Don't Zoom In on Me!!

This is a rather long video, but it will make you chuckle. I wanted to catch Jadeyn's morning jibberish on video and discovered something else on accident: he doesn't like you to zoom in on him! He's just bantering away, probably talking about the snow or asking some kind of question. Then I zoom in and boy does he let us know that it bugs him! Kinda cute!

Our lives this past week

This is a photo summary of our lives with our little adventure guy this week!



Jadeyn is already busy picking out items for his Christmas list. He found the ads this weeks FASCINATING! He couldn't put them done and stared and stared at them. Then he would grab our finger and make us point to his favorites!

Dozer has tolerated Jadeyn so well! (We aren't as pleased with Newt who disappears everytime Jadeyn is awake!) Jadeyn loves to rub his fur, but when Dozer tries to escape, Jadeyn with grab onto that fur with his little fists and yank him back down!!

He's a climber. We've already found him in some pretty precarious places. He has now figured out how to help himself to whatever he wants in the fridge!

We got to take advantage of some absolutely gorgeous days at the park this week. Jadeyn loved to swing in the big kid swings by himself and to go down the spiral slide by himself. Occasionally he would end up right side up!

Nachos and sour cream...or wait, is it sour cream and nachos!!

One of our neighbors grows champion pumpkins and won first prize this year! This is his secondary pumpkin, the one that didn't make it to the contest so it had the honor of getting carved. Its big brother, the winner, weighed 1,166 pounds, 13 feet around! We have been able to watch these things grow all summer long so we had to include a photo of the final product!

Broncos Blues

This is Jadeyn's opinion about how the Broncos have been playing these last few weeks!
Double click on the picture for a better look!

Christmas a bit early . . .

We kinda got our big Christmas present a bit early this year. You know how we love movies and football, well, we decided that we needed to improve upon our viewing setup. A new BluRay player and a new TV to go with it! We have sure enjoyed it, but then it came time to mount the thing on the wall. We have a built in entertainment center that limits the size and shape of the TV we can get. Well, the one we got should give us a quarter inch leeway on either side. (cross your fingers!)

Putting up the mounting bracket had to be exact or else the TV wouldn't fit in the hole. Jadeyn was our constant little helper making sure we got the measurements perfect.




Jadeyn's little blue hammer. Check out the concentration in his lips!!

The measuring tape was a favorite. It surprised Jadeyn a few times!

Mr. Studfinder!

Jadeyn is always a bigger fan of the real thing than his toys. It was a constant struggle to get him to be happy with his little blue hammer instead of the dangerous one!

After putting up the bracket we attempted to get the TV up by ourselves. It honestly would have been a piece of cake with three people, but Jadeyn wasn't much help. We could lift it just fine, but couldn't get it onto the bracket. A nights rest brought the answer to Kevin. I was upstairs and heard a joyous "Sweet!" from the living room. My brilliant husband had brough out the car jack, had hoisted the TV up a few inches and within minutes had the TV finished all by himself!!

What a project and we are gunna love the rewards!

We're Goin' To The Zoo!

Denver Zoo - November 8th, 2009
It was free day at the Zoo so we had to take advantage of the beautiful weather and enjoy a day with the animals. Jadeyn LOVES the Zoo and ya know, Kevin and I are rather crazy about it too. It just gets more and more fun the older Jadeyn gets!
Out favorite has always been the big cats. The are such beautiful creatures! We also visited another favorite: the Okapi.




Kevin teases me about how much I love birds and this time we got to fees the birds in the lorakeet enclosure. Fun! Jadeyn got to help too and did pretty well feeding the birds the nectar. Only spilling it once!!

Since there was just the three of us, it was kind of hard to get a family photo.
So here is one attempt:
Kevin looks rather dashing don't you think?

Jadeyn's favorite vantage point came from on top of daddy's shoulders! He was full of sound effects the whole day and made a mess of crumbs and drool on Kevin's head a few times!

The hippos were a hit. Kevin lovingly calls the photo on the right: The Three Backsides! Thanks Kev!

All Pooped Out! Jadeyn wore himself out with all the excitement and pooped out on the way home!

Happy Haunting!!

HALLOWEEN!!!!!

Halloween is so much more fun now that we have a little one. The whole day was filled with activities and candy!! We started out the day by heading to Main Street for the Halloween Parade. We got Jadeyn into his little costume: a brightly colored dragon complete with wings! When we had tried it on him at home, he walked around with his arms straight out saying "Uh-oh! Uh-oh!" over and over again!! Today was a much better success. He marched around proudly displaying his costume as everyone pointed and told us how adorable he was!! He led us up and down Main Street three times amazed by all the activity around him. Half the time he was running ahead of us wearing his little legs out early.

When the parade began, he LOVED the marching band!! He stamped his little feet to the musin and we had to hold him back from running out and joining them. I love this picture of Kevin holding him back by his tail!
The second half of the parade was all the kids marching along showing off their costume. Jadeyn just couldn't hold back and had to march along with them. Then came the Trick or Treating at the businesses. 3,000 kids is what they estimated!

The first piece of candy went in Jadeyn's back and he had to stop right there, pull it out and demanded that it be opened up for him to enjoy!! Luckily be brought plenty of tissue to wipe up the drool! He loved it.
Afterwards we stopped by Kevin's office. Last year Kevin and I handed out candy from Longmont Vision, but this year Dr Trudell's wife took on that duty so we could have fun. My co-worker, Amber and her mom and husband were there with Jadeyn's favorite part of the parade: two adorable doggies all dressed up.

In this photo, Jadeyn is teasing Dixie dressed up as a BumbleBee.

Here is Jadeyn with two neighbor buddies at the mall: A puppy-Davis and a tiger-Lily. Sweet!
Nighttime came (well, 5pm came) and it was time to hit the streets!! Our neighbors are so wonderful and its always such fun to visit withe them, that we took at least five minutes a house!! Jadeyn of course loved rining the doorbells and greeting any pet that happed to peek out the door as well! He started to get the hang of taking a piece of candy from the bowl but always tried to hand the piece back to the person at the door! His little legs started to gove out after about 12 houses!! His little Dragon legs were dragging! We headed home where he could answer the door for all our trick or treaters!. This was his favorite part of the night! He got to put a piece of candy in each kid's bag. We even had full sized special candy bars for our favorite neighbor kids. Kevin wants to become known as the "good house" I think!!

What a fun day!!!

New TV

We've had our Christmas a bit early this year and it has been a lot of fun. We bought a BluRay player and a new TV. I guess I shouldn't praise the TV too much yet because we havn't mounted it yet and we are crossing our fingers that it will work. You see, our entertainment system is built into the house so we have a limited amount of space to work with. The TV we bought fits with a half inch to spare on either side!! We will mount it on an arm on the wall at the back of the entertainment center. If all goes well, it will be awsesome. We have been able to enjoy it though over the past few days. Wow! Is the picture clear!! Our favorite has been watching Plant Earth on BluRay: it is incredible to see the wonders and beauty of this planet!
Here is a picture of the decision process: cutting out a cardboard replica of the TV to see if it is too big for the space.
And here is Jadeyn enjoying the spoils of the TV purchase as well!

October Snow!!

What a beautiful October storm! It snowed for 24 hours straight and dumped a good foot or more on us. Jadeyn was in heaven. Once he figured out that mittens were his friends, he romped and romped, picking up handfuls of snow and smashing his hands together to make the snow explode. Then he would giggle his little head off! He loved to help us shovel and tromp through the un-shoveled snow. The days after the snowfall were the beautiful clear and warm days where it was nice enough to run outside without a coat on! One thing that Jadeyn still hasn't figured out yet is: if you hold snow too long in your hands without shaking it off it's gunna start hurting! We're working on that one!

Tortilla Soup

Tortilla Soup

Add equal amounts of the following ingredients:

Black Beans (canned, rinsed and drained)

Corn (canned whole kernel)

Salsa (medium or mild)

Chicken Broth

Shredded Cheddar Cheese

Refried Beans

Cooked Cubed Chicken

Cook in large sauce pan until combined and warmed. Serve hot over tortilla chips. Enjoy!

You can adjust the spiciness of the soup by using Mild or Medium Salsa. Also, once cooked, if the soup is too spicy, add sour cream to cool.

This dish can also be cooked in large quantities and frozen in ziplock bags.

Soft Gingersnaps

Rebecca’s Soft Gingersnaps

Mix together:

¾ cup shortening or butter

1 cup sugar

1 egg

1/3 cup molasses

Sift together:

2 ¾ cups flour

2 tsp baking soda

1 tsp ginger

1 tsp cloves

1 tsp cinnamon

Combine ingredients. Form dough into 1 inch balls, and roll in sugar.

Bake at 350 degrees for 8-10 minutes.