HAPPY HALLOWEEN

may madness

so may has been a fun month full of all kinds of adventures.

i ran the spartan race at fort carson on the 5th and it was a lot of fun.  we climbed walls, hurdled trenches, crawled through mud under barbed wire carrying rifles,  ran up and down hills, packed heavy backpacks up and down hills etc.... it was a great time.

tyrell went to his favorite place in the world, green river utah for the annual dirt bike weekend.  and gratefully made it home unscathed.

he did have a small mishap with sinking his bike into what appeared to be a dry lake bed.

and this is not a picture of tyrell's  bacne... no, these are welts ty got trying to save our car during the hail storm.  

my parents came over memorial day weekend and brought me a bedroom set!!  it was so great to have them here to visit and i am LOVING my new bed!

uncle andrew came too and i think is now the favorite uncle

and of course poor max had his first ear infection that same weekend.  poor  little guy he was pretty miserable!  

tyrell decided to fix the bent rod in his truck and had to pretty much rebuild the engine.

we went camping with some friends and had a great time.  well other than the fact that it was freezing and our kids didn't sleep well.  but that is usually what camping entails.  tyrell set up the zip line and the kids LOVED it

some people caught fish and carter was in heaven

we went on a little hike and it was so pretty!

we caught bugs

ate way too much junk and of course, managed to be the dirtiest ones there!

we are enjoying our summer!

more updates

round two of planting grass! hopeful that straw would hold in some moisture and protect the seed, we spread it all over the backyard (a task that for some reason i thought was kind of fun). but it turns out that it is, of course, no match for the pueblo wind. seriously, the day after we laid the straw we had a few days of hurricane winds. i am sure our neighbors were all watching us from their windows thinking " no!!!! please

stop, that is all going to end up in my yard!"..... and it did :)

our friends invited us to their cabin in cucharra and we had a great time. we went on a 3 hour hike, packing the boys the whole way. of course there were still 3 foot snow drifts and a whole forest full of fallen trees. but the boys did great and i am going to say that we did too! it was fun and really pretty. thanks petersons!

so carter gave max his first black eye. it was an un-witnessed assaultallegedly involving carter, a vacuum extension and max's face:( i was at work and the kids were playing in the basement. i can only hope it was an accident!

when i came home from work the other day, i turned onto our road and saw a single head light. i thought i was odd and assumed it was a four-wheeler or something. but who should meet me along the roadway but tyrell and the boys on our riding lawn mower. those boys like to ride anything!

since you saw us last

brief updates: in reverse chronological order.

andy and michele came to see us in january and it was so much fun to have visitors.

we have been up to play in the snow a few times and carter is finally old enough to enjoy it but max does not.

carter turned 3. the truth is, i was in tennessee for his birthday, at a room mate reunion (which was so much fun, thanks suzi for watching the boys while i was gone) . so gma smith was here, and we had cake and such when i got home. (but our camera was left in sj, so no bday pics and no room mate reunion pics). carter got a dirt bike helmet for his birthday. he was excited and put it on and then asked 'motorcycle?'. sorry son... the motorcycle doesn't come with it quite yet :)

and we saw a fox while tyrell was making us hot cocoa. he came really close to us.

and ty snowboarded down the mountain with carter on his board. carter of course LOVED it. (max...on the other hand was still not having a great time)

we were in pima for christmas. we had a great time. carter was just as obsessed as flynt about the rc airplanes and was out there by his side the whole time they were flying (probably to flynt's chagrin). the boys got to ride in the tractor with grandpa. carter didn't really like riding in the bucket but was usually on g-pa's lap working the controls. much more his style. we rode 4wheelers, and played at red knolls, and saw friends, and played vball, and ate, and had a great chrismas eve program. we also spent time in sj helping my parents do some work around the house. we had a great christmas break.

the boys know a lovely duet

i turned 30! thanks girls for a fun time (and this wasn't even all of them. of course we didn't remember to take a picture until after some people had already left)

max turned one!

family pictures

getting family pictures taken is always a stressful time. moms... you know what i am talking about. first you have to find the photographer, decide on the location, and worst of all.....pick out the coordinating outfits. which, for me, requires a lot of thought: 'what do we have that will work?' 'what colors should we wear?' 'what do i need to go buy?' 'ok, i can do this... i am going to go shopping with the kids.' 'you know...i just need to find something that looks good on me and make everyone else work around that.' 'why does nothing i try on look good on me?!' and 'what will tyrell wear? (one thing i picked out for tyrell was a v-neck sweater, you would have thought i was asking him to wear a dress!) 'ok fine, we are just going to wear this because it isn't hideous and i am not going to worry about it any more!' :).

after all this is accomplished, the real fun begins as P-day arrives! when you must somehow get everyone clean, dressed, happy and simultaneously cooperative. quite the task indeed. but, i suppose, it's worth it in the end when you get pictures of cute smiling faces. never mind that your smile is perhaps a little less than genuine :)

HAPPY HALLOWEEN!

yard

i really wish i had an original picture of our front yard so you all could appreciate how it looks now, but here is an in progress before picture.




















and here is an after picture. there is still more work to do but the grass is growing (it's patchy, but it's growing), and it's not looking half bad!

we live on a dirt road and it FINALLY got scraped! the boys sat outside for a long time watching the tractor, and the driver even stopped in front of our house and let carter get inside. living on a dirt road has it's perks :)