Ding Dong!

Yesterday I had some quiet time to myself while Rick took the boys to the car wash. (They LOVE going through the drive-thru car washes and they are a dime a dozen here in CO.)

Anyway, I was enjoying my book when all of a sudden the doorbell rings. I go to answer it and it's our little neighbor Brady asking to see if Aidan could come out and play.

This may seem trivial to all of you, but I just loved that! I love living in a neighborhood with lots of young kids whom my kids can grow up and play with. And I just love that it's safe enough for a little 7 year old boy to walk over to our house and ask my son to play. Needless to say, once Aidan got home he ran over to Brady's house and they had a blast running away from Brady's older sister and then creating a little town out of rocks (we have plenty of them) in the puddles created by all the sprinkling those of us with new landscaping have been doing.

I really look forward to seeing Aidan and Brady's friendship grow and to see who Kellen will play with once he's a little older and can run off to a neighbor's house on his own. I just hope our immediate next door neighbor(s) turn out great. Right now it's an empty lot, but eventually we'll have a house and hopefully a young family next door to us. I'm rooting for 3 little boys right around my kids age.

Landscaping!

Woohoo! Our landscaping is pretty much done and it's so nice to see some green in our backyard. Of course we can't walk on our grass for 2 weeks and the trees and bushes are just itty bitty, but it now feels like our home is complete!

The pictures don't do the yard justice and for all you Californians it's probably strange to not see fences or just a split rail fence, but I love it! It's great for neighborly relations and plus the house next to ours (the main one you'll see in our pictures) have 3 kids and the youngest is a boy just one year older than Aidan. So I think it'll be fun for them to run from yard to yard. That's what I would do as a little young'un.

I plan to embellish the yard a bit more with flowers, ground covering plants, etc., but it'll have to wait since I'm not able to bend and move that well in my "delicate" (aka fat belly) state.

Out of the mouth of Babes...I mean a kindergartener...

So another cute kid moment I just had to share. I was driving Aidan and his friend to school today when I overheard them talking about girlfriends. Supposedly Aidan's friend Chris has 3 girlfriends. So Aidan piped in that he has a girlfriend too. Being the nosey mom that I am asked who she was. "I can't remember her name, I keep forgetting." Aidan says. (Problem number 1 in the girlfriend department.) "Is she a girl from school?" I asked and Aidan said she's a girl from church.

Since Rick and I teach the class right in front of his I asked him to describe her. He says, "She has long hair..." So I asked if it was a girl named Madison and he said no. So I asked if it was Amanda and he said yes!

Now, like I said, I sit right in front of his class and never see him talking to her (maybe they sit together in the classroom) and I find it cute that he hasn't noticed yet she cut her hair months ago.

He then proceeded to tell me she asked him to be her boyfriend a while ago. Hmm, I think I'm safe to think this little love affair has peetered out. Can't this thing wait until they are teenagers. What's up with 6 year olds having girlfriends anyway?

Meet our new family member...

Charlie! We had promised Aidan we'd get him another betta fish once we moved into our new house and while shopping at Petsmart last week we were trying to find the supplies for a new betta, but not having much luck so Aidan asked if he could get a guinea pig instead. (Our friend's brought their guinea pig to soccer practice one evening.)

So here he is...isn't he cute? Thankfully the cats could care less about him and he's really not that skiddish either. I know, Susie, you wish you could cuddle with him right now, huh? Here's to you, your nephew is following in your footsteps. (Although he's not allowed to sleep with Charlie.)

Out of the mouth of babes...

Last night I was getting Kellen ready for bed. I told him to take off his pants, but he was having hard time since he was holding Thomas the Tank Engine. So I told him I'd hold Thomas so he could take his pants off. I ended up dropping Thomas on the ground and Kellen says, "Mommy that's not nice, you need to give it to me nicely." So he proceeds to pick up Thomas, grabs my hand, puts it in my hand then holds out his hand so I can give it to him. He says, "See you need to give it to me nicely, Mommy."

I thought that was so cute I just had to grab him and shower him with hugs and kisses. (I guess they do really listen to you even though you feel like they aren't.)

The great outdoors!

Here are some pictures of a few places we've discovered over that last two weeks.

Roxsborough State Park is beautiful and we barely touched the surface of this place. Can't wait to go back soon!

We also went hiking in one of Douglas Counties open space preserves called Sruce Mountain. The annoying part was finding the place. The website doesn't provide direct directions so we drove around a little bit, but once we found it we were glad. It was a great hike. Now a little side note about both these trips (and the main reason why we didn't see much of Roxsborough) is that my kids are afraid of wind! Yes, you read it right, wind! Strange huh? The only reasons why I can think they are afraid of wind is one, Aidan's last ski adventure up at Eldora. It was SUPER windy and he had a hard time navigating on his skis. Then one day we were watching a discovery channel show about tornado chasers and Aidan kept asking if we get tornadoes here. I couldn't lie to him, but the likelihood of having a tornado here is pretty remote. So anyway, we had to fight Aidan and Kellen to get out of the car, but I REFUSED to give into them. How are they going to get over this fear if they don't face it right?

Once we were in the trees the wind died down and they were happy to go out hiking. We even ran into one of Aidan's school friends on our way back. And they all found a garter snake! Aidan discovered it and thank goodness it wasn't a rattle snake! Yikes!

A sad day for Mommy....

Before:

After:

I loved Kellen's little bowl cut, but it was starting to get into his eyes and with the weather warming up and Rick pushing for a change Kellen got his hair chopped off. He still looks adorable and he actually looks older, but I'll miss his hair. (I'm sure one of these days he'll want to grow it out.)

Aidan got his hair cut too and of course looks like a total cutie! He's always preferred his hair short, he hates having it brushed and this new look is get up and go!

Before:

After:

I can't wait to find out what our next little wild man is going to look like. Having two boys who, to me totally look like brothers, but have very different coloring I wonder what we'll get next.

Just looking at these pictures makes me smile and I'm so glad I have the opportunity to be a mom. They drive me absolutely nuts at times, but I love them anyway and wouldn't give them up for anything. (I may wish to leave the house to be alone for a few hours though.)