Wednesday, November 2, 2011

Halloween

Jace decided he wanted to be a cowboy this Halloween. Joel and I thought that sounded fun.I spent part of fall break working on Joel's Eastwood style poncho. We all found hats and boots and we were ready for Halloween parties and trick-or-treating. Jace did remarkably well at the Halloween party this year. At first he was scared and shaking as guests arrived in costumes. He hated most the little boy with a black robe and red, glowing eyes. Jace kept calling him "the ghost" and refused to go upstairs because "the ghost is up there". Luckily, once everyone arrived at the party they started taking off masks and joining in games. Jace relaxed and latched on to a little girl, about 8 years old, who was wearing a witch costume and a very pretty mask. Jace followed her around for much of the evening. At first she tried to get away from him but later on she and her friends started playing with him and helping him with some of the games. We all had a nice evening.Sunday we carved pumpkins at Sullivan's house. The weather was beautiful. Jace played ball with Bella in the backyard. We watched the Broncos get stomped on and enjoyed Lea Ann's yummy chicken stew and apple crisp. DeeDee and Pete entertained Jace for much of the afternoon. Joel and I had time to carve our pumpkins and visit with everyone. Lily and Patrick are so grown up now and we have been carving pumpkins with them for a long time. Halloween was a work day but our school had a pajama party and lots of fun activities scheduled so it seemed special. I hurried home to get ready for a fun evening at our house. Joel did some fantastic decorating to make our home look spooky and festive with boards over the windows and cobwebs draped around the entry. Gary, Elaine and Janet joined us for dinner, Dancing with the Stars and passing our candy. Joel and I took Jace out trick-or-treating to a few neighbors' homes. Jace was excited at first but got rattled when the first house he knocked at had a loud dog barking. After that he made Joel or I ring the door bell while he stood back several feet from the front door to say trick-or-treat. We had a fantastic evening. Jace really enjoyed all the kids coming to our door. He was right in the middle of handing out candy and wishing everyone a "Happy Halloween". I start this blog with a Halloween post 3 years ago. A lot has happened since then. Though it is not always consistent, this blog is the best record I have of the last three years. It's so fun to look back. Hope everyone had a Happy Halloween! Now we are literally counting the day's until our Thanksgiving vacation to Florida. Jace has a calender that he is marking off at the end of each day because he kept asking, "Today Florida?"

Wednesday, October 19, 2011

A beary special boy

Today was Jace's "Beary" special person day at preschool. Each child gets one day of the year as their special day.


Jace enjoyed some of the special activities like making a poster with family pictures and bringing Mommy and Daddy to school with him. Other things seemed to make him uncomfortable like standing in front of the class to talk about his poster and helping the teacher lead the art activity of the day.

Joel and I loved visiting the class and watching the kids interact. I even got to read Jace's choice of story to the class. Jace picked "The very Cranky Bear". That seemed appropriate for a Beary special day. I hope Jace enjoyed his day as much as I did.The special activities continued at home tonight where we are hosting Teddy the bear. We found him PJs and read him a story before bedtime. Jace's homework is to care for the bear and help write a journal of the Bear's activities while he visited us.

I would love to see the entire year of Teddy's journals. The end of the year party for their class in May is a Teddy Bear picnic. Maybe the journals will be there.

Sunday, October 16, 2011

Autumn colors in our front yard

I don't know what kind of tree is planted in front of our house but WOW! It has slowly been changing color from the inside branches outward. Right now it has leaves of different colors on each side. Shades from bright yellow to the deepest red and everything in between. It is an amazing beauty, a true miracle of Autumn.

I love this camera

We stumbled into a "test drive" day at the Denver Zoo. It was a promo day for one of the local camera shops so they were letting people try out their camera upgrades. I got to spend a few hours shooting photos on a camera that costs at least twice what we spent on ours.The image quality is so much better than what I usually get. I love the stabilizing feature and the simplified controls. Jace was tired but he is always up for the train ride at the zoo.

Denver Marathon

Joel completed his third marathon last weekend and set a personal record of 3:35:47.I snapped this photo at mile 19! He was doing great and we had such fun cheering him on.
After Joel ran past, it was a good thing Jace was on Uncle Don's shoulders. He was screaming and wanting to run after Daddy.

Saturday, October 8, 2011

October begins

Our first weekend of October started with my first WW meeting as an employee. What I thought might be a great summer job is finally starting.
We made our annual visit to the Four Mile Historic park to pick a pumpkin and enjoy the seasonal festivities. The weather was unseasonably warm.

This weekend is the Denver Marathon which Joel will compete in for the second time. We rode the train downtown Friday night to pick up his race packet. Jace won a medal at a ball throwing game at the race expo then we walked a few blocks over to meet Palmers at the Old Spaghetti Factory for dinner.

Friday, September 30, 2011

A beautiful fall Friday

Joel and Jace are enjoying this afternoon by racing around the courtyard at top speed.