1 month to toddlerhood!

Once again for the umpteenth time I can't believe another month has slipped by! Curren turned 11 months old a couple of days ago. Wow!

He's such a joy to have in our family! We just love him and he just loves us too! Actually he loves anyone who pays attention to him and rewards them with an infectious smile and giggle. He's also discovered that feeding himself is pretty fun. He now likes finger foods...thank heavens! I was starting to wonder if I'd be feeding this kid for months to come:).

(A nectarine, yum, yum!)

Actually a cute story about his new love of feeding himself. We were at the grocery store last week and the two older boys walked back to the cart with their free cookies. The second Curren noticed he wasn't going to partake of the beloved cookie he screeched at his brothers. It was truly quite humorous, but of course one of those situations where you had to be there.

He's not quite crawling yet. I know in last month's post I thought for sure he'd be crawling soon, but so far he's alluded that step. He's trying so hard and has mastered getting up into a sitting position from his tummy. A huge accomplishment in its own right.

Happy 11 month birthday, Curren! One final month as a baby, we love you to pieces!

The dog days of summer....

We've been enjoying our summer thus far. Although Aidan's summer is very short. He actually heads back to school as a big 2nd grader on the 8th of July! Anyhoo, here are some pictures of a few things we've been doing as of late. (Most of our outings involve zero pictures. Who wants to see yours truly in a bathing suit at the pool?)

Dino Ridge! Pretty cool place and a very inexpensive history trip. The place is located in the foothills near Red Rocks Amphitheater. I guess back about 80-90 million years ago what is now Colorado was flat, tropical and a prime location for DINOSAURS!

(The darker section of the rock is actually dinosaur bones.)

I guess several years ago a construction worker was starting to tear up the ground to build something, I can't remember what and noticed some strange markings. Strange enough to alert authorities. Low and behold, they ended up being dinosaur tracks. Wow! What foresight of the construction worker.

We've had a lot of afternoon thundershowers, which personally, I love! It keeps everything green, green, green and the temperature drops several degrees! Love that! Here are the kids with a couple of neighbors making the best of the rain. Actually this was before our torrential downpour.

Hanging out at the zoo

Last Friday we headed to the zoo with Aidan's best buddy Parker and his mom and younger brother. We had a blast and actually ended up staying there most of the day. Can you say tired kids? We hit traffic on the way home so a usual half hour trip took well over an hour. Thankfully the kids slept most of the way, but I was wishing I had hired a driver so I could've caught a nap on the way home too. Anyway, here are some cute pictures of the boys:

Aidan and Parker

Kellen and Cooper

Kellen's having his first sleep over tonight.....

in Aidan's room.

They are both so excited! It's actually nice having Aidan off-track for his short summer. The two boys have been playing with each other a lot and I've noticed how much closer they have grown. I love having all boys and can't wait for Curren to join in on all the fun. He's just dying to run around with them. I can tell by the look on his face and see the excitement in his little body.

Where the h(bleep) is Kellen?!?!

It's 9:38pm and I had just come upstairs because Curren started crying. I noticed Kellen's bedroom door was shut and thought that odd considering he likes his door left WIDE open. Walked in to check on him....no Kellen. Walked into Aidan's room...no Kellen. What the heck? Where is he? Now I start panicking, even though there is no possible way for him to leave the upstairs without us knowing or for someone to come in without us even knowing. My mind starts thinking crazy things. So I yell down to Rick to help me find him. Well, we did:










in Aidan's bathroom. Funny thing is, Rick had gone upstairs earlier in the evening and heard Aidan "talking to himself". Ah-hem, he was actually talking to Kellen. Little stinkers. If they want to sleep in the same room together all they have to do is ask us. Aidan has a trundle bed.

VAIL Like nothing on earth

(Took that title from Vail's official website..I'm not that clever, but it is true.) So as you may have guessed we just returned from another awesome trip to Vail. It's sooooo beautiful there. Pictures just don't do it justice, but they'll have to suffice...unless those of you reading this have been there and can attest to it's beauty. BTW, does anyone have a $1,000,0000 laying around we could use to buy a vacation home up there? We'll let you go there anytime...you won't regret it!

My dad got a great 4 bedroom condo for a week up at Vail and decided to invite my family and my big sis. along. Unfortunately my sister could only stay one night, but we overlapped by a few hours.

The first full day there we headed into Vail Village, shopped a little, let the kids play at the pirate park, ate lunch and then walked along the rushing creek to The Betty Ford Alpine Gardens. Can you say GORGEOUS? Absolutely breathtaking. And the added bonus? There's another great park there so the kids played and played and had a blast. Weather was great too. I was afraid from looking at the forecast it was going to be pretty chilly, but it was a comfortable upper 50's/60 degrees! It rained just a little and a few clouds, but nothing much!

(Pirate park in Vail Village)

(The older boys had to stop every few seconds to throw something else into the creek...boys will be boys.)


(Betty Ford Alpine Gardens at 8700 feet above sea level)

The second day, Rick and my dad walked to another park in the morning and let the older boys play for a little bit while Curren napped. Then we headed off on a hike. We had to drive up part of a mountain (a non-paved, very bumpy road) for about 7 miles before we found the trailhead. For those of you from Cali, when you go hiking out here, you're really out in the middle of nowhere! It's awesome! You can truly commune with nature. It was supposed to be a 3.75 mile gradual hike to Lost Lake, but we never found it. And we're pretty certain we walked more than 3.75 miles one way! Rick even headed on further by himself and never found anything. Oh well, we still had a great time and the kids did great. (We hiked for about 3 hours!) Only a few grumblings here and there. Curren did get fussy as we were heading back. He was tired, hungry and I think his jacket was rubbing against his cheek...poor little fella.

(Gorgeous! On the way to the trailhead)

(Before the hike)

(Stopping for lunch. No picnic tables in this place.)

(A nature made Christmas tree farm at about 10,000 feet above sea level.)

Well, the fun is over and back to real life again. But, I'm itching to head up to the mountains again! Maybe Breckenridge this time? Or maybe we'll head south to Gunnison and check out Black Canyon. My dad showed us some pictures and it's like The Grand Canyon except the canyon is covered with black rock instead of red. Can't wait and stay tuned!!!