Hanging Out

Random moment from this month:

A couple of Sundays ago Cambrie was craving chocolate cake, we we decided to make one!  The goal was a triple layer chocolate cake with ganache frosting.  Last time I tried this recipe it looked horrible, but tasted delicious.  This bake worked like a charm.  Can you guess what Daxton's favorite part of helping mom in the kitchen is?

We have quite the growing collection of Halloween costumes at the house.  I'm not exactly sure what look McKenzie was going for with this wig, but I think the bubblegum pink lipstick is the perfect compliment to that crazy hair!

Jeremy and I are making an effort to go out on more date nights.  I love BBQ, but the kids aren't sold.  So when it was just the adults it was time to get some brisket!  

Oh Sundays, the perfect baking day.  It's hard to tell the scale from this picture, but those pancakes are each the size of a dinner plate.  They were huge and gorgeous!  The kids were slightly disappointed they didn't each get a stack that large for themselves, but as it was, they could barely finish one of those suckers.

The girls joined me in watching the women's session of General Conference this year.  Now while they pick on each other and occasionally get on each other's nerves, sometimes they really do like each other.  I just love this picture of the two of them!

Daxton's preschool craft game is strong this year!  He loves bringing home his projects.  I'm super impressed by this hippo.

True, it's about an hour past bedtime, but that means it's the perfect time to try to walk with your feet in the arms of your sweatshirt!

The skies here lately have been wild.  Colorado has beautiful sunrises and sunsets naturally, but add in some wildfire smoke and the skies are unreal.

I went to wake the boys up for school, and wasn't exactly sure where I should look: in that giant pile on the floor or in their beds!  Apparently they had tried to sleep in there but it wasn't very comfortable.

Handstand contest!

The fall colors look especially vibrant this year.  I love it.

Meet Daxton the robot!

After preschool one afternoon, Daxton and I decided to go on a bike ride around the neighborhood looking at everyone's Halloween decorations.  We rode all over our neighborhood and found pumpkins, ghosts, spiders, and skeletons galore.  The weather was perfect and we were out there for nearly an hour.  Luckily I had Daxton to keep me safe, because Halloween decorations totally give me the heebee jeebees.

These boys!  Towards the end of quarantine they were getting on each other's nerves and fighting a lot.  Once they started school, all of that stopped.  They are currently best buddies and do absolutely everything together.  I can't believe that brothers can be such good friends.

Other Worldly Pumpkin Patch

Our usual trip to Rock Creek pumpkin patch was interrupted this year because of coronavirus.  We didn't want to miss out on a family tradition so we went exploring and found Miller Farms.  It was a very unique trip.  The sky was covered with smoke and haze from the fires, which gave everything an eerie orange glow.  As we explored the property, the weird lighting just helped contribute to the feeling that we were in another world.  Upon entering the farm we found the whole lot full of sand piles, riding toys, wagons, large bizarre sculptures, rickety teeter-totters, broken power wheels, as well as rusted trucks, cars, airplanes, and even a helicopter.  We had no idea what we were doing there.  

We wandered around and found a race track of sorts.  The pedals didn't work on the carts, there were no seats, and only some of the steering columns worked, but we took turns racing around the track anyway.  

The kids climbed into some of the power wheel vehicles and raced down a hill.  Unluckily for Cambrie, her car didn't steer at all and she had to bail before crashing into another car at the bottom of the hill.  

We also climbed on everything, because it looked like there were absolutely no rules to this place.  Don't mind the broken windows and rusty nails, it's fine!  

After we were done exploring, we made our way to the front of the property where there were boxes of pumpkins and gourds to buy.  Their policy is that for $40 you can have whatever you can fit in your little red wagon.  The kids loved that idea!  They kept grabbing pumpkins and gourds and balancing them precariously on top of each other.  I may have contributed to the chaos and loaded the wagon with onions and edible squash.  We couldn't move the wagon without stuff tumbling off, but that didn't seem to matter!  

Back at home the kids used all of the new pumpkins to decorate the porch.  It looked lovely.  Fast forward three days and as I was working in the office, I glanced out the window and watched a squirrel with a gourd in his mouth running along our fence!  Ten minutes later, he was back again.  Those rotten squirrels were stealing our gourds!  The kids dashed outside to save what was left.  We came home with 47 pumpkins.  The squirrels took ten of them before we realized what was going on.  The pumpkins that were too big to carry, they started nibbling on right there on the porch.  So right now all of the pumpkins are in the house for safe keeping.  It just seems like a very odd way to finish off an odd pumpkin patch adventure.  

Let the leaf piles begin

The boys were so proud of their leaf pile.  They couldn't wait to jump in it.

 

Impromptu fall hike

I wanted to go to the mountains so much that I kidnapped Jeremy and Daxton and took them up to Boulder for the afternoon.  We went on a familiar hike up behind NCAR, and it was nice just to be out in the fresh air.  (The smoke has been so thick lately that fresh air is a rare commodity).  

Daxton loves being outside and hiked without complaint for the 3 miles or so.  He always ends up with a great stick collection at the end of his hikes, and it's always a trick to get him to keep only his favorite to take home.  

And while we saw more pine trees than red and yellow leaves, you just can't beat the majesty of the Flatirons.

A day with Daxton

The kids have been in school now for about a week.  And I mean ACTUALLY in school.  Kelton and McKenzie leave in the morning, spend all day at school, and return in the afternoon.  Cambrie goes up twice a week and the rest of the week she's home working on assignments.  What this all means is that even though Daxton still has preschool, he and I are spending a lot more time together.  So what are we doing with our days?  

One day I took him to gymnastics at Paul Derda then we went on a walk to the Broomfield Commons Park.  It was almost a mile walk and we spent it looking at the prairie dogs, watching ant hills, and staying away from coyotes.  He didn't complain once sweet guy.  

Playing on some play sculptures.  

He loves picking dandelions for me.  One day he picked two just because, "I love you mom."  

The temperature right now is so pleasant that we've been eating ice-cream cones on our front porch (don't tell the other kids!).  

He's been playing dress-ups in his favorite costumes.  This day he couldn't decide what his pirate name should be, but turned down, "Black Beard," "Long John Silver," "Captain Hook," and "Daxton the fierce."  He made it through the whole day without a name.  

We ride to the bike park and ride.  One day Jeremy was able to come with us and the two of them played tag on the pump track.  

Exploring McKay Lake.  

He's sweet most of the time, but sometimes he's just a little crazy.  This is the preferred state of his room: disaster.  I'll clean it, but it will look like this hours later.  It drives me nuts!  

Very sloppily eating alfredo noodles.  

Both boys modeling their new masks from Grandpa.  Daxton's shark mask is terrifying!  This is Daxton's last year before kindergarten, so we'd better enjoy these days while we can.