Big Green

 

Tonight we had to say good-bye to a very special member of our family.  Our big green chair-and-a-half.  I know it sounds strange that a chair could be so special to a family, but it has been with us literally since the first moment we became an us.  You see, it was in this chair that a certain nineteen-year-old boy asked a certain girl, "will you be my girlfriend?"  He actually asked me just like that, isn't that cute.  Even cuter, we took a picture that night :)

Yup, that's me with long hair and no bangs.  You can see why I made the change.

This chair started out it's life as my mom's furniture and I have fond memories of my mom sitting in this chair each night when I was a teenager.  The number one spot for a nap in my house was this chair.  The comfort was uncompairable to anything I have ever sat in and I have MANY friends that would testify to this.  It was big and roomy for one and comfy and cozy for two.  In years to come it would hold as many as it needed to at any given time. 
My mom passed on her furniture to Neil and I after we got married and I think she regreted giving up this gem the moment she did it.  It moved all around with us from our one room apartment in the back of the barn in New York, across country to Colorado, into student houseing at CU, and finally to our apartment we are in now.  When we first moved into the apartment we had exactly two peices of furniture, the big green chair and an office chair.  As we waited for our furniture that was on order for eight weeks, we took turns with the two chairs.  Whoever had the harder day at work got the big green chair.  Then we decided that since we didn't have ANY furniture this might be a good time to get a puppy and do some house training.  Enter Cooper.  Even he loved to cuddle in this fluffy chair.  I remember after we first got him and he got sick, I stayed up all night cuddled with him in the chair so I could hear him breathing.

A few years later, I would hold my new baby in this chair.  Countless nights spent holding and comforting this new baby.  Cooper was happy that Tristan didn't take up too much space, but the green chair always had room for one more.

It spent about four minutes of it's life as a "time-out" chair, but I quickly realized that was not the kind of chair this was.  Not this loving, hugging, all welcoming chair.

 

This oversized piece of heaven has been in just about every room of our lives.  In Tristan's room it was where we read bedtime stories and also where I spent the nights training Tristan to stay in his big boy bed.

When more babies came home, our chair seemed to expand it's love to fit them all.  I would not know where to begin to calculate how many bottles were fed to these boys in this chair.  I do know that the number would be obscene.

It's where Tristan taught Neannie how to play Angry Birds.

It's where my baby boys sat the morning we had them dedicated to God.

It's always where I cared for my children when they were sick. 

It was great at holding up forts

In this chair, even my three crazy boys could be calmed enough to sit near eachother. 

Even on this last night it was with us, she creaked under us all but held on tight to hold the love of our now big family.  Hard to believe we stated as just two kids who wanted to be boyfriend and girlfriend and have filled this chair with such wonderful little boys.  It was indeed a sad night to say good-bye but it was time to end her suffering from the jumping and climbing.  Her stuffing was down to nothing and the children now banged thier heads on 2x4s instead of her original fluffy pillow sides.  We cut open the back panel to make sure there were no lost remotes inside only to find her poor broken back.  You were so good to us even through your aches and pains.  You will be missed Big Green Chair!

 

Day Out With Thomas...Ian Style

Today was a wonderful day with my Ian.  It's rare that Neil or I take the twins out by themselves other than to run errands, so today I took Ian to Day Out With Thomas at the Railroad museum.
He seemed a little confused when we left without the others and drove longer than usual.  He was so quiet in the back seat I thought he had fallen asleep.  All that changed as soon as we drove past the train museum to the parking area.  From that moment on, he barely stopped babbling the entire time.

Ian doesn't have a lot of words that I understand, but today he got to use a few that he does have.  I think he said "choo train" about a thousand times, there were Thomas "balloons" everywhere for him to point out, and there was even a "duck" in the petting zoo.

Seeing his excitement all day literally made me want to cry.  I have seen Tristan like this so many times.  We take him everywhere and he has done everything. The twins have been a lot of places, but mostly from the view of the stroller.  I guess that's the story for most kids other than the first born, at least for the first few years.  Now that the twin's personalities are really coming out, it's neat to know what activities they would really enjoy.  Finn and Ian are so different and it was nice to do something that Ian would love so much today.  Could all of the boys have come and had a good time?  Sure.  Would the others have loved it like Ian?  No way.  This way he got to soak it up just how he wanted to and just at his pace.

He played to nicely with the other kids in the train table tent, but you could tell me his the youngest child at home.  No other kids were hoarding trains under one arm while playing with the other.  He has learned to keep a stash handy because more than likely his first toy will be taken away.  That Ian... always prepared. 












I love learning more about my kids and what things interest them.  I can't wait to do more of these days with Ian, and of course with Finn as well ;)

Ian with his new train.  He didn't put it down for hours

While we were on the bus pulling out of the train museum, Ian said the longest phrase he has said to date, "Bye Choo.  Miss you."  This mama's heart was happy to hear a complete thought out of that sweet little mind!

Just Another Birthday

Another year, another birthday.  This past year has been so wonderful and with many great things to come this next year I was not dreading my birthday at all.  In fact, I have never given any weight to the number birthday even when it was a "big one" like 21 or 30.  In my mind, 33 would be no different. 

Neil took me out on Saturday night because that's when our babysitter was free and I didn't mind celebrating two days early.  The night started out with us test driving a mini van... something that was on my "I will never" list would not be a welcome change to our current ride.  After the drive, we headed to Hopa on Pearl Street Mall for some sushi.  While sitting at the sushi bar and chatting while waiting for our food, I said to Neil,
"If you had told me 10 years ago on my 23rd birthday that for my 33rd birthday I would be happily test driving a mini van and eating sushi..."
Neil: "Ha, you mean your 24th birthday"
Andy: "What do you mean?"
Neil: "10 years ago was your 24th birthday.  You are turning 34."
Andy: "Haha, very funny.  I'm turning 33."
Neil: "You were born in '78, right?"

At that moment I knew he was right.  I have never been so blind sighted in my life.  I had absolutely no idea that I was turning 34!!  I did what any reasonable adult would do in the moment;  I cried.  However, as I started to cry, and I mean real tears down my cheeks, I had an outer body experience and could see how funny this would be if I was watching this happen to someone else.  So now I am crying tears of shock and laughing at the same time.  Neil didn't know what to do.  He ordered me a birthday cocktail and things calmed down a bit.  We went ahead and had an amazing dinner with some of the best desserts I have EVER had!

It turned out that my babysitter was also free on my birthday, so Neil took me out for a nice dinner on Monday as well.  After two days to come to grips with my age, I was able to sit back, relax, and enjoy a glass of champagne that just happened to be the special of the night... did they know it was my birthday?!

It wasn't the actual number of my age that bothered me, it was that I felt I had lost a year, which in fact I had not.  Life is going just as it was supposed to and is sweeter than I ever imagined it could be, so does the magical number 34 actually bother me, no.  Was the surprise of a number bigger than I was expecting  a shock, yes.  Maybe this past year was just so sweet that I wanted to live it all over again, or maybe I just feel younger than my age.  Either way, bring on 34!  I can't wait to see all the fabulous blessings this year has to offer. 

Me being sad after finding out I was turning 34

Fort Conway

 

Who knew that a few blankets and pillows could change our living room into a really fun place to be?  Well, I guess I do remember being a kid and somehow a fort was the most exciting place in the house.  

Finn had been taking a large chair cushion and setting in against the wall for him to lay under, so Neil simply propped the pillow as a roof between the ottoman and the chair.  You would have thought he invented the next hot toy the way the boys responded.  Neil left for work and I got to work making enough forts around the room so the boys would not fight over them.

Tristan and Ian shared nicely, but since Finn is in another "biting phase" I did not allow him to enter any small space with the other boys. 

He seemed content in his own fort though.  They were so thrilled!  I have a feeling we will be making a lot of forts this fall.

Tristan's First Day at the Little Red School House

Happy Valley

Ahh, the first day of school *sniff sniff*... or at least that's how I thought I would feel.  Sending Tristan off to his first day of real preschool in a classroom where things were labeled with his name and cute little tables and chairs filled the room was not as hard as I thought it would be.  I guess if he had been nervous or crying when I left that would be different, but my little guy is SO ready for this.  

He might be the smallest kid in his class, but his personality couldn't be bigger.  After the first day he had already made a couple good friends and is catching on to the routine quickly.  The only thing that made him sad was  he only gets to go to school three mornings a week and they didn't play with the Legos the first couple of days.  

Getting any information out of him about the school day is tough, but every now and then he spills some interesting story my way.  I try not to push him and then I barely breath until he has told me all he has to say being very careful not to interrupt him.  So far I know they had a fire drill, they played a parachute game, learned the song about going on a bear hunt, and the class pet is a hermit crab named Mr Pickles.  Not bad after only two days.

Every morning, they have to match up their name tag to their name on the wall and then go hang up their back pack.  I helped him the first two days, but tomorrow is his turn to fly solo while I wait by the door.  Nothing like pushing baby bird out right?  Actually, I don't think it's a big deal to make him do this on his own, but he seems to have a lot of "only child" kids in his class.  At the open house there was actually a mom that sat down to play Legos with Tristan and her son.  She would ask Tristan if her son could have a certain Lego and Tristan would look at them like they were a little crazy as I sat in the corner checking facebook on my phone and drinking my latte.  He is old enough, brave enough, and social enough to do this all without mommy.  He would ask other kids to come play with him and they would stare at him like he was speaking another language and then just walk away.  He would look over at me, shrug his shoulders, and move on. I'm sure by the end of the year they will all be best friends.

 

His school is so cute with all the typical centers for play and a wonderful playground outside, not to mention the barn with all the animals and the pony rides each day at recess.  One of Tristan's favorite parts, however, are the bathrooms.  Everything just his size.  I'm sure he uses it whether he needs to or not, and to be honest when I saw them I kind of wanted those mini urinals for my house when I start potty training the twins.

My friend Kendra is a new photographer and offered to do some back to school pictures of Tristan while she took some of her son at the same school.  I love these pictures because they are so him when he started preschool!  I even brought my mom's teacher bell with us and he would not put it down.  That makes these pictures even more sweet to me.  My big four year old boy.  I am SO proud to be his mom.  He is kind and funny, sweet and imaginative.  I could not have asked for a better oldest child for my little ones to look up to. 

Sapphire Point

Today we had nothing on the schedule. We had been cooped up all week sharing a head cold with each other and needed to get some fresh air.  We are still under the weather, but we honestly had to get off the couch for a little while. The weather looked nice and cool in the mountains, so we packed the kids up early in the morning and headed towards Dillon to a trail called Sapphire Point.

It looked like it was going to be an easy hike for the kids.  Less than a mile long and good for "children and elderly."  However, they forgot to mention that maybe it's not the best for toddlers.  We hadn't taken the kids on hikes yet where they couldn't handle the walk in their sneakers, but today hiking shoes would have come in handy.  The loose stone was slippery and the trail was sloped in many areas.  The drop off to the side was a bit much for this mama, but luckily it didn't last the whole time. 

There was a very steep teepee on a side path where Neil, Finn, and Tristan went exploring.  It was really fun going up, but the walk down was hard for T to stay on his feet.  Looks like it's time to find some proper shoes for these hikes. 

There was a beautiful stop half way with picnic benches perfect for changing diapers and a flat spot off the path where Tristan would relieve himself.  I will be happy when the three of them can just line up on the side of the trail and I don't have to carry smelly diapers out with me. 

Finn and Ian did really well and Tristan did the best he ever has at not going too far ahead of us.  I think they are starting to get used to the rules.  It is SO much easier when Neil is with us.  More hands getting them in and out of the car, more eyes to see where everyone is, I only had to change half the diapers, and I got to sleep on the way home :)

After telling Tristan not to run on this path, he ran to catch up with Neil and took a huge slip and dive onto some rocks.  This is the high five after getting back up and on the trail again.  He was a brave boy.  I didn't even have to carry him at all.  Actually, we hardly carried any of them this time. 

I don't know if we would do this path again, but I'm glad we went this morning.  Something new, got out of the heat of the foothills, and everyone was so tired after.  Now back to the couch for all of us this evening with some movies and maybe a little popcorn.  I think we all need to sleep for about a day after this small outing.