Shoes, Running, Dentist Appointments, and Baseball

Little Janie bear is such a sweetie. She is so happy and has started laughing a lot, which is so cute. The kids love to make silly faces and funny voices to make her laugh.

She hangs out in her vibrating rocker in the kitchen a lot while I make dinner.

 She is starting to hold her upper body more steady. She's still not sitting up unassisted, but she's definitely getting stronger.

 There's that smile!

 Last Tuesday, Jen and Haley met Emme and I at Cafe Rio by the Colorado Mills Mall. We went down there to visit a kids' shoe store that is going out of business, and I recommended we have lunch at Cafe Rio first. It was Tasty Tuesday, so it would have been wrong not to go there for lunch. The girls watched the tortilla lady roll out the tortillas.

All the shoes at the Stride Rite were $10, so we stocked up on lots of different sizes and styles for the kids. I have four children, so I went a little bit crazy.

The kids had running club after school. Benjy and Nolan were good at running...

and walking buddies.

After running club, we took the kids to McDonald's for cold treats.

 On Wednesday, the kids had dentist appointments. Everybody was cavity free, so that was a win. Eli's top left front baby tooth hadn't come out yet though, and I asked the dentist when we could expect it to become loose, since the teeth on either side had already come out and the permanent teeth were coming in. Dr. Dave said it would probably be a good idea to remove the baby tooth so that it didn't interfere with the permanent tooth above it. We left and took Emme to her dance class and then came back for the extraction. Here is Eli's smile before the tooth was removed: 

 And after. He was really brave and didn't complain at all. Dr. Dave put some numbing gel on his gums before he gave him shots, and Eli didn't even know he had gotten any shots.

We worked all week on getting the house and yard ready for the house to go on the market. I planted some bushes in front of the house, and I'm kicking myself for not doing this much sooner! Our house is looking pretty sharp.

 Sweet sisters.

 The boys had their first baseball games on Saturday. Here is Benjy up at bat. The kiddos on his team were pretty cute to watch-- whenever the ball would go toward them in the outfield, they would all run after it in a swarm, except for a few kids who weren't paying attention and were looking at clouds or playing in the dirt.

Saturday we also had the concrete step and walkway in front of our house leveled in preparation for the house to go on the market today (4/27). 

GT Tech Challenge, Running Club, Big Changes

Last week, the GT classes had a Tech Challenge showcase evening. All of the GT classes do some kind of special project during the year that uses technology in a challenging way. Back in November, Eli's class made Pilgrim books using Microsoft Powerpoint to showcase things they had learned and researched. They got to be authors at a book signing on the night of the tech challenge, telling people about the books they had written and handing out autographs.

Here is Eli and his friend, Nathan.

The boys also started running club last week. A big group of kids stayed after school on Tuesday to run laps around the school baseball field and playground. Here are the kids before the start of the run:

The kids got off to a quick start, but after a few laps, their energy started to wane. The promise of a cold treat at the end helped them to muster their strength.

Emme had her second dance class on Wednesday. She was so excited that she slept in her leotard the night before. :) We go out to breakfast with Jen and Haley before class, and then we head over there together. It is a fun morning for everyone!

This picture popped up on my Facebook feed. I took this picture three years ago of Eli, Benjy, and four-month-old Emme.

I decided to take a similar picture of the kids now, three years later and one child more.

On Friday, the boys took a day off of school to go skiing with my mom. It was their first experience skiing and they had a fun time.

We have some exciting news-- we are moving to Colorado Springs! Back in January, Justin talked to the vice president of the company, Kim Koi, to see if he would be able to transfer to the Colorado Springs office. He has been frustrated with his boss and some of the office culture in Denver for awhile now. We also are ready to move to a home with more space, but that's just not possible for us in Denver with the way the housing market has inflated. Four attorneys work in the Springs office, and at the time of Justin's inquiry, none of them were looking to leave. We had pretty much written off the possibility of him transferring.

However, about a month ago, one of the Denver office attorneys quit. One of the Springs attorneys saw the vacancy and wanted to transfer to Denver. The director of the Springs office knew that Justin had been interested in transferring, so she reached out to Justin to see if the interest was still there. We had pretty much abandoned hope of being able to find any employment attorney position in Colorado Springs, and had already started applying for jobs elsewhere in the country. This opportunity came as a total surprise! We weighed the pros and cons over several days and thought and prayed about what we should do. We decided that it would be a good move for Justin, since he would have a better work schedule and more positive work environment, and a good move for our family, since we would be able to move into a larger home and be closer to my mom. 

We told the kids about the move the day before their ski trip. I was kind of concerned about how they would take the news, but they took it in stride without any strong emotional reaction. The biggest concern they have expressed in the past about moving is that they would have to leave behind their stuff, so I was sure to explain that we would take all of our belongings with us. They seem pretty open to the adventure, and Justin and I are very excited for this new opportunity for our family!

Aliens, T-Ball, Gymnastics, Remembering Eileen

 At the very end of March, we had some extraterrestrial visitors. March is National Alien Month, and for several years now the aliens have made an appearance at our home bearing treats and gifts.

 Emme was frightened by the brown alien, so she stayed as far away as possible.

Eli got a book called Darth Paper which had directions for making origami Star Wars characters. The boys made some Darth Papers and battled them against one another.

 Sweet sleeping Jane.

 Our sweet across the street neighbor, Eileen McReynolds, passed away. She and her husband Bob have lived across the street for over 20 years, and they are the couple who always know what's going on in the neighborhood. We attended a memorial service in her honor at the Broomfield Senior Center, where we got to visit and see pictures of Eileen from her youth. She spend the end of her career working at Broomfield High School and coaching volleyball, and this picture is from her last yearbook.

 Emme dressed up her wolfie in one of her shirts. I thought it was pretty cute. :)

We got some snow at the beginning of April. We didn't get any snow at all in March, which is unusual for around here. Of course it wouldn't be spring in Colorado though without snow!

 The boys started up with T-ball/baseball practice, and Emme started her dance/ gynmastics class. She and her friend Haley are doing it together, and they are so adorable. Emme has been looking forward to this class for weeks and weeks now-- ever since I told her about it. She has been wearing her leotard around the house all the time and practicing her dancing.

 

Emme was so cute to watch. She took all the instruction so seriously and tried her hardest to imitate her teacher. She is definitely applying herself to her dance studies!

 Sweet Jane is so smiley and happy. Eli was making her laugh the other day, and her baby chuckle was adorable. 

Spring Break

For Spring Break this year we took a trip to South Dakota to see Mount Rushmore. It had been quite some time since we had taken a family trip, and we were all itching to go see somewhere. We left Saturday morning around 7 a.m., and Jane slept all the way to Cheyenne, where we stopped for gas and a nursing/potty break. The next leg of the drive took us to Lusk, Wyoming, where we hopped out and had a picnic lunch at a park in town. The next stretch took us all the way to Mt. Rushmore, where we arrived around mid-afternoon. We saw some cute mountain goats along the side of the road as we ascended to the top.

Mount Rushmore was much closer than I expected it to be. I envisioned gazing at it from a great distance, with a gorge separating us and the presidents. I was startled at how close they looked (although the picture doesn't do it justice). 

We got ice cream cones and ate them while we made our way down the long walkway.

We took a scenic path that wound around closer to the base of the mountain, giving us different vantage points for pictures.

That night we stayed in Keystone, the town right by Mount Rushmore. We walked around hoping to find a nice place to have dinner, but we discovered that all the restaurants in the town are closed when it's not the summer tourist season. The ONLY restaurant open was a place called Bar-Lee's. It was a special parenting moment for Justin and I as we sat our children down for dinner at a bar! 

Sunday we drove around in the morning taking in some scenery. That afternoon, we drove to Rapid City, which was about 45 minutes away, and checked into our hotel for the next few nights. We stayed at the Fairfield Inn, which has an indoor waterpark called WaTiki attached to it. We swam that afternoon and then had dinner at the Outback.

On Monday, we drove to Custer State Park and hiked up toward Harney's Peak. At the top of the peak is an old fort that would have been fun to see, but unfortunately it would have been a bit too much for the kids. We hiked as far as we felt they could hike back and then turned around. We saw some beautiful scenery and wildlife along the way.

The kids discovered a small cavern on the way back to the trailhead.

After our hike, we headed back toward Rapid City and stopped at a place called Reptile Gardens. It was a great little reptile zoo with turtles, alligators, snakes, and other animals. We saw an amazing snake show where we learned lots about different types of snakes and got to see the instructor handle them.

They had some fun house mirrors that we all got a huge kick out of.

The kids were not allowed to put money into this machine for fear they would turn BIG.

Justin got some good animal close-ups.

There were tons of huge snakes in the terrarium.

 They also had some cool prehistoric fossils, including this from a giant tortoise.

 We had a blast at Reptile Gardens, and it will definitely be on our list of places to see when we go back again someday.

On Tuesday, we went to visit Wind Cave. We drove about two hours to get there through beautiful forest and plains. We saw a few buffalo and deer along the way.

 When we got there, the tours were all full, so we drove about 45 minutes more to Jewel Cave in hopes of making it in to one of their tours. Those tours were also full, but we were able to get tickets to go down into one chamber of the cave and listen to a tour guide talk about the cave. We rode an elevator down, and as soon as we got off the elevator, Emme freaked out and refused (kicking and screaming) to go into the cave. Emme, Jane, and I went back upstairs while the rest of the tour group went on. Justin got a few pictures while they were in the cave. I was a little disappointed to miss the tour, but Justin said it was a lot of talking and standing around in a relatively small space so I think Emme would have gotten bored even if she hadn't been terrified. The cave tours are another thing on our to-do list for the next time we visit these parts.

The kiddos had fun in the gift shop afterward.

That afternoon we returned to the hotel and swam at WaTiki for the rest of the day. I ran into an old friend from my freshman year at BYU, Jeremy Budge. He was on a work trip and had brought his wife and two little boys. I introduced them to Justin and we had a fun time catching up. 

Here is a pictures of how the kids slept-- 3 wide, parallel to the head and foot of the bed. It was hard getting them to fall asleep and stop bothering each other, but once they were out, they didn't stir until morning.

 Here are some more pictures from our trip (that I'm not going to drag and drop to the right days because it takes so long to do that).

Can you spot Cheyenne the eagle?

Benjy touching the giant tortoise.

Justin and the kids in a bubble in prairie dog town.

At the playland at Reptile Gardens.

On Wednesday we packed up and drove back to Denver. Jane was such a trooper our whole vacation. She slept so well in the car, and we only had to stop for her once or twice. We really couldn't have asked for a better trip considering the age of our kids! We had a great vacation spending family time together and making fun memories. It was an awesome Spring Break!