My Future Storm Chasers!

Who knew playdoh could become tornados?

What we’ve been up to…

Carson had his first haircut.  This is how he felt about it:

Before…

During…

After…

We were going to have family pictures in the *beautiful* fall weather, but instead we had our first snow:

Chris has been watching his Dodgers play in the playoffs.    They just swept the St. Louis Cardinals.  Here is the picture story of Game 3:

Ryan & AJ had their first sleep over with their friend, Mason:

And me…I’ve been snapping away!  I had three sessions last weekend and one tomorrow!  We’re busy, busy, but loving life!  Here’s a few of my faves:

A New Adventure Begins…

After months of praying, crying, and listening- I finally decided that I would homeschool Ryan for his Kindergarten year.  It has been such a long journey that started about 2.5 years ago in Texas when it seemed like God had surrounded me with these crazy ladies called “homeschoolers”.  At the time I thought:  Who in their right mind would want to do that?  🙂  That trend continued when our family moved here to Colorado.  When the first several people I met here homeschooled, I decided it was time to listen what God was beginning to sow in my heart.  Seriously?  What was the deal with all these homeschooling mommies?

So again after more prayer, tears, and now confirmed peace, I’ve decided that homeschooling Ryan was where God was calling me…for now anyway.  We’re taking this one year at and even one day at a time.  🙂

I must say I’m so pleasantly surprised with how much I LOVE it!  We have had so much fun and am excited for what this year brings.  Here’s us doing our homeschool thing…

And then Ryan had his first day of school at Brighton Options!  Options is a program that’s offered through the Aurora Public School District for homeschooling families.  It provides kids a traditional classroom experience one day a week with Specials too!  Ryan gets PE, art, and music every time he goes.  He met his teacher Mrs. T and had to sit in time out twice!  Not my kid! 🙂  They were pretty innocent reasons, but it’s truly another reason why I love that he’s learning what is expected of him in a formal classroom setting.  It’s so great too because our church hosts the program so Chris gets to take him to school each Tuesday!

The Greens Triumph over the Rocky Mountains (well sort of)

We did it!  We went camping!  This time we actually ate dinner and slept in a tent (well sort of).  So we were in a tent, but didn’t sleep much.  

We had hot dogs and of course s’mores!  The boys had such a good time exploring with their cousins-The Texas Greens!   Although one of the boys was falling every 15 minutes.  My poor nephew, Tyler, fell and ate a mouth full of dirt.  He even got some war wounds out of it.  But they were tough (well sort of). 

It was a great evening of putting up the tent, moving the tent, bear proofing everything-yeah, there have been bears up there.  Golden Gate State Park, by the way, BEAUTIFUL!  I’ve decided Chris and I ROCK at the whole setting up and taking down part.  Seriously!  We could have our scouts badge already, but some people think there’s more to camping than the set up part.  🙂 

So after we had dinner, the kids played, Misty and I took the boys exploring…and then it was time to put baby Carson down.  I fed him and layered him up and put him in the pack ‘n play.  He took awhile to settle down, but finally fell asleep.  Yes!  The night is off to a great start (well sort of).

About 30 minutes later after Carson went down.  Ryan found a huge bug on Carson’s side of the tent.  I did not scream or anything!  And I am telling you this picture does not do it justice, it was a very large bug.  So Ryan’s way of protecting baby Carson and dealing with the bug was to throw, hurl rather, the ball at the tent, which then started a chain reaction-a bad chain reaction.  Carson was startled awake and this made him raging mad.  One thing about my sweet boy is that he can be a bit of a screamer when he is mad or tired. 

We tried to get him to go back down, but that just wasn’t happening.  We got him up with us and so began the night of no sleep.  He nursed and slept on me while I watched the moon travel from one end of the tent to the other.  At the beginning of the night, I snuggled in my new sleeping bag (that would later twist and not zip because I was holding my sweet Carson) and laid comfortably on the surprisingly cozy air mattress (that would be completely deflated sometime later that night) and thought, “This is going to be the best night of no sleep-ever.”   It was wonderful holding that sweet little baby that is crawling everywhere now and will rarely snuggle with me.   Little did I know he would be waking up ever 1-2 hours screaming inconsolably-that part not so pleasant. 

None of us really slept except the boys.  All but poor Tyler, he got altitude sickness and was up most of the night being miserable.  Which later a friend read a story about a baby who had the same camping experience as Carson and they found out it was altitude sickness.  Poor babies! 

I will still say we were victorious!

New Life

The older boys and I got to experience something truly amazing on Wednesday! 

I finally decided to tackle the remnants of my garage sale.  I started with a vest of Ryan’s that had been there-oh, since our camping trip, err camping disaster.  🙂  I tossed it in the keep pile and found that I had put my hand in some brown goo.  Gross!  What was that?  Then I saw a butterfly.  What did I think?  Photo op!  I ran inside to grab my camera, which lately feels more like a new appendage.  But I’m loving it!  I did wash my hands really quick because, what was that? 

When I got back outside I showed the kids and they were so excited! 

Then we noticed that this poor little guy seemed sick.  His wings were very weak. 

Then I thought that maybe he was brand new.  Remember the goo?  I looked at Ry’s vest again and sure enough-this is what I found!

I looked online and found that it can take as little as an hour for a butterfly’s wings to dry.  How amazing is it that we got to experience this?!  God is so good!

Ryan & Carson Playing!

This is the new game that Ryan & Carson play!  How cute is this?!

Berry Patch Farm

Thursday we met up with some of our friends at the Berry Patch Farm.  It was a scorcher, but it was such a great time!  We were able to go on a tractor ride and see all the different kinds of fruits and vegetables.  We even picked a few berries.  AJ got scratched up from the raspberry thorns (I had no idea they had thorns)!  Carson must’ve picked a berry himself because I caught him “red handed”-sorry I had to!  I am my father’s daughter. 🙂  And yes, those are snow boots on Ryan’s feet.  A wise woman (you know who you are) once told me concerning children and pretty much anything else…pick your battles!   Enjoy the pictures! 

PS My sweet son, Ryan, was so worried about AJ’s injury that he was crying all the way home.  Just now he asked me, “Which pictures do you like? I don’t like the one of AJ’s owie because I was worried about him.”  I love his tender heart!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Milestone Mania

We’ve had quite the exciting week around the Green household!  It began Tuesday when I found out that AJ had taught himself to swing.  As long as the swing isn’t too high, he can get on by himself and swing ’til the cows come home. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Then we have Ryan’s 1st Tball game on Friday!  That was a BLAST!  Ryan smacked one right up the middle and got an RBI.  Really every player gets an RBI, but the excitement is still intense!  It was surreal watching my “baby” play Tball.  Where has 5 years gone?

Ryan's RBI!

Playing 1st base

AJ is ready to hit!

Later that night Carson tried Puffs for the first time.  He really didn’t know what to think of them!

As if my head wasn’t spinning enough with ALL my kids have accomplished…Saturday evening, Chris taught Ryan how to ride his bike without training wheels!

One proud daddy!

Chris explaining the rules:  Keep your head up and your feet on the pedals!

Camping Disaster ’09

Allow me to set the stage for you:

A 5 yr old, a 3 yr old, a 6 month old baby, and two novice campers.

Our story begins on June 12th we leave at about 2:30pm.  We make one stop, King Soopers, because the baby needs bananas.  We’re off!  Finally, I’m told where we are going, Mary’s Lake Campground in Estes Park.  Which is so appropriate for our 1st camping trip because (here comes the mushy stuff) it’s where Chris and I first told each other “I love you” and where Chris was planning to propose-the weather ruined that plan too, actually, funny that we should be conquered again by the weather in Estes Park.

We arrive at approximately 4:45pm.  We have a plan because I’ve been reading a book called Kids & Camping-which Chris has teased me about for days!  The boys and I were going to collect wood for our fire, wait we find out that’s prohibited.  Plan B, we purchase wood for the fire.  The boys and I clear the big rocks from the area where the tent will go and Daddy is going to start putting the tent together.  Ryan and AJ both cleared one rock, so I guess they were done.  They were off finding sticks and exploring-exactly what I wanted them to do.  It was so great watching them run around the campground. 

We noticed the wind right away.  It’s barely 50 degrees and with the wind it was even colder.  It was pretty funny watching Chris try to get the tent set up.  It was equally funny watching me start a fire.  While we each had our jobs, Carson is jumping around in his hop and pop.  He has his warm onesie on, a jacket, and a hat…why didn’t I take a picture???

The tent was up in no time and I had successfully started a fire and kept it going.  Dinner was on and coming along great!  So far so good, we got this camping thing down.  Fifteen minutes later our luck, as they say, started to change. 

There were already two holes in the floor of the tent.  Oh great!  Of course, I’m worried about that because there has been rain everyday for two weeks.  The plan changes again…now I’m off to town to get a tent repair kit and a tarp, no we didn’t have one-and it’s a bit of a sore subject.  🙂  Meanwhile, Chris will stay withthe boys.  Since dinner wasn’t finished and I had  some hungry boys on my hands, I decide we’ll start with an appetizer, toasted marshmallows-of course!  I got them on the poky wire thing (yes, that is the official camp verbage)  But then I had to go because I’m on a time crunch, Carson needs to eat in less than an hour.  Before I leave I snap a few pictures from the van, then I have to go.   Little did I know I was about to miss all the fun camping.

 

However, beforeI go, I subliminally tell Chris to watch over our dinner.

I make it into town and find the visitor’s center right away, they point me to an outdoory store about a mile down the road.  They didn’t have a big enough tarp, so they point me to a True Value store…where is it?  Right across the highway from the visitor’s center.  Grrr, this is fun right?

I make it back right when little Carson is at his limit.  He didn’t take a nap in his pack ‘n play (in our torn tent) and now he’s hungry.  He was such a trooper!  Chris tells me they had such a great time and  that he sampled our dinner and was complimenting me on my camp cooking skills.  Unfortunately, that was about 20 minutes ago.  I pull the “hobos” off the fire and they are charred.  Not well done, charred.  I’m able to salvage a few bites for the kids to munch. 

Just about this time Carson rolls right off the air mattress on the ground.  He was okay, thank God, but Ryan is nearly in tears because he’s worried about his baby brother.  We love on our Carson and I begin to feed him.  It’s at this point when I notice the wind is gone.  It’s perfectly calm.  The weather was turning in our favor!  Or so I thought. 

The new plan is while I’m feeding Carson, Chris is going to repair the tent, be on rock removal and lay the tarp down.  Ready…break!  Chris starts his job, but after a few minutes, I get this feeling that we better set the back of the van up for Carson.  At the time, my reasoning was because he was so tired and we really didn’t know how long the tent repair would take.  We also get the boys in their warm clothes.  So I’m feeding Carson, the older boys are munching on what’s left of our charred dinner and Chris is pulling stakes.

Ryan says, “Hey, it’s raining.” Chris asks me, “Is it?”  I don’t notice any rain drops, “No, it’s not.”  But then there was one.  The timing was so key here.  I move Carson into the van  to bundle him like the little brother on Christmas Story (“Mom, I can’t put my arms down!”)  and lay him in the pack ‘n play that’s in the van.  Just as Chris pulls the last stubborn stake from the ground, this wind literally comes out of nowhere!  Chris sends the boys to the bathroom for shelter.  Seconds later those sparse raindrops became a torrential downpour!  We are running around frantically trying to put lids on bins to keep our stuff dry.  The firewood!  I run it to the bathroom.  The mattresses!  Chris runs them to the bathroom!  The bedding is in the van, and I also check on the baby, he’s not sleeping, but he’s dry & warm, and not crying…yet.  Chris goes to check on the boys.  I turn around to see our once tent turn into a parachute.  I’m screaming, “Chris!  Chris!  Chris!”  He comes to the rescue and I ask him the pivotal question, “At what point do we call it?”  We didn’t need to discuss it, he starts breaking the tent down and I check on Carson who is now screaming.  My poor baby!  I climb in the van which is piled high with stuff, like the mountain we were going to hike.

What a 1st camping trip!  At 8:00pm we pulled out of Mary’s Lake and Campground headed home to sleep in our non-ripped, floored warm beds.  But before I leave you to laugh at us in our naivety, I will close with this:  After the rainstorm passed us, AJ comes out of the bathroom with his pajama shoes (as our kids call them) and undies down at his ankles, walking toward me dragging his pj’s in the mud and water.  All he says, “Um, Mama, I need a little help.”  Don’t we all, son, don’t we all?

The wreckage after the storm.  Notice the charred tinfoil-everywhere!

defeated

"Seriously, I'm 6 months old. What were you thinking?"

Things I hear on any given day…

“Do you see that big tornado with dust and debris?

“This is Rocky Canyon, there is an avalanche making fire in the mountains!  Copy that.”

“AJ, let’s color together.”

“He’s (Carson) so happy, Mama!”

“I made it just for my brother.”

“My baby is so cute!”

“Mama!  Come see what I built!  I’m good at building.”

“Oh no!  I see a tornado touching down in the east!”

“Good team work!”

“You’re right, Ryan, you’re right!”

“Yummy, yummy gummy worms!” (peas-I know, I don’t get it either.)

“So how is your day, Mama?”

While listening to Klove:  “Hey!  That’s psalm 106!”  (No kidding!  That came out of my 3-yr mouth!)

“Did you know water makes me happy?”  (Again my 3-yr old!)

“Did you know milk makes me silly?” (Guess who?) 

“Mama, is that cool or what?”

“What do you want to be when you grow up, Mama” 

To which I’d have to reply, “A Mama!” 
…love being a mom!