TeamJT: Laura, Jerry, Sawyer, and Amelia

Dora and Darth

2010-10-31T20:02:00.000-07:00

What a fun Halloween. I think Amelia has had her costume on every day this week, for party at preschool, party at daycare, then the town parade, Halloween bike night, then of course, trick or treating today! They had a great time trick or treating in our awesome neighborhood. Amelia was running like crazy keeping up with her brother as the went from house to house. They were so excited. Then The Great Pumpkin came and left lots of allergy free candy at our house while we were out. Perfect!

I decided to get in on the fun this year and get a costume. Here is Sawyer and I at the Central school parade. (fuzzy picture, I know). The light and dark side of the force.

Summer Fun

2010-07-21T13:00:00.000-07:00

Yesterday the kids played in the rose garden at Roosevelt Park for an hour before the thunderstorm rolled through.

Today Sawyer really wanted to go crawdad fishing and so we packed up the bike trailer and headed over to the Barn Park where they have one of the best crawdad holes around. The kids had immediate success, and quickly lost count of the cool crustaceans.

Happy Birthday Amelia!

2010-03-25T20:15:00.000-07:00

Dear Amelia,

Today you are 3! On your birthday today, I wanted to tell you how much I love you. You have brought so much love and light into my life. You are truly my little angel. Every day, you tell me that I am your "best friend mommy." When I was really sick, every night as I put you to bed, you would take your little hand, and put in on my cheek and say,"it is ok mommy, I will help you."

Every day, after we drop Sawyer off at school, we say "girls time!" We have so much fun, even if I am doing the dishes and you are playing next to me in the kitchen. Sometimes I need to rest and I lay down, and then you play and tell me"I will come back and check on you!" When you were first born, your brother Sawyer was an active, busy 2 year old boy! You loved to watch him! But there wasn't a lot of time for just us. So now is our time. When the boys go off to do their boys stuff that they love to do, we say "just the girls!" To many, many years of "girls time" to come!

Happy Birthday my little Amelia!
xxoo

Love,
Mommy

Princess ChuChu Rock-fly-flow faces her fears

2010-03-08T19:55:00.000-08:00

Sawyer wrote this story last spring. Actually, he asked our babysitter Veronica to write it down for him. I am so glad that she got this down. IT is amazing!

Once there was a princess named Princess ChuChu Rock-fly-flow and she didn't like alligators. So she set off into the alligator's tummy because she wanted to get over her fear. The alligator was actually a very friendly guy who lived under a rainbow and his name was Charles. When princess ChuChu rock-fly-flow approached him, he yawned and greeted her calmly, and she crawled inside timidly. He let her her go in but, she didn't taste good so he spit her out into the land of the lost boys where she met Peter Pan and the Lost Boys and Tinkerbelle and Onjah the monkey. Onjah said, "It's 2:00. Time to go home!" And then they went home happily ever after.

Highlights for SAwyer 2009

2010-01-10T19:14:00.000-08:00

Here is for you kid!

Sawyer and his good friend Gracie where nominated for "Thinker of the Month" in October for their preschool class. Here we are at the reception and SAwyer and Gracie did great standing up in front of everyone representing preschool. Go our great neighborhood school, Central Elementary!

Sawyer LOVED his devil costume this year.

Could Sawyer BE ANY CUTER! I mean, I know I am his mom, but he is the cutest boy there ever, ever was. (YOu can't even see the freckles on his nose in the pictures. sigh. so cute)

2010-01-10T18:51:00.000-08:00

The kids have been having a great time looking through the blog lately (no photo albums for them, I guess, times do change). Sawyer is really good with the mouse, so he can scroll through the blog pretty well. He and Amelia sit there and look through all of the pictures. The love to watch the slide show too. The yell in excitement, "Is that baby SAwyer!" "Mommy! Is that one baby Amelia!!!". So, more incentive to keep up the pictures coming.

Except . . .

2010-01-08T20:38:00.000-08:00

. . . .when Sawyer is not her best friend. Then he is a "mean guy." From the other room, I hear "Mommy! Sawyer is being a MEAN GUY!"

My best friend Sawyer

2010-01-07T19:43:00.000-08:00

Amelia calls anyone she loves her "best friend". So Sawyer is her "best friend Sawyer." And I am her best friend Mommy. OH, and the other day, she called her cousin, her best friend CAssidy. This is huge! Cassidy is the first one outside of TeamJT to make to best friend status.

Here are some pictures during the fall with her best friend Sawyer.

My new blog, LT's journey

2010-01-04T21:03:00.000-08:00

For everyone who follows our family blog, I have mentioned nothing here of my struggle with Graves disease, which I was diagnosed with in 2003, but have undergone a horrific year in which I have suffering from severe chronic fatigue from the disease. I think I haven't said anything here because I like to post all of the happy family moments here and like to look at the blog and focus on the positive.

When I was kid, I LOVED to look through our family photo albums, and we had one for every year. I would spend hours looking through them. My poor husband, was forced to look through them all when we first started dating 15 years ago (!). I think my family knew at the moment he was the real deal, because he sat patiently looking through them all with me, and now I am thinking feigning interest. What a trooper! And I still regularly look back through our blog and our family pictures.

But I have started my own blog about my health so people can follow how I am doing on a regular basis. IT was too hard to keep people up to speed with emails. This blog will stay as our family photo album of all of our fun times. And given it all, there are still a lot of fun times with TEAMJT. I posted the link to my new blog on the sidebar. http://ltjourney.blogspot.com

Picking the winner

2010-01-03T20:42:00.000-08:00

It is impossible to pick which picture to send out for our annual New Year's card (there is too much to do before christmas to get a christmas card out). So, it is practically IMPOSSIBLE to get us all looking at the camera, smiling, and looking cute at the SAME TIME. Out of 7 possibilities, there are 2 were we are all looking at the camera and made the final cut. So, which one is the winner? Please vote!

Thanks to our friend, Jen, for taking the pictures on Thanksgiving when we were at least all bathed, combed and wearing nice clothes (a miracle in and of itself!)

#1

A fabulous christmas!

2009-12-27T20:34:00.001-08:00

Christmas eve dinner at our house. Our annual tradition with my sister and her family.

Our norforlk pine did make it from last year, and survived being decorated by a 2 and 4 year old many homemade ornaments. Sawyer's picture of santa is above the tree. And I seem to be growing a collection of angels that people have given me that I displayed on our wreath this year.

Sawyer makes his dinosaur face with his new toy from his cousins.
Amelia and her christmas dress that was her cousin Cassidy's. Part 2 of our tradition, having christmas dinner at my sister's in boulder.

2009-12-26T19:58:00.000-08:00

I found this picture of Jerry, and it reminded me of the picture of Sawyer. Like father, like son!

Holiday Parade 2009

2009-12-13T19:39:00.001-08:00

What a great holiday parade! Longmont knows how to have a parade. IT rocks every year and this year was no exception. Four marching bands. I love marching bands! The kids had a great time.

Note Sawyer's super hero mask that he still has on from his good friend's birthday party, Jack.

My Thankful Place Mat

2009-12-03T18:55:00.000-08:00

Here is what was on Sawyer's place mat he made at school for what he is thankful for:

Mommy and Daddy (yeah!)
Amelia
Stinky Feet
My Devil Costume
My Red Power Range Costume

Sawyer, age 4.

My favorite picture of Sawyer

2009-11-30T19:24:00.000-08:00

I found this picture today of Sawyer playing his "guitar" when he was 2 (actually a old violin without strings). I just love this picture! One day, if Sawyer records an album, this picture will have to go on the back. He hands are so perfectly placed, like he is really playing it. I wish I had a recording of his first song, "Fishies jumping in the Water". He would jump around the house yelling, "fishies jumping in the water, fishies jumping in the water, fishies jumping in the waterrrrrrrrrrrr, oh, fishieis jumping in the water, hey!" Then, laugh, laugh laugh. Later, other versus were created, like doggies jumping in the grass, etc.

WooHoo October Snow!

2009-10-10T09:21:00.000-07:00

They always say we're gonna get precip in Longmont, but it never comes. So, when we heard about snow in the forecast for the last few days nobody really took it too seriously. I woke up this morning and the snow was flying, not only that but there is about an inch and a half on the ground. Not enough to ski, but plenty to have a great time with sleds on the golf course across the street.

Crazy car ride

2009-09-16T20:22:00.000-07:00

I just found this picture, from my most memorable car ride with kids. First, the costumes, but then, forgetting "taggies" and turning around, Sawyer "loosing his lunch" and me leaping from the front seat to catch it in a bag, Gwen feeling everyone's pain and getting scared, Kate texting the play by play, so that when we arrived at Jenner's, she and Dad and Ian already knew the whole deal. I think I may have even left out a bunch more stuff, it was just crazy. Oh, and the kids were so hot by the time we got there, after being in our van in those costumes for so long, without air conditioning. Ah, memories.

Laura

Amelia's first ponytail

2009-07-08T16:18:00.000-07:00

I can't help it, but we just CAN'T WAIT for pigtails and ponytails. We are getting there!

Amelia

2009-06-07T12:42:00.000-07:00

I just love this picture. So cute.

Laura

Sawyer finally broke his arm!

2009-06-07T07:12:00.000-07:00

As we have learned, Sawyer is quite adventurous. We haven't been looking forward to this day, but I would be lying if I said I wasn't expecting it. He stumbled off of a teetering barrel cushion, and landed on his right hand. Both of the bones in his right arm have compression fractures, and he has a spiderman cast.

We are a couple of weeks into this already, and he still isn't tired of the cast. In fact he was explaining to Amelia how to break her arm so that she could get a "princess" cast.

"I Slacklining"

2009-05-17T15:15:00.000-07:00

On a whim I decided to put up a very low, very short slackline for the kids. I put it between the poles for the swingset, and it was about 8 inches off the ground.
Sawyer immediately jumped on (litterally) and walked it like a champ. Amelia wanted so badly to do it and sawyer helped her. This kind of cooperation is rare and momentary, so I had to get a pic. When she was on the line she said "I slacklining."

View From Silver Creek

2009-02-25T16:37:00.001-08:00

So, I had to make a sample photo for my digital photography class, and I went out behind school to take a picture. I didn't really pay much attention while I was shooting as this was just for a sample, but I really like the way the image turned out. It makes me wonder what might have come from a more serious shot.

Sunday Afternoon

2009-02-08T15:15:00.001-08:00

Me: "Amelia, you are the most beautiful little girl ever."

Amelia: "You. bootiful. mommy."

Wow! Bald eagle iin our yard.

2009-01-19T20:26:00.000-08:00

There was a bald eagle in our Cottonwood tree in our front yard the other day. I am sure it came up from the river down the street. We saw it fly off over the golf course. People were stopping and looking in our tree and that is how we noticed it.

Sawyer's Holiday program

2009-01-19T20:21:00.000-08:00

Sawyer's Holiday program at his preschool. So cute! He is sitting next to his best friend, Jack, with the jeans on.

More skiing fun

2009-01-19T20:17:00.000-08:00

Amelia loved being in the sled! It was so soothing, she fell asleep. The top picture is the view from our house across the golf course. You can see Amelia and I in the distance.

Winter fun

2009-01-19T20:13:00.000-08:00

We live across the street from a golf course. Here we are catching some winter fun. It was Sawyer's first time on cross country skiis, and he did great!

The princesses

2009-01-19T20:08:00.000-08:00

Aunt Jenner decided started calling Gwen "Cinderella" and Amelia, "Snow White", after they were born. While shopping at Halloween time, I somehow came across tiny princess costumes for each of them. It was so cute!

Laura

Thanksgiving at Grandma's

2009-01-19T20:05:00.000-08:00

We had so much fun at Grandma's house. Great Grandma was visiting as well and there was lots of fun book reading! We got to meet cousin Gwen for the first time. Of course, we played a really fun game of "night night." Kate is "the best Aunt Kate ever!", according to Sawyer.

Nature photographers

2009-01-19T19:57:00.000-08:00

We played Nature Photographers a lot this fall. So much fun stuff to look at.

Family fun at the lake

2009-01-19T19:49:00.000-08:00

Hiking with Dad

2009-01-19T19:42:00.000-08:00

This could possibly be my favorite picture ever. We were at Teller Lake this fall.
Laura

Practicing for my senior picture

2009-01-06T20:01:00.000-08:00

Since my Dad will be taking it then anyway.

Finally!

2009-01-06T19:57:00.000-08:00

The tag-along has been hanging in our basement for years. Every few months, Sawyer made us get it down to see if his legs were long enough. Finally, this fall, he could just reach the pedals, and with the pedal blocks Jerry added to it, he could ride it! He loves it and he can ride on the roads with Daddy or Mommy. Amelia gets the trailer to herself without being scrunched next to her brother.

2009-01-06T19:42:00.000-08:00

Here we are at the family neighborhood Halloween cruiser ride. We had a blast.

My little snow white.

Halloween Fun

2009-01-06T19:40:00.000-08:00

Sawyer had a great time trick or treating this year. We went with one of his best friends from school, Grace.

Where did the fall go?

2009-01-06T19:25:00.000-08:00

I can't believe I haven't put a post up in 2.5 months. I have tons of wonderful pictures to post. The fall just flew by. I think it was the most beautiful fall we have had in Colorado. Or maybe it was just that I wasn't working, so the kids and I spent everyday outside. It was just heaven. Here we are at Pella Crossing in Hygiene and Jerry and Sawyer climbed up into a big old tree while on a bike ride.
Laura

Bedtime

2008-10-25T20:58:00.000-07:00

Sawyer is reading Amelia a bedtime story. Amelia is holding her favorite doll, "kiki", who is always sleeps with.

Super hero fun

2008-10-24T20:01:00.000-07:00

Amelia wanted to play superheros too. Sawyer was just a few months older than Amelia when he was superman for Halloween. Now he is quite partial to his black spidy outfit.

Danpa's birthday visit

2008-10-24T19:42:00.000-07:00

Grandpa Dan, "Danpa" visited on his birthday. We went out to eat at Red Robin. Uncle Jon joined us. We also did some "naturing" by the St Vrain River. Danpa is a big hit at our house.

Sawyer's first day of preschool

2008-09-03T20:03:00.000-07:00

Precious moments

2008-08-24T19:48:00.000-07:00

Today, we had 2 of those rare and precious moments where it all seems worth it to have 2 kids so close together (most of the time it is total insanity, not to be recommended). Twice, Amelia went up to Sawyer and give him a big hug and he hugged her back. The just laid there together hugging. It was so cute. She loves him so much.

On Friday night, we biked downtown to the Festival on Main Street. Amelia and Sawyer were in the trailer together just laughing and playing together. They were having so much fun scrunched in there together. It was so fun to hear them giggling. Of course on the way home, they screamed almost the whole way and we had to stop a million times. Amelia kept trying to pull Sawyer's band-aid off and he was freaking out. (Sawyer fell at the festival and we didn't have a bandaid, so Jerry, aka Recyle McGiver (see next post) made one out of a tissue and a piece of a sticker he had on his water bottle).

Fun times with TeamJT.

Laura

Recyle McGiver

2008-08-24T19:32:00.000-07:00

Jerry is the master at fixing things out of nothing (hence the 2 bike trailers). He makes his own parts all the time to fix things. When he worked at the Y, they used to call him "Recyle McGiver" for his ability to fix anything out of stuff around.

He also is a master at finding everything we need at the thrift store or on freecyle. His motto is, "If you wait long enough, eventually it will show up." This has proven to be true many times (those of you can attest who have seen his beautiful Italian espresso make in our kitchen). Yesterday, Jerry saw a really nice tiny kids bike by Raleigh in the metal recyling bin. It was way nicer then the Huffy from the thrift store Sawyer has been riding. Jerry pulled it out and fixed the flat and tuned it up and it works great. It isn't even scratched up. Why on earth someone would dump it and not at least give it to the thrift is hard to understand.

Today, Sawyer was so excited about his new bike and he and Jerry rode it over to our friends, Wendy and John's house so he could show them. Wendy asked Sawyer where he got the new bike, and Sawyer replied, "My Dad bought it at the garbage." I am laughing so hard even as I type this.

I will get a picture up for you to see it soon, but I had to type the post before I forgot because it is so funny. It will definately go down as one of the all time great finds (along with the espresso machine).

Laura

Longmont Criterium

2008-08-10T21:15:00.000-07:00

A few blocks away at Thompson park, they hold a criterium, which is a fancy word for a bicycle road race that goes in circles. We rode our bikes down to watch and the kids thought it was so exciting. Amelia would just scream with excitement whenever they went by, creating such a big wind. Our friend Justin was in town from his travels and was in the race.

More res pics

2008-08-10T21:08:00.000-07:00

This was a super fun day. Kids just love the beach and digging in the sand.

You may have noticed the proliferation of blog posts lately. We use Picassa for our photo viewer and now there is a button on it that you can just select your pictures, then click "Blog this" and it opens up the pictures in a post for you. It is so easy! I think back to when Sawyer was born and it took 25 minutes to get one picture on a post done. It was so ardous. It only seems to handle 4 pictures at a time thought, hence the multiple posts in one day.

Union Res

2008-08-10T21:01:00.000-07:00

We got the blow up boat out at the res the other day. Amelia did great! And Sawyer had a blast too.

More summer fun

2008-08-10T20:57:00.000-07:00

Here is Sawyer crawdad fishing with his best friend Colby, with hotdogs on homemade fishing poles made out of yarn, sticks and paperclips (thanks Anna). At the bottom Amelia was "fixing" Sawyer's bike with a wrench. The girl doesn't miss a trick. She watches everything going on and then tries it herself.

Final days of Summer

2008-08-10T20:53:00.000-07:00

Here is Amelia in my favorite little dress of hers (thanks Mom!). Just a few months ago it was around her ankles. Mom also sent a new water table for the kids to play with and they love it. It is nice to have something new in the yard to do because it is getting harder to keep them busy lately.

Learning to ride

2008-08-05T19:32:00.000-07:00

At the begining of the Summer Sawyer was telling me about his dreams. He was describing the stories he saw in his sleep, and then he looked at me very seriously and said "I have an outside dream too." He went on to say that he really wanted to be able to ride his bike without balancers (training wheels).

Two weeks ago I got him a push bike, and he took to it immediately. Today he rode his bike without training wheels. Aside from being a lot of fun I would have to say that these push bikes really work.

I decided to learn how to unicycle this summer. It started with an old Schwinn that I picked up at the thrift store, and a youtube video of Kris Holm bombing down a freeride course on one wheel. It was really nice learning along with Sawyer. We played chase and race games and he won most of the time. Now I am very comfortable on both of my unicycles, and the mountain bike trails are next.

Cut from the same cloth

2008-08-01T21:13:00.000-07:00

Well, we definately got another high energy, very happy little one. Hmmm. Nature or nurture? Amelia has figured out how to go down the slide by herself and is very proud of herself. Now if she could just figure out how to get back to the steps fast enough without Sawyer lapping her each time and sneaking in an extra turn.

If she had a Native American name it might have to be She who walks with One Shoe. She seems to always have one pink croc shoe on (and a hat, loves hats). Today I told her that we were going to go in the car, and then a minute later I saw her naked body walking towards the door with her hat and shoes on. She obviously thought she had got herself ready to go.

Look at me! I am a regular girl!

2008-08-01T20:58:00.000-07:00

Hi everyone. Amelia here. Sawyer said that I am a little girl now (not a baby anymore). I love running around with Sawyer. We like to run around the house screaming. Boy do my parents love that. I love to dress up too. Here I am running around with my favorite hat, my tutu and my white leather sandles that I my counsin Cassidy had when she was little.

No more high chair for me either. I sit at the big table on my booster chair with a plate, just like my big brother. Now if I could just talk then I wouldn't have to scream so much, but it least I have got my signs, like more, change/potty, milk, and help. I have got some words like mama, dattee (daddy), mik (milk), dis, dat, yeah, bike, neck, ball, car, hot, and I have said Dawyer and few times but that is a tough one.

Bye, Bye!

Bike NIght

2008-07-30T10:54:00.000-07:00

Every wednesday is Longmont Bike night. Sawyer and I have been going every week with our friend Kelly. We ride around Old Town and on occasion end up at the Dairy Queen on main street.

2 Trailer family

2008-07-30T09:42:00.000-07:00

We are on our bikes every day, going to the park, the pool, and errands. Jerry picked up a broken trailer at the thrift store to get parts off of it to fix our first trailer (also from the thrift store). However, we was able to fix them both. So we are a 2 trailer family now. It helps when we go to the pool to get all the gear with both the kids. Here we are at a festival down the street from our house at the St. Vrain river. There is a horn in each trailer for the kids to honk and they just love it.

Swinging into action on Sawyers web

2008-07-15T21:39:00.000-07:00

Amelia really looks up to her big brother, and one day he wasn't around when she found his SPIDERMAN costume...

She really likes playing dress up, and she puts clothes on her head when she wants us to put them on her. She was soooooooo excited to have Sawyer's black spiderman shirt on.

Summer Staycation 2008

2008-07-05T17:04:00.000-07:00

Due to limited funds and the sheer difficulty of getting anywhere with 2 kids ages 3 and under, we are staying home in Colorado this summer again. Hardly a shabby place to have to spend the summer. Although, August on the front range is atrocious for a Wisconsin girl like myself. So hot and dry. Ugh.

We made a list of lots of day trips we could take with the kids. We had to dig back to our YMCA days when we first moved to Boulder when taking kids on trips was what we did for a living. Here is our first "mountain climb" at Rabbit Mountain. between Longmont and Lyons. Sawyer got a book from the library about a boy who climbs a little mountain near his house, and he couldn't wait to go. It was very adventurous. Sawyer bumped into stinging nettle. I haven't found stinging nettle in Colorado since I was on a backpacking trip in college near Aspen with my friend Caitlin. Sawyer did have a lot of fun using the binoculars and making it to the stop of the mountain (really the saddle, but we could look out the other side).

Mommy picture

2008-07-05T16:59:00.000-07:00

I added a picture of myself at 5months to compare with the kids, see below.

Caught on camera

2008-06-30T17:09:00.000-07:00

For those of you who know Sawyer, he is the happiest, most energetic, and excitable little guy you will ever meet (wonder where he gets that from?). He speaks in exclamation points. Here he is looking at a water cascading from a rock fountain. This expression is priceless. As his aunt Jenner always says, "His cup runeth over."

Siblings

2008-06-27T16:13:00.000-07:00

I never really thought that Sawyer and Amelia had many similarities, since Sawyer looks just like Jerry and Amelia looks so much like me. However, here are some baby pictures that look pretty similar. I think they are both around 5 months since they are playing in their excersaucers (pre sitting and crawling). Sawyer doesn't have any teeth or hair yet. It is amazing how fast we forget!

Here is a picture of me at 5 months. The only similarity I see is the half moon shape eyes that Amelia has when she smiles too.

Amelia turns 1!

2008-06-18T17:01:00.001-07:00

Ok, so it was 2 1/2 months ago, but it was a big event. Amelia has already changed so much since her birthday. Her little dresses were that were down to her shins at her birthday are now up around her knees. She started walking at 14 months, and today spent more time on her feet then crawling. She has a lot of babbling baby talk, and repeats lots of words she hears. Grandpa Dan got her to say "tree" and "stick". She "dat" and"dis" a lot for things that she wants. She also says "ball" fairly regularly, which was Sawyer's first word. As Sawyer says, "She is turning into a regular girl." She is so cute and we can't believe we have such a beautiful little girl along with our amazing little guy. How could one family be so lucky.

Beautiful views

2008-03-25T20:03:00.000-07:00

Little Amelia is so cute. Here she is flashing her teeth. She has 3 on top and 2 on the bottom now. She is walking around with her push walker and is very proud of herself. She is working on standing on her own now which is also very delighting to her. She is determined to keep up with her brother!

Jerry took some pictures of the view from our yard. Ah, Colorado.

Sawyer turns 3!

2008-01-30T19:19:00.001-08:00

What a blowout Spiderman birthday party it was. A homemade chocolate cake from Jerry (yes he can eat real cake now), a giant red and blue spider's web on the ceiling and lots of spidey presents. When I asked him which was better, his birthday or Christmas, it was really no contest, his birthday won out. When it was time to open presents, each time he picked one out of the pile, he looked at me at said, "Who is this one for?" and each time I replied, "It is for you. It is your birthday, they are all for you." It was so cute. We didn't even need the presents. The cake, decorations, cousins, friends, who could need more. At the end of the day, Jerry joked and said we could have given him a piece of string, and he would have been so excited and said "A piece of string!?! For me?! "

P.S. Thanks Aunt Kate for the Spidey ensemble!

Happy New Year!

2008-01-20T17:32:00.001-08:00

Here we are enjoying a beautiful fall day. Our photographer friend Adam took a great family picture of us. www.adamkohnphotography.com

I am looking forward to a new year of lots of milestones for Amelia, not being pregnant, and putting the worst of the sleep deprivation behind us. TeamJT is now complete and we are excited for future adventures in 2008 with the 4 of us.

Laura

The Christmas Miracle

2007-12-31T17:49:00.000-08:00

Parents of an infant and a 2 year old are never allowed to sit down and have dinner. However, on Christmas Eve after the kids had eaten, they all went to our living room to enjoy their new gifts (we open cousin presents on Christmas eve). After a little while, we looked in and found this scene, all kids completely happy. Cassidy had put Amelia in her jumper and she was loving watching everyone. We were planning on moving over to the living room, but didn't want to disrupt what we saw. A special thanks to cousin Cassidy for being such a super cousin.

SawyerCam

2007-12-31T15:08:00.000-08:00

Sawyer is turning out to be quite the photographer, here are some pix from his new camera. Enjoy!

Xmas2007

2007-12-31T14:29:00.000-08:00

What a great Christmas we had. Fran and Dan were in town for the holidays. Sawyer was so excited for Santa to come. Here we are looking at a new book from Peter and Ginny.

Portraits

2007-11-23T19:34:00.000-08:00

Fall Fun

2007-11-23T13:05:00.000-08:00

It has been a busy fall. Here we are at the pumpkin patch on a beautiful fall day. Mom was here to visit.
There we are hiking, or according to Sawyer, going on a leaf hunt. Amelia is sitting really well now (see her good posture.) And there is always lots of fun at the park.

TeamJT Good Times

2007-11-13T19:24:00.000-08:00

Fall is here, and we are in full swing here at TeamJT. Sawyer and Amelia love to play with each other. I'm sure that Sawyer can't wait until Amelia can really play with him, but for now he is happy just playing around her, and she gets a kick out of watching him.

"I want to surf in the sky!"

2007-10-28T19:26:00.000-07:00

Sawyer and Jerry are already getting ready for the ski season and have been watching clips of Sean White on youtube. Sawyer can't wait to ski this year and said, "I want to be like Sean White and surf in the sky!" Jerry picked up a really nice Salomon snow board at the thrift store when Sawyer was still on the inside, already dreaming of the future. Sawyer was getting a little practice in the living room, and with a little computer help, Jerry made his dream come true in pictures.

Amelia's half birthday

2007-10-28T19:11:00.000-07:00

Life is pretty crazy now that we are back to work full swing and it is hard to find the time to get posts on the blog. Boy, the blissful days of summer with all the time in the world to update the blog seem far away now. We have tons of pictures so I am going to try to get the highlights up. Here is Amelia's 6 month birthday. Amelia was having fun enjoying her solid food, and the rest of us enjoyed her cake, especially Sawyer. Of course, we made the chocolate chip family favorite. Amelia is a great eater, just like Sawyer was, and gobbles up the solid food.

Dynamic Duo

2007-09-16T18:26:00.000-07:00

We got a new double jogging stroller which the kids just love it! We had one cold day last weekend, so the kids were bundled up. They love being right next to each other. Amelia is just big enough for a regular stroller, so I can easily take them both out now.

Here is my little nature girl, just like her mom.

Amelia loves her little kittly from Ginny and Abby. Amelia has the biggest smile. The comment everyone used to say about Sawyer was that he
was so alert. About Amelia, they say, "What a smiley baby!" She was blowing bubbles at everyone at Target today.

Video Clips!

2007-08-28T18:32:00.000-07:00

Just before Sawyer was born, Jerry said to me, "Let's start a blog." Of course, since I am not on the cutting edge of things like Jerry, I said, "What is a blog?" He told me it is an online journal, and I said, "Why would we want that?" Jerry said we could use it to post stuff about Sawyer and our family and put pictures on. Sounds silly now, since everyone knows what a blog is now, but just a few years ago it was so new.

It was so complicated to put the pictures on, and we had to host them on different sites and add links. I actually had to learn to write HTML, which was a lot for me. We went through 4 image servers and they all kept dropping the pictures. We finally got frusterated and gave up.

Luckily, things are much easier now. Jerry told me that they were beta testing (whatever that means, I thought) a way to put video clips on now. He has been waiting for it to be available for weeks. This week, the button appeared to add video, just in time for Amelia to start rolling over. Jerry immediatly had the video camera going, and we are back on the cutting edge. Jerry also added added a link to have an email sent to you when we add a new post. I thought I was so fancy when I added a link to Kate and Ian's blog a few weeks ago with my limited HTML writing skills. It has been so fun to keep it going now, and since I am not so much of a scrap booking kind of person, we are going to cache the blog for posterity. It keeps me on my toes knowing that Sawyer and Amelia will be able to read it when they get older.

Laura

Amelia rolls over

2007-08-25T12:35:00.000-07:00

Yesterday morning around 7am, Amelia was laying on her playmat, and she just flipped herself up and pushed up on her arms like she had done it a thousand times already. Then she rolled back over the other way on her back again. It is fun to see her growing and changing so much. However, now she won't just stay where I put her and I am going to have to be a lot more careful. Funny how things are so different with the second one. With the first, you just can't wait for the milestones. With the second, you don't want them to come so quickly.

Amelia's first food

2007-08-18T19:34:00.001-07:00

Amelia has just finished an enormous growth spurt that ended just in time for school to start, thank heaven! She went from going to sleep around 7pm and eating only once in the night, even 3 time all the way through until 6, to eating every 2-3 hours for 2 weeks. She even went back to that dreaded 11-12 o-clock feeding.  Total delirum set back in. She gained about 2 lbs and was 14lbs 2 oz(48 percentile) at her 4 month visit, which has been several weeks now . She was 24.5" long (46 percentile) and 16.5" round her head (67 percentile). I have to say the the height and head circumferance measurements and not an exact science they way they wiggle around, and she seems to jump aournd the percentiles on these a lot.

The doctor recommended starting the rice cereal to help us get some rest. She took to the food like a champ, and is following in her brother's footsteps and we can't shovel it in fast enough now.   She gets one meal at dinner of rice cereal and the rest milk. We are waiting for additional food until 6 months, given the family history of food allergies. She is now back to getting up just once a night and made it to 5 pm 2 nights ago.  whew!  I hope the next growth spurt isn't as rough, and she should be on several meals a day of
solids by then.

She loves playing with toys now and rotates between her excersaucer, play tent, bumbo chair, mobile
and more. She loves watching Sawyer and gets bored when he is not around.  Sawyer brings her toys to play
with and is a great big brother, except that his hugs are a little too tight much of the time still.  My sister Kate said is sounded like the Bugs Bunny episode with the monster ," I will love her, and pet her, and play with her, and call
her my baby Melia . . ."

Back to school

2007-08-18T19:21:00.000-07:00

Sawyer started preschool this week every morning. It is a big milesone for him. The first a couple of days were pretty rough separating. But by friday there were no tears, and on saturday he woke up and said he wanted to go to school. We are glad to be through the transition. The pictures are from the first day, and due to the apprehension, we didn't get the cheesy smile in front of the school shot. But he was very excited about pulling his new Diego backpack on wheels.

Amelia started at Sawyer's previous home daycare in the mornings and seems to be transitioning well. Jerry and I are finding the days at school easier than the days home. School seems to be doing a good job of slowing Sawyer down a bit from his seemingly endless
amount of energy, much to our relief.

Last days of summer

2007-08-15T09:09:00.001-07:00

Summer is winding down, and it is nice to have some cooler days, at least cooler nights. Here are some pictures of hiking with the Eiss's and Abby on the Red Rocks trail. Amelia is now able to ride in the backpack and she loves it. Also a picture of Sawyer at the Boulder County Fair with his friend Avery. We are all getting ready to go back to school soon.

Sawyer's Super Summer

2007-08-04T11:07:00.000-07:00

Sawyer has been having a great summer.   He is so lucky to be "Daddy's Buddy" and have his Daddy take him on adventures every day when Amelia is home sleeping in the morning. We all spend most afternoons at the pool when it is too hot to do anything else and Amelia is ready to be out and about.  We have one week left of summer and then Sawyer starts preschool in the morning the next week when I go to work.   Here are some more highlights of his summer.



Sawyer plays in his garden almost every day. His dump trucks help scoop the dirt. Here he is holding a pepper. On the right he is playing badmitten at his cousin's summer party, the Burrito Bash.

He loves helping out. Here he is in the kitchen helping make a sauce for dinner.



Sawyer is just old enough to start rock climbing at the Rec. Center. He has been mostly bouldering,and gone a couple of times on the rope. Jerry puts a raisin at the top of the holds and Sawyer climbs up aand gets a treat at the top.

The Happiest Baby on the Block

2007-08-03T08:44:00.000-07:00

Amelia just laughs and smiles all of the time. Here is mommy and Amelia in the yard. She is so close to rolling over. She can flip her hiips all of the way over, but
is still a little stuck on herarm to push up and lift her head up.

Canoeing

2007-07-28T11:20:00.000-07:00

Sawyer's newest activity is canoeing. Jerry and Sawyer have been going a lot in the mornings. They have seen fish jumping in the water, foxes, pelicans, great blue herrons, and toads. As you can imagine, Sawyer loves it. There is a park across the lake, so they canoe across, play at the park and canoe back. This last trip, we took turns canoeing while the other parent walked around the lake on the path with Amelia. Sawyer helps carry his paddle and enjoys throwing stones in the lake.

Baby Bumbo

2007-07-28T08:33:00.000-07:00

We got a bumbo chair for Amelia. She loves it! Every time we had her in the car seat, she would try to sit up. Now she can look all around. Of course, Sawyer is one of the most entertaining things to look at. Looking out the window is pretty good too.

My little peanut . . .

2007-07-27T10:08:00.000-07:00

Amelia is getting control of her hands and reaching for things now. She put Earl E. Bird toy in her mouth today.

Amelia is 4 months!

2007-07-25T12:56:00.000-07:00

March 25 - July 25, 2007

In honor of Amelia's 4 month birthday today, I am posting highlights from her birth and the first few days that we never got up on the blog. She was born 8 lbs 6oz (80th percentile!), and 20 1/2" inches long. She was born at 11:32pm after a very long labor (30 hours, ugh). But we came through with a
regular birth (Sawyer was by C-section). It seems to be going so fast already. She is a 3rd of the way through her first year already! She is a very happy baby, smiling and laughing all of the time. Her new favorite activity is blowing bubbles.

Miracle of Miracles

2007-07-15T18:35:00.000-07:00

Last night both kids slept for 12 hours! 6:30pm to 6:30 am. It is the 3rd time in a year that I have slept through the night. It is easy to keep track of the days since the number is so small. When Sawyer woke us up at 6:30, and Amelia was still quiet, of course I got a little nervous. So I peaked in and she was happily kicking around in her bed. Amelia has made it a few nights now until 5, but it didn't feel that great because Sawyer was up those nights needing to go to the bathroom or soothing from a bad dream. Today my brain feels like it has cobwebs cleared out.

Now that I have the blog up and running again, I had fun reading back through the old posts. So I dug out the old CDs and put all the pictures back on. Feel free to puruse through the archives and see Sawyer growing up.

Here are pictures from this week . . .

Sawyer eating the first tomato from the garden.

Finally a smile caught on camera.

Amelia out and about.

Sawyer at the playground.

We're back!

2007-07-07T18:21:00.000-07:00

It has been a long time since we posted anything. I have been inspired by my sister Kate to reinvigorate our blog since she started her own when her daughter Gwen was born. I don't want Amelia to have the "second child syndrome" and not have any picture of her. Now that we can add pictures directly from blogger it will be so much easier!

We have been having a great summer, and we are at the pool almost every day. We had a great turnout for our annual 4th of July party, and lots of our long time friends came. Sawyer finally was able to stay up late enough to watch them, and you would have thought he was a teenage girl at a Beetles concert the way he was screaming.

Here are some recent pics of the family:

Here is Jerry and Amelia by her favorite curtains.

Here is Amelia playing with her dress.

I will just call this one "mini me."

Sawyer being silly in his spidey pjs.

Sawyer is getting pretty good on his scooter.

We will try to stay on top of blog again so we can keep everyone in the loop. It will force us to keep trying to get good pictures. Until next time!

Winter when you want it!

2006-02-28T17:36:00.000-08:00

So, we haven't really had much snow or even cold weather down in Longmont, but luckily we live in a place where winter is just a short drive away. We went snowshoeing with Sawyer during our winter break, and he loved it. This was his first glimpse at tons of snow.

Sawyer Walks!

2006-02-09T15:55:00.000-08:00

Sawyer is a week shy of his 13th month and he is spending more time on his feet than crawling. it's still a bit shaky, but it's coming along very quickly.

His First Birthday!

2006-02-05T11:42:00.000-08:00

Sawyer is ONE! I know that this happened about two weeks ago, but it seemed like a good way to get back into the swing of things with the blog. Anyway, things are going great, and we shoud have some good pix of him walking soon.

Back again!

2006-02-04T20:57:00.000-08:00

O.K. well we don't have a picture just yet, but it's on the way. We had some problems with our image server, and now I think that it is all fixed so we should be able to keep up with our regular updates. Thanks to all of the people who have been reminding me to get this back up. I didn't realize that so many people check our blog as much as they do.

Thanks again.

Labor Day weekend - growing so fast!

2005-09-05T19:28:00.000-07:00

Sawyer has changed so much in the last month, it is unbelievable! He is crawling all over the place and it pulling himself up to a stand a lot. A few times he even has let go to try to balance himself. He has 2 small teeth in the lower front. He is eating a ton. In this picture, you can see that his face is really getting older looking, and he is looking more like a little boy instead of a baby. His hair is constantly sticking up, just like mine used to do. We were enjoying a nice day up in Estes Park this weekend. We predict he will be an early walker!

Laura

At the farm

2005-08-21T19:17:00.000-07:00

We bought a farm share this summer and have been getting armloads of organic produce each week from a local farm in Longmont. Here is Sawyer checking out the chickens. He is crawling all around now, and as you can see here, he can support himself in a stand.

Below is Sawyer really enjoying a hike with Jerry.

Beat the heat

2005-07-27T17:44:00.000-07:00

It has been so hot, and we have been swimming a lot to beat the heat. Here he is swimming in Fran and Dan's back yard. As you can see he has become very skilled at sitting up on his own. He can also got onto all 4 fours and rock back and forth. Dan gave him crawling lessons, but he hasn't quite figured out how to move forward yet. We are sure it will be soon though!

First Food

2005-06-18T20:02:00.000-07:00

Sawyer started solids recently. Here is a picture of his first experience with rice cereal. He is moved on to sweet pototoes, and likes those much better. Today he finally figured out that the spoon has food on it and is opening his mouth for it. Before, we would just try to get him to laugh, and then put the food in.

Below is a picture of Sawyer laughing, which he does a lot. We realized that in many of the of the pictures, he looks so serious. He loves his excer saucer, and I caught this picture at a particularly joyful time.

Laura

Fam's in town for the Bolder Boulder

2005-05-31T17:28:00.000-07:00

Abby and Ginny reading books with Sawyer

Peter laying down some old time licks with the boy!

Going BackPacking!!!!!

2005-05-23T21:25:00.000-07:00

Sawyer loves going for walks in his new backpack. We are exploring the neighborhood big time with the newfound mobility sans stroller. He just can't get enough of those wonderfull old town sights. Big thanks to Jon and Wendy for the backpack.

Sawyer sits

2005-05-18T15:08:00.000-07:00

With the help of his baby boppy, Sawyer has started to sit. He is still growing like a weed, and is about 15 pounds now. Carrying him around is really building up my arm muscles!

Laura

SWIMMING!

2005-05-11T17:09:00.000-07:00

Sawyer went swimming for the first time and he loved it! We were lucky enough to go with our friend Lauren who has taught baby swim classes. She taught us how to make him hold his breath by blowing in his face and then doing a quick dunk under the water. Swimming is going to be a regular activity for him now.

Franma & Danpa

2005-04-11T10:54:00.000-07:00

We have been enjoying our spring break for the past week. It's nice to have a 9 day weekend once in a while. Fran and Dan came to visit for the last couple of days, and Sawyer couldn't be more thrilled. He just can't stop talking about how nice the visit has been. To be honest talking is a bit of a stretch, but he sure does babble a lot.

The Lorax Speaks for our tree too!

2005-03-27T17:48:00.000-08:00

As many of our friends and family already know, we had to get a tree cut down due to untimely death about a year ago. I decided to dress up the stump with a little Dr. Suess thanks to Kate for the idea.

Baby on the Town!

2005-03-27T11:19:00.000-08:00

Wendy and John Herron join us for a good ol' fashioned FAC at the Southern Sun. It's been a while since we have been able to get out on a Friday night, but the stars were alligned and we all had a great time. Sawyer was on his best behavior, and we heard about how lucky we are to have such a mild mannered baby.

Kate and Ian visit

2005-03-13T12:15:00.000-08:00

It has been awhile, but we are still here. The last few weeks have been a push of sorts. We have been going without the usual help from far away places, and haven't been able to get onto the net as handily. Anyway life on the front range is still going well.

We were just visited by Kate and Ian, Sawyers aunt and uncle from the twin cities. It was a great time for all, and here is a picture to show how much Sawyer enjoyed their stay...