He's a big boy now

It always shocks me to see Oliver doing grown up things. I know that he is almost seventeen months old, but I still think of him as a baby. The other day at the breakfast table he proved to me once again that he is growing up (way too fast by the way). He sat down to breakfast with Sam and I and fed himself a bowl of cold cereal, quite adeptly I might add. He also refused to drink from a sippy cup and insisted that the cereal box be placed in front of him so that he could "read" it. The killer was when he finished his cereal and then lifted the bowl to his lips to drink all of the extra milk. Just like his daddy.

Growing up, my mom devised a dish-doing game to try and motivate us to do our dish jobs. The game was fittingly called catch-up-and-quit. The game entailed my mom scraping dishes while one of us kids loaded them into the dishwasher. The idea was that if we were able to catch up and load the dishes faster than mom could scrape them, she would finish both dish jobs and we were free to go. She let us win just often enough to keep the game motivational.

Wouldn't it be great if she were still around to finish off all the jobs that I don't want to do. Updating a much outdated blog for example. I guess that is just part of growing up, so here it goes. Sorry it is so long.



One of my goals this Christmas was to make a real gingerbread house (not the graham cracker imitation). My super-cool mother-in-law helped me out by making an extra batch of dough for me. We even got together to decorate them. Unfortunately I forgot to take a picture of it until the holidays were long past and Oliver had attacked it several times. It was pretty cute at one time. Sam's step-dad even rigged up a light to make my sucker windows glow.


We spent Christmas (actually almost the entire month of December) at my parents home. It was wonderful. We did Christmas morning a day late to give my little sister time to fly home from Hawaii. One of the greatest things about Christmas day, in my opinion, is spending the entire day in your pajamas. Of course, the presents are nice too and Sam totally spoiled me this year. Oliver didn't make out so bad himself. Santa even knew to stuff his stocking with berries because they are his very favorite.


Here is Oliver with his new rocking horse.


Of course, the greatest gift came from Grandpa who bought Oliver a Thomas the Train set. He was ecstatic from the moment he opened it. There was nothing we could do get him to put down the train, he carried it around for days. He took his naps with it, it sat next to his plate while he ate, and we experienced a complete meltdown when we pried it out of his hands to give him a bath. I guess that means he liked it. Way to go grandpa.


We were lucky to make the drive across Wyoming when we did. As soon as we arrived in Utah the snow started to fall and it didn't let up for a good week. For Oliver that meant his very first sledding experience.


We didn't have any boots for him so we improvised with baggies.


We hooked a sled up to the four-wheeler, but Ollie preferred to be a driver rather than a passenger. He really didn't get into the whole snow thing until we taught him how to throw a snowball, something he just couldn't get enough of.


The biggest event of our Christmas vacation was my little brother's wedding. Donald and Caci got married on January 2nd at Millcreek Inn. It was beautiful and we are so happy to have Caci in the family, she fit in great. The picture above is my sister Whitney and I at the wedding. As you can see, we have similar taste in haircuts. However, since she lives in Hawaii and I live in Colorado we figured it wasn't too big of a deal.


Here we all are before the big "I do." Donald, Sarah, Whitney, Ashley and I. In case you couldn't tell, I am the oldest.

Oliver's favorite part of the wedding was the dessert bar, he almost finished off the fruit trays all by himself. Go Ollie!

Golden Style Christmas

We got our first taste of Christmas in Golden this week as we participated in the "Candlelight Walk". The city went all out with tons of Christmas lights and the "Walk" included a well decorated trail with stops and free admission at all of the downtown historic sites and museums. We had a good time wandering around with friends, downing lots of free cider and cookies and letting our kids run a muck along the trail. The highlights of the evening were the reindeer and the roasted chestnuts (I have always wondered what roasted chestnuts were like and now I know, thanks Golden).

Grandpa's Shadow

After his mom and dad, Oliver's next favorite person is his Grandpa Ross. When we are staying at Grandma and Grandpa's house, Oliver becomes Grandpa's little shadow. Anything that Grandpa does Oliver must do also. Whether it be eating chips and salsa, watching a Jazz game or, Oliver's personal favorite, feeding the animals. The second Grandpa comes home from work Ollie knows that it is time to put on the gloves and go outside to take care of the dogs and horses. Over Thanksgiving, Grandpa went one step further by saddling one of the mules and taking Oliver for a ride. Needless to say he loved it. After every lap he would sign for more and Grandpa couldn't say no. Consequently, they spent a lot of time walking up and down the street and around the backyard.

Brrrrrrr.....

So, I was reading a friends blog in which she was complaining about the freezing cold weather they were having. And, of course, I couldn't keep myself from commenting and rubbing in the fact that we had been enjoying a week of 70+ degree temperatures. Well, as almost always happens, I got my payback when I woke up the next day to a miniature ice storm. We didn't get any snow and I wouldn't describe it as a frost either. Rather, it looked as if someone had dumped a bucket of water over everything and then stuck it in a freezer. Instead of merely scraping of my windshield I had to use my scraper as a hammer to break up the ice. Needless to say, it was not very enjoyable. The cold weather has come to us at last.

On the bright side, that also means fun holidays, family gatherings and yummy food. So, to help me see the warmer side of things I thought I would make a little list of the things I love about this time of year (please note that scraping my windows is not included):

1. I love that my husband is more obsessed with Christmas music than I am. As soon as Sam wakes up and every time he walks in the door he heads straight to the computer to turn on FM100.

2. I love love love Christmas trees. Simple ones, fancy ones, barren ones, fluffy ones, you name it, love it!

3. I love that Christmas is the season for English Toffee and homemade caramel. I am pretty certain that both of those things will exist in abundance up in heaven.

4. I love that everyone is just a little bit kinder and a bit more thoughtful during the holiday season.

5. I love Christmas movies. No Christmas season is complete without "White Christmas", "A Muppets Christmas Carol", "Elf", "The Santa Clause", "Miracle on 34th Street", and "It's A Wonderful Life".

6. I love knowing that my in-laws will have a big bag of pistachio nuts in their kitchen and that Marie will let me sit at her bar and chat and munch on nuts to my hearts content.

7. I love to see the lights.

8. While I don't enjoy scraping my windows, I have to admit that I do love snow at Christmastime. What becomes old, cold and dirty in January always seems so perfectly new, fluffy, and beautiful in December.

9. I love Christmas shopping. The stores are always bustling with shoppers (stores may be busy at other times, but they only bustle at Christmas). And it is always so exciting to pick out what to give people.

10. Last but not least I love that there are so many excuses to get together with friends and family.

This isn't a complete list, and they do not appear in any specific order. They are just a few of the things that make window-scraping worth it!

Down the tracks

Yesterday was free day at the Colorado Railroad Museum and so we got together with our friends, the Steeds, and ventured into the world of massive locomotives. Seeing as our backyard borders the museum and we get to hear their train whistle at least once a day, we figured it was about time that we got better acquainted. True to form, Oliver was mostly interested in the rocks, but he has a Thomas the Train book and he got excited when he recognized Thomas on some of the model trains.

All-in-all the museum was pretty interesting and I can see how a train enthusiast could really get into it, but in the end I was glad we went on free day. From now on, I think we will just stick to waving to the trains from our window.




Other exciting events of the week included a trip to the Denver Museum of Nature and Science. I thought it would be a good place for Oliver to run around inside, and it was. He loved it. We'll probably have to schedule another trip because after two hours of "running around" we had only visited about half of it. Whew.

This week was also our stake's "Fabulous Friday" a.k.a. "Super Saturday" and I found myself venturing into the world of arts and crafts, a trail I don't often tread. While I probably picked the easiest craft available I have to say that I am still pretty proud of myself because I think that my little Family Home Evening chart turned out quite cute. It is so nice to have people with artistic ability share their talents with "creative duds" like myself. Since one of my callings is the Enrichment Committee I got to spend the whole day at the church setting up, cleaning up and mingling. Sam and Oliver spent the day together and it was a success all the way around.

Our good week ended on an even better note as Sam and I were able to go out on one of those rare things that we call dates. We make an effort to get out together quite often, but this time we had the luxury of going without Oliver. We have gotten together with some friends in the ward and now take turns watching each others kids on date night. So while Oliver ate chicken nuggets and chocolate chip cookies and watched 101 Dalmatians at the Koyle's house, Sam and I enjoyed a peaceful dinner and some uninteruppted adult conversation. Aaaah.

'Tis the Season

I know that for some hunters, there is no end to hunting season as there is always something that needs to be shot. For Sam however, there is only one hunt that really matters. The pheasant hunt in South Dakota. I'm pretty sure it is more about the time with his dad than the actual hunting. He confessed to me this morning that on his first day he fired over 40 shots and only took down one bird, which means it is probably a good thing that he goes just for the company.

Paul picked Sam up in Cheyenne on Thursday night and they drove through a pretty bad storm to spend the weekend hunting. We're glad that they had such a good time and even happier that he is back home.

Good things are meant to go together

I don't know if it is this way all over Colorado, but Jefferson County has a lot of land and funds dedicated to creating and maintaining "Open Space". The open space includes tons of parks, trails, ponds, etc. We love that there is a new trail and park to explore everyday. Best of all, there are some nice trails within walking distance of our apartment. One of our favorite trails is lined part of the way with pear trees. Ollie and I have been watching the pears ripen this fall and wondering just who they belonged to. Well, finally I took a friend on the trail and showed her the pears, she informed us that the pears belonged to the community. So, that afternoon Oliver and I took the bike trailer to the pear trees and loaded the thing up with the pears that had fallen to the ground (the trees were much too tall to be able to pick the fruit off of them).

We decided to make some pear jam and I found a great recipe for pear raspberry jam. Raspberries are not really cheap this time of year, but when the local grocery store cut the price from $5.00 to $1.00 a pint, we knew it was meant to be. We invited the Koyle's over and took turns watching the toddlers and stirring the freezer jam. It turned out super yummy and we had enough left over to make some pear cherry jam as well! Thank you Jefferson County Open Space for the pears and thanks to King Soopers for the raspberries, it was a match made in heaven!

15 weeks and counting...

No, I am not 15 weeks pregnant. It is even better new than that. Only 15 more weeks until Oliver gets to go to nursery! Yahoo!! Today while Sam was taking his turn attending Elders Quorum and Oliver and I were out collecting rocks on the side of the church I decided to tally up just how much longer my Sundays would be spent in such a manner. Sam and I still view time in mission-type chunks, so it was good news to discover that we only had a little over two transfers left of getting absolutely nothing out of Sunday School, Relief Society and Elders Quorum.

To be fair to Oliver I have to say that he never cries or gets ornery in church, he is just so busy that he becomes an absolute distraction to us and everyone else in the room. For example, a typical Relief Society meeting will include: banging on the piano, pulling the music conductors stand over on top of his head, pulling items from several sisters' purses, climbing up on every empty chair in the room, playing peek-a-boo behind the chalk board, taking a turn at teaching the class by standing next to the teacher and talking louder than she does, sampling all the other babies' snacks, dancing in the isle and running circles around the display table. I seriously am not exaggerating when I say that all of this takes place in the first 15 minutes of class, by which time everyone is paying more attention to Ollie than the teacher and I pick him up and head for the door. If you are reading this and wondering why I don't just make him sit still on my lap, all I can say is please come back and read this again when you have an energetic 14 month old, then you will understand!

Trick - or - Treat

Last night was Oliver's first trick-or-treating experience. He never quite got into the whole candy idea, but he did pull the top off of every pumpkin on each porch we visited.

More than the candy, Oliver was interested in the rocks. I am pretty sure that we collected more rocks from each house than candy bars.

Although he never was quite able to grasp the concept of knocking on doors and receiving candy, he definitely understood the concept of eating it. Just as long as his mouth was full of candy he happily marched to the next house. By the end of the night he was bouncing of the walls.

There is nothing like a holiday centered solely around candy, unless maybe it is a holiday centered around pumpkin pie. Yum.