Let Him Eat Cake

It's a rite of passage that I love, and despite my always fulfilled promises to clean it all up, Dan has major anxiety when our kids smash their one year cake.

But Dan was on his own that day.

The rest of us looked on with excitement and screams, 

and Jack didn't seem to have any anxiety at all.

Sand Dunes National Park 2015

We feel so lucky to have landed here in Colorado so near to the Allred's.  Dan and Reid have been friends since their freshman year in college. I'm not saying we're old, but that is getting to be a long time ago.  

They are wonderful people and friends, and have been so good to us since we moved here.  They are also very busy.  So when they asked if we'd like to join them on a camping trip to the sand dunes, we were rightfully concerned with taking the littlest muggins camping in the sand but it only took a moment's consideration to agree.  The sand dunes were on our "list" and getting to experience them with friends we don't get to see all that often sealed the deal.

As we drove down we said prayers that whatever happened, that we would, please, just not regret the whole thing.  

And then a bear ran right out in front of our van.  No lie.  These could be big foot pictures but I promise it was a black bear.

Then we forgot all about regret and just started praying that we wouldn't get eaten by a bear.

It was such an unusual landscape; prairie, sand dunes, huge mountains.  

And then if the bear wasn't enough, we looked out the window and saw this fifty point buck or whatever.  

After setting up camp, locking anything with a scent in our bear locker, and saying more prayers that we wouldn't get eaten, we enjoyed a campfire under a full moon.

In the morning we headed to the dunes.  Up until the end of summer when it dries up, there is a river that runs at the base of the sand dunes.  It was mostly gone for our visit, but there was still enough to wade in and make beautiful designs in the sand.

We rented sand sleds.

And it was pretty fantastic.

Hours of fun were had by all.

Climbing back up the hill after sledding down was the hardest part.

And sand got ev.ery.where.  

Finn and Jack didn't do much sledding, but they did like to play in the sand.

We discovered sand in weird places for the next week.

Before we left, Ava's horse back riding teacher had tipped us off to a fun alligator farm.  They also had plenty of other reptiles.

This girl shocks me.  Of all the things that scare her, she'll wear a snake around her neck without a problem.

Luke wasn't scared either.

This is the closest we got to a group shot.  Grace is missing and Max is hiding.

The little alligator "punched"our certificate to authenticate it.

They had two little baby rattlesnakes born that day.  Can you spot them?

This was the alligator from the movie "Happy Gilmore"

And this was a nasty 80 pound snapping turtle.

This is a not-nasty, super cute, 20 pound smoochy bunny.

And if you were wondering, this is how the smoochy bunny took his naps (read: he didn't). But he did sleep pretty darn great at night so I forgave him.

Deer wandered in and out of our campsite.  

And the sunset was unreal.

We did another round at the campfire.

And made it through another night without getting eaten.  I love cramming all of these people into the same tent and waking up together.  Seriously, it's one of my top favorite things in life. 

Finn's entire scalp was coated with sand, 

And my foyer stayed stacked with camping gear for three days after we got home,

but it was totally worth it.

I'm Just Talking

I hate not writing on my blog regularly.  I can go back and hit those more major outings and trips but the daily humdrum stuff is so easily forgotten.  And while I have no doubt that I will enjoy going back and reading about our fun adventures, I think it's the everyday life that I'm going to miss most.

Like when Ava gave her first whack at using the nail clipper to clip her own nails a few weeks ago.  I'd say she was pretty successful, especially for her first try, at least on her fingernails.  Her toes were a different story.  In fact, she decided that when she goes to college she's "probably just going to ask her roommate to cut her toenails."  I would give a million dollars to be a fly on the wall for that conversation.

Dan has taken the big boys to Utah for the BYU game and it feels so weird to have their beds empty.  I've spent nights away from them of course, when I'm traveling, but this is the first time that I'm home and they aren't.  They got to the airport way later than planned and rushed through a clogged up security and to the farthest terminal on the train, but they made it.  Dan texted me the good news.  Then he texted me the following conversation, which is just so classically Luke:

Dan: Luke, I'm really excited to go to this game with you!
Luke: Ok.

Similar conversations go like this:

Me: Luke, I love you so much.
Luke: Thank you.

Max on the other hand, can hardly keep his emotions in check.  He usually doesn't actually. Soccer is in full swing and it's his first season. In his own words he is "not very good" but in the same breath says "I just love soccer!" He isn't awful but he kind of doesn't know what's going on.  And he might have a better idea of it if he could just get out of his own imagination at practice and games.  He jumps and prances up and down the field, occasionally kicking the ball if it comes in his vicinity. He runs really fast and turns his head to the side so he can watch how fast his feet are going.  He stops and starts and throws his hands up in the air and the whole ordeal is just very dramatic. He is playing some scene out in his mind 90% of the time. The other ten, he's trying to follow the directions of the coaches as they speak to him in what appears to be Chinese, based on his blank stares. But he loves it!  He runs by us in games or practice and yells at the top of his lungs,

"MOM, AM I DOING GREAT?!?!"

or

"I JUST WON THE GAME" (after his team scores a goal.)

And at the end of every practice, he comes barreling over to me yelling,

"THANK YOU SO MUCH FOR BRINGING ME HERE!"

So, as much as this might be the last soccer season for him for a while, at least he has kept it entertaining for us.    


Finn has really picked up some attitude lately. He has realized that if he has any chance of getting a word in edgewise on Max, he has got to be assertive! So now, when conversation is in full swing, he yells, "Listen to me! Stooooop talking!! It's my turn to talk! Listen to meeeeee!"

In fact he did this as the boys had gotten in the car after school and were giving me the run down on their respective days.  The car felt like a sound proof cage.  All around me life was going on as normal but inside I felt trapped and like my ear drums were about to explode. Finn screamed so loud, the boys did actually stop talking.  Surely after that kind of demanding, he had something important to say.   When he had everyone's full attention he took the stage. All eyes and ears were on him...
  
"Mom, what's a dinner?" (Mom, what's for dinner?)


I hear that question at least 14,756 times everyday.  14,753 are from Finn.  When he gets in our bed to snuggle in the morning, without fail, he rolls over to me and says, "Mom, what's a dinner?" and then asks again approximately every 2 minutes for the rest of the day.  I don't know why.  Nor do I usually know what's for dinner.


The green space by our house is being developed which is sad but has fostered in him a new appreciation for trucks and diggers.  He is also especially fond of garbage trucks.

He squeals with delight whenever we see one.  And then he says,

"An I get big, a garbage truck."

I tried to clarify at first, "When you get big you want to drive a garbage truck?"

"Yes!" he would reply enthusiastically.   Until one time I asked the same clarifier but instead of "yes," he looked at me very seriously and said, "No.  An I get big, I'n a BE a garbage truck."

He is so funny to me because he plays and imagines with things that truly frighten him.  It's like his own exposure therapy.  He pretends all kinds of toys are either vacuums or lawn mowers.  We were on a hike and a person passing us the other way commented on his "walking stick"  to which he promptly replied, "No! It's my back-ume (vacuum)"  There have been a few times since our dreaded master bathroom remodel,  where something is missing.  Both times he has come close and whispered solemnly, "Maybe the bafroom guys took it."  Because in the scarerarchy of Finn's mind, there is the vacuum and the lawn mower, but at the top is the "bafroom guys".

What was supposed to be a five day project, these guys managed to do in more than 4 weeks.  They were very nice, though quite sketchy looking.  And they were the subjects of Finn's nightmares. He talked of them daily, always wondering where they were, what they were doing, and when they were coming back.  One of them had eye recently operated on due to cancer and his eye was very unfortunate looking.  When Finn came face to face with either of them though, he'd scream his head off.

And then when the bathroom was finally finished and water started to leak through our dining room ceiling AGAIN, I screamed my head off.

But they fixed it.  And it's all over now, thank goodness.

Jack has learned to scream with the best of us.  We have a very, very noisy home.  And some days there is just so much crying.  Most days there is so much crying.  So. much. crying.

The highlight of Jack's day is probably the kindergarten bus.  He kicks and squeals and points as soon as it rounds the corner of our street. He also loves when he wakes up in the morning and at least two kids come running in with me to give him hugs and kisses.

 He refuses to even try to walk.  He still pulls up on furniture but doesn't "cruise".  He crawls everywhere, especially upstairs, and he's finally starting to get the hang of going down backwards, which is a welcome relief for me.

He is my first baby to not take a paci.  He does love his blanket though.  More often than not, I pass by his room and look through the glass french doors to see him sleeping soundly with that blanket wrapped around his head like a turban.  In fact, when I lay him down, always on that blanket, the first thing he does is put his hands by sides, grab two fistfuls of blanket, and throw himself onto his side, wrapping himself like a burrito as he goes.

There, that feels good.  I'm not sure how great that was for you, but it was great for me and it might not seem like much right now but there will be a day that I am going to appreciate coming back here and reliving these crazy days.