Kate's swimming lessons 2009

Monkey walking


Wow-off the diving board with apparently no fear!


swimming with miss Hillary


I love that all three have taken swim lessons here with the wonderful instructors, in the pools that daddy swam so many hours, and so many competitions! We love Willow Creek :)

Blake - swimming lessons 2009

Backfloating against his will :)



Blake's favorite kick board across the lanes


Jumping off the diving board. "You better catch me!!" (can you hear the fear in his voice??)


Doing his bobs


We LOVE Willow Creek swim lessons!

Jake - swim lessons 2009

treading water



learning to dive properly


swimming laps.....



...with the help of the kickboard after a few!

Fourth of July 2009

Watching the wonderful (short) Highlands Ranch parade :)





Kate - sorry I don't know how to turn my pictures!!




the boys

Family Reunion 2009

The younger generation all lined up - look for Kate "the baby" between the bars :)


Mmmm....costco cake


Kate and "the nice lady" Andrea playing ball



The next generation cousins on the stairs (blake and Kate at the bottom)


Everyone had a fun few days playing golf (between rain storms), hiking, rafting, dinners, fireworks, and much more.

Summer Catch Up :)

It's been a long time since a real post, and I have so much to catch up on....

Jake has lost a few teeth!



The boys enjoyed a week of "Camp E.D.G.E.(Experience and Discover God Everywhere) Vacation Bible School.



I got the three to smile at the same time :)

June news

So, in this age of facebook and having everything instantly, I have become a very tardy blogger. The kids are growing much faster than I like them to, the dogs drive us crazy (good thing we adore them), and our house still isn't sold :( I hate that nobody has loved our house yet, but also anticipate that we have a lot of work once it sells. No, I don't know where we are going yet, but that is part of the fun of moving.
Jake is officially a second grader. He is into everything boyish and is an avid reader as well.
Blake is officially a kindergarten boy (his favorite phrase!). Blake was made for summer, as he loves lazy days, and nothing much on the schedule. He pretty much loves anything his brother does, and would spend a whole day playing on the Wii, if I permitted that.
Kate is 2 1/2. She is in to anything "fancy", yet also loves to play with her brothers and her dogs. She has the curliest of the curly hair in our family, is somewhat tall, and has a sweet tooth :)
Amidst all of the upheaval in our lives right now, I can honestly say how thankful we are right where we are. The fall will bring new schools, new jobs, a lot of new...., but for now we can just enjoy the summer days in anticipation of what is coming.

I will be adding pictures soon.... or just check facebook :)


Lisa

A few cool things...

So this week:

1. Our house went on the market! Some good feelings, some bad this time, but all in all a positive change. We don't exactly know where we are going yet, but somewhere good (is what I keep telling myself!)

2. President Obama spoke at MY High School on Wednesday. What a thrill! It was fun to see the building all decked out (on TV of course), and for people to appreciate that it is a great place, despite not being the newest school in the Phoenix area.

3. We celebrated Blake's 1/2 birthday! Poor Blake has a summer birthday, and therefore has never taken treats to school to share with friends. That all stopped this week. We took doughnuts (his choice), and all the 4 year olds sang Happy Birthday as if it were the real day. He couldn't be more thrilled!

4. I was lucky enough to get an hours reduction at work. Most people were very sad at this turn of events, but I am more excited. Every hour less that I am working is one more that I get to spend with my kids and Erik, so a good change!

5. The boys got registered for Zoo camp again this summer. Really, one of the big highlights of our summer usually, other than our travels with Grandma!

6. I had time to blog about our week!


All in all a great week :)

Happy Thanksgiving / Birthday!

Hope you all out there had a great Thanksgiving. We certainly did. We were lucky enough to get to celebrate Jake's birthday yesterday also, and we are having the party today for 7 of the coolest boys we know :) I will have to post pictures of the party later, but for now, Thaksgiving and our fun birthday day...



Us on Thanksgiving


Great birthday gift!


Arriving at the Denver Aquarium - Jake in the diver suit


Two best buds at the aquarium


Blake petting the stingrays - Kate trying to reach :)



Uncle Tony and Jake playing basketball at Chuck E Cheese


Kate enjoying the helicopter ride


Tony and the boys. Yep, 500 tickets buys you a matchbox car to share - Thanks to Uncle Tony's basketball skills! Uncle Tony, Aunt Casie, and Grandpa make Chuck E Cheese that much more fun. Thanks for coming!

End of soccer!!

So the end of another year of soccer has come. It was such a fun season! They are in U8, so they now have a full field game,goalies, and officials! Jake is really doing great, and the half that he played goalie, no goals were scored on his side :)He is a much better forward(with his endless energy), and scored a few times this season. This season, since they all have so many soccer trophies, the coaches got them all "strikers" sweatshirts. I don't think I have washed it yet because he can't stop wearing it!Really cool!



After the last game, pizza, and sweatshirts, how else could the season end but with a pick up game of street football with coach Rick?



I also realized that we hadn't put up any pictures of Cooper yet. He is our newest family member. We rescued him in August, and he has become Bailey's best friend:) He is a cool dog, and we have so much fun playing catch with him. He and Bailey wear each other out every day, and that is a big bonus for us! So, now with 3 dogs and 3 kids, I will say we are officially full :)

Happy Halloween

We had a great time trick or treating last night. I can't believe that Kate is big enough to walk the whole time and carry her treat sack. This year Jake was Luke Skywalker (he really looked like a young Mark Hamill!), Blake was Lightning McQueen, and Kate was a purple butterfly.






Lightning McQueen and the butterfly


Luke Skywalker


Just to show this cool house in the neighborhood!And the fact that Kate walked and carried her pumpkin :)


Blake at his Preschool Parade

Potpourri post :)

Ok, since it has been so long since I posted pictures, I have a few that are not really related, but thought you might want to see. So here they are...


The boys hiking Copper Mountain Labor Day weekend. We rode up (in a hail storm that just came out of nowhere about 1/4th way up) and then they closed the lift because of the storm. GREAT! So, we hiked down in the hail storm, probably 4 miles. A good family memory:) This picture was in the last 1/2 mile, when Jake was helping Blake finish. They can be so sweet together.





Erik carrying Kate at about mile 2.5 He does not really look tired yet, but by the end, his shoulders were maybe a little sore. I guess I forgot to say also that we decided to leave the path halfway down to save time, and went the last mile and a half STRAIGHT DOWN following the lift. At one point, someone threw a poncho at us from the newly opened lift that was carrying them back down. We LOVED that :) It was a great workout, just wish I had dry clothes to change in to, and maybe some kind of cushion for the fronts of my shoes to protect the ends of my toes. It was like a 25 incline down instead of up.



This is the boys on the hayride at the Fall Festival. We had such a great time, but because I am on the PTO board this year, was very busy, and did not get many pictures. We went on this great ride together through our neighborhood on a cart with hay seats pulled by clydesdale horses. Does it get any better than this?



My great friend Suzanne with Kate. We are so blessed that Suz decided to work in the ducks class this year, on the days that Kate is there. Kate gets such special love, and I never have to worry:)


That is it for now. There is probably more, but at another time. We are going to Disney next week, so hopefully I will have enough motivation to post those in a more timely manner :)

Soccer is here!

Erik, Blake, and cheesy Kate at Jakes game




Blakes FIRST game (of many, of course)


Blake and Kate watching Jacob. They are the best of friends :)


Jakes team


Jake throwing the ball in..


The lucky part, no snow on Saturdays yet. Tomorrow is the last game for Blake this season, and Jacob has 2 more. As much as I love to watch the boys in their sports, I am really looking forward to winter and hunkering down on Saturdays again too :) And I am quite sure that by March, I will be so looking forward to watching as many games as I can again!

Some new happenings...

We are still here. Having fun and really busy! SO, a few updates...



The first day of preschool for Blake and Kate!








Kate walking up to school :) Big backpack, little girl!

Ok,Ok,Ok,Ok.........

So, here are the pix that go along with the stories!



This is at Blakes birthday party.



Jake on the first day of school.

First Full Week of First Grade

Welcome to our quiet, non-chaotic weekdays now. Jake started first grade last Wednesday, and all of a sudden, from 8:35-3:35 we have a nice break from the sibling "stuff". Blake and Kate have always been good buddies, and it is almost like everyone waits to argue and be crazy until Jake is around. So our days are short, and we miss our biggest brother tremendously! In a few weeks, when preschool starts, just imagine all of the quiet time that I will suddenly have....

Jake's new teacher is Mrs. Wysocki. All I really know about her is that she has the longest hair I have seen recently (like Crystal Gayle long), and she is over 6 feet tall and can touch the classroom ceiling. Who needs education and teaching skills when you have both of those?