Yee Haw!! Cowboy Fun!!!

Ethan checking out the western saddle in the horse barn

 Ethan and I took a very fun trip to the National Western Stock Show this past weekend. This is a tradition that my mom started with me and I love that I get to continue it with Ethan. This is his 6th Stock Show and each year it gets more fun to watch him enjoy this time. We did not go to the rodeo this year because he often complains of being bored....typical 6 year-old!

Ethan sitting in a John Deere tractor wheel

 The Stock Show in Denver is set in 3 buildings and you have to be prepared to walk A LOT!! There are a lot of vendors selling all sorts of things from farm equipment, cookware, horse trailers and many other things. Ethan's favorite vendors are the John Deere Tractor dealers. He loves to sit on all the tractors because that is what cowboys do! He also loves the trailer dealers, he often dreams of having a horse (or many) and hauling them around in his trailer! 

Ethan participating in the pedal tractor race

 There are so many activities for the kids at the Stock Show. Ethan had a blast walking around the horse barn, and the other barn that had the sheep, pigs, goats and cows. You get to talk to a lot of the ranchers who raise the animals and learn all about each type of animal. We sat down and watched a little bit of a heifer show, and saw some very young kids showing these big animals. He liked seeing the sheep get sheered and even participated in a pedal tractor race.

Ethan with the Llama

The petting zoo is always a hit with the kids and this one did not disappoint.  There were sheep, goats, potbelly pigs, llamas and alpacas. We were able to feed them, brush them and pet them. There was so much to learn at the Stock Show this year and I love the days when my son has bunches of fun while he is learning!

Ethan fell in love with this sheep

Our Christmas!!

Ethan with my mom on Christmas Eve

Ethan as a Sheep on Christmas Eve

After a bit of a break from my blog for the Christmas holiday, I am back and have made my 2012 goal to throw in a couple more blog posts per week! My family and I had a wonderful holiday and are looking forward to the new year. We spend our Christmas very laid back, we attend Christmas Eve service at church and Ethan participates in the service, this year he was a sheep in the service. Then we look at some Christmas lights on our way home. Once we are home, it is time to put out the cookies, milk and carrots (the reindeer need their energy) and head to bed. The next morning Ethan came bouncing into our room at 7:30 (yes we are blessed not to have an early bird) and yelled at us "Santa Came!!" Since we live in an apartment, there is not much space between our room and the living room with the tree. He kept running back and forth giving a grand description of what Santa had left and kept saying....."come on guys, get up!!" The couple moments it took  us to get up and come out of our room must have seemed like an eternity to him!! Once we are up, he can then open gifts from Santa and rummage around in his stocking. Like I said, we have a very laid back day on Christmas and my mom comes over in her jammies and we all stay in our jammies all day! Once my mom is here and we all have a little coffee and breakfast is in the oven we can begin the gift opening marathon. My son had such a wonderful Christmas and we are all so blessed by wonderful family and friends!! I hope each of you had a wonderful Holiday (whichever you celebrate) and you all have a fabulous 2012!!

Ethan with his buddy Ezekiel as sheep together

Y3W: Making Santa Cookies

Today I am linking up with Jenni from the Blog for her Y3W (Your Three Words)

Yesterday Ethan and I made cookies for Santa (and others). We made cutout sugar cookies and chocolate chip cookies. We had so much fun just hanging out in the kitchen, listening to Christmas music, dancing and making yummy goodies! This is such a magical time of year for kids and I am so glad I took some time off of work to spend some very special time with him!!

Ethan was so proud of his decorating

Hard at work

Holiday Season

 

 The holiday season is such a magical time of the year. There are a lot of lights, yummy goodies, extra time spent with family and hearts filled with joy. This time of the year was made so much better when our son was born 6 years ago. There is nothing quite like the holiday season when you have a kiddo around. It seems that every little thing gets him more excited for this season. He loved hearing all the stories about the Christmas ornaments. 

 This year he was able to write a letter to Santa without much help, only some spelling help. We mailed his letter at Macy's and yet he was still very excited to sit on Santa's lap to tell him just what he wanted this year. He received a very cool card from the North Pole Elves, thank you Tiny Prints, letting him know that he is indeed on the nice list this year. 

We know in Denver that the holiday season has officially begun when we brave the cold weather to see the Parade of Lights. This parade is full of beautiful floats, marching bands and balloons all decorated with lights. Santa comes to make a special guest appearance at the end of the parade and put the best smiles on the faces of all the believers watching the parade. 

I hope this holiday season is bringing joy to all of my readers! Tell me about some of the traditions you hold dear during this time of the year.

Movin' on Up

We're movin' on up!! Last year my hubby and I made the move from Parker, CO to Castle Rock, CO. Because my hubby had been laid off for quite some time we moved into an apartment that is lower rent based on your income. Since then Brian has gotten a job and now we have to move out of this apartment because we don't qualify so now we are moving. Thank goodness we were able to find another apartment in the same complex. 

The best part is we get to move into a bigger apartment, the worst part is, we still have to move. We still have to pack everything, and move it and unpack it. 

This is never a fun task for anyone, but it is even worse when you are attempting to do this with a 5 year-old in the house. He wants to help so much, but as you can imagine, there is only so much he can actually help. This leads to more arguments than I care to have with my little man. I am so glad we decided to save the packing for this week and have it a bit concentrated and not spread it out more than we needed to. I know we will make it through this move, however, we may not all be friends at the end...hahaha...just kidding!

Wordless Wednesday - Janna's Wedding

My handsome boy in a tux!

Mr. and Mrs. Thornhill

Ethan had a blast with the flower girl

Shakin' it on the dance floor

Janna with the cute kids

Presenting the rings for a blessing

Coming over the bridge

I got the rings!

Janna and her dad

Y3W - Wedding This Weekend

This is a picture of my beautiful cousin Janna. This weekend is her wedding and I am so excited to see her get married. Janna and I were like sisters growing up. I am seven years older than she is and before she was born I was the only granddaughter. Needless to say, I did not like her when she was born. I liked being the only girl and getting all that type of attention. I used to walk past her in the playpen and push her down if she was standing up. I am not saying I am proud of this action I took but that was life when we were little. Since I was older than she was I babysat her a lot. We did all kinds of things together. I taught her to swim. I dressed her up with big hair and make-up (hey, it was the 80's) and took her to the mall with my friends. All of my memories of us growing up are good, I am not sure if her memories are as good since I was a bossy older cousin babysitter. Now that we are adults, I am so glad she is my cousin. She is a wonderful person. She was the Maid of Honor in my wedding and I am glad she was by my

side. 

Janna & Chris at her graduation

 This year has been big for Janna. In May she graduated from college with her degree in Psychology, thank goodness cause our family is CRAZY and we need all the free help we can get!! This weekend, she is getting married to a wonderful man named Chris. This Sunday Janna and Chris will be getting married and our whole family is so excited for them. I am excited that they picked my son to be the ring bearer in their wedding. Ethan adores Janna and Chris and is excited to be part of their big day. Love you both and can't wait to see you begin your new life!!

What are Your 3 Words?

Thursday Thoughts...

I don't usually like to come on here and bash others or their lifestyles....BUT...yesterday I was very disturbed by a few blogs I read. They are not blogs I usually read, one was emailed to me by another shocked friend and the others were linked to this blog. The basic topic of these blogs yesterday was....."How women can make themselves more attractive to keep their man happy."  They were talking about how they should not wear what is comfortable to them while in bed because their husband may not find it attractive. And they were not talking about times when they would be having relations with their husband; they were talking about every night sleeping. Another blog was talking about how her husband was making comments about how she does not shave her legs as much anymore and she was going to try harder to make sure her legs were smooth for her husband.

Now I am not a huge Women's Liberation person but I have to page homage to those women who paved the way for me.  I am not trying to say we should all wear horrible clothes to bed and run around with hairy legs, but shouldn't these be things we do for ourselves? When I do great things for myself, like shave my legs, paint my nails or wear cute clothes, it makes me feel cute and sexy and that makes me more attractive to my husband. 

I also think the door has to swing both ways.  Men have to remember to do the same things. They have to remember that when they feel good they look good to us! I think my point is that a couple has to be sure to have mutual respect for the other. Marriage is hard work but has to be done equally on both ends. One person can’t carry the load while the other reaps the rewards. My husband and I have a great balance in our marriage. There are times when one person is having a weak time in life and the other picks up to be the strong one and vice versa. Let’s not revert back to the “Leave it to Beaver” age where the woman was just there to please her husband. That way of life does not benefit anyone in the end.

Respect yourself and others will respect you!!

 

Y3W - Bring on Fireworks

I am so excited for the 4th of July weekend!! There are so many firework shows going on around us that we will be seeing fireworks all weekend long. It is such a different experience when you have a child to watch them with. He gets so excited for them to start and can hardly keep his body still. Once they start he likes to tell us what each one looks like. This is one of my favorite holidays because there is no gift giving involved, you are just spending time with your family with good food and FIREWORKS!!

I hope everyone has a very safe and fun 4th of July!!

Check out Jenni's blog!

Y3W - Baby on Hold

So last night the hubby and I made the decision that we will be putting another baby on hold. For the last couple years we have not been "really" trying but there has been no goalie in our net so to speak. I have always thought I would have more than one child and while I was part of this decision, it is still a very hard pill to swallow. We are finally able to see the light at the end of the horrible financial tunnel we have been in for almost 3 years now and adding another person (a very expensive person at that) to our house right now is just not in the cards. I am only 34 right now and I am still holding out hope that we will be in a much better place to maybe have another child. If not, we have a beautiful, wonderful son that we get to spoil and make sure he has all he needs and most of what he wants. This has been weighing on my mind for a while and my girlfriend just had her first baby last night and it just got me thinking about all the things that come along with newborns. I have never regretted becoming a parent but I must say that I am so glad to be able to get 8 hours of sleep each night and glad I don’t to plan for three hours and pack a suitcase to take a trip to Target. There are also days I am not sure I want to take the trip down the road of 4 year-old again, Ethan tested my mental status during that time and I think I am on the road back from Crazy Town as we speak. This may be one reason I will continue to volunteer at Children’s Hospital – Denver, I can get a weekly baby fix and help out babies that really need some extra love in the process. Thank goodness I have friends that are in the baby making business and I can always volunteer to watch their babies too!

Have a Great Weekend!!

Love Conquers All

I recently went to a memorial service for a friend’s mother. I have known this friend and his mother since High School and she was a lot like a second mom during that time. While I was at the memorial service I found out that her and her husband has met in Middle School and had been together ever since. This seems to be an amazing feat to me in this day and age. I am sure they had good times as well as hard times in their marriage. They had two children, which can’t always be easy on the marriage. I was in awe of the devotion these two people obviously have to each other. Every person who got up to speak about her mentioned how much she loved her husband and how much they were still in love now, after all these years.

Don’t get me wrong, I love my husband very much and I am completely devoted to him and our marriage. There have been days, not a lot, that I thought, “there is no way we will make it to 10 years.” Learning about my friend’s parents has proved to me that love can conquer all. Marriage is not easy and any married person will agree with that fact. I have to work on my marriage every day. I see now that all this work is worth it. It is wonderful to have a partner in life and I intend to have my husband as my partner in life for the rest of my life. I hope everyone reading this has found the love of your life, if you have, be sure to work hard at keeping it and if you haven't have faith that you will find your love. Love conquers all! 

Friday Ramblings!

I can express how glad I am that today is Friday. This has been a very hard week and I am ready for the weekend. Tomorrow is “Weigh In” day and thank goodness it is before the Easter Bunny drops off any goodies at our house. We will be having a full family Easter dinner at my Uncle’s house this Sunday since that is the place my poor mother is being confined. It is always an interesting time when the whole family (barring the family living outside of the Denver Metro Area) attends a holiday function. I have been waiting for this time since I started Weight Watchers. This will be my first “Holiday” with my new eating habits.

On a high note, I had four people tell me yesterday that they could really tell I have lost weight. YA HOOO!!!! I might have to wear that outfit EVERY DAY!! I have been able to get rid of my “fat girl” jeans and most of my pants that are now in my closet are getting very lose on me. I will be making the trek to our storage garage this weekend to dig out my “skinny” box and pray that all the clothes in there are not so out of style that I have to give them all away.

My secret hope is that since I had a stomach bug this week and a lower appetite, I can pull a big number tomorrow on the scale. I would love to lose 3 pounds this week and be at a nice round 10 pounds lost. Fingers crossed everyone!!

Until Monday, wishing everyone a very Happy Easter!!

Thankful Thursday

My Boys are the Best

As I sit here at home this week on spring break with my son, I remember all the things I am thankful for. I am thankful for the freedom I am afforded by living in this great country. I am thankful to have a safe place to live and food on my table each night. I am thankful to have a wonderful husband that loves me (even if I am 90 pounds overweight) and a happy, healthy child. I am thankful to have a great loving family (aunts, uncles, cousins, and all my in-laws). I am thankful for my faith in god and all he sees me through. These are the things I am thankful for each day of my life, but since I am counting points for WW, most of all today I am thankful for enough points to have a yummy snack tonight!!

Happy Thursday!