goodbye fall… hello winter!

I love fall, it’s my favorite season.  We were lucky to have a longer fall this year in Denver.  It’s never long enough for me though. :)  We had our last warm day a few weeks ago and we knew it would be one of the last nice days so we met some friends at a newly remodeled park and had a really good time!  Jackets weren’t even required, it was warm.

Check out the size of this leaf!  Bigger than her face.  This park has a community toy bin with 10 or so of these ride on toys, Sophie really enjoyed racing friends on the sidewalk.

This is the merry-go-round –ish like thing that spins.  The adults are spinning it and the kids hang on (and fall off a bit too)! Tessa’s face in this one really makes me laugh, you can tell she’s a little bit leery of this ride.

It was a nice way to say goodbye to fall, we can’t wait until Spring when we can revisit that awesome park.  But now it’s time to SNUGGLE UP!

Because the very next day…

As you can see, Sophie was quite upset.

 

NOT!!!! I was only kidding, she was NOT upset, but very very excited.  After a lot of begging and saying please I let her go out on the porch to “look at the snow.”

  

Well I guess, ready or not, here winter comes!  I have to say that I get more excited for snow because of my kids.  Their enthusiasm is contagious.  I think one of my favorite things about being a mom is experiencing the world all over again through them.  And to them, snow is magic and lots of fun to play in!  So it’s my goal this year to make a few snow angels and snow balls and try to enjoy it.

Fire in the neighborhood and other recent happenings

Sunday afternoons I stay home and let the kids have a much needed nap while Dan attends choir (then need tenors more than altos).  A couple weeks ago during choir I got a text message from a friend asking if the fire was near by us.  I hadn’t heard anything, I was just curled up reading the Ensign magazine.

So I went outside to investigate.  I could smell the smoke instantly!  I looked out off the balcony and could see a huge crowd of onlookers accross the street looking at something I couldn’t see.  I went inside and made a few calls to make sure those I knew in the building the fire appeared to be in were ok.  They were all in different buildings and fine.

I left my kids sleeping in the apartment and took my camera to snap a few pictures of my own (the one above is from the news website).  Here’s what I got:

{From the balcony, not much going on, cop cars are a regular occurrence in our low-end apartment complex.} {as I got closer I saw more emergency vehicles}

{Saw this news van peeling onto the scene, there were several.} {The fire was out by the time I got there, it appeared the firemen wanted to soak everything just in case.}

There were 24 apartments in the building, all were damaged. Over 50 people lost their homes and most of their possessions that day.  FORTUNATELY, no one was hurt.  I don’t think anyone was even taken to the hospital!  Such a relief.  I read it was a 2 alarm fire.

I found out the next morning that Rani (remember her from Girl’s Camp?) and her mom lived in that building.  They now live closer to me (her mom is the one I mentioned in my last post that Sophie gave “compliments” to) and are doing fine.  The Red Cross has done a lot for them and so has their church (they aren’t members of my church, Rani just came to camp because she was invited).  But without renter’s insurance they have nearly nothing left.  I’ve been happy that I had few extra things around like a shower curtain and sweatshirt that I could give them.  But mostly I provided transportation and helped them learn how to use the new things in their apartment, more than happy to help.  Can you imagine?  I bought a renter’s insurance policy the next morning. :)  If you think about it, it just takes ONE person in your big apartment building to make a mistake and the whole building could BURN!  Scary thought, and this incident made it more real to me.

The “other recent happening” from the title was that while I had a night out with some girl friends Dan not only offered to watch the girls but took them to Chuck E. Cheese!  What a cool dad.  I told him that I could make them pizza before I left (a requirement EVERY Friday night) but he said he wanted to take his girls out on a date.  He’s such a cool Dad.  And to make it even better, the girls finally got to ride in “Daddy’s cute little car.”  They loved it.  Thanks Dad!!

Heaven help us!

Sophie’s learned she can dress herself…

This is the first outfit that Sophie’s ever picked out and put on by herself.  I usually am trying to corner her somewhere in the house with a outfit I have picked out.  I guess it never occurred to her until now.  She shut herself in her room and told me not to come in.  It took some struggling and she came out with the shirt on backwards and mumbled a “help please.” But after the shirt was turned around she was quite proud!

I am scared where her wild imagination will take her in how she dresses!  I’m thinking I should establish times where it’s “mommy’s turn” to choose and times when it’s Sophie’s turn, so she doesn’t go somewhere too important dressed like a clown.  We did go to Costco this morning, in this lovely outfit, at least it doesn’t clash!

I was reading some old blog posts about Sophie as a 2 year old yesterday and was surprised how much of it I had forgotten!  So I want to take a quick moment to document what she’s doing as a 3 and 3/4 year old:

• Interested in reading, Sophie’s known all the letters and their sounds for quite awhile.  In the past couple months she’s starting announcing what letter words we say start with.  For example, “Sophie, listen to Mommy!”  “Mmmmommy, that starts with M Mom!”  Names are her favorite.  Just recently though she has shown interest in what things say and is always asking me, or guessing.  For example:  (looking at a Cheerios box) “Mom, does this say chocolate cereal?” (we have chocolate Cheerios)  “It says Chocolate Cheerios, good job!”  Then she’ll point to the correct words and “read” them.
• Loves to pretend.  Sophie is almost always pretending to be one animal or another.  Her favorites are (and their names): a race horse or zebra (Stripes), a doggy (Bolt or Perry), a cat (Mittens), a sheep (Little Peep), and a lion (Simba or Nala).  She is serious about her character too, if you call her Sophie when she’s pretending to be something else she’s come out of character to say “No, I’m PERRY!” But she won’t speak otherwise, she will meow, whinny, etc. in different tones to try and make her point.  She is using sign language a lot so she doesn’t have to use human words.  The nursery workers expect it, when we drop her off they ask what she is today.  I find myself saying things like “Remember, there are no dogs at school Sophie.  You have to be a girl during school ok?”  or “We don’t super-bark our friends!”
• Names her toys.  All of her stuffed animals have names and most of them stick for at least a couple months at a time.  The strangest one is her stick horse’s name, I am not sure how to type it because it’s hard to even understand her say it, but my best guess is Tyrolivingon.  Weird, I know.  No idea where she got it, but it’s been consistent for nearly a year now I think.  I think it’s funny how she always calls me Mom but if she’s speaking for one of her toys she’ll address me as Jessica.
• Loves her sister.  Sophie is always looking out for Tessa.  If Tess is trying to ask me something and I am busy Sophie will just yell at the top of her lungs, “MOM TESSA WANTS SOME MILK!!” (or whatever it is)  Ironically, Sophie also spends a lot of her time tormenting Tessa.  She likes to push her down, jump on top of her, take things away from her, and just tease her in anyway that will get a rise out of poor Tess.  As a result Tessa knows how to either fight or scream for help and they have a pretty good balance I’d say.
• Likes to compliment.  Her most commonly used phrase has to be, “I like your ____.”  She says it to me all day, friends, and strangers.  It’s very sweet how much she notices about people and wants to mention.  Sometimes though, it comes off kind of rude.  For example, we were over at a neighbor’s house who is blind helping her get settled in her new apartment.  Sophie says, “I LOVE your sharp teeth!”  Not funny, since she has several missing teeth and the ones remaining are in poor condition making them look “sharp.”  Once we were outside I told Sophie not to tell her that her teeth were sharp, just pretty.  Sophie, being the bright girl she is, next time we were over said, “I love your diamond teeth, they are pointy like diamonds!”  Bless her sweet little heart, she would never take offense to such a compliment.  And I hope that our neighbor didn’t either!
• Plays ROUGH!  We think she’s ready to be a line backer.  Sit down on a the couch in our house and prepare yourself to get pumbled!  Sophie loves to wrestle, jump on, and pull on people.  She’ll get a running start and just slam into you.  She knows she can’t hit so she’s always finding new inventive ways to collide with others.  Like swinging her arms largely when she just happens to be passing by Tessa.  Tessa cries, Sophie says, “I didn’t mean to, it was an accident.  I was just walking!”  Her dad can take it and will just block all of her attacks including jump kicks and upper cuts while reading a book or watching TV without hardly trying.  I on the other hand can’t take it and send her to timeout for the similar attempts all day long. :)  I have to laugh at mom’s of little boys that warn me they like to play rough and they might scare poor Sophie.  It’s not 5 minutes before they are standing on a chair trying to get out of her reach or hiding in a corner.  Between her expert wrestling moves and super-barks no one dares cross her.
• Has a sweet side too.  Sophie likes to climb in bed with me every morning around 7 and sleep another half hour or so cuddled up.  She gets really excited about when mom or dad get home from being gone somewhere.  And the last few nights I’ve had stuff late at the church.  When I walk in she’ll supposedly sleeping but will quickly come out of her room and hug me and say, “I’m so glad you’re home Mom!” 
• Baby talks to babies.  I love watching her play with babies, she talks to them in the same funny voice that I subconsciously use.  “Ohhhh, look at the tiny baby!  So so cute!”

Sophie you are such a special little girl and we are so glad you are part of our family! 

Why is it that trying NOT to cry, makes me cry harder?

Sophie head butt me in the face this afternoon giving me a fat lip (not malicious, just being too crazy when I was trying to put her shoes on).  I was at my brother and sister-in-law’s.  It hurt, but the amount of crying I did was not proportional to the pain.  So embarrassing! I tried so bad to hold back the tears but they came anyway.  They were very nice and did their best not to make it awkward for me, but I was just bawling!  And couldn’t stop.  I hate that I can’t compose myself on cue.  Having an audience always makes the water works more intense.  Does anyone else have this problem?  I remember it being worse as a teenager.

Halloween 2010

Sophie assigned us all what we were going to be for Halloween over a month before the holiday.  We are all character’s from Disney’s movie Bolt (which we learned not many people have seen!).  Sophie is Mittens the cat, Dan is the villain “The Green (or in this case blue) Eyed Man,” I am the girl Penny, and Tessa is Bolt the dog.  I had on the striped tights and big boots that Penny wears (which didn’t make it into any of our pictures), just so you know! :)

Update: Got this picture from Leslie, show’s some of my tights.  I realized I didn’t have any black shorts that weren’t for running that afternoon so I cut off some black dress pants that were floods anyway and hemmed (horribly, they were all wavy) them up.

Sophie with some of her friends!  The dinosaur is Vincent.  Jessie is Brinley and Woody is Trinity (both who just moved away :(.)

Some of the activities at the trunk-or-treat included: bean bag toss, apple rolling, coloring, and doughnut eating.

Bolt and his nemesis the blue (instead of green) eyed man.  Notice Tessa choose an apple over a doughnut, crazy girl!

Some of our friends who dressed up:

The Browns are all from Toy Story. Leslie made all of these costumes (besides Buzz) herself! Isn’t she so talented?  I miss you Les!!  The Gordons, adorable Star Wars family.

The Mitchells are Eve, Wall-E and the plant, so clever!  The Guercios (minus Aaron who had to work) always look fabulous.

 

The Wanbergs (daddy was sick) Dr. Suess characters, she just threw these costumes together last minute!  Such talent.  Matt, Cami and Lily joined us for the trunk-or-treating and decorated our trunk since we never do.

Some more pictures of our girls:

On the way to the party.  I must say that Sophie was SOOOOO excited to finally have whiskers painted on, she had been asking for weeks.  I even broke down and painted them for her a few days afterwards to wear around the house.  Tessa, did NOT want to wear her costume, we kind of distracted/tricked her into wearing it.  But she was a better sport when she saw all the other kids dressed up (and I may have told her that no one would give her candy if she took off her tail or ears.)

 

Candy time! 

No surprise that the girls wouldn’t go up to Phil or his dragon, not even for smiley fruit snacks.  Scary!  His dragon is so awesome though,  I didn’t get a picture but the girls would trick or treat to the storm trooper either.  Don’t worry, they still got and enjoyed a fair amount of candy!

With Halloween falling on a Sunday we didn’t get out to knock any doors this year.   I know in Utah the kids went out on Saturday but that wasn’t happening in Denver, unfortunately. I thought about trying anyway, who could say no to such cute kids dressed up?  I considered it but decided that it would be kind of rude to show up unexpected and kind of force people (if they hadn’t got candy yet) to go through their house and find something to give my kids.  So we didn’t go.  But that’s ok, Sophie had forgotten since last year. 

We went home and watched a really cute movie with Matt and Cami instead, called “How to Train a Dragon.”  The girls liked it too and we all ate their candy together. :)  We love Halloween, I’m glad that Dan humors me and will dress up with me and kids.  He had an offer for a free ticket to an Air Force football game that night which he turned down to be with us, thanks honey!!

J, C, and Jaycee

Jason, Candice, and baby Jaycee came to town a couple weeks ago.  Here are a bunch of photos I took while they were here!

Hammonds Candy Factory

Hanging out at Matt and Cami’s 

Awww, Jaycee.  These brothers love to play video games together!  And they “never get to.” :)

Lily learned to crawl that weekend!  I love holding babies, especially such easy going ones as Jaycee.

Sophie kept trying to steal Matt’s chair when he got up, so he had to retaliate.  This is what they wanted it for, spinning.

The girl’s favorite meal, nacho cheese flavored chips.  We stayed late and poor Tess was exhausted! Fortunately she’s resourceful and will lay down anywhere, she got that from her great grandpa Ellis.

Jaycee’s face says it all, so chill and completely adorable.  Tessa doesn’t care for the male type in general.  But there are a select few she favors, Uncle Matt has reached that status.  I love this picture of him showing her his fish.

Pumpkin Carving 

Jaycee smiles plenty, but not for the camera!  The picture is blurry but I was proud to get one of her smiling.   Lily and her uncle Jason.

 

Sophie wanted nothing to do with the insides of the pumpkin, but Tessa was the polar opposite.  She couldn’t get enough of the stuff!

I taught Sophie how to follow the pattern and poke holes in our pumpkin, she LOVED it.  Look at that concentration!

She did a great job too!  I wouldn’t let her do the cutting, but she thought I did an ok job.  She loves cats.

Matt and Cami were nice enough to let them paint pumpkins too!  Even after Tessa made a royal mess of the pumpkin guts.  Fortunately nothing was ruined during the painting of these pumpkins.  They are still on our porch and have been for over 2 weeks now, my girls love to look at them and a bonus, the squirrels leave the painted ones alone!

Cami carved the goblin trick-or-treating, and Matt did the skeleton.  Jason and Candice opted not to carve, and Dan was gone at a church meeting.  I don’t know how I didn’t get a picture of Matt carving.  He has an electric pumpkin carving knife!  I know, crazy right?  I tried it just to cut my chimney hole out the back and that was enough power tools for me, I can’t wield it!  Obviously, Matt’s skills are far superior to my own.

Cherry Cricket

This was after the swearing in ceremony.  Sophie was loving the babies!  She can really make Lily laugh, it’s fun to watch.

Tess was feeling goofy.  Dan’s burger was really spicy!  Notice the sweat on his forehead.

Candice had to hold Jaycee just like this, or else she’s cry.  So much for chill!  I think you can actually tell Sophie and I are related in this picture, what do you think?

 

We are so lucky to have 3 visitors all in the same month!  (Dan’s parents, my dad, and these guys.)  Thanks for coming everyone!  We loved having you here.