was more a game than anything. The last couple of evenings, he told us he needed to go potty. We took his diaper off and he went pee. Not just once, but like three or four times in an hour. After the first time he insisted on running around naked, after eating his M...both Mia and Wes call the M&M's just "M's". Since he was naked anyway, I guess he was saving up and several more times he would just head into the bathroom on his own and do his business. We would be sitting here and then hear the potty start singing and them he would run out with the little dish of pee in his hands yelling, I went potty, I went potty, I get a M. Now if we can just get his aim a little better because he always seems to leave a pretty good mess on the floor too.

The kids went to their first baseball game. We took them to opening day of the Rockies game, who won 7-0. Will probably take them to another game when the Cardinals are in town. Deck them out it red and have them cheer for the Cards.

We got another new addition to the family a few weeks ago. I've been wanting to upgrade my smoker to something better than what I had. I started looking around and doing some research into them. Everything I found was very expensive and I had just about given up because I didnt want to spend the more than $2000 to get one. I chanced upon a used one up in South Dakota from a lady whose husband just died from the H1N1 over the winter and needed the money to pay hospital bills. I couldnt believe my luck, but how crazy would people think I am to drive 6 hours each way to go buy a smoker. Thought about two seconds and realized I didnt really care, so I made the drive with my friend Chris to go pick it up. We spent the night and hit the town hard. I cant remember the last time I shut down a bar. Granted, it was only 8:30 in the evening, but they still were closing down. Nothing else was open except for American Legion, so we decided to just get a six pack and head back to the room. What a friday night. I'm not sure what is worse driving through, Kansas or Wyoming....very close call. Tried it out last weekend, cooked up six slabs of ribs and two whole chickens, invited some friends over and had a nice feast. Love the new smoker. It cooks awesome. It burns wood instead of the charcoal like my last one. So, if you are driving into Denver to visit, feel free to load up with a nice load of apple, hickory or oak and come on by.

Nothing else new here. I'll try and update a little more often in the future. Feel free to visit. I could rant and rave about work, my brothers psycho ex-wife who I seem to hate more and more every time I hear her name and several other things but I'm sure you dont want to hear all about that. So, have a great spring and summer and come check out my new smoker.

What Clouds Are Made Of

So lets see, what's been happening at our house recently......

Chris has been working hard on the basement and I'd say we are about 90% finished. It looks really great, I will post a pic at the end to show you some of the progress, but we will put really good ones out when it is completely finished.


My friend Deni came out for a visit. It was so fun to have a few days off work and have some much needed me time with a good friend. The kids really enjoyed Deni's visit. They still seem to be looking around the house for her in hopes that she is just playing a really tough game of hide and seek. And Deni, this is for you......hot dog hot dog hot digity dog!


Wes and Mia are making some progress on the potty training front.....well, I should say Mia is making progress.....but Wes is really happy for her. She seems to be doing well at using the potty pretty regularly. I took them to Target today to buy them big boy/girl underware as an incentive......they seemed pretty jazzed about it......we'll see.


We have all been good and healthy this winter as compared to last. I think the kids being really excited about washing their hands has helped temendously. They have been constantly asking to go to the park recently, but it's been too cold and windy to go. It's been a challange finding things to keep them busy when it's too cold for outside. Can't wait for spring!


Oh, about the title.......So we have this book about clouds, and this little cloud turns into all kinds of shapes and animals, and then at the end joins the other clouds and it rains......so Chris has been trying to teach the kids that clouds are made of water. The other day Chris asked Mia what clouds were made of. Our brilliant daughter replied with confidence that clouds are made of ........BACON! Chris and I both had a laugh and he asked her again what clouds were made of, and this time she said.....WAFFLES! In all fairness, it was 6am and waffles and bacon sounded like a pretty good idea to me too.

Merry Colorado Christmas

So Merry Christmas everyone! We started our day bright and early.....5am to be exact. We kept the kiddos upstairs first thing this morning and did our normal routine so that Chris and I could actually get a shower before the days festivities began. We came downstairs at about 6:30am and the kids dove right in to all that santa had left us. I think by the end they were like "what the heck are we getting all of this stuff for??" They were in complete overload by lunch time and fell asleep for nap in like 5 minutes. They are sleeping right now and I don't expect to hear a peep from them for another half hour....they just had to much new stuff to process. It is a crisp and grey day here in the 20's with probably somewhere in the range of 8" of snow on the ground from the last storm that passed through here. We have a big ole rib roast in the oven for dinner tonight and plan to lounge in our sweatpants all day and eat way too much......life is good :) Here are a few pics from this morning. Hope everyone is having as fun and relaxing of a day as we are......

Look Who's 2...and it isnt me.....

School Girl Charm


















Shit eating Grin



















Cuteness abound
















Probably did not want to see everyone..but tough.

Our Thanksgiving Trip

Sorry it's been a while, time really is flying right by. Since our last blog post we took a trip to St. Louis for Thanksgiving. It was really great to see all of the family. While we were there the kids had their 2nd birthday. Thanks to everyone who helped us celebrate. We had a little celebration with just me, Chris, Wes & Mia before we left for Thanksgiving. Wes and Mia got shiney new tricycles. Here is a pic of them trying them out.....

Then we had a second celebration on Thanksgiving day where Wes and Mia had chocolate pie.....

Then we had a third celebration on their actual birthday where we had pizza and cupcakes - yummy......

Wes and Mia did really great on their first big car trip. We had lots of fun in St. Louis playing with all of their cousins. Thanks for a great holiday....see you all again this summer!

Trick or Treat?......Definitely trick

So I thought I'd post a few quick pics of our Halloween fun and that this would only take a few minutes to put together.......but wait, is that screaming I hear on the baby monitor?? Yes, it is.....that couldn't possibly be our sweet babies - yeah right. I am not joking about what I am about to explain next. So, my lovely husband is in the kitchen making ground vegetable soup (all you Tepen's will know just the tastey soup I am referring to), and I am in the office getting ready to post the Halloween pics, the kids are in their room for nap time. Suddenly, there is screaming being blasted from the monitor. I rush in to the kitchen and ask Chris if he knows what's going on, he doesn't, so I run upstairs to investigate. Let me preface the scene I entered into by saying that the kids are potty training now. At daycare they are teaching them to take off their own diapers and then hop on to the potty. So I open the door to their room and I see both Mia and Wes with their diapers completely off. Mia has poop on both hands and feet. Wes has basically used his bed to wipe the rest of the poop off of his but, so the sheets and blankets are streaked in poop. Oh yes, then there are several stray turds on the floor which happens to also be covered in clothes - clean clothes that were folded neatly in a drawer before the nap. I honestly didn't know where to start. So you ask how our Halloween weekend went.......definitely full of tricks.....tricky babies that is.

We did manage to head over to one of our friends houses last night and joined in some pre trick or treating festivities with them and their neighbors. Thanks to the Nuetzel's for having us over, we all had a great time.

Here are some of our Halloween pics.....

Evolution of the Handshake

Have you ever wondered where the handshake came from...well, I will let you know. If you watch kids on the playground, in your home, at daycare...wherever kids are at it will become quite obvious. When kids meet, the like to lift their shirts and show off their belly buttons. It doesnt matter if it is a boy or girl, black or white, short or tall and skinny or fat. Not only do they like to show you their belly buttons, they like to touch them. They start with touching their own, then they like to reach over and touch their new friends. Sometimes they will reach across and touch each others at the same time. At that point their arms cross each other, just like in a handshake. At some point in time, it was decided that it is improper to touch anothers belly button and it would be more prudent to touch hands instead. I'm thinking it was a women that decided this. Why do I think this you ask, because when was the last time you saw a woman slap another woman on the butt...guys dont give it a second thought....women get appalled.

Here is a funny story from the other day. After daycare the kids usually get some juice and a snack. Their snack for the day happened to be some pretzels and raisins. When I got home from work, Wes was still carrying around a few raisins in his little mits. Why he didnt eat them and was saving them for later I do not know. I like to lay down on the floor and play with the kids while Diane makes dinner or gets into a discussion why I am laying on the floor and not putting an addition on the house or something similar. Wes comes over and starts playing around. He lifts up my shirt and starts poking my belly button. I dont give it a second thought since he is just saying hello and they both like to do it. About fifteen minutes later after Wes was done and had moved on to help out in the kitchen Mia comes over and starts playing with my belly button. She starts saying raisin, raisin, raisin...I'm like, yeah you had raisins for snack. Well, lo and behold, she reaches into my belly button and takes out a raisin. This cracked Diane up. Well, for the next few days Mia would come over lift up my shirt, play with my belly button and say raisin, raisin, raisin...

I dont know about other places, but here in Denver we have been inundated with ED ads. I bet there is one at every series of commercials. My favorite lately has been the little blue pill ad, viagra, with the guy walking down the street, window shopping or on his way to the doctor. He starts a conversation with his reflection on whether he is going to talk to his "doctor" about his little problem. Now stop and think about it for a second, this guy is going to see his doctor about not being able to get a woody and is talking to an imaginary friend who happens to be himself. He obviously has more pressing issues and really should be seeing a psychologist about getting a padded room and a little white jacket.

Guess I got off onto a tangent, according to Diane, this is all about the kids....did you know that the toilet locks also work on blonde girls named Diane....she couldnt get the lid open because it had a toilet lock...maybe I should put one on every toilet, at the very least, it will stop her from clogging the toilet every few days.

Tale of the tsunami....makes you stop and think, what the heck now. Denver doesnt have tsunamis. Diane was acting crazy again, trying to snap me with the towel, running around waving her arms around like Bruce Lee, making crazy karate kids sounds. She stops midstream and says "I'm fast, I'm like a tidal wave" I'm like, tidal waves arent that fast. If you are a tidal wave, then I am a tsunami. She is like, nuh uh...I'm a tsunami. I said, you cant steel my ideas. I then told her there is no way you are a tsunami. You are a big rock, no you are a big flat rock, then expanded to, you are a big flat rock on level ground. That is the speed of Di. So if Diane asks who is more like a tsunami, you will have the whole story and not just her convoluted version about personality.

What is up with the kids? They like to run around like Indians at a camp fire. Wes likes to hit and bite. He spends his evenings, at least most of them, in time out for various offenses. They both go up and down the stairs without any real problems. Their vocabulary increases more and more each day. They know a lot of their colors. A few weeks ago they were both playing with the activity cube. It has bent wires with beads, and all kinds of other activities on it. All of a sudden they both started pushing beads from one side of the wire to another and counting. Simultaneously, they started counting...one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, ten....me and Diane looked at each other and said wow, I didnt know they could count to ten. Then I said, yeah, but I'm pretty sure they skipped nine.

They have both been in toddler beds since they were about 16 months old and stopped falling out after about two weeks. They are still really good sleepers and sleep for ten hours a night. I cant believe they are also still taking two hour naps in the afternoon every day. I'm trying to teach them their left and right. We just started to try and get them potty trained. They have had their potties for a few months now but never really tried to get them to use them. Since daycare doesnt try to potty train them until they enter toddler two, we didnt think it productive to put a lot of effort into it. Mia has pee pee'd into hers a couple of times and Wes took a duce this past weekend. Now wont you really be looking forward to future blogs and hearing about them using the potty....more toilet stories, they just change from Diane clogging the toilet to the kids.

If you havent heard, my brother David and his girlfriend are expecting a baby boy this February. He didnt bother to call and tell me. My mom called, not me, she called Diane and starts straight into this dissertation of seeing what baby stuff we have left and if we still have the baby blankets and I'm sure several other items. Diane was like, what are you talking about babies stuff for, what is going on. My mom was like, I'm sure you know, if you dont then Chris does...nope, no such luck. Once she spilled the beans, it made a lot more sense. So I figure the only way anyone else is going to find out is via my blog. Congratulations and best wishes to them, even though he didnt bother to tell me. So much for the rich uncle buying expensive Christmas presents every year for the kids.

I think that is enough for now. I will try and post another soon since I didnt write a lot about the kiddos. We will all be home for Turkey Day.

Thanks to the Strongs for lending us the play tunnels and house in the pictures below. They really like playing with them.