Fall is Here! I think...

Our weather quickly moved from Summer to Winter, with only a glimpse of Fall in between. I'm happy that I followed my say-go-be-do about Fall and took the girls out on a Tuesday three weeks in a row to the mountains to see the fall leaves.



Did you know that Ponderosa Pines, in late summer and fall, smell like Butterscotch? It's heavenly!



Near the top of Fall River Road. The leaves were beautiful! It snowed that day, and it was only September 15th.



We stayed in Grand Lake the first week of September. We went boating, saw lots of Elk and Moose, and fox came to the back door of our cabin!

Our September was full of mountain trips, wildlife and hiking. We went up to Rocky Mountain a few times for the Elk Rut, drove up Fall River Road three times, and saw lots of animal bones on our hikes. One of the highlights was was man and woman fishing at Glacier Lake. The woman caught a beautiful fish and the girls got to "pet" it and hold it:



We had a wealth of adventures this summer, though we only camped once. We picked strawberries and raspberries at a farm and made jam out of them, fished and boated on a lake, saw a moose for the first time, visited the family in Wyoming, rode ATVs and hiked around, played in the lakes....ah summer!

Fall is here and we're preparing for the holiday season. It's one of our favorites; we make loads of cookies and home made gifts, study the bible, make crafts, and are in (what is seems like) a constant state of either putting up, or taking down, decorations. :)

We are fully blessed!

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If it ain't broke...oh, wait, it is!

Two and a half years ago, dd1 broke her arm doing cartwheels in the family room. The timing was horrible since she had music class and gymnastics class. Here she is after getting her cast on:

She was five. Yesterday our dd2 was running to the back door to go back outside and she tripped, hit the screen door and then the floor. Somewhere in there she must have tried to stop herself because she broker her humerus bone near the elbow.

Thankfully this time, we're on break from music until August and we finished our two week intensive swim lessons the DAY BEFORE the accident. God is good! She doesn't get her cast on until monday, she's in a splint right now, so we're going to request the waterproof cast straight off this time (hopefully she'll be able to get it first since her break isn't as bad as dd1-poor dd1 had to wear a regular cast for 4 weeks, then got to switch to the waterproof for another 3 weeks).

We've made some great strides in homeschooling this week. With dd2 out of commission for her usual rough house play, we'll likely get alot done this summer.

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Gloomy Outside, happy inside

It's a gloomy day today....raining, overcast, and chilly.



And I couldn't be happier! In Colorado, it's sunny 300 days a year. The last few weeks, we've had sweltering days of 95-100 degrees and, of course, hot beating sunshine.

I'm rejoicing for the break. As much as I crave summer by March, as do I crave Fall by August.

I'm really looking forward to Fall days like these:



and these:



Each fall, I feel like hibernating to the mountains to see all the beauty. I bake with pumpkin, butternut squash and apples. We worship the changing colors by close observation and adoration. I feel so rejuvenated by Fall.

The girls and I will be celebrating today by reading books and baking!

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Calming down...

Things are getting a little better around my house as far as productivity is concerned, but not much sit-down schooling is occuring. Lily has been experiencing bad gas and has been more needy than my first 3 girls, so I haven't found much time to really get organized and back in the swing of things. I feel so disorganized and scatterbrained that I feel like I'm carrying a huge load of things to do, but I just can't get to them. Most days, I feel like resigning everything I do outside of the house and just concentrating on home and family. However, I help run a support group and that's just impossible right now.

That being said, Maisie is really blossoming. Her music class is going really well, even though we've missed classes here and there for baby and travel. She's learning the song "The Saints Go Marching In" and is having a great time with it. She's also starting to practice on her own--mostly her own experimental songs--but she's enjoying it, which is what I want the most. As for reading and spelling, we haven't done any "sit down" work, but she is trying to read and spell everything she sees these days. My mom bought the girls Shrek 3 and was trying to be sly about asking me if they could watch the movie the other day so she spelled it out...to which Maisie replied, "SHREK 3!!! Can we watch it mommy?" She also picks up books and finds words she knows--last night she found a book with FARM and came in and said, "mom, I can spell FARM...F-A-R-M!"

In January when we start to buckle down into routine again, I think she'll be much farther ahead than I think!

Dani is my creative one but has an analytical mind. She's been working on puzzles lately and shows an incredible knack for them. Most often she doesn't "hunt" for a place for a puzzle piece, but by looking at it she knows just where to put it. That amazes me as I was never very good at puzzles. In fact, I have a puzzle that DH bought me years ago that I don't even want to attempt (it's one of those collage puzzles where every piece has tiny little pictures on it, but they collectively make on large picture of Winnie the Pooh). She also loves to color and write, which is a collection of little symbols at the moment. She can write an A, U and a couple other letters, but I haven't taught her the true form yet--that will come in January since it seems her motor skills are rather advanced for writing and she really wants to write.

Katie is going to be 2 tomorrow. She seems so grown up now that we have Lily. She is potty training, though we're having our ups and downs, and is sleeping in her toddler bed for naps. We still haven't transitioned at night yet, but it will come in time. Katie also has an eye for puzzles and is very physical. She remembers the signs she used from 6 months on and we're all starting to use them more regularly again to teach the baby as she grows. Her favorite signs are "mommy" and then "milk" when I'm nursing Lily. We've been giving her mini m&ms for successful potty trips and she now knows all of the "m&m colors"--brown, yellow, orange, blue and green. At some point, we'll branch out and make sure she knows the rest.

As for me, I'm starting on a journey of cutting out dairy from my diet. Lily has become so fussy and gassy during the day that I feel like I have to find out whether there is an allergy or problem, or just her immature digestive system trying to grow. I've been researching non-dairy diets on the web and it's going to be very challenging for me as I'm a milk-cheese-cottage cheese-cereal kind of girl. I'll have to switch to soymilk for cereal and avoid chocolate all together....*sigh* I'm such a chocoholic anyway, so it will be a good transition. I think that after two weeks I should see a big difference, if not, I'll try and find an alternative culprit in my diet. It's just not worth the hours of carrying her around the house in the sling, wrap or Baby Bjorn above and beyond the normal bonding.

My plan for January for the girls:

Spanish-1 day per week, 1 day of vocab
Sing, Spell, Read and Write-2 days a week
Sign Lanugage--three new signs per week
Math U See--2 days per week
Money Math--1 day per week
Writing--1 day per week
Reading--every day

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Welcome Fall! A Farewell to Summer

WELCOME FALL



Fall is my absolute favorite time of year. I look forward to the changing colors, cooler weather, Halloween, butternut squash, pumpkins, our annual trip to Anderson Farms and, most of all, how my spirit renews in Fall.

The nights have been cooler and I much look forward to the days being cool as well. Of course, yesterday was the official last day of summer and the temperature peaked at 1 degree under the record (low 80's) and today it is, again, supposed to peak at near 82. Not exactly Fall weather for me, but I'm trying to be patient!

The cooling weather makes me want to bake, clean and surround myself in pumpkin. I crave pumpkin bread, butternut squash soup, and cuddling with my girls reading a book. I'm hoping it makes me want to sew as well since I still have 3 butterfly costumes and a catepillar costume to make :)

FAREWELL SUMMER


Summer was very good to us. Though we didn't get to camp as much as we wished because of our pregnancy, we really enjoyed the times we did camp. We had family visit (and a whirlwind week of fun) as well as great times with friends from nearby and across the country. Although it was HOT--and at times miserable for me being pregnant--the summer was full of great memories.



This summer we visited the Sand Dunes, camped at Guanella Pass with friends, rode the Pike's Peak Cog Railway, Travelled over Trail Ridge Road, the kids went to Elitch's for the first time with family, we attended some great Science co-ops and other field trips, saw a Rockies game as a family, and I spent a glorious week in Florida relaxing with my best friend...what a summer!



Farewell Summer. Though I'm not sad to see you go this year, I will be looking forward to you again in March when I'm sick of the snow and cold.

Ahh, how sweet it is to have actual seasons!


FALL LEAVES


We decided to say farewell to summer by spending the day in the mountains on the official last day of summer. Guanella Pass is one of our favorite drives and picnic areas to view fall leaves because of the overwhelming number of Aspen Trees. The entire area is sprayed with gold this time of year and our timing couldn't have been better.



We started on the Grant side of the Pass...and the leaves were dry and falling off the trees without displaying much of a gold color. We were disappointed that the display wasn't as beautiful as previous years, but happy we were celebrating anyway.

The picnic areas were packed as expected on a Saturday. We did, however, find a great camping area in which to stop, eat lunch, and take some family photos.



We played next to the water for at least an additional hour and the girls loved it. Dani asked numerous times if we could camp and "where's the trailer?" I think we've made outdoor adventurers of our girls :)

A couple videos:





As we were descending down the other side of Guanella at about 4:30 p.m., we were grateful we were descending during a low traffic time. The potholes were deep and scattered and to avoid them, we participated in an intricate dance line of cars sashaying and swerving back and forth across the road.

At one point, we passed a local news channel truck. DH commented about it and I wondered if a news story would result. Here's the VIDEO of the road we travelled which appeared on 9news last night and this morning.HERE is the brief story from the website.

The story was a bit overdone! It's a mountain pass, for goodness sakes, and a good part of the road isn't even paved. That's one of the beauties of this road--anyone can drive it, but it helps give you the jeep off-road feel to the journey.

The drive was completely worth dodging the potholes. The VIEW of the leaves on the other side of the pass was breathtaking. We appeared to have hit the peak of the season and there was GOLD everywhere! Unfortunately, the weather grew cloudy so the beautiful lighting near sunset turned to a dull gray, and although the pictures don't reflect the golden color near as well as our memories, I wouldn't have missed it for anything.

Once we got down the pass into Georgetown, we stopped at our favorite park. It's one of the best I've seen that is a city park and was built with Colorado Lottery Funds. It looks like one giant treehouse with slides, walkways, a climbing wall, low and high monkey bars, a 2-5 year old park with smaller sized slides and walkways, a train sandbox, a tire swing....and this doesn't describe it well enough to create a good picture. It was built with Colorado Lottery Funds and it's one of our favorite parks.





We didn't get there until dusk, but spent a good 45 minutes playing hard before driving home.

Today will be a quiet day at home, doing laundry and cleaning. The Bronco game is on today and the girls will be watching with daddy :) I will be watching it peripherally, but spending more time reorganizing, nesting, and planning out more lesson plans for the new curriculum we received.

Hope you are having a GREAT weekend as well!

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Elk Rut and Fall Leaves

Fall is my favorite time of the year and as a family, we take a few trips to the mountains to see the fall leaves, experience the changing weather, and see/hear the Elk Rut.

This year with a little one on the way, I'm concerned I may not get to experience as much of Fall as I want. Last weekend was early for all of the above and I'm so happy we got to experience it, but I'm hoping I get one more chance to go before this baby is born.



We had a barbeque in Rocky Mountain National Park with the girls. Ironically, it rained while we were trying to eat, so we ate in the car. As soon as we were done, it stopped raining ;) We did get to roast s'mores without getting wet, though. Moments later, we saw this rainbow.

The Elk have migrated to lower elevations. These Elk were taking advantage of the local golf course, which apparently the local police were trying to help protect. There were a ton of cars watching while a couple of the local law enforcement were attempting to run off this Elk Herd.

Ironically when we passed back through this town hours later, the Elk were still laying on the golf course and grazing :)


There were some magnificent Bulls in sight yesterday. This is one that was hanging out at the side of the road. I'm not sure where his herd was, but I'm sure not far behind. You can see he was pretty soaked in the rain.






We sat on the side of the road with MANY other families watching the herd. There was another Bull up in the trees that kept sneaking down to the herd. The Bull kept chasing him off, however, and we didn't get to see much of a confrontation.



We did get to hear some Elk calls/bugling.

This is my favorite of the bugles. This Bull was trying to keep his herd in order (the same Bull that was getting a little competition from another bull hanging out in the trees). If you watch closely, you can see the breath come out while he's bugling.

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Exhausted!

It's been a GREAT week with family. The older girls went to Elitch's with daddy, papa, and our cousins on Saturday, we went up over Trail Ridge on Sunday (cousins, nana/papa, uncle John & family), Monday we went to Golden, Tuesday to Central City, Wednesday to the baseball game, Thursday to Pike's Peak and Flying W, Friday shopping and Cinzzetti's and today to Cracker Barrell for breakfast.

Each night this week the girls didn't make it to bed before 9-10 p.m.! Considering their bedtime is at 7-7:30, it's been a struggle. I'm exhausted as well, climbing at high altitudes and going constantly. But it's a happy tired!

Of course, we can't complain, our cousins have to fly back to Boston tonight! In fact, they are just about getting there now (10:30 our time) and still have to get into town from the airport...we hope they get some great sleep!

More trip updates to come.

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