FRIDAY: Rob finished his part-time career as a graduate student with his last class on Wednesday. To celebrate, my mom came over to babysit and he and I went out on a date! We actually have TIME for that now (no more studying!)... not that we can afford it, but we have TIME! :) So we went to our favorite place the Rio for drinks, then went and played some mini-golf next door, and went back to the Rio for dinner. And it was a good thing we had those drinks before mini-golf because it was the LAMEST MINI GOLF COURSE EVER! Oh my goodness. There were no features, obstacles, or anything else of interest. Just some small hills and fake sand traps. That said, we were both still way over par. The course did, however, have a sign to direct us to the next hole... ya know, just in case we got lost or something. All in all we had a great night, and of course are so happy that Rob is done with school!!!
SATURDAY: Our boys NEVER sleep in. They are generally up sometime in the 6 o'clock hour every morning, sometimes early, rarely later. So imagine our surprise when at 8:30am on Saturday morning we woke to find the boys were both still in bed. Sleeping. Granted, Jack woke up at 5:00am needing help finding his stuffed dogs, and Brayden woke up at that time too, then came into bed to cuddle with me for a few minutes at 6:00am. And after that we assumed they'd gone downstairs to watch TV. But in fact, Brayden went BACK to bed and BACK to sleep after this little visit. Rob got up at 8:30 feeling guilty for leaving them alone downstairs for so long, and woke me up when he discovered they were still asleep. So I went to look in on them too, and that woke Jack up - but oh well! It was still a nice lie-in. Then Rob ultimately woke Brayden up at 9:30am. But not before I snapped some pictures of the pooped out cutie. It was bliss!
SUNDAY: Today was a mostly low key day filled with a lot of cleaning by me, and playing by all the boys. Then late in the afternoon we decided to take a walk over to the school down the road and play on the playground with our neighbor Marcelo and his mom. Rob was trying to get Brayden to climb this climbing wall, but I thought it was probably a little too steep for him. Well, he proved me wrong and zipped right up without a second thought. Little monkey.
We went swimming this morning at our gym's indoor pool (because it was too cold for the outdoor one which is, of course, now open). We met the Gumm family there, and the kids all had a great time splashing around together. In fact, Jack and Brayden both threw fits when it was time to leave, they were enjoying themselves so much. And since Jaxon and Ashlee both were sporting their cool swim goggles, Jack and Brayden decided that they too NEED swim goggles. So this afternoon we headed out to Target to pick up some goggles. The boys had them on as soon as they were out of the package and properly adjusted. They thought they were so cool wearing their goggles around the house this evening, and they especially enjoyed testing them out in their bath before bed. Goobers.
On Thursday, Jack's preschool class field-tripped to the Denver Museum of Nature and Science. I'm ashamed to admit, I have never taken the kids there. Anyway they are learning about dinosaurs at school right now so they went to the museum armed with a scavenger hunt to find different dinosaurs in the Prehistoric Journey exhibit. I think Brayden was slightly let down by the fact that it was just statues and displays of dinosaur bones... somehow the discussion of a "dinosaur museum" meant to him a "dinosaur petting zoo." In any case though, they seemed to enjoy it overall. We spent the day with Jack's best school friend and his family, which always makes for a good time. We also visited the Space Odyssey exhibit, and saw a show at the planetarium called "Astronaut." That was a big hit with the kiddos. Here Jack and Brayden are checking out the skull of the t-rex and some other dinosaurs.
Today we had a playdate at our house with my best friend and her two little guys, Kadin and Ashton. They are all such BOYS... my two and her two. They went outside to play and they were MOST entertained by throwing around the action figures that came with their various trucks. Such a boy thing. Brayden and Kadin especially enjoyed hanging their guys from the tree in our front courtyard.
I've been pretty pampered the past few days... a pedicure on Thursday with my spa gift certificate from the gym for renewing our membership. Then I had my big haircut on Saturday. This morning I decided to top it off by giving myself a mini-manicure. Of course, if the little monkey in the house (the big monkey was at school) knew what I was up to, there was no way I'd be able to pull it off - he would most certainly demand my attention. So I hid in the kitchen and set up shop on the kitchen counter. Surprisingly it worked! He must have figured I was doing something far less interesting!
Rob went to CSU for his undergraduate degree, and I went to CU. So as long as we've been together, there's been a little rivalry between us. In fact one of our first unofficial dates was a party at Rob and his brother's house to watch the annual Rocky Mountain Showdown. (CU won). So it's always been kind of funny since having kids to fight over what gear to dress them in. You can tell by their closets that we have more CU relatives than CSU. Yesterday Jack picked out his CSU t-shirt to wear and Rob had him running up to me to say "GO RAMS!" but he slipped up and said "Buffalo, buffalo - oh, um, GO RAMS!" Rob was just so pleased that Jack picked his CSU t-shirt that I could help but sneak Brayden's CU jersey shirt into the pile of clothes for the day, and he was sooooooo excited to be a Buffalo football player! Well what I REALLY wanted yesterday was a photo of the two of them together, but they haven't been getting along so great the past few weeks so that wasn't going to happen. And because I was gone most of the day getting my hair cut and scrapbooking... I tasked Rob with getting a photo of the day. I'm honestly surprised he took ANY of Brayden... I fully expected to come home to a camera full of CSU shirt pictures! :) However, as it turns out, Brayden was more cooperative than Jack about getting his picture taken yesterday, so there you have it - the little dude in his CU jersey. GO BUFFS! :)
This morning we met Castara, Kadin and Ashton at a park in the Stapleton area. We ran into our friends Kristin and Ian there, too! The park has a great sandbox, some play equipment, and these cool hills the kids can climb on. The three big boys in our group - Jack, Brayden and Kadin played so well together. Here they are climbing the "big mountain" together just before we left. Poor little Ashton was having a rough day and not feeling great! But we still had a fun trip and visit as always though!
Today was one of those days. There were few moments of peace, there was much bickering between the boys (resulting in much yelling by me - I hate to admit it), there was much pulling out of hair by me. Thankfully after giving up the fight over a new telescope toy from a chick-fil-a kids meal, they stopped fighting for a few minutes and played trucks together nicely and peacefully while I finished making dinner. (Yes, Bradyen is still wearing his bike helmet). I'm glad this day is over.
Mother's Day celebrations started for us on Saturday morning, when we went to my mom's house for brunch with my little family, one of my brothers and his family, and of course my mom. It was the most food I have seen for five adults and three kids in a LOOONG time. It was absolutely delicious, and I have no idea why we don't do brunches more often! The kids all ate, then we sent them outside to play (or rather, they excused themselves to play outside!), then us grown-ups got to sit down and eat in relative peace, too. We felt stuffed ALL DAY. The kids all had a great time too. Miss Kate was a doll as always... and the one word that still always comes to mind when I see her is DIVA! After she gets over a little bit of initial shyness, that girl does not mind being the center of attention one bit! As we were getting ready to leave, she was showing us her gymnastics moves, then got ahold of my sunglasses and was happy to pose for me while wearing them. Isn't she just a riot!?
Sarah and I took this class at Archiver's awhile back, and I'm finally getting around to finishing the pages. I nearly finished my layouts last night, and once the boys really start school, all I'll have to do is pop a few pictures onto each page as we go along. In the end, they'll both have a really cool moment of their school years. (I hope!)
Today was cloudy again, but a little nicer. And even though it was a little on the cool side, we played outside for a little while in the afternoon. We finally go around to taking the "balance buddy" off of Brayden's bike (it's a little bar we used to push him around before he could pedal himself). Then we talked Jack into practicing riding his bike without training wheels for awhile. All his friends are already riding with no training wheels, and we took his training wheels off awhile ago because one of them was broken. So basically, it's turned into a situation where the training wheels aren't going back on, so until Jack decides he wants to learn to ride without them, he doesn't have a bike. He does have a scooter though, so he's been pretty much avoiding the bike. Jack is very much the nervous type, so the fear of falling has him avoiding the bike. Jack did a great job! The last time we tried, I knew he was very close. Today he was even closer. He's got his balance almost down... he just needs to pedal a little faster, focus (he gets very distracted!), and I know he's just going to take off!
