Houses

We have several little toy houses and big cars that go with them: a haunted Scooby Doo house and  Scooby Doo van; a Batcave, Batman Jail and Joker car; and these are Jake's new favorite toys. He will play with these houses and big cars, putting in little cars, dinos, and any kind of guys in them and chatting away for very long periods of time. It is so fun to watch! 

Denver Weekend Dinner

While we were all gathered to celebrate the Race for the Cure with mom, we also wanted to celebrate our dad and mom's retirements. We are so thankful for all they provided for us over they years, and wanted to celebrate them. My sister Emily cooked a yummy dinner for all of us, and then we had High Chair for mom and dad. High Chair is where everyone in the room takes a turn telling one person what they love or appreciate about them. This was a tradition of ours to do on birthdays growing up, and it was, for me, the best part of the weekend, hearing why each of my siblings and siblings-in-law that were there love and admire our parents. Truly, we are blessed to have the parents we do.

Race for the Cure Denver

This year is my mom's 25 year cancer-free anniversary. We as siblings decided to surprise her and all be there for it, which meant four of us had to come from out of town and the two in town siblings had to help with airport runs and secret keeping! It was a great weekend to be together and it made our mom so happy to have us all there!

We are so blessed to have mom here still!

Play Dough

Alison made play dough the other day and all the kids loved it! 

Despite our warnings, Jake kept eating it. Alison had added glitter to make it pretty and the next day Jake's diaper had a lot of glitter in it...

Fun!

Piano Park

Alison and Logan have piano lessons once a week, and when the weather is nice while we're waiting for them we go down the street to play at the park. Whomever isn't having their lesson first comes down with me and the little boys, and then we switch when it is time for the other lesson. It is nice to have this option and we'll miss it when it is too cold!

Cousins

We all loved having our cousins here, but Eli and Korrali were like two peas in a pod and had such fun together. 

And Jake kept cracking me up when he would crouch down to chatter at Claire. Adorable!

Cantigny Cousins

JD's family was here a couple times in September on their way too and from Andrew's house, and we loved having them here. Jake and I tagged along with them to visit with some friends at Cantigny, but shush, don't tell the older kids we went while they were at school! It was a Monday so the Museums were closed, but it was a beautiful day and the grounds were, as always, stunning.

Shutter Touch Up

Our shutters were looking pretty faded, so Jason got a quote from a painter to come touch them up. When the quote was $600 he decided we could do it ourselves!

The kids loved helping!

We had lots of paint left over, so I also painted the door and our front porch chairs. It looks so nice!

Eclipse

We were pretty excited for the eclipse. The kids' school wasn't going to let them out to see it, so I got them out of school so we could see it together. For hours leading up to the time we kept looking at the completely cloud covered sky in disappointment; we couldn't see a thing! Then there was a great tender mercy: the twenty minutes leading up the the best viewing time in our area the clouds part right over the sun so we could see! And it was so cool! Maybe in 7 years we'll go see the full eclipse somewhere.

Water table

Grandma and Grandpa Quillen had an awesome water table at their house that Jake loved. So when we got home from visiting them, we bought him one in the hopes that having one in our backyard would get him to play out in the backyard more often. And it worked. Jake loves going outside to play with the water and jump on the "tramping" (trampoline). He will spend an hour out there, with or without siblings, happy as can be. He's going to miss being able to go out there whenever he wants to in the next few months...

Peanuts

Logan still enjoys drawing, and lately he's been really into the Peanuts comic strip. He drew all the characters and I think he did an amazing job!