WE ARE DENVER BOUND!!

We fly out soon and everyone is so stoked!  It is always fun to look back at things and see God's fingerprints all over your life.

Back in August we had to decide which NFL game we wanted to attend.  (Some clients were getting us tickets and gave us 6 options, based on our 2 favorite teams.)  I contacted 2 huge football friends and they both said Broncos/Packers.  So, we went with it.

God knew before we did, how much we were going to need this 4 day trip.  I have been mentally and emotionally spent....life circumstances have just been heavier than usual the last 3 weeks or so.  There was actually about 5 days where I was in such a fog ~ just always tired.  I was forgetting and misplacing things.  I even came within about 1 minute of burning down our house.  (I had put something in the toaster and set the timer wrong.  I walked outside for a few minutes and when I came back in, it was burning.  I opened up the toaster and of course that fanned the flames, which started a few pieces of paper on fire.  Benjamin jumped up and asked if he should call the fire department.  I said no and was able to carry everything over to the sink).

Needless to say, I am very excited that this trip is coming at this season of my life.  Plus, both teams are undefeated so it should be a great game.  The weather is suppose to be really nice and we happen to be in Denver the same time there are 'free' days at the zoo and children's museum ~ bonus, free entertainment!!!

We boarded Bree.  It was just easier to do that than try to juggle leaving her at the house.  She sure is a sweet dog.  Everyone that meets her comments on her coloring or her temperment.   I had to take her to the vet before boarding her for a shot.  The vet said she is a mini australian shepherd/collie mix.  So, she is pretty much full grown.  The perfect size.  Her back is just below my knee!

I have been taking her to a local dog park and we both enjoy it.  She gets tons of dog socialization and exercise and I have quiet time to solve all the worlds problems!  Win win for both of us.

That's it for now...will have pictures to post soon!

Fall is here and time is slipping away.  Only  more Fridays until Christmas ~ Eek!  Not that I do lots of shopping between now and then, but another year will be over!  Wow.

Things have been pretty quiet around here.

This is the last week for football for Jacob.  One more game on Saturday morning and we will close this chapter.  Joseph is still enjoying gymnastics on Monday afternoons.  He has speech on Tuesday mornings.  We all have Awana Wednesday afternoon/evenings and we have just started a Thursday evening Bible Study.  A very manageable schedule.  At this point, not sure that Benjamin will be doing a 4H project ~ not that he doesn't want to but there is not anything that currently meets that interests him.  (The things he was interested in did not have a volunteer leader step up to 'lead' them.)

Benjamin continues to plug along with homeschooling.  It does not matter how organized or scheduled I tend to be, life happens and things always have to be juggled.  He is enjoying the tutoring ~ a really cool college age kid who has a lot of the same interests as Benjamin.

Jacob recently got his top and bottom expanders for his mouth.  His one front tooth has finally dropped in (after being MIA for about 8 months) and it is no where close to where it should be!  He still has only lost 4 teeth, so they are all slow losing them.  Joseph is 6 and still has not lost one and does not even have a loose tooth yet!

This next weekend is when we head to Denver for the big game!  Really excited!

(I started this a few days ago and just not finishing it up.  We had Jacob's last football game today and he scored his third touchdown!  Another grab the ball and go.

I am bummed the only picture I have of Joseph with one of his speech therapists is blurry. Oh well, here she is with her dog Stella. I think I recently posted that she had dismissed Joseph from speech. She started working with him when he was 2 years, 7 months and quit when he was 6 years, 2 months...that is 3 1/2 years!!! Awesome work!  I like what his shirt happened to say on his last day of speech with Ms. Betsy.

Lots of football pics from the game last Saturday.  Jacob took the hand off and ran.

He ran towards me...yay!

And ran......

He did score a TD!!!  Coming back for the congratulatory high five!

He got the ball again....

But the last defender got him....

He also had a game this past Wednesday.  He had 2 great runs and almost had a breakaway both times.  He did have an interception, which he loved.

The boys are out of school Thursday and Friday of this week...state wide teacher workshops.  Not much planned, just enjoying some great fall weather.

Got some more photos of a sunset....These were all taken in the same evening.  I just love how the sky explodes with color; the heavens and earth declare the glory of God!
This photo was in the east.

These were in the west

I finally told the boys were we were headed the end of October.

One of Jose's clients has a connection for tickets to pro sporting events so they were gracious enough to get us these.  We are so excited.  This is a bucket list item for us!  I was able to find really cheap airline tickets (to where it was only about $50 cheaper to drive than fly, so we are saving the driving time and hitting the air!)  We will fly out Halloween night, which excited me because I don't really enjoy Halloween anyway!  For the cheap airline tickets, our trip will be 4 nights.  I don't know that I have ever been in a non familial city for 4 days to go and play and explore.  Usually we just pass through Denver...this time we have time to play and explore more!

I don't consider myself a huge political person.  I follow politics just enough to know the issues but not really enough to have a strong opinion about most things.  Recently, I have had 2 incidents at the kids' school where I am seeing the over reach of the government mandating things.  I don't know about other states, but it is now (as of Oct 1) a Montana law that if your child has not been immunized for Varicella (aka Chicken Pox) they cannot attend school.  I guess I have always understood some of those other life threatening diseases and immunizations for them, but chicken pox.  I don't agree.  I can of course sign a form stating that my religious beliefs interfere with that, but it doesn't, so in good conscious, I can't sign it.  So, my child is either given the chicken pox shot or he does not attend school.  I had held out on Joseph, because I really would rather have him gotten the chicken pox than the vaccine.  However, that is no longer an option for me.  Jacob never had the vaccine, but he did end up getting the chicken pox from Benjamin.  However, since I never took Jacob to a doctor (cause it just was the chicken pox) there was no record of Jacob having them.  So, Jacob had to have blood drawn to show he has the chicken pox antibodies in his system.  (When I asked at the school why the new law, they weren't real sure.  Two possible reasons is they are hoping to cut down on shingles or because of convenience.  Now a days, a stay at home mom is pretty rare and it would be too burdensome for a family to miss 5 days of work to stay home with a child who has chicken pox.)

The other area where the government mandates are overreaching, in my opinion, is in the lunchroom.  Because of the childhood obesity problem (which I get) the government mandates how much a child can eat in the cafeteria lunch line.  Whenever my boys choose to eat in the cafeteria, versus take their lunch, if they are still hungry they are not allowed to have seconds.  So, my very active, athletic, 8 year old is being grouped together with every other child and told he cannot have extra food.  Therefore, he leaves lunch hungry!  (There was actually a nearby school that was losing money on their lunch program because according to the gov't standards, they were only allowed to serve like 6 ounces of protein to a high schooler, kids weren't getting filled up and were no longer eating in the cafeteria, so the school district was losing money. I think the school ended up saying, who cares about the government money, we are going to feed these kids and lose the government subsidy by not obeying.

Rant over.

Speaking of political stuff...it seems that every year our school board wants to put another bond on the ballot.  Being a tax payer, I finally decided it was time to get a little more educated.  I am sure it is this way in lots of areas, but our area really struggles to keep up.  We are finding lots moving to the area due to jobs or because they want to escape the rat race and land someplace slower.  I went to a community meeting that was discussing future plans.  I learned more of how difficult it is to plan.  After the meeting, a school board member introduced himself and asked if I might be interested in attending a strategic planning meeting.  I said sure.  We talked further.  One of the things we talked about was expansion of the high school.  There are currently 850 kids and there are plans to build fro 1500, 1800 or 2400.  (When the current 5th-8th grade classes get there, provided the numbers stay the same, we will have 1200.)  The board member started questioning the wisdom of spending too much money and building fro 2400.  He said that who knows what things will look like in 10 years..will there even be a need for large high schools.  I was totally struck by this and the truth that is in it.  With technology, who knows what things will look like then and the trends high schools might move towards ~ online classes?  dividing groups up and kids going 2 days a week?  who knows.  It was just an eye opening conversation to me about the times we live in and how quickly things change.

Quiet week this week.  My computer crashed but is now up and running.  I lost most everything, except JR's business files ~ which really is the most important.  I did save some files but over a year ago

These were taken by Joseph's teacher at school.

Jacob's class got to read with Joseph's class and I was very excited to see the two boys paired up together ~ or maybe they chose to be together.

One of the girls in Joseph's class is deaf so this girl always has an interpreter in her class. (Yes, we think/talk of you often JC). It is so cool how Joseph is picking up sign language. Just yesterday he came home excited that he now knew 2 signs for Halloween and 1 for witch. His enthusiasm is awesome, as I hear it is for the other kids in the class too. One of the staff even said she has seen other kids in the class start 'talking' with her in sign too.

Joseph has been discharged by another speech therapist ~ actually insurance felt like he did not need services twice a week. The therapist had talked like she would discharge him the end of October, so perfect timing. His speech is awesome! We are starting to see some possible reading issues coming up though....trying to get some resources together to help him at home ~ hopefully he will work hard for me (as he does for therapists, but that has not been my experience :-))

Last weekend Jacob had another football game. He ran a touchdown in. He was so excited! It of course was rainy and windy so I did not bring my camera! At least it happened on the far side of the field and I would not have been able to get a good picture anyway!!

The weather is cooling off. Beautiful days and almost cold nights! Not ready for the snow but it will be here soon!

Some random pictures from our day!!!

Jacob and a friend had a blast recently.  Not sure why they had never tried this before with sleds. They have always sledded sitting on coats but never actual sleds.  They made a crash pad at the bottom of the stairs with dog bed and pillows.

Had our recent local fair.  Benjamin carried the AWANA flag that went in front of the float.  Joseph walked in the parade with all the local Kindergartners (but I was at Jacob's fball game, so didn't get his picture.)

The boys got a wild hair recently and wanted to sell something.

Yep, they crushed up rock to make homemade sand. They made almost $20. I am pretty sure most of that was made from the lemonade and brownies. Although we found out the brownies were raw. Our neighbor had bought them all, so we ended up making him another batch. Not a bad day for impromptu idea.

Jacob had his first visit with the orthodontist. Impressions have been made and he will get both an upper and lower expander. Sounds like it is going to be quite the mouthful. His front tooth, which has been missing for about 8 months is close to breaking through but not yet. Hopefully, when everything it opened up, his teeth will quickly drop into place!

Jacob has had 2 football games.  They are currently 1-0-1.  Jacob enjoys it because they all switch positions.  He has been run with the ball, caught the ball and thrown the ball.

This picture was taken by his buddy Cam's mom....

He was QB and was told to run it, although both times he got taken down pretty quickly.

He escaped another tackle.

This was a QB play.  His pass was close but not catchable.  What a play it would have been.  (We got a kick out of the teammate on the far right.  (As the picture above, he is just standing there, watching the action!)

Not a bad view for a football game...huh?

A quiet weekend! 

This kiddo happened to be around most often when the camera came out.

Here he is coloring again.

This was a Star Student of the week poster that he was working on.

He went fishing at the 'local' pond with our 6th grade neighbor.  He felt like such a big kid going without mom.

One of the buildings on the pond.

Every year for the annual fall festival the kindergartners march at the beginning of the parade.  They all wear these shirts.  My boys are the class of 2022, 2025, 2028.  Seems like so far away, but I know it is not.

We have had some beautiful colors at sunset lately.

A storm had just passed through and then the sun came out....the contrast of colors was huge!

Other than football, our weekends are pretty quiet!  Just how I like them.

More random pictures.

Here is a picture of Benjamin doing Just Dance on the Wii.  It is one of the easiest ways for me to get him up and moving, after sitting doing school work.

One of the boys recently came across a rip stick.  Long, like a skate board but only has one front wheel and one back wheel.  It is split in the middle so it swivels.  They have had lots of fun learning this and the older 2 are getting it down.  It will be a matter of time and coordination for Joseph.

He is rocking the skateboard though.

Here is Bree.  She loves to lay out in the sun but we still have to tie her up when out front.  The neighbors across the street have about 8 cats ~ yuck ~ and it is hard to pull her away from their yard when she gets out.  Recently another neighbor shot a bear and brought it home.  Bree went crazy at their yard,  She would not even go into the yard, not sure why, other than a very unfamiliar smell?  I was worried about how we would get her adequate exercise this winter.  However, she is starting to fetch a ball.  We stand at the top of the stairs and she flies down and then back up.  Great exercise for those lazy days or it it too cold to be out too long.  Hopefully she will soon be able to fetch a ball thrown a distance ~ for now, I don't think she is tall enough to see it in the field grass.

One of the school projects Joseph brought home recently.  Teachers get so creative these days!

Some more pictures from the field behind our house.

One night I was walking through the field.  There is a quarry pit in the corner of the field and obviously some migrating geese had landed in the bottom.  They started flying out and they were about 20 feet overhead.  Very cool.  Of course that night I did not have my camera with me but got this picture the next week ~ although they flew out a slightly different direction...still cool.

A few pictures from our day to day....

I have always wanted a tankless hot water heater, so we did not have the arguments over how long a shower one can take. However, all three of my boys love taking showers. They would get in there and stay forever. Jacob usually takes his shower first thing in the morning ~ easiest to tame his bed head that way :-). He has come to really enjoy them...maybe too much. This is usually the scene.

He totally gets relaxed, dozes off, wakes up when water gets cold and then doesn't want to wash his hair!

One of the buzz words around our house right now is responsibility. Taking responsibility for your actions and not shifting the blame. I am not quick to bail my boys out of a jam. My opinion, if they create the problem, they figure out how to deal with the problem. For example, one of the boys could not find any of his 3 pairs of shoes. It was time to leave for school and he had no clue. So, I told him he better find shoes. This was all he could find. As much as I hated it, I sent him to school wearing these.

Yep, two totally different shoes and they were both about 2 sizes too big. All day he wore them. I think it was hardest for me because of 'what others would think'. However, I realized why should I care, if my child was learning a huge life lesson. He survived the day and he has been able to find his shoes every morning since.

Just so happens each of the boys have learned those big lessons recently. One of the boys was black balled from some neighbors recently because of some of his actions. He was not wanted around and it hurt to watch it but that is just a consequence of poor choices. You have to own those choices and earn trust back.

Another one of the boys decided to wash his BBs in the kitchen sink. He unfortunately did not think the process through very well. About 20 BBs ended up in the garbage disposal. After unplugging the disposal, he found out very quickly how nasty it is to stick your hand down in the disposal to fish out tiny little BBs. I guarantee you he won't do that again without proper precautions.

Usually all of these incidents end with my boys telling me how I hate them, what a terrible mother I am and how I have ruined their life. I have just come to realize that when my boys voice that, it usually means I am doing my job exactly right!!!

Joseph loves to sit and color. I am amazed at his pictures.  I think he finds it very relaxing after a long chaotic day at school.

Benjamin and I recently did a science experiment on density.  We put oil, water and corn syrup in a jar.  Want to guess which was heaviest and sank to the bottom?  Then we put in 4 different things: a cork, piece of ice, blueberry and rock.  It was cool how the rock was the only thing to penetrate each of the layers.  They all floated on different layers based on their density.

Fall is setting in. The mornings have been in the 40s! Perfect for flag football season that starts this weekend!

As expected, my posts are slowing down a bit!

We have a great library in our town ~ they have actually won several national awards because of all the activities they offer across the age spectrum.

We recently attended a lego building session.  They had 4 piles of legos!

I can't remember where Jacob was....

This is Ben's home away from home.  They have 4 computers set aside for the older kids.  It is a real treat for the boys because they can play mind craft (it is not on my computer) and interface with other users sitting beside them.

They had a pinwheel making craft for the younger kids.

This block set is amazing.  Had I discovered them when my kids were much younger I might have invested in them.

We have all been enjoying the fall weather! I think my favorite 'outfit' is a sweatshirt, so I always enjoy it when it is time to pull them out again. With the days getting shorter, we have been looking at the sky lately. I forget how beautiful the skies are here and how many stars there are. The big dipper was so huge and right outside the boys window recently! I keep watching the skies for the northern lights, but have yet to see them living here!

Bow hunting season has started! Not sure what the yield will be, but hopefully something. Benjamin is allowed to hunt with an 'apprentice' license ~ at age 10 ~ and I think he is going to try to get something. I have offered to hunt this year, but I am more of the drive around the property and get out a walk a bit. I don't do the hunting in the woods, with downed trees, lots of ups and downs.

I am trying yet again to streamline my menu and get back to homemade, instead of processed! I need to buy some bulk spices so I can finally mix up all my homemade rubs! I find time in the kitchen rejuvenates me!

We had a relatively quiet weekend. The 'busyness' starts this week. But compared to many others, not really busy. Mondays speech and gymnastics for Joseph. Tuesdays football for Jacob. Wednesday AWANA for all three boys. We are still talking about 4H this year. Benjamin is really interested in their aerospace class and their cake decorating class. Not sure what Jacob is thinking. Our Saturday mornings will be committed to football through end of October.

Just a little teaser.....I have a huge surprise planned for the boys the end of October ~ a bucket list item. I am afraid to post it here, since sometimes they scroll through my posts. Stay tuned and will be sure to post about it when I tell them.