Castle Rock

On another day we went and hiked Castle Rock again.  We have done it several times before (and love it).  We had Ammon with us on this day so we wanted to take him on a fun hike.  Plus with his help I figured we could all make it to the top (we have to climb up sheer rock and don't trust that I can get all four up and down without an extra set of hands).

Can I just tell you that each one of my kids has their own special relationship with Ammon and love him for different reasons.  Brock has loved having an "older brother" (that is what Brock calls him)  it is almost like having Ammon around has helped Brock feel older and more validated. 

LOVE those missing teeth.

We made it to the top!

Madison got pretty tired on the way down.  This was day three of our Fall Break - we had already spent one day swimming (no pictures - Ammon came also), bike riding, and now hiking - she is such a trooper - so I gave her a ride down.

Ammon and I may or may not have gotten Cafe Rio on the way home.  

Bike Ride

We had such a fantastic fall break. Great weather, nothing to do - in fact ALL of our friends were gone.  And I mean ALL.  I thought about going to Utah but then we coudln't for some reason (I don't remember why right now).  At first I thought it would be hard with out any friends - but it ended up being great.  We had great adventures everyday that lasted almost all day (woot woot for no nappers!)

One day we took a crazy long bike ride all over our neighborhood.  We went to a park, the rec center, King Soopers, and then back home.  On the way there we went through the "open space" (bike trails through fields connecting neighborhoods) but on the way home we just went right down Highlands Ranch Parkway.  I was a little nervous - but they all did great.  I LOVE days like today.  I live for them.

Madison's tire was flat so she was on a scooter.

ha - I am horrible at this selfie thing - I need to find a teenage girl and have her get me some pointers - I am so focused on the phone and kids I forget to smile or look cute.  Oh well.

I love my biker gang

Brock's Flag Football

For the second year in a row Brock played flag football.  We have a "no tackle rule until your 12" policy going on in our house (same policy my family AND Jason's family had).  Brock has been loving football and (unfortunately) is really really good at it.  I would much prefer him to stick to soccer - but he seems to love it and have a great talent.  So we might be in this for the long hall.

To make the season even more awesome Jason coached!!  Brock was thrilled, so was I (don't have to drive to practice!) and so was Jason.  Jason loves football and loves to teach/coach - he finally had a work schedule that gave him the time and he felt like the boys were old enough to actually "do it correctly".  Jason was a fantastic coach (in my opinion) but thinks he might wait another year or two before doing it again.  The parents were too much for him.

I just loved seeing him in the huddles coaching the boys.

Brock playing QB:

Brock was our great flag puller and interceptor.  He could run any guy down.  Brock was the smallest guy on the team - but also the fastest.

The Bulls

Cooking

Back in March my mom and my aunt Jen came out to visit; it was one of those visits where they just kind of hung out with me as I went about my regular days and routines with my kids - so they got a chance to see our "real life".  I am always happy to receive constructive criticism and I love a good self analysis, so I asked my Aunt Jen to tell me how she thought I was doing.  Now that her kids are all in their early 20's can she offer perspective on mistakes I am making or things I am ignoring.  Of course she first praised me at what a wonderful job I was doing - but said she was concerned I was doing too much and could get burned out soon.  Most of her concern was the food that I make.  I make almost all of our food and snacks from scratch.  I thought a lot about her advice.  Was it worth it?  Was I doing too much?  Was I spending too much time and energy into something that wasn't worth it?

With out even going into the health benefits we have seen in our family since switching to "whole foods" I decided it was something I was going to keep.  Turns out it's my hobby.  Truly.  I love it.  It fills my cup. While some women like to go to the gym, or for a run, or scrap book, or craft; I love spending 3 or 4 hours on a Wednesday afternoon making my kids snacks for the next few weeks.  It is not something I feel like I have to do.  Sometimes we will run out and it will take me 2 or 3 weeks to find the time to do it again - and in the mean time no one starves and they just eat a lot of apples and carrots! 

One day I was talking to my sister Katie and I told her I had to go becasue I was making our monthly snacks.  She told me to text her a picture of what I made.  So just for record keeping purposes I thought I would put them in the blog.  This is what I typically make every 2 to 3 weeks.

Egg Muffins.  Beat up some eggs, add some cream, and then either diced ham, sausage, bacon, and/or cheese.  I am slowly trying to add yummy things like onions, garlic, peppers, or tomatoes - but so far my kids are rejecting those add ins :(   Ammon likes to take these on his way out the door to early morning seminary.

Whole wheat spelt flour pumpkin muffins.  (I use those rubber muffin cups - they changed my life!)

Whole Wheat banana muffins

My muffins change every time I make my snacks - sometimes they are carrot, applesauce, oatmeal, blueberry, cranberry, etc.  These two happen to be my favorite.  The muffins are great becasue we keep them in the freezer and just put them in my kids lunches or snack cups frozen - they are perfectly thawed in about an hour.

Granola bars.  I have tried for 5 years to find a great recipie.  This is the winner.  It is not as healthy as i would like (brown sugar, butter, honey, and rice crispies are some not so preferable ingredients) - but so far they turn out the BEST than any other recipie I have made.  So these are more of a treat than a snack.

These are my energy balls that I hadn't rolled out yet.

I also made - but didn't picture: hard boiled eggs, breakfast baked oatmeal muffins, and yogurt

And clean up afterwards!

One night I decided to get all fancy and make bread bowls with chicken and wild rice soup.  It was fantastic.

One hobby I don't have is that of photography - nothing looks as good in these pictures as they really are.

Fairy Garden

I used to have a wonderful wooden play kitchen in my sandbox.  my preschoolers (and my children) loved it - they would make all sorts of wonderful mud pies, and birhtday cakes - litmitless play!  Over the summer it broke and I was on the lookout at every garage sale for a new one - I never fouind one.  During the time Madison got this purple fairy house for a fairy garden for her birthday -that got me thinking... maybe I should put a fairy garden in my sandbox.

Turns out they are quite expensive.  Since it was mainly for my preschoolers I counted it as a preschool expense - so I could justify the money.  But I could only afford one piece at a time (plus at one piece a time I could use a 40% off coupon).  Since it was taking several weeks to build as i got each pice i just stuck it in my garden.  But then I realized... it looked adorable in my garden!!  My rocks, slpoe, and ground cover make a perfect fairy garden.  It never did make it to my sand box.

wow - that grass could use some help though.  You will see I greened it up quite nicely in pictures below - the sprinkler head just needed to be adjusted.

It took forever to find good fairies - I just wanted some generic ones - but they are harder to find than you would think.  We also got a treasure box with some "jewels" in it and other things fairy gardens need.

Megan and Madison would spend literally hours out here everyday. 

  Obviously all the neighborhood girls loved it too and since it was in my front yard I had an "open garden" policy.  Some days I would look out my window to find random girls just playing in the garden - I loved it.  I LOVE having children play at my house.  It makes my heart swell with joy.

One day we had a school vacation and all the moms and neighborhood kids went out to play in the neighborhood at 10:30 in the morning.  These girls played with the fairy houses from 10:30 am until 5:00 that evening!  Seriously.  They moved them over to the side of my house and made this whole community throughout the whole yard.  It was fantastic.  

Ammon

I haven't posted in a while becasue I needed to post about Ammon - but the thought was too overwhelming that I have just been avoiding it.  It is overwhelming becasue I wasn't sure what I wanted to say - should I be vague and just say, "this is Ammon" or do I open my heart and talk about how much we love him?  I wasn't sure what was "appropriate".

But I need to get caught up before the end of the year (read: there will be 1 or 2 posts a day) - so I am going to force myself to talk about Ammon.

This is Ammon.  He is 15 years old and is from Syracuse Utah.  He plays hockey - that becomes important later.  He is living with us this school year.

One night in July I was on my computer posting an advertisement for my preschool on a stake yahoo group.  I am NEVER on this yahoo group and hadn't checked it in about 6 months.  While I was posting I was scanning though the other ads and saw one for a home for a 15 year old.  I was intrigued - mostly becasue people sale couches on this site - not kids! ha - so I clicked on it.  It was from a father who talked about how his 15 year old son made a competitive hockey team in Colorado and wanted to come live here for the school year to play.  A voice in my head said, "you should do that".  I quickly dismissed it.  It was absurd.  We have young children.  We can't afford to take in another child.  There was A LOT going on in our life that most days it felt like we were just surviving  - how could we add a 15 year old?  But the voice kept coming, "they are praying someone will say yes, you could be an answer to their prayer".  I immediately made a list of about 10 families in our ward who were in a better position to take a 15 year old - I told the spirit to tell them to answer their prayers - I turned off the computer and went to bed.  The next day I couldn't stop thinking about it.  I kept hearing, "you should do it."  Jason was out of town at the time  - so I called to tell him about it.  I knew that he would tell me that was crazy/stupid and that way I could appease the spirit that I had "tried".  After I told Jason about the ad he said, "ok".  I said, "ok, you'll think about it?"  He said, "no, ok - lets do it."  Immediately I felt peace.  I called his mom and we started talking details.  I had a list of reasons why it wouldn't work (we only have 6 kitchen chairs), and so did she, but the more we talked the more those reasons didn't matter anymore.  At first I was doing this to "answer their prayer - to be a blessing to them" - secretly I hoped they would say no, or that after a few months he would want to go live with a hockey family.  I had NO IDEA I would fall in love with him.  

As we prepared for Ammon to come I was in full "expectancy mode"  I was preparing for a child to come into our home and I was full on "nesting".  I was so excited.  The kids were excited too.  We had to give up our extra bedroom which had become our craft room - I thought it would make the kids sad - they could have cared less.  

Ammon came during one of the craziest weeks of our lives - right during Jason's family reunion with 28 house guests and the start of school (Madison starting kindergarten) - I met Ammon's parents during one of my most stressful time periods - I was worried they were not going to leave him, thinking "she is a hot mess - no way our son can stay here".  But, thankfully, they gave me grace and looked past the house and the people and the noise - and saw us for who we really were.  

Ammon is a delight to have in our home.  I can't stand the thought of him leaving in April.  Things we thought were going to be hard or weird (early morning seminary, having a kid with us after bed time around the house, picking him up from school, etc) have been so fun and wonderful and have blessed our family so much.  We love having "real" conversations with a kid in the houter and has made me see how good it gets as the kids get older and how much fun it can be. Plus I love feeling like I have another sane person in the house when Jason is out of town - it is fabulous.  The down side is he honestly isn't here all that much.  But when he is we love it.

The kids love having someone else to play with.

We have loved going to his hockey games.

And 15 year olds are so useful - they can do anything Jason or I can do.  It's fantastic.