Thanksgiving in the Mountains 2010

In late November, Grandpa and I took the boys to our museum of nature and science in downtown Denver. They have kid-friendly sections with hands-on space activities, health activities, and other areas. The kids love the dinosaur exhibit and they even had a special exhibit on the Amazon. By the time we got to this section, the kids were done but I wish I had more time to peruse the area as I love South America. The kids even painted an Amazon fish - - well, they painted a clay mold of a fish then they pressed it onto white paper. I really liked the piranha and the other scary fish they painted, but I promptly lost these works of art in the mayhem of my minivan.
Prior to Thanksgiving, Harriet ate all the couches in the front as seen by the evidence in the below photo. It's a real treat to come home and see this type of destruction (insert sarcasm)...anyway, we threw out the couches and turned the front area into a kids' room. While this wasn't the best way to figure out this new configurement, it has turned into a great choice. I love the new look of our house when you walk in the front door. The couches were old and worn, so this fresh look is organized and a good area for the kids.
I love this craft that Eban made at school with the onset of Thanksgiving. He wore it a lot and I couldn't help but think about how the teachers taught them about the Pilgrims and the Indians....just a side note from a former teacher.... Let's see some other stories from the month prior to hitting Thanksgiving.
The boys have learned the 'ladies first' notion. It's so cute when they open doors that are too big for them to handle and they grunt out ladies first and let me walk through as they struggle to continue to open the door. I want to bear hug them but instead I smile politely (and sometimes curtsy) and say thank you. They giggle and continue to grunt which I just love.

Eban has really excelled with puzzles. He can now do a 100 piece puzzle all by himself and I love to see the intense concentration and dexterity of this new found skill. Jack can do a 24 piece puzzle now too...I think it's a competition between the two at times as they both want to be good at the things the other excels at. I hope this manifests into a good thing when they are older...and now I find myself wondering how I can help with this idea.

Eban has been quite fearful of 'monsters' at night now. He doesn't like to use the potty by himself and wants someone there with him. Ryan and I have been saying no so he can learn independence and learn that there aren't any monsters in our house...but Jack will step up and say, "Eban, I'll go with you to the potty." And Eban will sigh a big sigh of relief and they will go together. Ahhh, brotherly love...I love it when I see it as sometimes I hear, "I'M NOT YOUR FRIEND!" from both of their mouths. We're working on not using this sentence when they hear something they don't like.

With the Christmas season arriving, our neighbors have put up a light show to match the Griswold's (you know, from Family Vacation)! Scott has even gone so far as to time the lights to music so the blink in beat with the carols that he plays each night from the house. The kids love it and it's impressive to see the amount of time he puts into this work of art. We are the Grinches and haven't put up any outdoor lights...much to Eban's dismay.

Jack's daycare stint is coming to an end as he'll start preschool in January. I'm excited to have the boys at one place but also intensely worried that I can't get him potty trained in one month as he's so adverse to wanting to use the potty. He'll pee, but he won't poop. Everyone says...and my lovely Internet research tell me...that you can't push a kid to use the potty. Ugh...what I wouldn't do to have him potty trained.

Jack also had a funny response to his daycare lady. He was sitting at the lunch table eating but not saying anything. She asked him, "Jack, what's going on?" She had to repeat her concern, "JACK, what are you thinking about?" He sternly looked at her and said, "I'M PONDERING." And went back to looking down at his plate with his infamous scowl. Nice. My kid ponders. We had a good laugh about this statement.

Finally - - Thanksgiving!

We headed up to Keystone, Colorado, to the Rainen's place for the holiday. Due to the inclement weather, the Gerhards and my father missed out on the festivities. The snowstorm hit Vail Pass but it didn't get over to Keystone so all the weather alerts weren't too accurate. The Rehms made it up on Thursday and so did Jenn's parents (who always cook the birds). There were others and we got busy working in the kitchen making the preparations for dinner. Everyone chipped in. I don't think the tv was turned on until after dessert. And we chatted, and chatted and chatted...just like I like it. The dogs were surprisingly unaffected by the masses. They are typically neurotic with so many new faces and smells, but they were content to be there and eat off the ground. I was happy about this too...although they did get in the way as they really started to beg due to all the wonderful odors from the kitchen and the plates in the dining room!

The kids hopped in the hot tub and were super happy to stay in there for a little bit. On Friday, I had some girl time and hit the outlet stores with the ladies. I really hate shopping so I need to work on this tidbit in my life. The boys, except Jack, went snowmobiling at Vail Pass. Eban and Dennis were scared at the beginning but soon fell in love with it.
Finally, we left on Saturday to return to the Front Range and take it easy for a day...Loveland Pass was beautiful as seen by the below photo and the boys were conked out so they missed everything. The day early return meant that we had an opportunity to catch up on laundry, prep meals for the week, make a valiant attempt at some chores around the house, etc. At least we had a decent amount of leftovers for sandwiches and other snacks for the following week. Can't beat that!

In the above video, Eban is jabbering up a storm about all sorts of stuff

Our first rodeo and another train expo!

In November, Grandpa told us that there was another model train expo coming to Denver and I knew we had to go. The boys love the trains and the activity of the different train sets - big ones, little ones, Lego ones, Disney ones, a haunted house/fire truck one, mountain themes, urban scenes, etc.

Off we went to the Western Complex in Denver to see the trains. This year, it wasn't as expansive as it usually is, but the boys didn't seem to notice. They were really interested in the Lego train set this year (of course I was adding the cost of something like that to our house, thinking of all the pieces strewn about, and where I would keep something and quickly threw that notion away).

The young model train group met with us as we idled about and they informed us that you had to be at least 7 years old in order to be in their group due to the difficulty of working with set pieces. I thought that was nice but they said it in a manner like I should have known that answer. Interesting. We also saw our friends JD and Tawnya for dinner one weekend night and enjoyed their delicious meal (half of which they grew in their house) due to their aquaponics business. It was neat to see that in action in their basement and learn about different strategies to sow and harvest healthy food in an urban setting.

They have Emerson (pictured) and a set of twins but the boys gravitated towards Emerson...well, mostly Eban did. Jack was fine playing by himself.

Lastly, a highlight of November was attending a genuine rodeo. I was on facebook and read that one of the alums where I work would be in town as she's married to a rodeo cowboy. I emailed her to ask if the Denver event was kid-friendly and she enthusiastically told me to come on down with the family! Well, we did!
We got there a tad bit early like she informed us and we were immediately whisked away to the back area where the cowboy competitors and their families stayed. Charity's husband, Kelly, is a bareback bronco rider. He told us about the sport and talked about the fact that they do not condone animal cruelty, etc. I absorbed so much info on a new sport it was crazy. Charity and Kelly even gave Eban and Jack some candy in the back area, so they were instantly happy! Then Charity gave us a tour of the 'behind the scenes'. We saw Miss Wyoming or Miss Colorado practicing with her horse...and Jack was immediately smitten. I thought Eban would be but I think Jack was impressed with the pink bedazzled outfit.

Then we went down to see the horses up close. Some cowboy knew we looked new to the arena so he kindly gave us half apples to feed the horses. The boys LOVED this part. They couldn't get over the fact that they fed horses apples. They each picked a horse name and we had to call them the names for roughly a week. Eban chose the name Spike and Jack chose the name Samsit or Samtis. Right? I have no idea if Jack meant Samson or what, but he corrects us to say Samtis or Samsit at times.
Anyway, we went out to the stands eventually and we had great seats (row 2). Eban wanted the rodeo food and kept saying he had to go to the bathroom which was conveniently close to the concessions. I told him I didn't have any money. On his next visit, he took daddy and pretended to pee then looked up at him and said, "You got the money, right?" They came down with fruit and something else so he was quite happy to have rodeo food.

Kelly did his competition and won the whole rodeo. He came into the stands and kissed his wife and showed off his belt buckle and other awards. He promptly gave them to the boys to look at and I nearly fell over as I could envision the kids oohing for two seconds and then seeing how far they could throw the prize. They didn't throw it but we were certainly guarding the prizes as the kids held them. Jack was even allowed to sit on the prize-winning saddle for Kelly's win...I'm sure he liked Charity holding him to boot...but from the picture I grabbed, you can't tell that he was thoroughly enjoying the moment.The boys loved the rodeo so much that they wanted to ride horses following the show. The only horses they could 'find' were our dogs and thank goodness, the dogs are so mellow with them that they tolerated their antics for a week or two. They have resorted to just playing 'horse' and using their horse names. They also have come to LOVE apples and Jack actually the an entire apple in one sitting in the back of the van - - core and all! He said he was a hungry horse. I guess so!

Kelly winning the bareback competition

Jack playing with his dogs

I thought they were napping when I heard laughing...so I took my camera upstairs and captured this

Halloween 2010 and Skating

At the end of October, we headed to the local pumpkin patch in Erie, Colorado, to get our pumpkins for the season. It’s more like a family farm which sits on two acres - - no one was outside when we rummaged through the patch to get our pumpkins. We had to ring the doorbell of the farmhouse to pay for the pumpkins - - the boys also roamed to the back area where the chickens were and Norman, the cat. There, I found a basket of eggplant and she sold us two eggplants for a buck! One was purple and one was white… With our colorful eggplant, Ryan and I made the best eggplant parmesan ever…it was so delicious, I can’t even tell you! That evening, we carved pumpkins and proudly displayed them on our front porch - -
I should say I carved the pumpkins as the pumpkins guts were too gross for the boys. I couldn’t believe that?? We also placed our hairy spiders on the front porch to scare would-be trick or treaters! I’m sure they didn’t scare a soul, but the dogs sure were quizzical about them.

Eban also attended one
of his girlfriend’s birthday parties - - at Skate City. Brea was a rockstar on the inline skates and Eban was unsure the entire time. Ryan tried to take him around the rink but it was hard as Eban wasn’t confident whatsoever. As a good consolation prize, Eban had his best bud, Dylan, there so they hammed it up together.

Jack met a new girl at the party - - her name is Claire and he didn’t stray very far from her the entire time. She didn’t want to skate and neither did he so they made a good pair. Claire goes to Little Village with Eban so now whenever Jack comes into school to pick up Eban, he looks for Claire and they give each other hugs. It’s really too sweet for words. Eban has really thrived with puzzles and coloring lately. Below is one of his creations for Halloween
and it keeps him occupied and busy…he really does enjoy the creating piece of things. In fact, he created a big Lego castle at school one day and when I went in to pick him up, the teachers pulled me aside to show me the castle. As I looked at the monstrosity in front of me, I did notice a mini square wall attached to the normal looking castle. The teachers were laughing and saying that Eban said the castle needed air conditioning thus he created the HVAC area next to the castle. Talk about being impressed - - Eban was very serious that the castle needed this function, so I went along with it and told him how smart he was.For Halloween, Jack was a fireman on some days and Scooby Doo on others. Eban was a pirate. Eban was consistently a pirate while Jack would dress up on some days and not the others. They dressed up for school one day, went to the zoo another day and then trick or treated so they got plenty of use out of their costumes this year.
Like last year, we headed to the zoo for the yearly event, Boo at the Zoo, which the zoo hosts along with community partners. There are trick or treat stations all around the zoo and there’s everything from candy, to organic fruit bars, to coupons for the parents. We went with Dylan, from preschool, and his cousins. They had a blast and all the animals were very active on the beautiful Saturday morning that we were there. I love the picture of Jack kissing the snake through the glass - - the snake was very interested in him to say the least!

Halloween was a blast. Jack made it this year as he said thank you at Scott and Sandy's house after receiving his candy. Last year, he failed to say thank you so he stayed home as he was stubborn and refused to say thank you. We went around the block with Grandpa and eventually met with with Caitlin and Ashley with whom they trick or treated with for the remainder of the evening. I enjoyed this as I also had Sandy with me and she always greets me and then hands me a beer. Nice neighbor, huh?


Jack still isn’t pooping on the potty. He is completely adverse to it. For many weekends in a row, he will hold it until we put a diaper on him at night and then he’ll go. He’s quite crafty and I know we have to resort to different measures to encourage him to use the potty. Is there any advice that you’d like to shell out to me for free?? Let’s see for other news - - Eban’s new favorite song is Dynamite by Teyo Cruz (sp?) and Jack’s favorite song is Teenage Dreams by Katy Perry. Just thought I’d share that little tidbit!

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