Merry Christmas!

Merry Christmas everyone! We have had a great year adjusting to life in Colorado. Ashlyn is now in 5th grade and looking forward to going to middle school next year. She will have opened 2 new schools in 2 years. Gold Rush Elementary was brand new for her 4th grade year and Cimaron Middle School will be brand new for her 6th grade year. She is enjoying participating in the school choir and taking piano lessons. Aaron loves having a great friend next door and tries to play with whichever friend he can find at any given moment. He is in 3rd grade this year and really is taking to math and science. You can often hear him through the house quizzing some unsuspecting victim on math facts. He is doing really well as a cub scout and I am pretty sure he enjoys having Griff as his Den leader. Brynna started Kindergarten this year and LOVES going to school. As soon as she comes home she is continually begging to play with friends who aren't as readily available as Aaron's. There are two girls on our street who both have school in the afternoon and she only has school in the morning. Life truly is not fair. However Brynna and Cyerra are getting to be better and better friends. It really is fun for me to have two girls in a row together to play together and entertain each other. Cyerra gets a bit lonely during the day with just Mommy to hang around with, however she is quite the comedian and entertains her and I quite well. She just turned three in November and is really growing up quickly. It is amazing how fast it happens.

Griff is quite enjoying his job here in Denver. He loves what he does and the people he works with. He completed his MBA in the summer of 2008 so at some point he may try to find a job to put it to work. I am quite enjoying the process of establishing my photography business, Tender Moments Photography. It has been fun to get to know so many more families as I help them create and capture moments they'll remember forever. I also love the freedom it gives me, most of the time that is, to stay home with my children and still have a creative outlet. As a family, we are happy and healthy and enjoying life. We hope you are doing the same as 2010 quickly approaches.

Best wishes for a Merry Christmas and a Wonderful New Year!

Surprise Visitors!

The other day I got a phone call from my brother-in-law Brady that they were at the Denver airport and had a few hours before their next flight. I picked them up from the airport and brought them to our house for a little while. Mandy had never been there and we were so excited to have them. Mandy helped me pick out new paint colors, the kids played and Brady rested up a little bit so he could drive half of the night. It was great!
We have been loving the snow out here, if not the bitter cold. Cyerra thought it would be fun to try to go build a snowman. I tried to explain to her that it was too cold and the snow wouldn't stick together, but when you are three sometimes you just have to experience things for yourself. I don't think we could get two flakes to stick together, but she had fun getting dressed up and tromping through the snow anyway. Hot cocoa always tastes better after freezing in the snow!

Thanksgiving Fun

I know I am a little behind with this post, but I thought I might try to catch up really fast. We had a great week with my mom flying in from Utah. She brought presents and let the kids open them before she went home, just so she could see those cute faces light up with delight. We had a lot of fun with her and we were sad to see her go back home.
We also had our good friends the Wrights over for dinner. They moved the week after Thanksgiving and we had plenty of room at our table so we thought we would send them off in style. Our kids have gotten to be such great friends and Kimber has been one of my dearest friends here in Colorado. They are now parked along the drive to Chicago, so hopefully we will be able to see them every once in a while on our way out there. We miss them terribly, but are happy for them to be doing so well.
When one of my other really good friends announced she was moving to the other side of town I started to worry, but most of my other friends assure me they are staying put. All in all life is great here. There are so many great people all around us and we feel very blessed.

Chicago! Part Four - Hanging with Nana and Tata

I think this is my favorite picture of our whole trip. I love to capture "moments" and beauty with my camera and this is a great combination of the two. Aaron has been looking forward to going fishing for so long and finally he got to go with his dad. What a great moment! I think this is the kind of picture that will always make me feel something when I look at it and those are my very favorite!

This is Nana and Tata's house. They are currently living in a small apartment to help Nana recover from her broken leg, but this has been a fun part of family gatherings for years. The first picture was taken on the lake directly behind the house. The scenery all around is breathtaking!

Tata invited us to have dinner at their place with some family friends. We had a great time. It was so fun to spend time with them.

Chicago! Part Three - Tom's Farm

Brynna thought it was her right and responsibility to carry out as much corn as she could. She found out that the chickens and ducks liked the corn right off the cob much better than the old dried up stuff and I think she spent 15 minutes holding a cob for them to peck at. She could have done that all day.

They had this really cool silo filled with about 18 inches of corn for everyone to play in. I think that was everyone's favorite. Grandpa, Dad, Ashlyn, and Aaron all took their turn being buried in the corn and rising out like a monster. It was hilarious.

Cyerra wanted to pose for a picture in front of every cartoon character display they had. There were plenty of them. I now have lots of pictures of Cyerra smiling at me. These have been rare so I am treasuring them.

Fun fall decoration, huh? I think that is a great idea. Don't be surprised if some fall you drive by my house and I all of the sudden have a pumpkin tree. =)

Chicago! Part Five - Timber Ridge

Cool Pumpkins in the lobby!

We headed up to Wisconsin for our last day there for a day trip to Timber Ridge. It was perfect! Our luck had finally run out on the weather and it was cold and rainy. Perfect day for swimming, right? Only when you can spend the day at an indoor water park that is big enough to keep kids entertained for hours, yet not too big to worry about losing them. Wow, what a day. There were two water slides, a lazy river, a little kids play area, a rope bridge, etc. They had a blast! Cyerra of course promptly fell asleep the moment we got back in the car to go home. What a fabulous trip. I have never met anyone like my in-laws to be able to show us such a good time. Food, family, fun, why vacation anywhere else?

Chicago! Part Two - Our Date

Grammy Spencer offered to keep our kids occupied for the day so that we could go out for a date. Hmmm, free babysitter, different place, what to do? We were supposed to take the train into Chicago, but changed our minds at the last minute. Three hours on the train just didn't seem like the best use of time to me. So off we went to explore all that Crystal Lake had to offer. After a few errands we headed to this little crepe shop for lunch where I discovered that I have no desire to ever eat goat cheese again. We drove around a little while, quizzed a guy at the camera shop on the necessities of getting a studio up and running, and then my favorite part, wandered around this awesome park minutes from where the kids were playing with Grammy at home. I really wish we had a place like this 5 minutes from our house. It was beautiful with all of the fall leaves. The end result was still over 3 hours travel time, and maybe we should have taken in the sights in the city, but I've got some really cool pictures!