Most of 2012!

Whew, we have a lot of ground to cover, so let's get to it!

We had such lovely weather here in the Spring months, and it's one of the things we love most about Colorado. But, the wind is one of the things we don't love as much. And this year, it blew our fence down. So, we started out the warmer months this year by building a new fence! Here it is!

We now share yards with two of our backyard neighbors, which means our kids get to play on their playground, and our dogs have two new families who love them and throw the ball for them! It's a win-win for us for sure! Life is definitely too short to have sour neighbors, and we are so grateful for our's everyday! 

Moab

In May, we took a road trip to Moab, Utah, and it is one of the most beautiful parts of the country. We got to camp with the Launais' at the classic Slick Rock campground in town, and since this has become an annual tradition, thanks to the Landcuriser Club's "Cruise Moab" event...it was perfect! The kids - Niko, Mila, Owen & Bodhi were in heaven...hunting for bugs, lizards, playing in the dirt and eating marshmellows every night before bed. 

We did some off-roading on the trails! 

We explored Arches National Park, and it was BEAUTIFUL! 

Goodbye Preschool

For the past two years, Owen has attended Meiklejohn Preschool. It has been such a wonderful experience, and he learned so much. His teachers (Ms. Glo & Ms. LaDonna) were the most loving women...they visited Owen at home after his tonsil surgery, mailed us letters over the summer, and really took a genuine interest in Owen's learning experience. We were so blessed to have them in our lives...and therefore, graduating preschool was bittersweet. But, we keep moving forward! 

Happy Mother's Day

Here's a pic of my sweet boys, and the beautiful card they made me for Mother's Day this year. I was a spoiled mama on this day, and loved every second of it! 

Intentionally this summer, we stayed home a lot. Last year, we were so busy from May - August  and it was a blur...so this year, we decided to be mellow, and stay local. We started out the summer in Texas, and then did some day trips to the mountains, a couple of weekends up away, but mostly, we played in our own backyard (literally) this year. It was lovely.

Texas road-trip! 

We got to spend three weeks in Texas in May. We took a road trip down there, and the boys did so well. It made us want to drive every year. We split it up over two days, woke up on day two, had breakfast, browsed this really cool farming museum, and hit the road!

After hosting the Parenting Safe Children workshop for our Texas friends and family and welcoming Feather and Jay for a visit for a few days, we played at the ranch, on Lake Granbury (Ryland, Owen, Reese got to tube behind the boat!) and we hung out at the pool at the Fort Worth house. We got to attend Ryland's 5th birthday party, and got our Mexican food fix over and over again. We also got to be home for my best friend's birthday, and even got to be there for her surprise party!

The weather was perfect, not too hot yet, but hot enough to want to be in the water. It was such nice down town with our friends and family, and leaving after those wonderful times is so hard!

dinner by the pool...

listening to the bugs and the turkeys at the ranch...

cowboy cousins

a boy's paradise...hunting for bugs on the ranch

We got to spend a lot of time with Gigi. We love and miss her everyday from Colorado, and some of our most valuable time is with her. 

Mom, Steph and myself even sneaked away for a mom's night out to Wynstar...and we came out on top! 

We also got to visit the church we got married in ten years ago! It was so fun and such a surreal experience to stand on the altar again with our two kids! 

We even got to be there for Grandpa Trey's birthday...he turned 39 again! (can't you tell by the candles...:)

Back home in Colorado...we played. 

We went to the museum (about a million times)

We got frozen yogurt with friends (a lot!)

We played in the rain (once...since it NEVER rains here!)

We walked over to Tucker Lake (in our neighborhood) so the dogs could swim...

We attended outdoor concerts with friends...

We worked on the Cruiser (aka "cwooser" to Bodhi) with Daddy...

We built a rock path in our backyard....

We joined the reading club at the library...

Owen dazzled our neighbors with his information booths in our front yard about snakes, lizards and dinosaurs...

I got to meet Sonia Leigh! 

Bodhi and I visited the zoo and saw this crazy monkey swing across the walkway at the new elephant exhibit! (while Owen was in Dino Dig camp at the Museum of Nature & Science)

We went to the dentist! 

Owen is really into building things out of pretty much anything...but mostly cardboard. Here's one of his latest projects...it actually flew pretty well! 

The Boston's visit!

In June, we were SO happy to welcome the Boston's to Colorado! The five of them came, and the boys all got along SO well...it was seamless! 

Happy Birthday Mimi! 

We were so lucky to have Mimi Darlene here for HER birthday this year. She flew in on her actual birthday...so we made homemade potato skins and margaritas...her favorite! The boys also made her a cake, and were very proud to show her. 

Bodhi's birthday! 

Our sweet Bodhi Christopher turned THREE years old. Still can't believe my BABY boy is three. Everytime I say it, I have to think about it and make sure that's right! He's growing too fast! He wanted a pool party, so a pool party he got! We went to the Whisper Creek pool (thanks to the Cadwells!), and a few of his closest friends and family were there for a fun, mellow afternoon. It was small, low-key and a perfect sunny day for this little fish. Mimi Darlene was in town to join us! 

And...he got a new scooter from the Immel's (our sweet neighbors)...and couldn't have been happier about it! 

Rose Roots Community Garden...plot 84

This year, we joined Rose Roots Community Garden and shared a garden plot with the Cadwell's - Emily, Todd, Makenna and Addison. It has been such a wonderful experience, and so rewarding for the kids to get to watch their seeds grow into our dinner! We learned a lot, and I anticipate each year, we'll get better! We LOVE sharing the plot because although the city provides the water for the gardens, the plot owners still have to visit daily to nourish their crops. So, Emily and I have been swapping water duties all summer, harvesting with the kids, weeding while they play in the garden sandbox, and it's been a wonderful collaboration! We hope to keep this tradition with the Cadwell's for many years to come! 

One of the best parts about the community garden, is our opportunity to "Plant a Row for the Hungry." The boys got to help me deliver some of the donations from the Rose Roots Community Garden plots to the Arvada Food Bank...and it was great for them to be a part of that process. 

We were lucky enough to get to spend a weekend hiking, playing in the river and relaxing in Breckenridge with our wonderful neighbors, the Lindholm Family. 

Sonoma

Kipper and I celebrated our ten-year wedding anniversary on August 17, 2012...and we did so in Sonoma, CA with some amazing friends and family. We rented a house on a vineyard right outside of Sonoma...and our trip included a limo wine tour, a personal chef for our poolside anniversary dinner, a bocci ball tournament, lots of yummy wine and a lot of good times with great friends. It couldn't have been better, and we'll never forget this trip! (The boys stayed at home with Mimi Kathy...and I don't think they even noticed we were gone!)

Kindergarten (omg!)

You might need to sit down for this one...OWEN STARTED KINDERGARTEN. For real y'all! I can't believe it and have no idea how my sweet little first born baby boy is in school. Honestly, I was never sad about it...just excited for him really. And, he loves going SO much (partially because he gets to ride his bike with "Dad" every day), that it just makes me so happy to see him loving it. He's attending West Woods Elementary, and his teacher is Mrs. Cannon. He is going to half-day kindergarten, and I am sure he'll be reading by the end of the year. It's so great to have such a great school in our neighborhood...and as a parent, I feel a sense of relief that someone else is now helping us teach him things! It's not ALL up to us...I'm loving that feeling! 

And now...I am officially a soccer mom, driving a minivan on the PTA. Crazy how that happens so fast. The boys are playing t-ball (Owen's first season of "coach-pitch") and soccer on the weekends, and love it. They have a lot of friends on their teams, and we are thinking soccer is Bodhi's game...and Owen is going to be more of a baseball guy...but we'll see! 

We'll try to keep you posted a little more frequently in the coming months. Sending our love! 

Tonsils, Night Terrors and Spring Skiing

Our sweet boys are keeping us as busy as ever, and finding the time to write about how funny they can be is proving itself a challenge. But, I promise to continue to sit at this computer as much as I can...I never want to forget their hilarious conversations. Of course there have been thousands over the past two months...and I can only remember a handfull of them. I wish I had a way to record them all day long. I honestly think it would be a pretty funny reality tv show...perhaps there's an idea there!
Ski season
January, February and March were filled with weekends in the mountains. We tried to play in the snow as much as we could, and spent most of our time in Steamboat skiing Howelsen Hill. Spring skiing is our favorite time to hit the slopes, and the boys are at an age to join us now. Much like watching Owen learn to ride a bike, watching him figure out how to turn, stop and speed down the mountain was a moment Kipper and I will never forget. After about four weeks, he was skiing on his own, riding the chair lift and riding down with us like our little ski buddy, trying to go over jumps and through tree trails. I'm so proud of him!  Bodhi did so great for his age too! He wears the harness and we ride behind him to allow him to feel like he's skiing, but we control his speed. He is so adorable in all of his ski gear, he looks like a little snowman, and he had so much fun. He typically likes to take two runs, then go have "hot cwocklet wif marshmewwows" in the lodge, then take another two runs. Sounds perfect to me!

Ryland, Owen & Bodhi

We also got to see GranDude for Owen's acutal birthday and weekend in Steamboat. He made an impromptu roadtrip, and it worked out great. The boys loved getting to show off their Legos, wrestle and ski with their Grandpa!

(Owen, GranDude, Uncle Erock, Bodhi & Kipper in Steamboat 2012)

OWEN IS FIVE YEARS OLD!!!!
I still can't believe I have a five-year-old boy. I still think back to Owen's birthday, and how sure we were that he was going to be a girl. We were 100% positive that he would not be a boy...and we were very wrong, and so overjoyed with every single square inch of him. I will never forget that feeling I had when I first saw his adorable little face, crooked pinky toe and dimple in his right cheek. And, now five years later, I can think back to March 8, 2007 at 2:38 pm and it's like it was yesterday.
This year, he wanted to have a pirate party (well, actually he wanted to have a "knight" party with swords...but party supplies with that theme are limited, so I asked him to pick the next best thing). It was adorable. He dressed up, and we had a treasure hunt and pirate ship pinata at the YMCA. Aunt Erica made him a fabulous pirate cake (it was GOOD!), and we were lucky enough to have Aunt Stephanie, Gunnison and Ryland come to town. It was an awesome birthday week, and he got lots of Legos! He couldn't have been happier!

Tonsils & Aednoids
So...after listening to Owen snore like a bear for the last five years, and several conversations with our doctor, we decided to have Owen's tonsils and aednoids out. His airway was blocked by 70% because his tonsils were so big. He had the surgery in March. It was a quick procedure, but recovery was tough. The doctor told us he'd have a solid ten-day recovery because of the size and position of his tonsils, and she was right!
We had some tough days and nights - which included pain management for ten days, ear aches, night terrors, stress over him refusing to eat/drink, etc but he's back and sleeping peacefully! We were lucky enough to have Mimi in town to help us through it, thank goodness for Mimi's! It's so hard to see your kids feeling pain, and I'm so grateful to see his smile everyday.

(Owen right after surgery)

Night terrors
So, Owen had a couple of nights of night terrors after his surgery, and we have recently learned that they can be a side effect of anesthesia. This perhaps explans why Bodhi had them too (after his hydrocele surgery). Bodhi has spent a good portion of 2012 waking up with night terrors. If you have experienced night terrors, you probably just felt a wave of anxiety come over you...I totally understand! I know I was more than relieved when he began phasing out of these about three weeks ago. Night terrors are when your two or three year old (typical age) wakes up in the middle of the night...sort of. They appear to be awake, because they argue with you, yell at you and sometimes hit and kick you...but all the while, they are not really awake. It's sort of like sleep-walking. In B's case, he would wake up and say something like, "no I don't want to eat my peas!" At first Kipper and I would spend the next hour trying to console him by trying to get him to actually wake up so he could see that we were in fact not trying to get him to eat peas. After about a week, we realized that if we just agreed with him, he calmed down much faster and went back to sleep. So, if he said, "I don't want the Batman cup, I want the Spiderman cup," then we would say, "ok, here it is...you can have anything you want." And, then we would all go back to sleep. Thank goodness, these night terrors have passed...as all of our friends told us they would, and we are finally getting some sleep around here.

Community Garden
We joined a community garden this year about two miles down the road from us, and we are so excited. We've been working hard, growing seedlings to plant, and will be spending a lot of time in the summer there watering and playing. It's a wonderful concept with community garden plots, a playground for the kids (our plot is right by the playground, yeah!), and fun community events. I'm so excited to have a full garden with fresh veggies all summer long! We chose to share our 15x15 plot with our friends the Cadwells - Emily, Todd, Makenna and Addison are our wonderful garden family, and we are really looking forward to watching our food grow together!

Easter
Easter was pretty low-key for us this year. The Easter bunny visited our home, left a trail of dirt in our house, and hid the boys Easter baskets in the bathroom cabinet! We are so fortunate to have such great neighbors to spend this fun holiday with this year. We walked over to the Lindholm's house, and they welcomed us into their family's Easter brunch. We were so grateful to be with great friends, and enjoyed some amazing weather! Thank you to Eric, Kat, Ella & Avery! It's so nice to have such genuine, great friends around when you don't live near your biological family!

Kipper
I have to add a section in this post for my amazing husband. Seriously, Kipper is such a wonderful Dad. When he walks in the door after a long day at work, he ALWAYS goes straight to playing with Owen and Bodhi. He is instantly in character as the "bad guy," or "Captain America," or whatever the boys want him to be, and he doesn't miss a beat. He never complains, he always brings me coffee in the morning, and he is the most supportive, encouraging, breath of fresh air in our lives. There is a reason the boys ask me over and over everyday "How long before daddy comes home?" They feel so loved by him (as do I), and it's because he is so selfless and humble, and makes them feel so validated with his attention. There are times when they want their mama, but there is no substitution for their daddy! It's inspiring to watch him with his kids, and I'm so grateful to be on his team. I love you honey!

Paint

We got our house painted, and here is the before...

And, here's the after...

It was a stressful week, but we're happy to have some color in our lives! We are loving it!

Bodhi
Bodhi loves candy, ice cream and waffles. That is what he would eat for every meal if I would let him. It totally fits his feisty little adorable personality. Every night when we start talking about dinner, he says, "I want kittles," or "I want waffle!"

He is such a love bug (his most recent nickname is "Buggy" for that reason)...he loves to snuggle, and constantly says, "I want you." He would always prefer to be on your lap, in your arms or sleeping with us. We are eating it up, and love his little hugs around our necks with his tiny little chubby arms. He needs about three songs or books, and ten hugs and kisses before he'll go to sleep at night.

(Bodhi...I mean Batman)

People often tell me that his name fits him so well. Even strangers we meet at the park, etc...they watch him play, and then ask him his age and name...and they so often say, "he looks/acts just like a Bodhi," and it's so true. His name fits his little dare-devil personality. He ALWAYS tries what he sees Owen doing, and most of the time keeps up just fine. He bangs his head on countertops and falls off his bike...so often without any crying at all. People just look at me like I'm crazy for not freaking out...but I'm so accustomed to it, and I just shrug my shoulders and say, "he's ok," because he usually is! Maybe it's the second kid thing...maybe he's just tougher than Owen was at that age...but he definitely didn't get my low tolerence for pain! That we know for sure!

Bodhi's vocabulary is adorable, and typing it doesn't do it justice. His voice is so cute...you just have to hear it in person...but here goes!

"You hep me." (you help me)
"Is it time for bid?" (bed)
"Home Steamboat" (Home Depot)
"Our cowl is dewty" (our car is dirty...he tells me this all of the time because it's always true!)
"Piderman" (Spiderman)
"Pit" (spit...he says this at night when he's brushing his teeth, and needs the "tool" aka "stool" so he can reach the sink to "pit.")
"Cout" (Scout our dog)
"Keying" (skiing)
"Ice Keem" (ice cream)
"Pot-mo" (popcorn)
"Toclet" (chocolate)
"to to bid" (bed)
"I wuv you ho-ho-ho-ho-ho-hoooo bunches!" (I love you whole bunches)

* We recently went to a theatre show for kids about pirates, and when it was over, I asked Bodhi which part was his favorite...he said, "the candy." (there was no candy...but he loves candy so much, he just can't help himself)
* He pronounces the "f" sound with the "s" sound...for example when he says, "come wook at my dinosaw sorest," he means "come look at my dinosaur forest."
"Soot" is foot
"I picked you a sour," is "I picked you a flower.

He is cute stuff...that is all I can say.

Owen
Owen is really growing up, and he's such a great big brother to Bodhi. He's getting more and more patient with him, and he's really starting to learn how to help teach Bodhi things. O's preschool teacher told Kipper and I at the last parent/teacher conference that you know when your kids are learning things when they begin to teach other kids around them. That is what Owen is doing with letters, house rules, bedtime routine, etc...he is Bodhi's little mentor and it's adorable to watch them together.

Owen is doing so well in school, and really loves learning. He's so close to reading, and can sound out small words. He's definitely going to love kindergarten!

Owen's funny stuff

(Owen at Tucker Lake 2012)

"Tip-o-chlay" is Chipotle (we eat there on Tuesday nights after his swim lessons)

* He often tries to say "of course" after certain phrases, but instead pronounces it "acourse" all in one word, such as..."I'm going to play with my Legos after I eat this sandwich acourse," or "I really love you acourse," or "I ride my bike really fast acourse."

* The other day Owen told me, "When I was little, the Muppets movie was my favorite show." (like six months ago...)

* "Chinguards" for shinguards (He's in soccer camp, and he's doing great! He is totally the kid who listens, watches the coach, and does exactly as he's told. Bodhi on the other hand is running around in circles pretending he's Batman! Ha!)

* We recently made a list of rules for our backyard because we are sharing yards with our neighbors, and we want the kids to be respectful of their friends' toys, etc. I told Owen he was breaking a rule by not having his shoes on, and reminded him that there are a list of rules posted by the back door. He threw his hands up and shook his head, and said, "Mom, I can't read!" (whoops!...I guess he's right!)

* Kipper and I were asking Owen about school over dinner, and he began to tell us about the new Centers at his preschool. He said, "There is a school, a libary, a post office, a repair shop and a hair salarm." Cracks me up when he says words like this...totally mispronounced, but with full confidence on his face as though he's saying, "that's right...I said it."

* Our fence blew down between our yard and our neighbor's yard, and our neighbor's have been sharing their swing set with us. (It's been so nice actually, and we are putting in a gate between yards...yeah for great neighbors...again!) Anyway, Owen was over there playing, and our neighbor said, "Hey Owen, are you going to play on the swing set?" And Owen said, "Um...it's called a play structure!"

(yep, he's rolling his eyes at me!)

* Owen loves his Daddy, and lately has been talking about being just like him when he grows up. Today at lunch he saw some banana peppers on our plate, and said, "When I turn 33, I am going to eat peppers just like my dad."

* We are recently getting ready to go camping in Moab for Cruise Moab with Kipper...and they boys are LOVING working on the "cwuiser" with daddy...all three of them working out in the garage...it's the cutest thing I've ever seen. Owen gets under the cruiser, and starts tinkering with his tools. Bodhi sits in the driver's seat and pretends he's driving, or turning wrenches with Daddy. Love it. Kipper is in heaven.

The future Mr & Mrs Stiever

Recently we had our sweet friends, the Hermsen's over to celebrate Erica's birthday, and Bodhi and Hattie fell asleep together. Cutest thing...we had to get a pic!

Other fun pics...

(Bodhi's soccer camp)

Scout turned 13 years old this month, and I can't believe it! He is the sweetest, most lovable dog, and he and Macy are very much a part of our family. He is getting slower, can't hear anything, and the stairs are getting tougher for him...but for the most part he's doing so well. We love him so much. Happy Birthday Stinky!