Tuesday, June 17, 2014

This and That

I imagine this will be the last post for a while. 4 more days until we close on the house and much to do! But never fear, we've been having lots of fun in the midst of it all!

Olivia's sweet going away party cake from Nadxieli

Celebrating Olivia (Tgen, Logan, Olivia, Sam, Zaiden, Khloe)



Feeding the chickies crackers








Olivia is loving playing babies at this stage


painting the driveway ended up in painting the body!

having a dance party while we load up Scottie's truck.



Springs Spree for Father's Day









she picked out her fancy Easter dress and sweats :)
going to miss this oasis in our back yard!
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eating flowers for lunch!
rainy day fun
Olivia and I went to the Denver Museum of Nature and Science. It was awesome for kids!
Father's Day donuts

Daddy and his kiddos :)
































Tuesday, June 10, 2014

Summer is my favorite!

And I'd better enjoy it while I can! For 19 more days! Maine is a whole new ball game :)

sprinklers!





water fountain ;)




snack time outside in pajamas


splash park fun (or not that fun, but still cute)






better than the splash park!






ummm. yucky.

naked dinner outside

feeding Bella some dinner

the gang's all here :)


father and son wrestling time

Happy 16th Cade! Blow out the candle on your blizzard and make a wish.

Olivia made a wish, too :)


"take a picture, mommy."

helping with the boat

too precious for words.





Saturday, June 7, 2014

And so it begins. And ends.

If you've ever read my blog, or if you know me in real life, you know that my biggest desire is to be home with my baby girl. Only she's not a baby anymore. She's two and a half! And just like that, my heart drops, my stomach flips, my mind reels, and every cliche comes true IN THE BLINK OF AN EYE.

...But...

Things, they are a'changin'. How often do you follow your dream? How often do you chase it down? How often do you say, to hell with the fears and questions and doubt and just take the leap? I hope everyone in their lifetime has a dream come true at LEAST once. It can be hard, though. Logistics. Comfort zones. Budgets. Fear of the unknown. The list of reasons not to follow a dream can seem endless. But the dream? The dream is the soft cloud you land on after you make the jump.

Jeff, Cade, Olivia and I have jumped. We're still falling, slowly, and relatively painlessly. And in about two weeks, we're going to land on that cloud. We're going to stretch out our legs and lift our arms and faces to the sun, wrap ourselves up in the coziness, and rest IN THE DREAM.

Jeff's Dream: to move out of Colorado. To build a boat. To live near water. To be a family of four full time.

My Dream: to stay home and raise my baby girl. To support Jeff's dream. To be a family of four full time.

And so it is. Cade will arrive here today. For good. In two hours I will walk out of my office building forever. In two weeks we are moving to Maine. In two months we will settle into a new home that will hold the memories of our family of four. In two years we'll look back from inside our dream and think, yep. It was risky, scary, stressful and hard. But it was worth it.

I can't wait to make notes about how things turn out in our dream. Because we're not dreaming. We're awake!

Let me be real, though. There is still a lot that has to fall into place. There is a lot of change going on. The past two months have been full of tension. And while I've waited 2.5 years for this, I'm totally nervous about how it will work. I'm sad to say goodbye to sweet Olivia's second mommy. I'm scared to be far from home and family. I'm anxious to get things right with a toddler and a teen. But more than anything, I'm so excited.

In a while I'll try to tell the story of how it all came to be. I'll tell you what, things really fell right into place. Applications went out. Interviews came through. Offers came in. The house went under contract in one day. Badda bing, badda bang, badda boom. Hello dream come true :) I think we'll stay a while.

An open letter to the school district

 So the plan for school this year, at the K-5 level, was pretty complicated to begin. (the plan was made after lots of meeting and planning ...