cєlєвrαtíng tєn

Another year came and went...I like to kid myself that 'I survived another year with this munchkin' and then give myself a pat on the back. Reece has challenged us every step of the way, but he's just so darn cute and funny to not love him to pieces.

We had some friends (the Scruton family) over to help celebrate the big 1-0 birthday. Reece got to invite Luke and Ryu to stay over, too. It was a wild night with pizza and ice cream cake, and 3 very crazy, loud boys, but I'm pretty sure Reece wouldn't change a thing about it. Reece got Star Wars Legos, a Minecraft Diamond Sword, Minecraft Torch, bow and arrow set, and a ton of gift cards/money. His big toy was a MiP Robot... It's pretty cool. However, it uses batteries like they are going out of style. I am in the process of trying to convince Reece he needs to take his birthday money and invest in rechargeable batteries to help support his special robot.

Reece is laughing because he accidentally breathed too hard while we were singing, and he prematurely blew out a couple candles.

Reece controlling MiP with the IPhone. It's very entertaining watching MiP dance.

I'm done. I'm tired of the boys growing up so fast. May this next year please go much slower than 2014 did.

IT'ᔕ ᗩ ᗯᖇᗩᑭ

Just like that, Riley's basketball season is over. In Colorado (or at least in the Western Slope) middle school has a short "boys" season followed by a short "girls" season. I think 6 weeks is all it lasted. Riley was sad it was over. I am too...I really enjoyed game days. Riley made a lot of progress in 6 weeks...as did the entire team. He bounced around from A to B, but I think it only increased his playing time. He took instruction from me well ( I always had a pointer or two after games, and it was well received.) I hope Riley takes the "off" season seriously and keeps his passion for playing.

The final day of the season they had a scrimmage against each other... I managed to get a picture of his layup going in... it's blurry. (I was a wee bit excited I had my camera on his at the time:)

öh, ÇhᏒᎥsᏆmᎪs ᏆᏒᎬᎬ

For just $10 we ventured out and to the "wilderness" (Reece's words) and found our imperfect, perfect Christmas tree. We tromped around in knee deep snow to find it. Here it is... it doesn't look like much, but we were required to stay in a certain area, and we were new to this "wilderness" tree hunt. The only stress in this adventure was to keep the size reasonable ( we have a small living space and trees never look as big as they are outside) and to make sure we didn't cut down the state tree, aka, a blue spruce. I tried googling how to know what a blue spruce was, and every picture looked different. We tried not to break any laws, but ignorance is bliss, and our fingers are still crossed that we did not cut a state tree.

When I took this picture, I didn't realize I was taking it at the worst angle. My nephew said it looked like it was on a diet. My sister said it had character. I really is more beautiful than this picture leads to believe. I'm used to full, fir trees. Trees that can handle the weight of a lot strands of lights and our heavy personal ornaments we've collected over the years...this tree couldn't quite handle the weight, so we made the best of it and still love it. (FYI...Lynx is getting yelled at quite a bit these days, she won't leave my tree skirt alone and the ornaments, of course, are eye candy to her. I haven't had to fill up her water bowl, as it seems she enjoys pine flavored water...not sure if that is the "silver lining" here or not, but I choose my battles.)

 

I have to share this story from Reece. When the tree was finished I had so many lights left over (again, my tree is very sparse compared to what I'm used to) so I gave the lights to the boys to decorate the loft. Reece's response was one of pure joy. "We are decorating SO much this year!" His face was priceless. When at 9 years old, you get these kinds of reactions, your heart just melts. Love him!

Side note: Last year we were in our condo, with all of our Christmas stuff in storage, so our Christmas from a "decor" angle was pretty simple and small...it was so great getting our Christmas items we hadn't seen in 2 years. This is another reason our decorating was "SO much" this year.

wíntєr σn thє mσuntαín

This year the Glenwood Caverns Adventure Park started a new attraction called "Winter on the Mountain." We have annual passes so we had to head up and see the 500,000 lights and see what it was like to ride the alpine coaster in the winter (and in the dark.) It was amazing, but being higher up, the temps were extremely cold. We rode the coaster and went straight for the hot chocolate. I'm glad we went up, as it was beautiful, just not somewhere to hang out for long periods of time once the sun goes down. We plan to go back to do the cave tour. The cave has had some festive lights added as well.

Mmmm...hot chocolate!

вιrтнday caĸə ғυn

The boys had fun making Jake a birthday cake...it wasn't "manly" by any means, but it was creative. I, however, should have followed the "high altitude" directions. It didn't take me long to realize something wasn't quite right with the cake when I began the frosting stage. Oops! Why do they make those special directions so tiny???

 

Yup. I frosted as carefully as I could, but it was the most crumbly cake I'd ever baked. It didn't change the taste, so we made jokes about my awful baking job, and ate up!

Happy Birthday, Jake!

ᔕᑎOᗯ ᖴᑌᑎ

We've had a first winter fun. Sledding. It's funny that it can be 25 degrees and you can be so hot when bundled up. It helps not having any wind and the sun blazing down on you. Now we just need a little more snow and maybe temps to stay a little cooler to make for good skiing weather. (Believe it or not, it took 10 shots to get them both semi in the air at the same time.)

Rock Chalk! ;)

vєtєrαn'ѕ dαч cσncєrt

Reece had a Veteran's Day concert with the 4th and 5th graders. I love patriotic music, and the kids did great!  It was crazy crowded, so getting pictures was very challenging... if you look close, he is almost dead center of this picture with the bleach blond hair.

Here is a better picture after the concert and after we hit the bake sale.

And a picture to embarrass the kid...he liked walking around without his shirt the night before.