Humpty Dumpty, Rockies Game

Eli's class recently finished their Mother Goose unit at school. The culmination of their weeks of nursery rhymes and related songs, worksheets, and crafts was a poetry recitation for the parents and an egg drop from the top of the school building. All the kids got to recite their favorite Mother Goose nursery rhyme for their classmates and the audience. They also sang a cute song, "The Three Bears Rap," as a group. 

I gave Eli some suggestions on nursery rhymes he could choose for his recitation, but in the end he decided himself to do "Hey Diddle Diddle." He did a great job.

All the kids in Eli's class did a great job on their nursery rhymes. After everyone was through, we went outside for the Humpty Dumpy Egg Drop. The kids had had several weeks to come up with a way to package a raw egg ("Humpty Dumpty") in a way that would enable him to survive a drop from the top of the school building. Eli chose to package Humpty Dumpty in a small box (due to size restrictions) with packing peanuts. All on his own he came up with the idea for a parachute. 

Humpty Dumpty survived!

That evening we went to the Rockies game downtown. I had the unique opportunity to sing the national anthem with the Colorado Mormon Chorale at the game. I recently auditioned for the chorale and was privileged to be offered a spot. This was my first performance with the Chorale and it was a blast! Justin and the kids were in the stands cheering us on. 

Some good friends, the Lakes, joined us at the game. The grownups had fun chatting and the kids had a blast climbing around on the bleachers and eating snacks (and watching the game from time to time). The Rockies played the Giants and won! Go Rockies!

Neighbor Friends

I was looking through my phone pictures and realized how much time our kids spend playing with neighbors and I have never really blogged about it. We feel lucky to live in this neighborhood where there are lots of great people and families with kids. We've become good friends with our backdoor neighbors, Jon and Ann Stiles, and our kids love to play with their boys, Jack and Charley. We went to Charley's birthday party in August, but I don't think I got any pictures. The kids love to conspire over the fence and they often fetch balls or darts for one another.

We have some neighbors who live up the cul-de-sac, the Pattersons, who we love to sit outside and chat with while the kids ride bikes and scooters. They have three girls, Ella, Taylor, and Charlotte, who are about the same ages as our kids. Charlotte and Emmeline are only a month apart in age and they love to go on wagon rides together.

Benjy, Eli, and Ella with matching blue popsicle tongues. 

Our next door neighbor Monica joins the kids outside sometimes. One day the kids were putting grasshoppers in the stomp rocket and sending them up into the air. The grasshoppers fell out midair and landed unharmed, miraculously. 

 

Monica was excited about finding a grasshopper with blue legs.

Eli goes to school with another friend in the neighborhood, Soren Martin. The Martins are the family that first introduced us to Excel Academy, and Eli and Soren were in the same class last year. We carpool on Thursdays, and the kids get together from time to time to play. Soren and his younger brother Christian came over last week while their parents went to a Dave Matthews concert.

Just recently we met another family that moved into the neighborhood at the beginning of the summer. The children are Olivia and Max, and they are roughly Benjy and Emmie's ages. We met them at the park and found out they live just a few houses away from us. This past weekend, I took Benjy and Emmie to Olivia's birthday party. We look forward to getting to know this fun family even better.

Benjy's First Day of Joy School, Emmie's First Hair Cut

Eli isn't the only one going to school! Benjy started Joy School a couple weeks ago. A group of seven of us moms got together and formed a group consisting of eight (two are twins) kiddos aged almost 3 to four. Benjy is the oldest in the group, so he get the unprecedented experience of being the most knowledgeable kid in the room. Joy school is on Tuesdays and Thursdays from 9-11:30. We started off at our house, since I organized the group and have done Joy School before. 

The kids did pretty well for their first week. A couple kids had a really hard time the first day and their moms had to stay the whole time. On Thursday though, both moms were able to leave after a little bit and their kiddos did fine. 

What do you notice the most about this picture? That Emmie is holding a kitty lovingly in each arm? Her adorable smile? Or do you notice that hair in front of her beautiful eyes? This prompted me to do something I have been putting off far too long...

Cut those bangs!

 

Now we can see that adorable face.

Even if the bangs aren't totally straight. :) 

Last Monday we had a baking extravaganza. Eli and I decided over the summer we were going to make a fruit tart, but we never seemed to find time for it. I decided to surprise him by baking the shell while he was at school and letting him help me put in the filling and fruit. While I had the baking stuff out, Benjy and Emmie helped me make a double batch of pumpkin bran muffins to freeze and a double batch of oatmeal chocolate cookie dough balls to freeze. 

The kids helped me slice fruit and arrange it on the pastry cream. It was a super-fancy-special family home evening treat.

Emmeline is obsessed right now with volcanoes. She first was introduced to the volcano at the miniature golf course near us. They have a fake volcano that blasts fire every ten minutes or so, and she was so fascinated by it. Now she sees volcanoes in things not even remotely resembling volcanoes, like the lion's mane in the Mother Goose book.

 I took a video of her looking at a picture of an actual volcano just to hear her get excited about it.

Steamboat Trip

A couple weeks ago, we spent some time in beautiful Steamboat Springs. My mom and siblings stayed up there too and we spent the week sightseeing and visiting. We stayed in some time share units my mom rented as a Christmas gift to us all. 

We happened to be there at the same time as the Pro Tour USA bicycle tour. The first phase of the race did a loop there in Steamboat on Monday. We ran into standstill traffic in the afternoon when they closed the road completely for the racers to come back in to town. We hopped out of the car and got a great view of the bikers racing past.

Later that day we hiked up to Fish Creek Falls. The falls were not nearly as raging as they were when we visited in June! The water was low and slow enough that everyone felt comfortable wading in. The boys had fun rock hopping and splashing around.

Here are some other memories from our trip:

- Riding bikes around town

- Seeing a hot air balloon every morning

-Walking around downtown Steamboat, getting ice cream at Fuzziwig's, and taking pictures in front of the H.M. Light Western store

-Stopping in the museum quality fossil store and marveling at the incredible artifacts

-Playing cards with my brothers and sisters

-Justin and Eli riding the alpine slide

-Swimming at the Steamboat Hot Springs pool, and Justin making it to the top of the rock climbing wall!

-Fishing with Grandpa... Eli getting to reel in the rainbow trout, and both boys getting to eat it later

-Riding the gondola to the top of the ski mountain

-Having dinner in the ski lodge with some amazing live music

-Riding bikes to downtown and finding a pin to put on our USA map