Captain Joel

This past week, Joel had the honor of being an "Honorary Captain" for the football team at the high school where he works. The team voted him as the teacher they wanted. It was the first game of the playoffs and he was very excited to fulfill his duties. He was able to go into the locker room with the team prior to the game and then he walked out on the field with the captains (four of the five he knew & had as students) and was there for the coin flip. He was even on the local news' "Prep Rally"!

Anders & I hung out with Grandma J--well, mostly Anders--he had fun walking around with her. It was very cold & rainy/snowy, but we had fun. Sadly, we couldn't stay too long as Joel had a prior commitment, but it was fun nonetheless.

He's the tall guy with the green shirt & black hat on the right.

8 Kids and Counting...

When I first started working at Lincoln Academy in 2001, there was a group of us girls that were single and basically footlose and having fun. We had lots of fun together (including one other friend who happened to be married). Now, 8 years later, we are all married and have kids, but live all over the place. 3 of us live in town--and still work together, one lives in NC (her hubby is in the Air Force) and one lives overseas.

This past Friday, 4 of the 5 of us got together with all of our kids--8 total! (We hope that we can get all 10 kids together in December!)

We met at Pump It Up and the kids played, played, played for almost 2 hours. Then we all came to my house for lunch where we snapped this picture. JJ's two kids are on the far left (boy, 3 and girl, 10 months), BS's two kids (girl, almost 3 and boy, 10 months), then Anders (15 months), then AE's three kids (girl, 4, girl, 3 and boy, 8 months). Crazy times!

We had lots of fun chasing the kids all over and catching up on life. I am so blessed to know so many wonderful people!

Joel, sans beard

Sideburns since college=13 years
Goatee since starting teaching=7 years
Beard since 2005=4.5 years
Shaving it all off=10 minutes
Priceless.

It's "No-Shave November" at Joel's school and this year he chose to participate. So, the beard is gone and there will be no shaving for him this month.

Don't worry, I'll keep you posted on the hair-growing process.

How do you think he looks?

Giddy Up, Cowboy!

Last night I took Anders to our church's Fall Festival celebration, "Wild West". Joel already had plans with a former student (now in college at CU), so I went with our good friends, Jason & Krista & their little one, Abbey. Although both Anders & Abbey were really too small to do any of the activities, it was still fun to see friends there and to know we have a great event to go to in future years! They even had open fire pits with S'mores! Yum!

Waiting for our friends to arrive!
Even Haiku had a costume!

Snow in October

This week we had an early season snow storm here in Denver. At our house, we had between 14 and 16 inches. Our school district was closed on both Wednesday & Thursday and it was awesome to have Joel at home for two days!

Yesterday it warmed back up again and today it's pretty nice out--and the snow is quickly disappearing!

We currently have no gutters on our house because
we are getting new ones to go along with our new roof!
No gutters=HUGE Icicles!

This picture really shows how much snow we got! And this isn't even all of it!

Poetry Reading

Monday night was a big event for us--Joel's first official poetry reading at Barnes & Noble. The high school where he works had an event at our local store where a percentage of the profits purchased on Monday went to the library. Every year they have students and teachers "perform" in the cafe during the event.

This year Joel volunteered to read some of his poetry. There were about 25 people there--teachers, friends, and family. He did a great job reading some of his work from his master's thesis project and people seemed to really enjoy it.

I hope we have many more events like this--which would mean some of his poetry was published!

Pumpkin Patch

Last Friday we went to a Pumpkin Patch up in Boulder with a few friends (all 4 kids were born within 5 weeks of each other!). It ended up being a great day--the weather was awesome. We were there for about an hour and the kids had fun. Anders is just on the brink of being a 100% walker, but isn't quite there yet. So, he crawled around in the dirt. Oh yes, we did get a couple of pumpkins, too.

(He really, honestly thought he could lift this pumpkin.)
The scary thing? He was almost right.

Walking, walking...

Trying to get a picture with 4 toddlers when there is so much to look at is impossible.
This is what we got!

Anders with his buddy, Ryan

Anders with Elijah and Acadia

And a couple of pumpkin pictures.

October

We've been as busy as ever...and Anders is on the go with us. Here are few pictures from the last few weeks...

My handsome Little Man. He looks good in brown. :)

Where's Anders?
(Our friends gave Anders this great bucket of blocks for his birthday.
It's hard to tell which he likes more--the bucket or the blocks!)

There he is!

Stacking blocks! About 2 or 3 high is about all we can do right now.
This morning I was watching him stack the blocks
and every time he turned to pick up another block,
his other hand would inadvertently knock over his stack.
So, needless to say, 2 high was all he got this morning!

You can see how tall Anders is getting!
(And how dirty the front of my dishwasher is!)

Touchdown!
A co-worker got this outfit for Anders last year.
I remember thinking "He'll never fit this!" and, here it is, a year later.
The sweatshirt is already too small!

Hiding in cabinets...
(and you can see he pulled the drawer above it open, too!)

Anders: Age 13 Months

Now that Anders 13 months, he is really more of a "toddler" than a "baby". Just today he was playing in the family room while we were enjoying the Broncos game. He must have played for about 30 minutes, basically by himself.

What does he do to keep himself occupied?

Good question.

Stack blocks, for one. This is a new skill and it's pretty cute. Stand up and sit down and try to take steps, for another. Climb on anything that is stationary (the TV stand, the fireplace, bookshelves, chairs...). Press the buttons on the TV/DVD player, which makes mom & dad crazy. Pulls Haiku's tail. And just plays with other toys and looks absolutely cute doing it.

Although he is able to play by himself for periods of time, most of the time he's tearing all over the house and I do my best to keep up with him. Mostly he just leaves a path of destruction in his wake and I have a sore back from trying to keep up with him & his mess.

He's tired by 6:30pm and sleeps until 7am or later. He still takes 2 two hour naps during the day. And despite the fact that everyone tells me their baby gave up the morning nap around Anders' age, I think he'll still need it for a few more months.

I know I do.

Dress in the Dark

This past week was Homecoming Week at Joel's school. Wednesday was "Dress in the Dark" day, which basically means wear a totally crazy, tacky outfit. I think Joel would have scored a "10" for creativity. The sad part is, his mom had an equally "creative" outfit, and I neglected to get a picture.

On Thursday, they had a "Last Teacher Standing" comedy show again. You might remember that Joel won it 3 years ago. Last year he should have won again, but lost in a "rap off" when the judges couldn't decide who won the comic routine. He was robbed.

This year was his year again. He won, hands down. And Anders even got to appear on stage. It was lots of fun and the kids just love to have him as a teacher. Wouldn't you?

A Yearly Tradition

Last year, I posted some pictures of Anders & Joel watching Broncos Football. Time for some pictures from this year's season.





Although I don't have it pictured here, Anders does know how to throw his arms up in the air when we say "Touchdown!".

What a difference a year makes.

A Walk in the Woods

Today was the perfect day for a trip to the mountains. People who live in Denver are notorious for having the beautiful mountains right next door and never going. So, we went against the trend and headed for the mountains.

Except everyone else seemed to have the same exact idea today.

It didn't damper our fun, though. We packed up the old mini-van and headed to one of our favorite spots: Echo Lake at the base of Mount Evans. It's about a 45 minute drive from our house and the perfect spot for a leisurely walk, picnicking, and for Haiku to run amuck.

I was behind the camera today and had lots of fun taking pictures with Joel's camera. Here are a few from today.





We didn't stay very long, but it was a great trip. Haiku had fun swimming in the lake, Anders enjoyed being in the backpack--he's high enough up to see what's going on, and Joel & I enjoyed the slower pace of life, even if it was only for a few hours.

It was such a good time, we might even attempt a repeat next weekend (even if everyone else has the same idea).