The Mother of all Make-up Posts

Hello everyone! We had a spectacular summer and hope you did too. Sit back and get comfy, cause this is gonna be a long one to make up for the last 3 months. Enjoy!

So the last we spoke the kids were getting ready to finish up soccer for the spring season. They started out really strong, but I think they were all sick of doing soccer every weekend. All of the kids on our team improved greatly over the course of their play. I think we won half and lost half of the games...not too bad considering none of our players had played before. We are actually getting ready to start the fall season of soccer this next week. Last season we had 6 players, and this fall we have 8. Many (5 of the 6) players are returning to be a Turf Monster again. Looking forward to seeing what they can do this time around. Here is a pic of the spring team after their last game:

At the begining of June Wes and Mia finished off their last day of Kindergarten. I can't believe what a baby I was about the whole thing. I told myself I wouldn't cry.....yeah right! Hell, I'm tearing up right now just thinking about it. We went to their little school celebration and then we headed out for lunch. Here are a few pics from that day:

Shortly after the end of school we waited for the perfect night to do some camping in the backyard. It seemed we waited several weeks before we had a weekend without rain/thunderstorms. We had a very weird wet spring/summer here this year. We lit a fire that night and made smores, then the kids and dad settled down for sleep in the tent.....I stretched out in the bed with a glass of wine and my ipad.....mommy LOVES camping in the backyard night!

At the end of June we were fortunate enough to get invited to a wedding in the mountains. We decided to make a long weekend of it and stayed several night in Steamboat Springs CO. What a beautiful little town! We had a nice little get away....here are a few pics from the weekend:

The day we drove back down from Steamboat, Deb and family were also in town. We all went to Coors Field and caught the ballgame between the Cards and the Rockies. The Cards dominated the game and won:

Starting at the end of May through the middle of July both the kids played baseball on a team called the Riverdogs. It was an amazing transformation to see them learn the game....they were both much improved in their skills the last couple of games. Poor Mia kept getting hit by pitches almost every game. We were like "really, does the only girl on the team have to be the one that keeps getting hit." That experience kinda messed her up for a while, but we pushed through and by the end she was back to hitting like a pro. Wes really liked to pitch and Mia really liked to catch:

Over the summer we managed to get the rest of the floors finished on our main level. Chris worked hard to knock out those last 2 rooms. I can't believe how different our house looks with the darker floors.Here is a pic of the dining room as Chris was installing:

At the end of July we headed out for another long weekend getaway. This time we went out of state out to South Dakota to see Mount Rushmore and Custer State Park. What a great trip it was! South Dakota is only about 6 hours drive from Denver. It was beautiful and not crowded. And to top it all off, we stayed at a hotel that was attached to an indoor water park!! We will definitely head up that way again, as we did not have enough time to see all of the stuff I wanted to see.

Chris and I both celebrated our birthdays at the begining of August. We celebrated Chris' birthday with dinner out and a desert smorgasboard! I celebrated my day with my dear friend Deni. She came out for a visit and I ran her poor butt off helping me redo some of the decor in the house. Deni is super good at coming up with cool decorating stuff. Sadly, I did not get a pic of us together :( I can't believe that! Anyways, I am attaching a few pics from the Denver Botanic Gardens. It was the one relaxing thing we did during her visit out here. They had a special Chihuly exibit....which is really cool blown glass staged throughout the gardens:

Finally, to wrap up the summer, Wes and Mia started 1st grade. They have been going for 2 weeks now and absolutely love it. Their teachers seem very nice and we are looking forward to what the school year brings :)

I KNOW....I KNOW.....

I Know....I know....it's been months since I have written anything. The Colorado Tepen's are all alive and well. We have been very busy since the first of the year. Chris tore out all of the wood floors and replaced with tile. We are about 2 weeks from getting new carpet in the living room and are very excited to see how it all looks when finished. I still have a bunch of touch up painting to do, but we are getting close! Then hopefully we will be able to finish the rest of the downstairs with in the next year. I want to tear out the carpet in our dining room and office to make way for some beautiful walnut floors. I'm not sure what we are going to do once all this is complete...maybe we can go help Uncle Brian! So Wes and Mia are getting to be such big kids. They are both doing really well in school. Making lots of friends. The homework thing is keeping me extremely busy. I had no idea how much is expected out of kids these days. They bring home a folder every week filled with things that need to be completed at home and turned back in. Also, they have a book assignment to read every week and a daily writing journal. It seems like all I remember from kindergarten was learning my ABC's, doing art and learning to tie a shoe....and my kids are reading chapter books and writing a journal!! It's crazy. The twins have been trying to learn to swim again. They are almost there. Both can swim for 5-6 feet but then as soon as they need to take a breath they flail and sink. Hoping to get them safe for summer as there is a really cute pool not too far from our house that would be fun to go to this summer. We have also started the kids in soccer. Chris is coaching their team - the turf monsters. Both doing pretty good at it. Mia is the only girl on the team and she is running circles around those boys! Go Mia!! So far we have won 2 games and lost 2 games. Both kids are signed up for baseball in about another month. As soccer finishes they will both give baseball a try. Wes is super excited about baseball. He cheers for the Pirates cause it's my team, which makes Chris mad. At least Mia is a Cardinals fan. One out of two ain't bad! Looking forward to summer. Hoping to take a short road trip to either someplace in Colorado or close to this summer. Remember, if you are in or around the Colorado area, let us know, we love visitors!! Deb and family are heading out and planning to hit a baseball game with us in June. David and gang were going to visit...but we got bumped for a beach vacay...rude! Hope to see you all soon. Here are some pics from the last few months.

Happy Birthday Wes and Mia & Happy Thanksgiving to Everyone

Well Wes and Mia turned another year older on Noverber 27th. Since their birthday fell on the day before Thanksgiving, we decided that having a big birthday party was just not gonna work out this year. So, I took the day off of work and Chris worked a half day and we decided to just spend the day together doing something fun. The kids did not have school, so we layed around and watched cartoons and ate pancakes in the morning. Then we went down to the local cupcake shop and picked out some sweet treats for later to sing Happy Birthday with. Then we met Chris downtown at the Aquarium. We had lunch, saw all of the cool fish and pet the stingrays. Then the kids wanted to get home and eat cupcakes and open presents. We had planned on trying to fit in a movie, but they were too excited about their new toys and wanted to hang at home and give them a test run. Then we went to our favorite pizza place for dinner. It was a really great day!

We spent Thanksgiving this year at one of our neighbors houses. It was quite a fun day and also quite an impressive spread of food. Thanks Daniels Family for having us over, we had a great time.

We spent this weekend putting out all of our Christmas decorations. Wes and Mia were very eager to help out this year. Now if only the tree looked good with ornaments on only the bottom 2 feet of the tree! They also helped me make some new decorations for the tree this year....you guessed it, more snowmen! Our tree is packed from top to bottom with lots of snowmen ornaments....they are just so darn cute!!

Here are some pics of the last few days: