Happy

Is the sun rising, or the moon falling?


After our magical snowfall yesterday, we woke up to a gorgeous morn.  Naturally Knox woke up in a tizzy because he couldn't find his "measure" that he had gone to sleep with.  Horrible start to an almost-3yo's morning!  So disappointing.

The cornflower haze was just barely hiding the falling moon over the mountains in the West.  Seems like just 12 hours ago I watched the sun do the same thing.




And then magically, a low blurry fog cloud sank and settled in at what seemed like the end of the street.  Can I reach it?

My kids are off today.  Off and out on their own!  Tulah has her first morning of Pre K in Golden today, finally!  This is her third year of a preschool program so it's totally old news, but she's excited to see what's in store for her there.  It doesn't seem to be very "academic" but very play-based.  At her preschool last year, they moved her to the Pre K room at the start of second semester.  There they did more worksheets and mixed the play with a lot more "school" stuff.  Here at the new one it seems more like her first preschool classroom, but that's okay.  During our Kindergarten tours we've been to lately I saw that they are doing things that Tulah's been up to for a long while, as far as the academics go, so I'm happy that we don't have to worry about her being behind.  At her preschool she'll just be having FUN.  It's just two mornings a week for now.

Knox is off too, he'll be going to our neighbor Dusty's house the same mornings that Tulah is gone!  She does child care from home and has a few other boys that Knox will have a ball playing with.  I can walk him across the street, then take Tulah to school a few minutes away... Pick her up a few hours later and then grab Brother, who will have already eaten his lunch.  Awesome! 

ready for the world.  but is the world ready for them???

And what will I do with myself while I'm not in Mom Mode?  I'm going to be working.  YEP!
I got a little job!  And it's design work.  I'll be using my daggone degree (okay okay... almost degree) and I'll be creating and I'll be doing it from home!  Let's face it, I need a job where leggings and ugly slippers are acceptable attire.

It's a long story, but basically I'm helping a local nutritionist redesign a product she currently owns.  We met a year ago when we bought her car from her.  Funny how the universe works, huh??  She has the product licensed with two private labels and she's in 24 retail stores.  She has run into problems manufacturing it affordably and locally, so is hoping to take a quick little redesign her friend sewed for her and fine tune it.  I'm going to be refining it and making the prototypes that will be quoted for manufacturing.  It's a soft good, so right up my sewing alley, and I'm just beyond excited that I can help her with it!  This is a big deal for someone who is raising babies instead of building a portfolio!!  I know she's taking a leap of faith with me, but she says she trusts her gut.  I hope I can make her thrilled she took the chance.

So.  I took my sweets to their respective locations, and I made some coffee.
I started measuring and noting and marking and cutting and serging and sewing.
Hulu was streaming the episode of The Bachelor I missed on Monday.
My coffee was hot.
I sewed by the light of the sun streaming through our balcony window. 
I cannot tell you how amazing this break felt.  I cannot, I seriously do not have the words for the overwhelming peace and sheer bliss I was feeling.  I had under 3 hours to myself, but it was the greatest 3 hours of alone time I think I've ever had.  I have been needing this.  I need to contribute to something more than our address.  Once in a while I need to have the challenges of deadlines, expectations, and time management.  For a few hours a week, I neeeeeeeed to have something going other than KIDS!   While I was working, I just stopped once in a while and noticed I was smiling. 

Obviously it's a good thing that neither kiddo wanted to come home when I went to pick them up, right?
I decided we didn't need a real lunch and naps... We needed to go SLEDDING!
We bundled up and walked over to the sledding hill nearby.  I can't say that Knox wasn't crying from Itchy Mitten Syndrome the entire way there, but he got over it after his first ride down :)

 Sad but true fact:  This was their first time sledding.  I know.

 And I thought Monday was the greatest day of the year.   Now I'm not sure.  But if I'm trying to decide which of the only two days, of the start of a new week was best, then that's surely got to mean that we are having the best WEEK of the year so far.

How is it that I get to just take my kids hiking and sledding and alpaca-ranch visiting on regular ol' week days.  Seriously.  I feel so lucky.

Tonight I said good-night to the kids and lied down with Knox for a minute.  He wanted to tell me story after story. I was technically "working" again, but didn't want to miss his little wise words.  He held my face in his hands, kissed my chin and cheeks.  With his magnificent, exaggerated hand gestures he told me his stories.  Then Tulah told us a story of Cinderella and listened with us as Knox told one more.
  He speaks of mean guys who "stoled" animals from the zoo by monster truck, hid them in giant garages they built, and gave them papercuts.  He explains how Spiderman made them band-aids out of his webs.  How the superheroes gave him a flashlight to go looking for the animals in the dark.

I held his little cheeks and smelled his hair and smooched on him while we snuggled together.  Tears fell down my cheeks as I took in the sweetness of my kiddos (I know.  The squeezing of humans from my uterus has jacked up my tear ducts.  A Taylor Swift song will make me cry, don't ask.).  In those calm, quiet moments, I felt most alive.  How does a parent prepare for the day when they don't want you to sniff them and snuggle them and smooch on them?!  I won't deal well.  Or at all.  I LIVE for the cozy moments.  I love some fun, manic moments too, but those snuggly times are the ones in which I can reflect so freely on the most positive points of the day. 

The life in this house is hard to ignore.  Hard to not be thankful for more and more details as the days pass, not just the big things.

Happy :)

January von Hikin'

Well yesterday, Banister Almost Finishing Day, was about as lovely as could be.
We made a run to the Depot for a few things banister, and discovered that it was a day not to be wasted indoors working on the inside of the house.  What to do on this 65 degree day when we're elbows deep in an indoor project.  Colorado weather is so frustrating sometimes, making us feel all guilty for getting crap done INSIDE.  When we got home from errands, I was all antsy and craving a hike or something.  Now, we really don't hike about that much.  Not like most people around here, here being the healthiest state in the union.  We stay active but as you can probably tell, we're active with things like moving, house projects, and Knox's explosive diarrhea.  So fun ventures outside are way more scarce these days than they used to be when we were nestled in our yellow house.

Anyway, back to our weather predicament.

I was antsy.  I wanted to go play!!  After suggesting it out loud in front of the kids thinking everyone would be on board, I found out that I unnecessarily got the kids all excited since Mister Boree wanted to wrap up the banister.  Hmmph.  So I took the kids down the cul-de-sac across the street to visit neighbors and ride bikes and scooters.  After that it was still nice out.  Nick was still working on cutting balusters.  It was nap time, but far too nice out to make the children nap- what torture!  Looking around I noticed Knox made himself busy in the garage, "fixing" with daddy.  As usual.

 Looks like it was boys vs girls.
Girls had some weeds to pull.

Roo found a lot of treasures and built a habitat or two for squirrels and mice to nest in.  She can pull a mean rake, too.  I'll keep her on the payroll.

Love her

 So today was another pretty morning, with snow on the horizon.
We got up, made some delicious waffles, and hit the trail!  TODAY was the day for a hike.  We romped around in the late morning, in first sunshine, then wind, then clouds.  Weather is on it's way and we made the most of the last two hours of sunshine of the week!

This morning was probably THE best best best best morning of the year.   The kids weren't in hiking carriers like other years.  They were free to climb and run and see, and I was free to take it in.  We were awake!  Just me and my sweet kids on an energizing adventure.  Pure delight.

As I type this, the first fat flakes are falling, bread is rising in the kitchen, and Knox has just woken up and is nestled next to me in his rosy cheeks. 

heart

downtown Denver is along the right side of the horizon over there...

we built a banister

I am tired so I'll just spell it out for you in photos.  Less talk, more pictures.

The second time I fell in love with this house (first being the online info, second being the first time we saw it right before we went under contract...) I thought, "That daggone wall has got to go!!"  I mean, clearly it has no place here.  Hmmph.  The wall came down right when we took down our Christmas tree.  Weird, we had no idea it had grown into the wall...

 

it changed this stairwell soooo much!

Now it might look like Nick is doing all the work, but that's only because I am process-photo crazy.
Knox couldn't let him have all the fun either...

helping get some nails out of what's soon to be the newel post

got my hand saw...

got my jigsaw...

got my sister to help...

We used a piece of our baseboard to finish the top plane, and cut the larger studs off to be the newel post.  We're trimming it out in other pieces of leftover trim from our board and batten walls.  So far we're still pretty positive it wasn't load-bearing.  Also, the stairs stayed like this for far too many weeks.  We all survived the Staircase of Doom!

we doweled the bottoms of the balusters and nailed at the top angle.  Plenty of glue was involved so these suckas aren't moving!

we used this jig to make sure our angles were perfect-ish... It's got a stem that fits into the chuck of your drill.  So easy even a husband can do it ;)

 He spent a lot of time laying this out after we figured out center-to-center of the posts, and then figured the angle and spacing between.  I don't love math so this was his job.  Knox knew his hammer wouldn't help so he even stayed out of it.

Knox took this picture!

 Roo needed a break from all of our nonsense...

But we forged ahead!

If you're about to even THINK that these balusters aren't spaced evenly, stop it right now.  It's the perspective, got it?  They're super freaking even!!  Also my living room is NOT pulled together so judge easy on me.  Glad we talked.

And now our kids can dazedly ascend to our room in the middle of the night without the imminent danger of sleepwalking off of an open staircase.  

We have to install three more balusters but we figured feeding the kids dinner was slightly more important.  THIS time.  We'll do some staining and painting when they're all in.  We'll install the wainscoting under the stairs and up the wall as well, AND we'll even finish off the rises of the stairs! Then we'll try to get the crown molding done in there at some point... And in the meantime hopefully someone will have anonymously left a huge cowhide rug on my porch to really finish off the room.  Perhaps a trip to the storage unit to reclaim our art and photos and such is not such a preposterous idea either.  Hopefully once these steps have been taken I will be able to dazzle you with the finished product!

Happy with it so far, soooo glad we TKO'd that wall!  And now, from our new banister to yours, I good you bid evening.

So a dragon, a superhero and a cat walk into a bar...

Knox tells us (dozens of) "stories" before bed each night. They are a great way to manipulate us into spending an extra HOUR tucking him in and he knows it.  Yes, EXTRA hour.   I've been trying to record them.  Nick gets all sneaky with his iphone and captures them, but if I'm the one to receive the important messages then I have to write them down.  I'm like a stenotype up in here.  Tonight I thought I'd share one of his deciphered little yarns. He takes maybe two breaths the whole time he's narrating. No time to breathe when you've got stories to tell!

"Once upon a time? We were at a park. And a lot of kids find my jet and take it. They didn't stop grabbing my jet. They wike jets.
It was a girl, and a boy, and a boy, it was a lot of kids.
They threw my jet in a tree and it get stuck! And a cat climb up a tree and get it but he can't betause he don't have sharp claws. And um. And the cat climb on a box and get my jet but he not get my jet and he not scratch the kids betause he not have sharp claws!
And there were super heroes! and they come and the kids run away but um, they not run away and um, what my super heroes do? Save me with the kids!
And what Spiderman do? He trap dem with his WEB!
And what Ice Man do?? He FREEZE dem!
And um, what Firestar do? She melt dem and they MELT!
And um, Hulk was there but not a really mean Hulk, just a really nice one. Hulk was a really nice one to me but um. But he CRUSH those mean kids! And um.
And the dragon came! And know what dragon do? He carry me and um, he fly through the air! And I ride on his back and he fly and he grab my jet with his SHARP DRAGON CLAWS! And um. And he breathe hot FIRE! He breathe hot fire on the kids and um.
And the he bring me higher on the tree and Ice Man try to freeze him! On the WINGS! And I say, "NO! No you not do dat!!" and then he show me the baby dragon. And um. He dis big! Awwww! He tiny dragon wike dis big and um. And I hold him in my hand wike dis! And um. Just a wittle baby dragon and I hold him. Yeah. And the mommy fly way, way far away.
There were still super heroes at the park and Spiderman make hammock out of his webs. And um. And they put me in the hammock out of webs.
Want me to tell you another story Mommy?"

Bright sunshiney day

Not only is it above zero today, and above 10 or 20... today is above 40 degrees!

We played outside!  We absorbed the vitamin D as happiness flowed through our veins!  We did some manual labor building our "playground"... Today is divine!

Now on account of Tulah not really being down to pose in photos unless she's had her coffee and a waiver has been signed and approved, I will now share with you the cuteness of one half of my offspring.  I'm not quite sure how this happened, but we're entering territory of Infinite Cuteness. But clearly he knows this, so I'm hopeless.

So one or one of you have asked about this "acre" I refer to... Here it is.  Awe-inspiring, isn't it?  It's hard to tell how big it feels until you are in it.  As long as you're not standing in our yard right after you've been on a REAL homestead, with REAL acres and open space.  We're not rural, but we kinda country :)

Some might say this is just a large backyard.  I call it my large backacre.

Gotta go, someone's awake and I haven't even started laundry yet.  Zoiks!