It's over!

NaBloPoMo is officially finished. Done. Finito. Kaput. 30 days of posting every day was actually a lot more difficult interesting time consuming painful fun than I thought it would be :) And now I'll be taking a break from this thing until sometime in 2010.


No, it really was easier than I thought and judging by my blog stats apparently some of you like reading my wacky thoughts every single day of your lives. Weird. :) I won't promise daily (because really, our lives aren't that interesting) but I'll keep up with it as much as I can. Thanks for reading!

Oh Christmas tree....

Eeek! I'm really late with the post tonight :)

I promised pictures of the tree so here you go! As you can see, the tree is not nearly as exciting as what's beneath it!

The tree...


The human tunnel


The boys watching the train

Logan just says "oooooh" every time it goes past :)

Jeremy was pretending to sleep on Connor so I told Connor to pretend to sleep too and this is the face I got :) No, I have no idea what is all over his mouth...he's a boy and therefore he must be dirty! haha

Birthdays...

Grrrr.

Ok, so I LOVE birthdays. Love them! Or, in cooler terms, I heart birthdays. :) It's not that I necessarily like my own anymore (though I do still love cake and balloons and presents) but I love helping others celebrate theirs. Especially kids. I like watching them get so excited to blow out their candles and unwrap their gifts. I think it's adorable when their friends want to "help" unwrap the gifts or blurt out what it is they purchased before the birthday boy or girl gets it open.

I like birthdays so much that, to me, it doesn't matter when the birthday party is, I want to be there. I remember before we were even considering having kids a friend told me that another of her friends had a baby born in December but they were planning to celebrate his birthday in June so that he wouldn't have to "compete with Christmas" - that it wasn't fair to him to have his birthday so close to a big holiday like that.

What?

Connor was born on December 9th. That's his birthday. That's when we were blessed with a beautiful 7 lb 9 oz bundle of joy. Not in June. So why the growl above? I'm frustrated that several people who have been invited to Connor's party have said they can't come. Why? "Because it's such a busy time of year." Ok. I know, we planned his party for a Saturday in December but it's in the morning which should be before most other events occur. It's about smack dab in the middle between Thanksgiving and Christmas so no one should have any family visiting and school is still in session so I wouldn't think anyone would be on vacation. And isn't every time of year busy these days?

Don't get me wrong, I don't want to ignore the fact that Christmas is coming - I want to embrace it! I mean, December is such a magical time of year! There is usually snow on the ground, beautiful lights everywhere, people are so happy. I've always been happy to have an October birthday because I love fall and Halloween is so close. I remember taking pumpkin cupcakes or caramel apples to school instead of birthday cake to celebrate. Jeremy has liked having his birthday ON a national holiday because he always gets the day off from work and everyone in the country is eating hot dogs and shooting off fireworks. So I see no problem with having our Christmas tree up already or going to the Longmont Holiday parade the night of Connor's party.

Not that any of that matters. I think it should be about Connor. Do you like or love Connor enough to want to help celebrate his birthday with him? That's what matters to me. I don't want him to feel cheated because his birthday is in December - he deserves cake and presents and a party just as much as someone born in any other month of the year.

I wonder how my step-mom felt growing up about her birthday two days after Christmas...or how kids feel when their birthday is on Christmas or Valentine's Day or in the summer when they might have lost touch with their school friends. And what about those who are born on February 29th? Hmmm.....

I'm rambling but to wrap it up, I guess having a birthday during a "busy" time of year will just help him learn who his true friends are, even at the tender age of 4 :)

Achoo! Sniffle...

Yep, Logan passed on his cold. Again. He loves to share :)

Jeremy and I finished decorating our Christmas tree tonight but you'll have to wait for pictures until there can be at least one cute little boy in front of it!

Yeah, I promised you better content today but....I'm sick! I'm going to bed! Ah, ah, ah....choo!

Day 26...

It's day 26 of NaBloPoMo and I'm all tapped out :) No new pictures to share, funny kid quotes, crazy baby names, nothing. The turkey-day food coma is wearing off and there's not much excitement around here! Logan has a runny nose...yep, that was the excitement of today. Well, other than finding out the fun fact that our insurance deductible is almost doubling next year. Again. Ugh. It's a necessary evil but, come on. Ridiculous...

Sigh...I'll think of something more exciting to blog about tomorrow... :)

Watch out Rhyann!

Jeremy's Mom and her husband weren't able to join us for Thanksgiving dinner so on the way home from Grandma and Papa's we dropped off some leftovers to them. They live in the same apartment complex as Rhyann and her family and as we were pulling away Connor said "I love Rhyann." Jokingly Jeremy and I asked almost at the same time "Do you want to marry her?" This thought had obviously never occurred to Connor before as he contemplated it for a brief second and then shouted "YES!" He asked how they would get married so I told him that they would get all dressed up and go to a church and gave him a quick rundown of the ceremony - do you take this woman, I do, do you take this man, I do, then you kiss, blah, blah, blah. "Kiss?" he asked, obviously more interested in that part that the I do's. "Yes, and then you are married." "Oh. And then we go home?" he asked. "Yes," I replied, "you go to your own home and you live with Rhyann forever." "Oh. I'm going to tell Rhyann we should get married." Jeremy and I just laughed. We tried to explain that this wouldn't happen until they were much older but he was convinced that this will happen sooner rather than later. Poor Rhyann! The next time they see each other Connor is probably going to try to kiss her and then think they're married! haha!

It's only November 24th, right?

Connor and Jeremy put up our Christmas tree while I was out at a Moms Night Out last night and then put the train around it tonight. The tree isn't decorated yet (well, except for the tiny "Logan" bear ornament that was apparently left on last year and the Spiderman ball ornament that Connor plays with year round) but I'm betting it will be finished tomorrow. They also managed to find red and green CFLs to put in our outdoor light fixtures. :) With Thanksgiving being early this year it seems crazy to me that there's almost a full week left in November and our tree is already up! I'm hoping they'll wait until next weekend to put up more outside lights!

Logan is fascinated by all the Christmas decorations we've seen in stores and was very surprised to toddle into the living room this morning to see the tree. He was asleep when Jeremy and Connor put it up so he was not at all expecting a tree to grow overnight in the spot where all his toys used to be. He didn't touch it much today but spent a lot of time staring at it! :)

This morning Connor sat on Santa's lap for the first time this year and went blank when Santa asked what he wants for Christmas. All he could remember was that Logan wants a fire truck! Afterwards he was upset that he didn't remember all the stuff he wants but we reassured him it wouldn't be last time he'd see Santa before the big day and that he could always write him another letter (yeah, the first letter was written on November 1st) and either send it to Santa or bring it with him the next time.

Black Friday

Getting up at 4 am: Way too early

Driving to the nearest Toys R Us: Way too far

# of other customers in the store: Way too many

Standing in the checkout line for an hour with hundreds of other crazy people: PERFECT :)

I know, I'm one of those weird people who like to shop the day after Thanksgiving. It's a rush to wake up early and see if you can snag whichever item you deem to be the must-have of the season. People are in such good moods, even while waiting in line forever, and there is happy Christmas music playing in the background.

It's fun to watch the people who aren't used to this type of shopping - they're the ones slowly pushing their shopping carts down the aisles with eyes glazed over trying to read the ad that was handed to them at the door. They don't know where to find anything and spend lots of time going back and forth all over the store. First, a cart? No way. It only slows you down and makes getting from place to place through throngs of people much more difficult. Second, reading the ad in the store? Also, no way. We've been researching the deals online for weeks - scans of the newspaper ads are leaked to black friday websites while they're still being proofread. Third, not knowing where things are? You should always know the general location of the item you want most so you can go straight to it. Amateurs... :)

I didn't actually buy very much but the items I did get were great deals and sure to be big hits for Connor's birthday and Christmas!

Turkey Day!

I hope you all had a great Thanksgiving! We sure did! We had all the traditional yummy foods and ate too much as always. The boys made a huge masking tape roadway all over Grandma and Papa's living room and got to go sledding too! Here are some pictures...

First, a picture of Connor's thankfulness turkey. For each of the last six days we've been counting down to Thanksgiving by writing down something Connor is thankful for each day and adding a feather to the bird. I wish I could take credit for this idea myself, but I read about it here! In case you can't read the feathers in the picture, Connor was thankful for (from left to right): pizza, his bed, Logan, Bailey, his Thanksgiving necklace and Chance. Chance is our friends' dog we watched a few days ago and the Thanksgiving necklace is something they made at farm school last week! I definitely want to do this again next year and have even more feathers :)


Jeremy and Logan on the walk to find a spot for sledding (Logan looks huge bundled up in all his winter gear!)


The boys on the sleds


Papa about to push Connor down the hill


All of the food was delicious but Logan was particularly fond of the Cool Whip!


You know it's a good day when the entire ride home from Grandma and Papa's house looks like this in the backseat. Ahhh peace and quiet!

SNOW!

It snowed 3 or 4 inches here last night! Yay! We thought it would be fun to take the boys out to play in it so we bundled them all up and talked about making snow angels and throwing snowballs. All they wanted to do, though, was ride in the Jeep. :)




We managed to get them out of the jeep for just a few minutes and Logan was certainly not happy about it. He was perfectly happy riding around in a dry vehicle and listening to the radio. He wanted nothing to do with this cold white stuff! :)




Have a Happy Thanksgiving tomorrow :)

Christmas is coming!

We're very excited that Jeremy's brother Ben and his family will be visiting us for Christmas! It will be so fun to see the four boys together again. After all, the last time they were all together Logan was just 21 days old!

Christopher, Connor (holding baby Logan), and Jonathan


I like to call this one "The Dean Six Pack"...haha

They're all pretty close in age (almost 3 years between Christopher, the oldest, and Logan) so I'm hoping they'll play - or at least wrestle - well together! :)

Add to that the fact that it's starting to snow outside and I'm beginning to get in the Christmas spirit! I didn't even try to get out of singing "Rudolph the Red-nosed Reindeer" eight times on the way to storytime at the library this morning - that's a good sign :)

Come on snow!

They say it's supposed to be really cold over the next few days and snow a bit too. Yay! It's not that snow is my favorite kind of weather but it is November after all and we are in Colorado! It should be snowing! We went to the park today and it was HOT - we were all in short sleeves. :) Snow will be a welcome change....

Now, where did I put those gloves? :)

Tasteless...

Like a lot of kids his age, Connor loves to dip his food into assorted condiments. Some of his dipping choices are normal - ketchup for fries, honey mustard for chicken nuggets, salsa or queso for tortilla chips. However, he also has some strange ones that make us wonder if he has any tastebuds at all. For example, he regularly dips apples in barbeque sauce or chicken in yogurt. I knew he'd gone mad when he asked for mustard only on a hot dog one day. I know, there are crazy people out there who think this is how a hot dog should be eaten but we are a ketchup loving home! Haha!

But today took the cake (or fries, I guess). We had lunch at Wendy's and he put pepper on his fries. Not just a dash of pepper over a handful of fries but pepper meticulously applied to each fry immediately before eating it. After each one he would say, "Mmmm. I love pepper. Pepper is so healthy for you." Ok....

Then, Jeremy made some wonderful chicken enchiladas for dinner tonight. He put picante sauce on his own enchiladas and Connor wanted some too. Jeremy was a bit hesitant since it was hotter than what Connor usually has but put a little on the corner of Connor's plate. Connor ate that in one bite (without any enchilada to go along with it) and asked for Jeremy to put it all over his enchiladas. This kid has crazy tastebuds!

And you thought this post was going to be about something far different by the post title, huh? :)

Bounce!

Rhyann turned 4 last week but had her birthday bash today at a place called Bounce! in Loveland. It's like a lot of bounce places these days - one huge space with a bunch of inflated castles, slides and obstacle courses for the kids to run around in. It was our first time to this particular one and it was bigger, louder and full of many more kids than the others we've experienced! Whew!

It's always tough to get pictures of the kids at these things (they move so fast!) but here are a few!
Connor, Rhyann's friend from a previous preschool Brettly (Bretley? BrettLee? Hmm, I'm not sure how he spells it!), and Rhyann


Waiting to blow out the candles


Logan really enjoyed the cupcake!


Again, it's hard to get a shot of them actually bouncing!


This one even had a toddler section (ages 1-3 only) and though it took Logan a while to figure out what to do, once he got it he loved it! He must have gone down this little slide at least twenty times!


We watched our friends' dog, Chance, last night. Connor LOVES Chance and would keep him if he could :)

Pics of the boys

I thought I would have to resort to posting a picture or two of the boys each day to fulfill the NaBloPoMo daily blog post thing, but I haven't posted pictures in nine days! :) Here are a few from the past week...
Sleeping baby...

(again, no making fun of the crib bumper :) And yes, I know he shouldn't have it in there anymore but he doesn't try to use it to step on and climb out (yet) and when we've taken it out to wash it he wakes up when he bumps his head against the side.)

Connor and I made cupcakes last Sunday just for fun and Logan really enjoyed them


The boys hadn't played with the tunnel and tent for a while so we've pulled them out for the last couple days. It's a fun way to get out energy before dinner when it's too dark and cold to play outside!


Time outs are really tough with Connor these days - they just don't mean as much when your brother joins you for them :) It's funny, Logan always goes to sit next to Connor in his time out spot like he's in trouble too!

Mmmm....yummy?

At farm school yesterday they talked a lot about Thanksgiving, of course. They had a "visiting turkey" which Connor just had to show Logan and I after class. They raise chickens on the farm but not turkeys and for some reason I think the visiting turkey will stay just long enough to join the farming family for Thanksgiving dinner but I could be wrong. :) The teachers also asked each child how to make pumpkin pie and wrote down their responses so each parent could see what their child thought. Here's Connor's recipe for pumpkin pie exactly as the teacher wrote it:


-sugar!!
-pumpkin pie
-baking soda
-mix it with a spoon
-then you eat it
-bake it in the oven
-orange soda


Hmmm. It's not surprising to me that sugar is the first ingredient and that there are two exclamation points behind it - Connor asks if there's sugar in everything he eats and if you say yes he says "Oh man!!" but usually eats it anyway! I love that one of the ingredients for pumpkin pie IS pumpkin pie...that's my kind of cooking! Haha! And you eat it and then bake it? Interesting. I wasn't sure what the orange soda had to do with it but Jeremy asked him tonight and he said in a know-it-all tone of voice, "Daddy, orange soda is what makes it orange. You need lots of it to make it oranger."


I love it! We'll probably be making pumpkin pie next week so I'll be sure to follow this recipe.... ;-)

Yes, I'd like some cheese with my whine, and some good tv too...

I just heard that tonight is the last episode of The Office until this whole writer's strike is resolved (so, um, never). Boo hoo! Stupid writers! I mean, yes, I understand you should get a cut of all the DVD sales or whatever but I wish there was a better way to accomplish that than by not working for six months or more (that's how long I've read it might take in order for the studios to even budge).

Hearing about that led me to seek out the ending dates of other scripted shows I like. Most of them only have two episodes left. Sigh....

If you want to see where your shows stand, go here.

It's a good thing I like reality tv or I'd actually have to find something productive to do every night... :) Haha!

P.S. We're halfway through NaBloPoMo! Though maybe it should become NaBloPoYe (yes, that'd be the abbreviation for National Blog Posting Year) so we all have something to do for the rest of the year :) TV, blog reading, yeah they're very similar :)

School names

The poll on my blog about names for our new elementary school will be ending tonight. It looks like the votes will end like this:

Blue Sky Elementary School - 9 votes (24%)
Blue Skies Elementary School - 14 votes (37%)
Coyote Ridge Elementary School - 10 votes (27%)
River Valley Elementary School - 3 votes (8%)
Meeker Elementary School - 1 vote (2%)

I said in the first post that there was going to be a more official poll open to residents of the school's boundary on the district website but it appears that's not going to happen. It also looks like the letter to boundary residents won't go out until after Thanksgiving. What that means is that the Naming Committee won't have as much community input as we originally thought and will have to rely on what we have gathered ourselves along with our own opinions to narrow the choices to three for the School Board to evaluate. In other words, if you still have an opinion that you want expressed, leave a comment here or send me an email! The Naming Committee meets again on December 1st and at that meeting we have to come up with the three names.

To refresh your memory and summarize (since I've posted about it a number of times), the five choices above are what the committee narrowed the submitted names down to at our first meeting in early November. Since then we've gotten a lot of feedback on those names and lots of new names to consider - the front runners of the new names appear to be Meadow Mountain, Dry Creek, Coyote something other than ridge (Plains, Meadows, etc), High Plains, Horizon, Pinnacle, and Sierra something (Ridge, Plains, etc). There are pros and cons to all the new names just as with the original list. Do any of them jump out at you? Let me know!

Wow I feel old...

We went shopping for Rhyann's birthday present today. Shannon told us that Rhyann doesn't have any Barbie dolls yet but she thinks she's ready for one so we went straight for the great big, all pink Barbie section. I thought it would be fun to buy girly stuff and fun for Connor to help pick it out. Yikes! Have you looked at Barbie dolls lately? I obviously don't spend a lot of time in that aisle with two boys but eek! I felt like covering Connor's eyes for most of it!

I never collected Barbies when I was little - Cabbage Patch was more my style - but my friends did and I don't remember them dressing anything like this! There were bare midriffs, low cut shirts, micro miniskirts, see through clothes, wild make-up and hair. Does a 4 year old really need this or this? Maybe I'm just being prude but I'd hoped 4 year old girls would still be into princess-like ball gowns or maybe "normal" clothes (clothes like a 4 year old girl would wear, I hope). Hopefully Rhyann won't mind that we got her a princess-like Barbie (something like this) who is mostly covered by her lovely purple gown :)

I'd like to say that I'm glad we have boys so we don't have to deal with things like that but they have their own extreme toys - blood, guts, fighting, fun stuff :) Oh and we're supposed to somehow teach them to respect those girls who are dressing like their favorite Barbie dolls...

Yep, I'm old...

Gobble Gobble

Connor has the option of staying an extra hour at school and bringing his lunch so occasionally we let him. Today I packed his lunch with a turkey sandwich (cut into 4 triangles), yogurt, apples, cheese and juice. At dinner tonight, we had this conversation...

Me: How was your lunch today, Connor?

Connor: Good. I ate 3 pieces of my sandwich but I didn't eat one piece.

Me: Oh? Were you full?

Connor (in a completely dramatic tone of voice): No. Elyse told me that eating turkey will make you DIE!

Yikes! He was obviously really concerned about it so Jeremy and I tried not to burst out laughing even though it was hilarious not only because of what he said but how he said it. We spent the rest of dinner trying to convince him that eating turkey won't kill you. Good thing we weren't having turkey for dinner tonight!

Let's hope this passes in the next ten days or Thanksgiving could be tough :)

43 more shopping days...

Despite the gigantic displays in every store in town, Christmas is still 43 days away...1034 hours from the time I'm typing this. Don't tell Connor, though, because he is already fully immersed in the Christmas spirit - on the way to school on Friday he asked me to sing Christmas carols (wow, gotta brush up on some lyrics quick!) and he's already making his list for Santa. His favorite art activity at home these days involves collecting the ads from the Sunday paper and the catalogs we get in the mail and then cutting out the pictures of all the stuff he wants. He sets everything up on the kitchen table, gets out his trusty blue safety scissors and goes to town. Occasionally he'll ask me how much something costs but he really doesn't care, of course, and cuts the item out no matter what number I say. He's not completely selfish, though, since he's cut out a few things for Rhyann (whose birthday is today!) and Logan too, though the items for Rhyann are just anything pink and the items for Logan look suspiciously like something Connor wants. He also asks if he's old enough for some toys even though you can bet if he's asking the answer is no. :) He collects each cutout picture in his Halloween bucket and is planning on taking them to the mall when we visit Santa. He says that Santa will only get the right stuff if he has the picture to look at, not just a list. :) It's really cute.

Last week he also started asking all kinds of questions about Santa: "How exactly does he get in our house? How does he get through our fireplace since it has a screen on it? How do all the reindeer fit on our roof? How do they fly? Why do they like to eat carrots? Don't they like celery or apples or cupcakes? What kind of cookies are we going to leave for Santa? We'll have to leave his milk on the shelf so Logan won't spill it and Santa won't knock it over when he comes in. Will a train table fit down our chimney? What about a bike? And a fire engine scooter? And a fire engine for Logan? [To which I wonder, how many fire engines does one home need?] If Santa is still making my presents, why is he at the mall? Elves can't make my presents, Mommy, they have to buy them. Maybe that's why Santa is at the mall. Can I stay up and wait for Santa? What if I tip-toe, tip-toe, tip-toe to see him? When are we putting up our Christmas tree? Tomorrow? After Thanksgiving?!? Mommy!!!"

Yep, 43 more days of this :) It's a good thing we love Christmas around here!

Veteran's Day Parade

We all went to the Veteran's Day Parade in downtown Longmont this morning. We hadn't planned on going, but had an hour to waste while one of our cars got an oil change so we figured that would be a good way to spend it. Anyway, since we didn't plan on going I didn't bring the camera so I don't have any pictures to share but the boys were ADORABLE! Connor sat on the curb with some boys around his age and quickly made friends. Logan finished his bagel from the super busy Winchell's Donuts and then joined the other boys on the curb. He got the idea that he was supposed to stay on the curb and that they were going to watch something so he decided to get comfortable - he laid down on his tummy and hung out with the boys for a while :) When that got boring he went back to chewing on the tiny American flags someone was handing out - I'm pretty sure drooling is not specifically prohibited in the flag code, right?

We love parades anyway but this one has to be one of Connor's favorites - six high school bands (Lyons, Erie, Silver Creek, Niwot, Skyline, Longmont), lots of soldiers, big military trucks and lots and lots of motorcycles. The best part, though? The blackhawk helicopter flyover before the parade. It was awesome! Connor wanted it to land in the street :) Logan was fascinated by it all and was so tuckered out by all the excitement that he fell asleep within minutes of getting back in the car.

Turns out we had more than an hour to spare anyway as the odd chirping noise we asked them to look into was apparently caused by a faulty water pump and timing belt. Ugh. Well, at least we had fun at the parade :)

Miscellaneous ramblings...

I promised I'd post a link so you could see the three concepts for the Clover Basin Community Park and here it is: http://www.ci.longmont.co.us/Parks/park_dev/cloverbasin.htm. The three plans are pretty different - two with rec centers (which there isn't funding for), very different configurations of tennis courts, soccer fields, baseball fields, parking, etc. You can look over the concepts, take the survey and put in your two cents about how the park should be configured! By the way, who knew the demand for cricket was so big in Colorado? Cricket fields (or whatever they're called - pitches maybe?) appear in each of the three concepts...

In other news the boys and I went to a friends house for a disastrous playdate this afternoon. Connor has little experience with sliding glass doors as was evidenced by him running full force through the closed screen door, knocking it off the track and bending it. Lovely. Then he had a huge meltdown because their gumball machine temporarily stopped dispensing gumballs when it was his turn for one. Usually he is completely uninterested in gum - in fact he turned it down several times when it was offered on Halloween - but for some reason he really wanted a gumball today. The machine did eventually work again and he got two gumballs, chomped down on the first one and promptly spit it out. Yeah, that was worth the five minutes of big crocodile tears. Sigh...maybe next time will be better....if they ever let us back in their home! :) The meltdowns continued at home which is really out of the ordinary for him so I'm guessing either the reduced sleep due to the time change is catching up with him or maybe he's getting sick. We don't have many plans this weekend so hopefully whatever's bothering him will work itself out soon!

birthdays

Here is it again, almost 11 pm and I'm just now getting around to posting :) I could use that line that I work from "son up to son down" but the sons have been down for more than three hours now and the work continues. Not that this is work, I'm choosing to do this post a day for a month thing for some odd reason, but the previous three hours of laundry, dishes, oh and watching Survivor and the Office took time and energy and now I'm ready for bed!

We finally picked a place for Connor's birthday party. He turns the big 0-4 this year and has been begging to have a "real" party this year - with friends and such. All this because we've been to way too many birthday parties in the last couple months that have shown him what 4 year old birthday parties are "supposed" to be like. Jeremy and I would prefer the no frills eating out with family and presents at home but we caved and are having a party at the WOW museum in Lafayette. Jeremy says that it seems somehow better than some of the all out extravaganza's we've been to lately because it's both fun AND educational. Haha. Connor's just excited that he'll get to play on the big pirate ship with all his friends. Yeah, educational :)

Now, if only we could find a present that's not loaded with lead, lethal magnets, choking hazards or the date rape drug (did you hear about that?!?). I signed up for the newsletter from the CPSC and every single day there's a new notice about recalled toys. Today there were six with problems like lead exposure, fire hazard, electric shock hazard, strangulation risk, and entrapment risk. Fun stuff. Are books safe anymore? Perhaps an empty cardboard box? :)

This is why I don't post every day...

There's just too much to do and I don't end up getting to it until late and by this hour I'm so tired that the words get blurry :) So I'm taking the easy way out by just posting two recent pictures of the boys. Enjoy :)
Gotta love a very bubbly bubble bath!


Logan, who's always wondering "why are you taking pictures AGAIN, Mom?" and Connor, who's always thinking "Strike a pose! I love the paparazzi!"

Other name ideas

The naming committee has been emailing each other today with some of the feedback we've all been receiving and other name suggestions. Here are some of the thoughts....

1. Does the "meek" part of Meeker bother you?
2. Blue Sky/Blue Skies is getting mixed reaction. It's in the lead here but others think it sounds too Boulder-like. Also, there is a service called Blue Sky Bridge that helps children in abusive homes in Boulder County.
3. Some people are surprised that Meadow Mountain Elementary School isn't on the short list. We actually nixed it because the subdivision it's in is called Meadow Mountain and we wanted the name to be inclusive of everyone in the new school's boundary. We know it's also the name of an actual mountain visible from the school too. What do you think?
4. How about Dry Creek Elementary? Dry Creek is the name of the creek just south of the new school.
5. Coyote Ridge is getting good feedback. However, there is a Coyote Ridge school in Broomfield and there is already a "Ridge" school in Longmont - Prairie Ridge. Also, the school isn't technically on a ridge so it's a bit of a stretch anyway and might be confusing for kids - "where's the ridge?" Perhaps Coyotes should be the mascot?
6. Clover Basin was offered as a suggestion but there is a district technology/media center with that name on Clover Basin Drive.

So, would those thoughts change your vote? Would you vote for Dry Creek Elementary if it were an option? Someone suggested it could be the Dry Creek Coyotes. Comment away.... :)

Holy blog hits!

So on a normal day this little blog of ours gets 7 to 10 hits, mostly from family and real life friends but a few online friends and some random Google search results. I think the peak before today was a Tuesday a few weeks ago when we got 19 hits mostly based on a Google search for "top 25 inventions of the last 25 years" or something to that effect. I'm guessing a teacher somewhere assigned their students that topic for an essay because all the hits on that search term happened within hours of each other. Anyway, today blew that measly 19 out of the water. 81 hits so far today! 81! Wow! Ok so half of them came through the NaBloPoMo randomizer - you can browse through other sites participating in NaBloPoMo to see what everyone else is posting about. The other half, though, came from people visiting the Naming Commitee page since I posted about it and the poll on two Moms groups late last night. Yay! I've never had so much traffic...I suddenly feel pressure to say something important :) I just can't figure out what that would be! LOL

I went to a community meeting about the Clover Basin Community Park tonight. The city is in the process of designing an 80 acre park that will be just east of the new Elementary school. :) Seems they're building new stuff all around us! Anyway it was interesting to see the three concept plans and hear other people's thoughts on each. The three plans will be posted to the city's website tomorrow so when I see it I'll post the link so you can vote on your favorite! During the meeting, I sat just about two feet away from City Councilwoman and mayoral candidate Karen Benker. I was surprised she was there instead of doing some last minute campaigning just in case some voters are still taking their ballots directly to the clerk's office tomorrow (she didn't say a word all night which seemed odd to me).

What's up with all this civic-mindedness stuff, anyway? :) I promise some pictures of the boys soon!

I made a poll! :)

I added a poll on the right side of this screen for those of you who wish to vote for a name for Elementary 24. Think that's enough of a post for today to fulfill my unofficial NaBloPoMo goal? Yeah, probably not...but the fact that I'm calling the goal "unofficial" means that I'm probably not going to reach it anyway. So, you get a rambling but very short story...

Due to some poor scheduling on my part, Jeremy had to take both boys to their doctor's office yesterday while I was at the Naming Committee meeting so Connor could get his flu shot. Luckily the kid loves doctors so it wasn't hard on Jeremy by any means. Connor insisted that he wear his scrubs and I guess the nurse got a big kick out of that. Apparently he didn't even wince when the needle went in and, just as in the past, hopped down from the table and thanked the nurse before leaving. :)

The rest of yesterday and all day today he gave Jeremy and I pretend shots complete with pretend cleaning of the injection site, sound effects for the needle going in (which sounds more like a jackhammer), and pretend band-aids in the color we ask for. He wore those same scrubs again today since his arm was a little sore and he thought Dr. Dean would handle it better in uniform. Too cute :)

Naming Committee

I joined the committee in charge of coming up with three name suggestions for our new elementary school, currently called Elementary #24. Even though we don't have kids in elementary school yet, I wanted to be involved in the process since Connor will likely start there for kindergarten in 2009 and Logan might get to go to preschool there starting the same year.

Anyway, we had our first Naming Committee meeting this morning and went through all the names submitted via the school district's website. On the first pass we just decided whether it met the district's naming criteria - the school has to be named after A. a geographic area, B. a community location or C. in honor of a deceased individual who made a significant contribution to the field of education at either the local, state or national level. Those criteria were displayed on the name submittal page so only a couple of names didn't fit. After that, we narrowed it down to ten by going through each name, giving pros and cons and then voting on a "fist to five" scale - holding up a fist if we really didn't like the name to five fingers if it was great. When we got down to ten names, each of the 14 or 15 committee members got to vote for their top three and from there we discovered our top ten was really a top five (since 5 of them didn't get any votes). So, the five naming suggestions are (drum roll please):

1. Blue Sky Elementary School
2. Blue Skies Elementary School
3. Coyote Ridge Elementary School
4. River Valley Elementary School
5. Meeker Elementary School

Blue Sky(ies) was suggested because the new school is right next to a city park called Blue Skies park and we also live in beautiful Colorado where we have many more days of blue skies than clouds. Coyote Ridge was suggested because there are a lot of coyotes in the area and the school is sort of on a ridge - this one was stretching the community/geoegraphic location criteria a bit but we figured it was similar enough to neighboring Eagle Crest Elementary's name that the school board would go for it. River Valley was suggested by a 4th grade class at Eagle Crest. Meeker is because Mt. Meeker is the most prominent mountain to our west, named after Nathan C. Meeker who was one of the founders of Union Colony which later became Greeley, Colorado.

So, which choice should I lobby for? We each have to talk to our friends and neighbors to get their opinions and area residents will get a chance to voice their opinion after they receive a letter from the principal announcing that their homes are now in the new elementary's boundary. What are your thoughts? Leave a comment!

Pole Position

The toy the Halloween Fairy brought Connor is a joystick that hooks up to the tv and has 4 games on it. I can't remember 2 of them right now (it's late) but the other two are Ms. Pac Man (a favorite of mine) and Pole Position (a driving game that Jeremy likes). The Halloween Fairy really just wanted to get Connor something cheap that involved a joystick since he wanted to play with the old one so badly so she wasn't really concernd with whether or not Connor would be good at any of the games, though they are all rated for 3 and older. Turns out, though, that his greatly improved driving skills in his Jeep do translate well to driving on a video game. He loves Pole Position and even though he's only played it for maybe 30 minutes total between yesterday and today, he is really good at it! He crashes into the billboards for fun now instead of because he forgot to turn :) It's really fun to watch!

NaBloPoMo

What's NaBloPoMo, you ask? Well, it's National Blog Posting Month, of course! People around the world are participating by blogging at least once a day every single day in November. I'm not sure I'll have time for anything witty (no comments about the lack of wit already, please! :) ) but I'll try to at least post one picture of the boys each day! The first one is easy...

Halloween was fantastic yesterday. Connor had his school Halloween party in the morning complete with a parade around the school, silly games, cookie decorating and singing spooky songs. It was a bit chilly out so Logan and Daddy stayed home to pass out candy while Connor and I went trick-or-treating. We had a great time and he's already planning our route for next year so we can cover more houses - apparently the dozens we went to last night weren't enough even though we were both really tired when we got back!
It's really hard to get a picture of the two boys together these days since Logan doesn't like to stand still!


But here they are separately!


Connor's costume was a hit! Every trick-or-treater we passed and everyone passing out candy commented on how cool it was and the flashing red light on the front was the best part. People could easily see him coming down the street so it was funny to hear people three or four houses away say "Look! Connor's wearing a fire truck!" And, yes, nearly everyone in our neighborhood knows his name - he's just so friendly and makes such an impression on people that it's hard to forget him!

Connor left most of his candy by the front door for the Halloween Fairy. He'll tell anyone who will listen about how you leave candy out for the Halloween Fairy and she comes in with her big purple wand and says "Abracadabra Alacazam, Ziggety, Zaggety, Zoom!" and turns your candy into a present. This year she left him a game to play! He's been dragging around and begging to use a joystick that he found in a box of old computer stuff in the basement a while ago and since it's so old we don't have anything to hook it up to anymore, the Halloween Fairy found the next best thing!

Happy November!