Bear Creek Pumpkin Patch 2012

The Bear Creek Church's pumpkin patch (benefiting Bear Creek High School) is back! It was supposed to start this past Saturday, but they didn't get their pumpkins in until Monday. We took a stroll there Monday afternoon. The temperatures were warm but windy, and leaves blew rained down on us from the neighborhood trees. 

I love being able to walk to the pumpkin patch for a few weeks out of every October. It's a nice change. Here are the kiddos picking out a pumpkin:

First Fallen Leaves

We took a walk to the creek on Friday and played with the first fallen leaves of the almost-fall season.

Oliver enjoyed crunching the leaves in his hands.

Joanna enjoyed examining the leaves and didn't even try to eat them (she's growing up!).

I sure love these kids.

Oliver found some whirlybirds and enjoyed watching them spin to the ground.

Friends and Coffee for the Win

I've been experiencing a few small bumps in the road of life.  One of my best friends popped by with an iced latte on Thursday to cheer me up.  I was on almost zero sleep, and the kids were cranky.  Her visit was exactly what I needed to make the day better.

She helped Oliver select rocks to drop into the creek from a foot bridge.

I think Oliver liked having someone around with as much energy as him.  Phuong enthusiastically dropped rocks into the creek right along with him.

We came home to get out of the sun and cool off.  Oliver thought it was the neatest thing ever that Phuong gave him some ice cubes to drop into his water.

Friends make life infinitely better.  I can't imagine my life without her!

Father's Day 2012

By the end of each weekday, I'm run down and exhausted.  Andrew rides home on his white horse (err, white Subaru) and saves the day. No matter how hard his day's been at work, he still finds enough energy to take the kids outside or chase Oliver around the house.

He has buckets full of patience.  He's genuinely interested in what Oliver wants to share with him.  He has a keen eye for wildlife and catches snakes and grasshoppers and other critters to show the kids.  He's the kind of guy the neighbor kids love to see outside, and they drag him around to show him their neat finds.  Actually, that type of thing happens everywhere.  When we go to the park or the mall play area, all the other kids see Andrew playing with Oliver, and they start demanding he "Watch me!" or "Look what I can do!"

The truth of the matter is that I couldn't do this whole parenting thing without him.  Parenting is hard, even though it's wonderful.  The house gets torn to pieces, there's lots of poop, and there's little sleep.  He deals with as many middle-of-the-night wake-ups as I do, but he gets up to start the day with the kids at 5am and often lets me sleep to 6am, sometimes as late as 7am.  I love Andrew as my husband and partner, but I appreciate him most as my children's father.  He's incredible.

For Father's Day, I decided to be the one to get up at 5am.  This was after handling two wake-ups from Jo and one from Oliver.  I felt like a zombie.  How does Andrew do this?

We set up his Father's Day loot, and Oliver colored on a card I whipped up.  We got him a new chopping knife he'd wanted, and we made him a photo gift.

I let Andrew sleep in until 8am, and then I woke him up to play Minecraft while I took the kiddos to Starbucks (I needed espresso).  When I got home, we all worked on making homemade waffles, which Andrew had requested.After waffles, we took a family stroll down to the creek.  It was about 10am, but it was already over 80 degrees out.

Following creek time and nap time, Andrew put his new knife to work and made us all delicious grilled veggie sandwiches.  Then, he and I alternated watching the kids so we could both get a haircut, because the temperatures outside reached 95, and we were miserable.

I came home to find Andrew and the kids playing with the water table.   They are so stinking cute.

We waited for things to cool off a little bit and then drove to Red Rocks to walk around a bit.  The scenery is breathtaking up there, but we were reminded there isn't much shade.  We walked around until we polished off all our water, and then we headed home.

In all, I think it was a great Father's Day, and I love celebrating my husband for all the work he does at home and with the kids.  Happy Father's Day, Andrew!

Bear Creek

Andrew and I took Oliver to the creek behind out house today. Part of the outing involved us working on being firm and teaching him to walk in public. Oliver frequently refuses to walk when we're outside of our home and will do whatever it takes (tantrums, screaming, whatever) to get us to pick him up and carry him. This outing was no different. When we were about 20 yards from the creek, we set him down and started to walk. Oliver stood and said, "Up!" I told him that he was going to walk. He tried saying, "Up," a few more times. We told him no, that he was going to walk with us.

Oliver had a tantrum in the middle of the trail. We were consistent and even stern at times. Other times, we were loving and sat and held him. We didn't give in and carry him. It took at least twenty minutes, but he finally walked on his own. OK, so he crawled most of the way, but then he walked. I thought for sure we'd end up caving before he did, but we managed to stay strong. I felt very good as a parent, knowing that consistency won out. Our little guy really needs to learn to walk in public, and I want to teach him to do so before he's a big brother.

Once he made it to the creek, I think he decided it was worth it. Here he is with Andrew checking out the creek:

Enough with watching the water. Oliver decided it was time to throw rocks into it!

Oliver asked his daddy to take him "in." Andrew confirmed with Oliver that he wanted to go into the creek. Oliver answered emphatically, "Yeah!" And that's how my two favorite guys ended up in the creek:

Andrew and Oliver came back to shore. After a minute on land, Oliver decided he wanted to go back into the creek. He had no fear and didn't wait for Dad, who had to scurry to catch him:

In the end, Oliver had so much fun. Andrew had just as much fun, and I think he's excited to take Oliver again soon. Sometimes, we get a little jealous when we see little kids out walking around and even doing easy hikes with their parents. Today was a small victory that will (hopefully) lead to being able to do those things with him.

Summer

A family stroll down to Bear Creek: