A Mountain Run

Joseph is pretty good to me. I love that he spent so much time working on those crazy valentines just for me! Emily is in awe of his paper-crafting skills and Caleb definitely appreciates the Minecraft pop-up.

So, living in Colorado is an adventure. Yesterday I mapped out a run for this morning, and it ended up taking me a good two-and-a-half hours because of a few things. First of all, it was up in the mountains and I was not always totally sure which way I was supposed to be going, so I backtracked a couple of times to check signs and things. Secondly, check out this picture:

 

 This portion of the trail was solid ice. There was really no way to run on the side, so I had to pick my way across it. And it was like this for a good quarter mile. It was thick and slick and unavoidable. Slow going.

The third factor was the steepness of my carefully selected path. I did not check on the change in elevation when I mapped my run. I took the picture below because it was an awesome view and a good break in the trees, but it was right before the final, steepest ascent of the run, which lasted about a mile and a half.

I'm pretty sure I ran up one side of a mountain and down the other. It was hard. And slow. But beautiful.

Joseph gave me a call when I was two miles from home and reported that Jake had stuffed a bead up his nose and needed to be taken to Urgent Care. I made it the rest of the way home chanting, "Jacob's got a bead in his nose. Just keep running!" to myself (in my head). It's all taken care of now though. He's fine. And Joseph made a play dough baking soda/vinegar volcano with the older kids while we were out! It was an eventful morning.


These have all been cell phone pictures I've been posting, since Joseph likes me to run with a phone when I'll be gone for a while. As I was putting the pictures on the computer, I came across these gems from a long time ago.  Can you tell which baby this is below?

 Yeah!! It's Baby Elinor, enjoying the Texas heat. Isn't she just a doll?

 

And these guys. They look like an oddly matched celebrity couple headed out to their sweet ride (a 1998 Ford Windstar).

Be mine. Be crafty?

I wanted to give Amanda flowers for Valentines. Here's what we ended up with:

Amanda said that it looks like the kind of thing you'd buy for a dollar from the Savers knick-knack shelf. I'm not sure if that means she likes it or not. But Emily's a fan. We've been having daddy-daughter craft sessions to make new kinds of paper flowers.

Feeling inspired, I decided to try my hand at some kirigami.  I don't think Amanda has ever played Minecraft.  But the kids play frequently on the Kindle.  I haven't played for a while, but it used to be quality family time.

This Valentine's a little "Creepy".  When closed, a pair of eyes look out at you. 
I'm afraid that our printer's on its last legs. So the colors didn't come out quite like I had hoped. Still, it was fun to design.

I played around with various phrases, "I pick you." or "You're a blast!" or "Even when I'm a blockhead, you build me up."  But the old classic, "Be Mine", just seemed right.

Emily is so fun. She will shut herself in the office for hours at a time to craft decorations for the house, props for a theater presentation she wants to perform, or toys she wants to have. I loved this decoration she put up. Our home is erupting with love.

Happy Valentine's.

cell phone dump

So, right now I am trying to distract myself from the $300 of running clothes in my Zappos cart... so I thought it would be a good time to put some of my greatest blurry cell phone pictures up here for my mother's enjoyment. (Love you, Mum!)

About a year ago, Jacob got pretty sick. Joseph and I feel like we are experienced parents (at least of babies and toddlers) by now, so we felt pretty calm about it all. We noticed his cough sounded a little croupy, so we did the shower treatment... repeatedly... all night long. Around 4:30 am I decided I'd had enough and his breathing was scary enough that I took him in to the children's hospital in Austin. They took one look at him and took him back to a room right away. Apparently his breathing was what they called "stridor" and is pretty serious. They gave him a steroid and then a breathing treatment of racemic epinephrine, which helped for about ten minutes. Then they gave him another breathing treatment, and another, and then they admitted him. He totally perked back up and was normal again by mid-morning so I requested that they send us home ahead of schedule.

Here is Jake mid-treatment...

and a couple of hours later.

This one other time, one of my wonderful young women was fiddling at a food trailer park in Austin. Em and I went out to enjoy and support. And to play with this giant Jenga set.

Pretty awesome.

If you look closely at this picture below, you can see Emily standing on a make-shift stage wearing a red baseball cap on her head and holding an unlit torch. This picture was taken back in her street performing days when she was trying to raise money to buy gifts for her siblings. Not really, but she did make $5, which she later used for Christmas presents for Caleb and Emily. She's pretty awesome.

Okay, what really happened was that we were wandering down Pearl Street and this street performer was looking for volunteers to help out. After a couple of other girls chickened out, Em stepped up. She's a natural.

One of El's earliest experiences with Autumn leaves.

Caleb trying on Em's elephant costume for an Anansi play that her school group did.

Jake experiencing the snow.

Okay. I think I'm alright now. I'm just going to head back to Zappos and weed some stuff out of that cart.

My run this morning...

Why, indeed?

Today I accused Jacob of having a bad temper after he threw his plate across the table in a fit of rage. Elinor, in her halting, but very clear toddler speech, said, "Then why did we even get that baby?"

The number of laugh-out-loud moments in my day is astounding.

A Good Toaster

Aargh. One of Jacob's favorite things to do is to put tiny things in the toaster. Joseph and I have learned to empty it out before we toast anything (and also we're working to put a stop to the craziness). Tonight I forgot, so right now Joseph is working on prying one of those plastic twistable crayons from the wires inside the toaster. It's pretty thoroughly melted. Aargh! Jacob! It's the toaster my dad gave us at our wedding and it's been working great (for 9 years!!) until now so we're praying we can keep using it for a little while longer!

Joseph came home on Saturday after being out of town for four days and the kids were so excited! Caleb and Emily drew a few pictures to decorate the living room with in honor of the special day. Here's one of Caleb's:

So, it's a bad photo, but can you see tiny Jacob being held in Joseph's fingers? I love it!! Also, please notice the color coding - boys are blue, girls are pink. Naturally.
Curious about that spiky ball on the ground? So was I. I asked the artist, and turns out, that's actually a hole with candy canes hanging around the edge. Good to know, right?

We also celebrated with the best German chocolate cake ever and by spending the remainder of Saturday doing fun stuff as a family.
The snow finally melted enough for us to pull the bikes out again.

Caleb is always super cool on his puppy dog bike.

Elinor (in her mama-made dress!).

Jake does his best to keep up.

Emily's not so much into bikes, but she loves to climb.

See?

Baby Boy loves his daddy.

All of them. In their new sherpa-lined hoodies too! We've been searching for the perfect jacket, as they get very heavy use in our family. Jake's is Hanna Andersson, El's is Land's End, and Caleb and Em's are Mini Boden. The Boden ones are the winners for sure.

Em's in a mama-made dress too! All this good usage is making me want to pull out the old sewing machine again!

Family Pictures!

Our last family pictures were taken when Elinor was a baby. To look at the pictures on our walls, you would never know that we have a fourth child! My sister Michelle was kind and generous enough to spend a morning with us in November trying to capture a decent picture of our family. And that is not an easy task!
Here are some favorites:

Isn't this so sweet? Joseph and I were probably behind the scenes restraining Jacob from taking a flying leap in.

I don't love this picture of myself, but I think it's funny that we're working hard to look good while our child falls into the river behind us! I'm pretty sure my pocket was full of fruit snack wrappers and grubby baby wipes.

Our frontman Jacob.

The girls. El looks a little possessed.

My boys.

I love Caleb's face here. And Emily in that tree behind them.

I often end up loving the candid shots more than the posed ones.

Those four. Caleb was being a little aggressive keeping the group together. Jake was ready to make a break for it.

Jacob is already something of a thrill seeker. Little boys. They're going to be the death of me!

This was almost a good family picture! Em would not stay out of the trees!

I think this is our official family picture of 2014. And maybe 2015. And possibly 2016?

Thanks, Michelle!

Nature and Science

Yesterday we decided to check out the Denver Museum of Nature and Science. Getting there was quite the ordeal, and involved a lot of really bad traffic, a closed highway, and a lot of confused driving around a city that I don't know. I would have driven us straight back home, if I'd have known how to get there! (See? That's how badly I was lost!) Fortunately, Joseph saved the day and we got there. I just know I'm going to look back on this in 10 years, when I know Denver like the back of my hand, and laugh at my clueless, sense-of-direction-less self. That is, assuming we stay in Boulder... which really, is not very likely at this point.
Anyway, we finally made it to the museum and all of the kids and I agreed that it was worth it. It was so much fun! We only explored the first floor (and we were there for a good three hours), but hopefully we can go back sometime and check out the other two.

As we walked into the museum we were greeted by this giant walking dinosaur skeleton. Elinor was a little nervous about the whole thing, and I'm not sure Jacob even noticed, but Emily and Caleb got a kick out of it.

We spent a lot of time at the Space Exhibit. There were a lot of cool things that sort of required two parents to be there (or fewer kids per parent) for the kids to really receive the full impact of the demonstration, but there was enough to keep my kids happily occupied with me just supervising.

Here Caleb is working on docking a space shuttle. The surface is like an air-hockey table and there's an outline for where he needs to park the ship.

We attempted to attend a planetarium show. What we saw was impressive, and Emily and Caleb really enjoyed it. Unfortunately, due to difficulties involving younger kids kicking seatbacks and crawling up and down the stairs (ahem... mine), we had to duck out early.

Here's Jake on the moon.

Elinor was there too.

Caleb spent his time manning the space shuttle. Isn't that a great space suit?!

The whole crew.

This was a mars landscape demonstration, showing how water has carved different formations into the surface.

After the space stuff, we headed out to see the rock display. It was incredible! Emily was in heaven. She loves anything to do with rocks and crystals.

Next we stopped for lunch and to get the kids' faces painted. They were all so happy with what they chose. Caleb kept pulling faces to try to make his bat's wings flap.

We poked our heads into the Egypt exhibit, since that's what we're studying right now. By this point the kids were becoming a little harder to keep under control so we decided to call it quits while we could still remember it as a good experience. :)

Fortunately, the drive home went a lot more smoothly than the drive there and we arrived home without incident.

And just FYI, Elinor's shirt was inside out and backwards the whole day. Her shoes were on the wrong feet too. She has taken style matters into her own hands lately. And who am I to stop her?