The Mustang Mile

Meridian's annual fundraiser is the Mustang Mile.  All the kids get to run around the peanut (just shy of a mile), and have a carnival waiting for them at the finish line.  This year Cambrie joined the fun run club at school.  Twice a week they run around the peanut a couple times, just for fun!  I didn't know if she would like it or not, but she has been loving it.  Each day she runs by Kelton, McKenzie and I as we stand on our front porch and wave.  I feel like I'm cheering for her in a race each time.  I think all the practice has made her a lot stronger, so when it came time for the actual race, she was ready.  She asked that I run with her again and I couldn't say no. 

 Cambrie was off to a good start and was running strong with her friend.  After a few minutes her friend slowed down, but Cambrie kept going.  I asked her if she thought she could run the entire loop without stopping.  She wasn't sure, but she said she'd give a try.

  The PTO had written encouraging notes in chalk along the route, and so I tried to keep Cambrie positive by reading the cheers.  It worked.  She just kept on plugging along.  By the time we were half-way I was already so proud of her.  We passed our cheering section and McKenzie reached out her hand for a high-five to give Cambrie the second-wind she needed.  The last little part of the run was downhill, which was a life saver.  By now Cambrie knew that she was going to make it the whole way and she was really excited.  She crossed the finish line with an out-of-breath, "I did it!"  I was so stinkin' proud of her!  And more importantly, I think she was proud of herself. 

Trying to find some shade.  It was hot!

After all of the kids finished the race it was time for the carnival.  The girls did the bounce houses, signed up to visit Ms. Fleming in jail, and then played games the rest of the night. 

Kelton and Jeremy were both troopers and stood in line for our food while the girls went crazy before calling it a night.  The girls just couldn't get enough though and we stayed until the DJ called it quits.  After cashing in their tickets the girls skipped the whole way home, they weren't even tired after such a fun night.

Let's all scream for ice-cream!

As stated in an earlier post, feeding Kelton has been tricky to say the least.  After dinner one night I was just exhausted after trying to get him to eat anything.  The girls earned dessert and chose ice-cream.  Basically I threw my hands up and decided that in Kelton's case ice-cream calories were better than no calories at all.  Since he's insistent on feeding himself I gave him a scoop, the bowl, and a spoon I didn't expect him to use.  He grabbed the scoop with his bare hands and shoved it in his mouth.  

He couldn't believe his luck!  He could not get another hand full in his mouth fast enough.

  Once the scoops were gone, he even tried drinking the melted ice-cream out of his bowl.  He didn't stop there however, he climbed out of his high chair and started making a move for McKenzie's ice-cream.  He is definitely my son, but I don't think I scream out-loud for ice-cream like he does!

Jumping Leaves!

The girls couldn't let Kelton have all the leaf fun.  After school the next day they raked up the leaves to do a little leaf jumping of their own.  It wasn't a huge pile (we don't have huge trees), but they had a blast and it definitely felt like fall.

Cambrie was a good big sister and taught Kelton how to throw the leaves.

It was hard to get these mid-air pictures.  The girls didn't want to jump high because they didn't have a super soft landing, (I can't say I blame them!) but I still like their energy!

Falling Leaves

Kelton and I went on a walk to celebrate the first day of fall.  I didn't quite believe my eyes, but the leaves are actually falling!  

 

Don't Cry Over Spilled Milk

The saying goes, "Don't cry over spilled milk," but I want to.  Kelton is driving me absolutely bonkers.  I don't know where my happy little boy is, but he's not here.  It is like the perfect storm for a cranky baby: teething woes, no napping, no eating, no communication, and independence.  Every day is just a series of the emotional roller coaster that is Kelton.  He wakes up mostly happy.  And he stays mostly happy until it's time for me to feed him.  I open up the cupboard and Kelton starts reaching for something and screaming.  I don't know what he wants.  He just screams.  We have found that LIFE cereal is always okay, but any time I try to give him something he doesn't want he screams and thrashes.  Baby food?  Ya right.  It's like I'm feeding him slime from the ground.  So all those mashed fruits, vegetables, and meat he should be eating because he doesn't have teeth...uneaten.  If I try cutting up fresh fruits, vegetables or meat for him to eat he throws it on the floor in frustration because either it's not what he wants, or his gums hurt.  More than once Jeremy and I have given him a popsicle or frozen Gogurt for breakfast and that's it.  Luckily he'll drink Pedisure, but that still doesn't cover all his nutritional needs.  To top it off, he's still super little.  I was already stressed about giving him enough calories because he's so small, and that's when he was eating.  Now I'm about ready to scream myself.  

After the fiasco of breakfast is over, usually ending in me washing off the gooey hands and face of a screaming Kelton, it's time to play right?  Wrong!  I will set him down on the ground to clean up the smeared food, spilled milk, and to pick up his bowl from the ground, only to have him clinging to my legs screaming for me to pick him up.  I don't think he actually wants me to pick him up, but he's so frustrated that he can't tell me what he actually does want that it has to do.  We have worked on baby signs for "more," "all done," "milk," but he would rather scream that talk so I haven't worked on anything else consistently.  So the food stays smeared on the counter, chairs, and floor as I pick up Kelton and we move on to something else.

By now he's ready for me to change his clothes so I take him upstairs.  As soon as we enter his room he thinks I'm getting ready to put him down for a nap so he'll start screaming.  Somehow I manage to get him dressed and his diaper changed amidst the spinning, rolling, and climbing, and then he spots his shoes.  A new round of thrashing and screaming starts until I put on his shoes.  Sometimes the battles stops there for the morning and he'll play at least long enough for me to get dressed.  Sometimes though the battle just keeps going.  I'll put him on the ground and he'll reach for my hand to pull me downstairs and outside.  If I'm not ready to go outside because I'm not dressed he will stand by the stroller and cry while I go upstairs to take a break while I shower.  

Once my shower is over it's normally time to take McKenzie to preschool, so we hop in the car.  If you guessed that Kelton whines and squirms while I buckle him into his car seat, then you win a prize.  He calms down during the drive and we manage to make it there and back with no more tears.  By the time we get home we are both so exhausted from the screaming of the morning that I put him down for a nap.  Two or three hours later I'll get him out of his crib and we start all over again!   He wakes up mostly happy, or crankier than before his nap.  We fight eating lunch.  He screams because his toys are stuck somewhere.  He cries when I don't hold him.  He squirms when I do pick him up because I am apparently not getting the message.  It's a huge relief when McKenzie comes home from school because he likes playing with her.  They'll jump on the tramp together, ride on the teeter totter, or play blocks.  

Another small moment of relief comes when it's time to get Cambrie from school.  Kelton finally gets that stroller ride he has been waiting for he asked for that morning.  But now I have three kids home from school and it's a different kind of chaos.  McKenzie wants to play with her sister she missed all day.  Cambrie wants to take a break because she's been at school all day.  Kelton just wants attention from anyone who will give it to him.  In order to get homework done and dinner made, I put Kelton down for his afternoon nap.  Most of the time I hear him talking to himself the entire time he's upstairs, but I don't care because it's quiet downstairs and he's not screaming.  Ironically, when I get him out of bed after his quiet time I get the first real smile all day.  He plays peek-a-book between the crib slats, and gives me a huge smile as I pick him up.  But as soon as we walk downstairs to deal with the rest of the family, like serving dinner, his happy feeling is gone and it's back to frustrated Kelton.  I cannot get that kid to bed early enough.  

So today when he knocked over McKenzie's cup of milk at breakfast I really did want to cry, because I know what's in store for me the rest of the day and it just is emotionally exhausting thinking about it.

A Little Bit of Miss McKenzie

As I was browsing through my photos to see where my blogging stories have been lacking, I realized that almost all of them were pictures of McKenzie being McKenzie.  So let's talk McKenzie:

Here the girls were helping the sister missionaries chalk the Plan of Salvation.  Cambrie went with Earth...

 ...and McKenzie went with a rainbow and a leprechaun tree house.

 McKenzie's favorite new clothing purchase this fall was her hedgehog shirt.  She was so excited when it was cold enough last week to finally get to wear it.  She is also holding her newest hedgehog.  She saved her lemonade stand money all summer to buy this little guy.  Her name is Poco and McKenzie is in love.

On Sunday afternoon Cambrie decided to give them both manicures and pedicures.  She even managed to paint flowers on their big toes.

When I broke my collar bone McKenzie started making her bed every morning.  Some nights though, she thinks it is easier to make her bed after we tuck her in.  She sleeps most nights like this, then she's done with her chore in the morning.

McKenzie is into everything castle and princess.  Here she made an amazing princess castle all by herself.

Even though she is a little squinty in this pic, it does a good job of capturing McKenzie.  She is in her Elsa dress (whom she adores), is wearing a tiara, a sparkly necklace, and you may even notice the make-up which she applied all by herself.  There is no one quite like Miss McKenzie.

I lied

Okay, so today was McKenzie's "real" first day of preschool.  Today she was picked up by our preschool carpool and it was a normal day of preschool without any parents.  Do you remember how I said she was so grown up?  I LIED!  As I helped buckle her into the booster seat in my friend's van, I couldn't help but think how little she was!  She's not grown up.  She's not ready to be on her own.  She's still my little munchkin.  Before we walked outside she grabbed onto my leg and hid behind me.  "Mom, I'm scared."  I felt so sad, because I was scared too.  She's always been nervous to be without me and now I need to send her off on her own at least three days a week.  I'm sure I'll be ready for her to be grown up eventually, but I don't think that day is today.

BMW Championship

Jeremy was able to snag some tickets to the FedEx Cup Playoffs down at Cherry Hills Country Club, the BMW Championship.  I was really excited to spend an entire day with Jeremy, but I was also really excited to have the chance to see some serious golf champions, Phil Mickelson, Rory McIlroy, Bubba Watson, Rickie Fowler, Ernie Els, and so many others.  I need to come clean right now and say that I'm not a super fan of any sport.  I have a general idea of who is good, a major respect for good players and good people, and an understanding that chances to see them perform are rare.  So when we were dropped off at Cherry Hills I couldn't believe our luck.  The first thing I noticed was that it was the quietest professional sporting event I have ever been to.  Jeremy and I were whispering as we watched players warm up at the driving range and putting green, whispering as we looked at the groups and tee times to see who we wanted to follow, and I was whispering with a ten-foot whisper voice trying to get Jeremy to slow down from dashing off to see one star after the next.  That was the second thing I noticed, how incredibly happy and excited Jeremy was.  He really looked like a little boy on Christmas morning.  He would point out players, "There's Bubba Watson!  Oh man, this is awesome!"  "When is Rickie Fowler teeing off?  Where do we find him?" and then he was ten feet down the cart path completely oblivious to the fact that he was jogging to get from one hole to another.  Even though we had tickets to the 17th green skybox, we chose to follow the players along the course for awhile.  We followed Bubba Watson and Matt Kuchar for quite awhile, then jumped to Rickie Fowler, then found Phil Mickelson and were star-struck watching him for a time.  I couldn't help but notice what a friendly guy Phil is (yes, we are on a first name basis now).  He would smile at the crowd, tip is hat, and make jokes with some serious fans nearby who were wearing Team Phil shirts.  Even though he had a rotten round, I was really happy to see him. We stopped chasing after players long enough to grab a hot dog and lemonade, then were off speed walking along the fairways again.  We became pretty good at reading the course maps and guessing where each grouping was on the course.  The biggest skill of all while watching a golf tournament is knowing where all the crossing zones are to get from one side of the fairway to the other.  

Bubba digging out of a bunker on the 5th hole.

Because it was Friday and close to the championship rounds, photos were prohibited.  Jeremy couldn't resist.  We tried sneaking pictures with our cell phones, and it was tough not getting caught by the volunteers.  So the few pictures we managed to snag are a little off and may be out of focus, but it was too memorable of a trip not to try.  

Bubba Watson teeing off, while Matt Kuchar waits for his turn.

Towards the end of the day we decided to go check out our skybox to see what we were missing.  It was a bit of a trek to the 17th green, which was why we hadn't stopped by earlier, but we should have!  We had a full gourmet catered meal available to us.  By the time we arrived there was a little soup left, some mini sliders, and some small chimichangas.  I can only imagine what everyone else was feasting on the entire day.  The ketchup and mustard stain down the center of my white T-shirt could have been totally avoided had we stopped there for lunch instead of the concessions stand.  Rats!  We were there long enough to see Rory McIlroy, Angel Cabrera, and KJ Choi come through before the tournament was over for the day.  

Rory McIroy heading to the bridge to reach the green.

I couldn't believe that we were there for seven hours, yet it only felt like two or three.  On our way out, we were brave enough to pull out my phone for a selfie with our skybox in the background.  I don't suppose I will ever get to go to another PGA Tour event for a long time, but I can't believe how lucky we were to go to this one together and have such a great time.

First Day of Preschool

Miss McKenzie was able to go visit her preschool today for the first time today.  When I told the girls last night not to stay up too late because it was a school night for both of them, they both were really excited for her.  (It didn't stop them from staying up late goofing around however.)  Today was a shortened day where the parents were able to hang out and watch some of the daily routine.  McKenzie was excited, but nervous about everything.  She's excited because she has three other friends in class with her; Aubri, Brody, and Brielle.  But she's nervous about new teachers, a new school, and me leaving her there.  I think she is really going to love it once she gets used to it.  I am having a hard time realizing that he's going to be dropped off on her own for three hours, three days a week.  Independence already?  Yikes!  I just can't believe how big she is now!

Suite Rockies Game

Comfort always has oodles of tickets to the Rockies games to give to their docs.  Why we haven't taken full advantage of this, I don't know.  Earlier this summer Jeremy and I were able to snag Clubhouse tickets which are absolutely amazing.  We are served a full gourmet meal before the game, then are given full freedom to order whatever snacks we want during the game: chocolate covered strawberries, jalapeno poppers, helmet sundaes, you name it and it appears just moments later.  I have to say that sitting just five feet from the action is definitely the way to go.  

The clubhouse seats are obviously catered to a more professional crowd so when we decided to take the kids to see a game we chose the seats up in the Comfort suite.  The suite is a great place for the kids because they can run around all they want and aren't cooped up by the crowds.  There is also air conditioning and snacks.  The game we had tickets to also included a continuation of a previous rain delay we didn't know about, so when we arrived all the pizza was gone already which was a bummer.  The kids still had popcorn to feast on, and we let them snag brownies while they could.  Kelton couldn't get enough of the popcorn and though dumping the peanut bucket was tons of fun.

It was hard to get into the last few innings of the previous game, so we hung out waiting until the "real" first pitch of our game.  When Cambrie was asked what the "B" on her hat stood for, she responded, "Baseball!"  It was from her one stint on T-Ball with Broomfield, but I think baseball works too.  We don't have any Rockies fan gear, so I think it's great!

Finally when our game rolled around the kids took interest in what was going on.  I realized that Jeremy and I have been seriously lacking in our baseball education of the kids.  We had to explain everything from the strikes, to the innings, to the outs.  I sure hope we aren't judged because of that!  

From our suite the girls could see all of the snacks being served below us.  McKenzie caught sight of the cotton candy and from that moment on was obsessed with getting her own.  We had previously promised the girls each a treat since they had done so well with their chores that morning, and cotton candy was what was requested.  Cambrie chose a helmet sundae, which was super quick and easy to grab.  But for some reason finding pink cotton candy for McKenzie was a trick!  By the time she finally had that cotton candy in her hand her entire face lit up like the Fourth of July and a huge smile spread across her face.  "Thank you so much Mom!  I am so excited for my cotton candy!  Thank you!  Thank you!"  Now that's the kind of appreciation I like!  

After four hours at the ball park the kids were getting worn out.  The Rockies were down 5-2 in the bottom of the 5th inning and Jeremy and I decided to call it a night.  We couldn't believe our luck that the Rockies actually came back to win that game 9-10!  What a bummer!  But I would still call it an awesome day at the ball park.  On the drive home Cambrie commented, "I had a lot more fun at the baseball game than I thought I would!"  All righty, maybe we should try to score tickets more often :)