Trick or Treat

Better late than never! Grandma Lois visited for Halloween and what a treat for Grandma and Granddaughter alike. Elizabeth picks up on things pretty quickly, but when it comes to new fun activities (especially ones that involve treats) she picks up on things immediately. After carving and coloring her pumpkins, Elizabeth put on her Little Red Riding Hood outfit, held onto her pumpkin flashlight (story to come later) and pumpkin basket and was ready to go. I stayed home to answer to door while Jan, Lois, and Elizabeth went off to the neighbor's houses.

Elizabeth's first stop was our house for a practice run. When Elizabeth realized that if she said "trick or treat" and/ or "happy Halloween" that she would get candy (and lots of it) she was a little girl on a mission! It was a little bit chilly outside and I thought Elizabeth would maybe last 10-15 minutes. An hour later, the trick or treaters returned with a full pumpkin basket and a very excited two year old. Elizabeth did great and absolutely loved trick or treating! She ate some peanut M&M's (strangely her favorite . . . the girl loves peanuts) and a lolly pop and that was dinner for the evening. She wanted to go out for more so Jan and I took her to a few more houses.

So back to the pumpkin flashlight...Grandma Lois gave Elizabeth the pumpkin flash light which she brought from MI. Elizabeth loved it and played with it for the two days prior to Halloween. On Halloween, the flashlight of course did not work. The bulb was broken and Elizabeth was very upset because she just loved that flashlight. Jan went to the Home Depot and purchased a $5 light bulb for the $1 flashlight. Need I say more? What parents will do for their kids!

Baby Belly

Jan did a great job taking a few belly pictures. As you can see in this picture, Elizabeth thinks that my belly is a great seat, pillow, resting place etc. I don't mind at all as it means more hugs for me!
I really wanted to get a picture of her kissing her baby brother to be. The picture turned out to be more difficult to achieve than we had thought. It took a little bribery with a few vanilla cookies to capture this shot but I'll take it!

The best part of our family shot was the "behind the scenes." Lois was taking the picture and our friends Ben and Tiff were jumping up and down, trying to get Elizabeth to laugh. It got us all laughing and was pretty entertaining. I wish we got a picture of them as well!

When I was pregnant with Elizabeth, our friend Traci took some belly photos. If you go to her website, you can see a very similar belly shot (same pants and shirt even!) that was taken when I was about 8 months pregnant with Elizabeth. The only difference is that this time around, I am quite a bit bigger!!

(at her website go to families, portfolio, bellies and look for the same black pants)

Trick or Treat? I think we got the Trick!

Last Wednesday and Thursday (Oct 28-29th) we definitely got the trick. Yes, these are pictures of our back yard in October! We got over 2 feet of snow over a period of two days. But only in the state of Colorado can this happen on a Thursday and the sun be shining and melting away the snow by Friday. Come Saturday, the sidewalks and streets were clear and trick or treaters were out in full force. Unfortunately, we didn't get the chance to play with Elizabeth in the snow. She has a bit of a "pants and jacket aversion" right now and would not put on her snow pants or snow jacket. Instead of starting WWIII (Elizabeth is a very determined little girl. . . I wonder where she gets that from?), we just hibernated inside for a few days.

Pumpkins everywhere!

We made it to the pumpkin patch on Saturday morning (along with every other family in Colorado). The place was crazy busy so we only stayed long enough to get a few pictures, go on a hay ride and climb around on the pumpkins.


I put the same sweater on Elizabeth that she wore to the pumpkin patch last year. It was huge on her last year and just a bit snug this year. My little girl is growing up so quickly! I can't believe the difference a year makes.

Elizabethisms

Elizabeth: Knock Knock
Mommy or Daddy: Who's there?
Elizabeth: Buddy Gio
Mommy or Daddy: Buddy Gio who?
Elizabeth: Buddy Gio at the front door?

Followed by absolute hysterics and 5 other versions of knock knock with mommy, daddy, grandma, grandpa, Baby Dane etc. being at the front door. Elizabeth learned how to say knock knock jokes in Texas from her cousin Avery and has been attempting ever since. She is just like me when I was growing up and will not stop at just one but rather continue on and on and on for what seems like forever. Payback time, my dad tells me.

Another new Elizabeth development is that she likes to sing! In the past, Elizabeth would sing along a little bit to a song but never initiate one or be able to sing one all the way though. About a week ago, Elizabeth just started singing songs on her own. She'll sing as long as she does not know that your listening or make a big deal about it. Her favorites are twinkle twinkle little star, the incy wincy spider, the ABC's, baa baa black sheep and the Barney Song. My favorite is the Barney Song as I always get a big hug and kiss!



And for the past week, Elizabeth has been sleeping in her big girl bed. For a week, we had it set up in her room along with her crib. She would read books in her big girl bed and then go to sleep in her crib. Last weekend during nap time, she wanted nothing to do with the crib anymore and there has been no turning back since. She is doing pretty well with it but needs to learn how to sleep in a little bit longer for everyone's sake. 4:30 in the morning gets really old really quick! She'll wake up, start hollering for mommy or daddy and that she had a good nap. Then the list of her favorite foods starts? Elizabeth wants peanut butter crackers. Elizabeth wants wrapper cheese (string cheese) etc. etc. The funny part is that she does not realize (or maybe she is just not sure about it yet) that she can get out of her bed whenever she wants.

Recording Project

So a while back you might have seen that I have started playing drums for a church here in the area. Recently, the band leader, Shelly, decided it was time we we make our own CD and asked me to help out with the project. I absolutely love song writing and recording so I couldn't turn down the opportunity.
Studio time is extremely expensive and it can be very stressful if you go in unprepared. To get ready for the project I spent some quality time with the new drums practicing usually while Elizabeth was taking a bath. After her bath, Elizabeth would usually come down and play drums with me which is always a treat! I set up two drums from my old set on the floor for her and she bangs away with me and has a good old time! She is great about wearing her hearing protection too! After a couple of serious song writing sessions to work out all of the parts it was time to head up to the studio and get it all on tape - which these days is actually a computer hard drive.
Kate and Elizabeth came up to check the place out while we were setting up and had fun playing with Shelly in the woods outside the studio. Here is my amazing new drum kit set up in the studio prior to recording! It sounds absolutely spectacular!
Bob is the guy who owns the studio and is doing all of the recording work for us. As it turns out he also goes to the church and is playing a few of the guitar parts on it as well.
Once we got rolling it was like a well oiled machine, we did each song in about 3 takes making sure we had solid bass and drum parts as well as some basic guitar tracks. The guitar guys went back later and laid down some additional guitar tracks to fill it out and thicken it up.
We had a great time recording and I can't wait to hear the finished product! We are having a release party/worship night on Nov 1st to release the CD. It will also be available on iTunes too. I'll be sure to put up a post once it's out.

The Gold Will Shine!

This past weekend was my 10 year USAFA class reunion. What a great time! Unlike most colleges in which a reunion consists of a fancy dinner, a USAFA reunion consists of an entire weekend jam packed with events . . . maximizing contact time as usual. The weekend started with a Thursday night jaunt to one of my old 'college' hangouts, Jack Quinns in downtown COS. Jan was gracious enough to Elizabeth-sit for the evening and Cathy and I had a fun night out on the town. I have not been to Jack Quinns in years and to have about 300 of my classmates and their spouses in the place all at once was a lot of fun. Cathy and I both lost our voices after about three hours of conversation and standing in a bar for hours at a time at 7 months pregnant did me in. We retired at 11 pm when the party was probably just getting going! It was so much fun to have Cathy out for the weekend and be able to attend all the events with my best friend!


The events that followed included a Friday evening formal dinner and Saturday tailgate and football game (Cathy got us matching gold sweaters to wear . . . big hit among those in the know). Well, there were a ton of additional events but these were the ones we chose to attend. The dinner was fun as I got to introduce Jan to some long lost friends and reconnect with many people. I really enjoyed the tailgate and football game as I got to sit with my dear friends Amy and Rich (and Hayden and Benjamin) and Amy's mom and dad. Considering the fact that I'm not the biggest football fan in the world (as my family knows) I spent the majority of the game socializing and playing with Hayden and Ben. It was much more interesting to me to watch how little boys play as I will have my own eye opening experience in a few months.

Elizabeth and Daddy had a fun time on Saturday while Cathy and I were at the football game. Elizabeth is at such a fun age right now. She is really starting to figure things out and has an amazing personality. One of the great things about our neighborhood is that we have four parks within a 1/4 mile of our house, the closest one being right behind our house. Elizabeth loves going to the little park, big park, Elizabeth park etc. Her modes of transportation include the fast buggy, slow buggy, wagon or Elizabeth walk. Her favorite park is the Elizabeth park. Recently she has figured out the climbing wall and will climb up and go down the slide over and over again. She is getting really good at it. One of her favorite characters is Curious George and sometimes she pretends that she is a monkey or will say something like "build sandcastles like Curious George" or "go on an airplane ride like curious George". Her imagination is beautiful.