We learned a couple of things when our fire alarm falsely went off starting at 5 a.m. this morning:
1) Bode can sleep through anything.
2) Fat Kitty (who’s still MIA) is a “save yourself” kinda cat.
Lessons learned at 5 a.m. and 5:10 a.m. and 5:20 a.m….
September 17, 2013 By
True love in the form of a hot dog
September 12, 2013 By
Hadley and I aren’t big fans of hot dogs so I never have them at the house unless we’re planning to roast them over a nice campfire.
However, I recently saw some healthy-ish all-natural chicken-pineapple hot dogs made by Aidells Sausage Company (which we love) so I figured I’d take a chance.
They were a hit!
Hadley gobbled hers down in record time and I asked what she thought.
“I love it, Mom. And it’s not one of those things I’m saying so I don’t hurt your feelings. I really love it.”
“You never do that.”
“True.”
On Being Unaccepted
September 9, 2013 By
In the LDS Church, everyone is assigned home (men) and visiting (women) teachers to come by once a month to check in with their assigned people in the ward. Yesterday, our home teachers Kent and Jordan came by to visit and impart some words of wisdom.
Of course, we can never make things easy on anyone.
Kent shared a nice story by Elder Kopischke from LDS General Conference (read the full talk “Being Accepted of the Lord” here):
When I was a boy, I remember my father sometimes taking me with him to work on projects. We had a little garden a few kilometers from where we lived, and there was always so much to do to prepare the garden each season. We worked on the gazebo or built or repaired fences. In my memory this work always occurred in the freezing cold, heavy snow, or pouring rain. But I loved it. My father would teach me how to do things with patience and acceptance.
One day he invited me to tighten a screw and warned, “Remember, if you put it in too tight, it will break.” Proudly, I wanted to show him what I could do. I tightened with all my might, and, of course, I broke the screw. He made a funny comment, and we started over. Even when I “messed up,” I always felt his love and confidence in me. He passed away more than 10 years ago, but I can still hear his voice, sense his love, enjoy his encouragement, and feel his acceptance.
Kent turned to the kids.
“I’m sure you guys help your dad with stuff, right?”
Long pause. “Not really.”
I jumped in. “They help Jamie with the garden but mostly, they help me and I’m always working with them on cooking and housework.”
Kent: “Oh.”
Me: “But kids, what is the moral of this nice story Kent shared?”
Silence.
Jamie jumped in: “THAT THEY NEED TO HELP ME OUT MORE!!!”
Better luck next month, Kent.
The day I almost lost a kid at a birthday party
September 3, 2013 By
I’m talking children’s birthday parties in the Denver Post this week!
As a kid, my birthday parties consisted of friends, games and a cake. I’m not sure what happened between my childhood and motherhood, but when my friend hired a party planner to throw an over-the-top fete for her 3-year-old, I was exposed to a whole new world.
I personally don’t think you need a lot of fuss when it comes to birthday parties — that it is possible to have fun and keep things affordable.
We have traditionally hosted at-home birthdays to keep the cost down but when my daughter was five, she begged to hold her party at
Click to keep reading Price Isn’t the Scariest Thing About Kid Parties (and the day I almost lost one of the kids)
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So, you want to plan a special event for your child’s next birthday but don’t want to break the bank. Kara Allen from the popular party idea site KarasPartyIdeas.com and author of the book “Kara’s Party Ideas” has these seven tips for throwing a spectacular bash.
Click to keep reading Tips for planning an affordable party.
Back-to-school: oh, how “special” it is
August 29, 2013 By
I talked a little bit about our frenzied first day and why I went back to bed but (horrors) I didn’t show my requisite first-day pictures. Hadley started on a Monday and Bode on Wednesday, which meant each of them could have the breakfast of their choice on our “You Are Special Today” plate.
Trust me, that plate doesn’t work at all when you have to share it on the same day. Kinda defeats the purpose.
Then, of course, their new outfits.
Is is just me or does Hadley look waaaaaaay too grown-up?
I’m feeling only OK about this school year. Hadley is in fourth grade and has looped with her same teacher (a Waldorf tradition). There’s good and bad in that. Good that we got a lot of kinks worked out last year and the teacher knows her strengths and weaknesses. Bad that I wish she had someone who knew how up to play to her weaknesses better. But best is this teacher loves experiential, multi-day field trips and that is what Hadley lives for.
As for Bode, welp, let’s just say he is rumored to have the worst teacher at his public school. I’m trying to keep an open mind about it because he’s a great student, a pleaser and highly adaptable in the classroom. Second grade is a mess with only one great teacher (whom Hadley had), the one Bode got and the third teacher isn’t great but she now has a grades 1 and 2 split class, which I’m glad we didn’t get.
His teacher’s first letter home didn’t exactly endear me to her, either. No, “welcome back!” or “I’m excited to get to know your kids!” It was:
“Attached is the S.T.A.R.S. rules matrix which outlines expected behavior in the classroom. We have gone over these together in class. PLEASE REVIEW THESE RULES WITH YOUR CHILD to ensure that you both know the expected behavior in the classroom at school.”
Doesn’t she sound like a lot of fun? Strict, I can deal with. It’s her rumored meanness, lack of competence and dislike of teaching that worry me. I hope to be pleasantly surprised. Anyone can change, right?
We had our most fun summer yet–these kids of mine are such adventurous souls and the older they get, the more I enjoy them. It helps that they got along marvelously and fought very minimally. When I kicked ‘em to the curb dropped them off at school, I felt a wave of sadness wash over me because I loved spending so much time together.
But then I had six glorious hours to myself where I worked, biked Bear Creek State Park, made peach pies and had a lunch meeting….
Hidden pond at Bear Creek State Park
….and I got over it.
My Evil (Murphy’s Law) Twin
August 27, 2013 By
We’re trying to navigate the road of being a one-car family since the accident. I thought it would be easy with both of us working from home but between driving kids around, meetings and errands, I’m finding how much I’d just get up and go whenever I wanted.
And confirmed I’m really really not a homebody because I’ve been stuck at home more than I’d like.
Fortunately, my neighbor Monica saved me from the house and suggested I show her the Ralston Creek Trail on our bikes today. I woke up bright and early this morning to pump my tires, which, as I’ve mentioned before, is one of my Top Five Least Favorite Things To Do right after moving, dieting and dying.
We loaded up our bikes into her SUV and drove to the trailhead. And then,
“Uh oh.”
“What’s wrong?” I asked.
“Look,” she said, pointing to her two flat tires.
She encouraged me to go without her but I stubbornly said I’d wait while she drove back home to pump her tires (it was too much of a pain to load both bikes in the back of her vehicle again).
And so I waited. And waited. And waited some more.
Eventually, she showed up…with her husband’s bike.
“What happened?”
“I couldn’t get the air compressor to work. It needs a different valve.”
“You have a road bike like mine and need a presta adapter to pump the tires.”
“I called Jamie to come help but he was busy. So I called my husband (who is out of town) and he said to just take his bike.”
In the end, we had a great ride but leading up to that point? It was hanging out with myself.
And not in a good way. 
The Other Woman
August 21, 2013 By
I’ve been so busy lately I haven’t had time for one of my favorite past times: mocking Jamie and the Great Pumpkin.
Truth be told, it’s been a tough season to mock because he’s been skipping around like a giddy school girl. The reason? His pumpkin, Stanley, is his biggest ever and is one of the largest in Colorado.
He’s never had a pumpkin weigh over 1,000 pounds and Stanley has likely surpassed that mark with 30 days still left to grow. But this is when it gets scary. It’s not uncommon for pumpkins of this size to split and there are a myriad of things that could go wrong that would disqualify him from the competition.
His work schedule is a lot more reasonable these days vs. the 15-hour days of yesteryear so I honestly haven’t had an issue with how much time he spends out there because there is plenty left for us. However, I’ve been very forthcoming that my version of “quality time” does not include gardening so I rarely go back to the patch, simply monitoring its growth from the bedroom window.
On Friday night, he announced:
“You need to come to the patch to me.”
“OK, just give me a few minutes.”
“Make it quick. The light is perfect.”
Mood lighting? What was the guy up to? A make-out session under the pumpkin vines? Naught fella, that Jamie.
As soon as we walked out to the patch, I saw his ulterior motive.
“Can you take a picture of me with the pumpkin?”
“So this is why you wanted me out here?”
He didn’t argue so I snapped away.
Cuz it’s pretty tough to compete with a 1,000 beauty like her.
Our not-so memorable first day of school
August 19, 2013 By
Today marks the first day of fourth grade for my daughter. To make it special, we always buy a cute outfit and I make a delicious breakfast of their choosing. Well, kind of. As executive chef, I have the power to kibosh anything that doesn’t meet my criteria.
“I want doughnuts,” she declared.
“I’m not going to the store at dawn to buy you fresh doughnuts,” I countered. “Pick anything I can make at home.”
I listed off sweet breads, cinnamon rolls, waffles, egg souffle and pancakes before she ultimately decided upon crepes with fresh strawberries and whipped cream.
Note to my daughter’s anti-junk-food school: We made her a protein shake chock full of fresh fruit and vitamins, which should delay her sugar crash by at least a couple of hours. #You’reWelcome
And then I had a near-sleepless night. I’d like to say it was back-to-school jitters but it was mostly an overheated house and a night-before-Christmas mentality that I’ll finally have a few hours to myself every day. OK, that might very well be better than Christmas.
After tossing and turning for hours, I gave in to my insomnia and started working at 4:45 a.m. A couple of hours later, I trudged down to the kitchen to start her breakfast. Soon, I noticed a putrid smell, took a big whiff and realized it was coming from the milk. Are. You. Kidding. Me? If you’ve never made crepes, this is a key ingredient.
My daughter started coming down the stairs at that exact moment I was leaving.
“What are you doing?” she queried.
“The milk is bad. I’m going to the store!” Where I proceeded to buy more milk and also some….
.…doughnuts.
With a start like that, this is going to be a long year.
Our son: Age seven going on 70
August 16, 2013 By
We bought both the kids new mountain bikes this summer (well, new-to-us from Craigslist). We’ve done a ton of hiking and adventuring but not much biking these days. One night, we decided to take them out for a spin and Hadley proposed we take the boys to our secret swamp in an Open Space park near our house.
Actually when we got there, she was mad about revealing our secret spot. Though she said “swamp,” she didn’t mean swamp and had intended for us to go on a secret trail and “why aren’t you a mind reader, Mom?”
Girl drama aside, she quickly recovered from our misunderstanding and took us on on an adventure that wound over dirt, rocks and plenty of bumps. It was Bode’s first off-piste trail on his new bike and he was not. Happy. About. It. Over and over again, he shouted out:
“I AM GOING TO REGRET 60 PERCENT OF THIS!”
And my favorite: “CURSE YOU!”
Good thing the other 40 percent of him had a great time.
My evil plan for my burgeoning chef
August 13, 2013 By
I love the LDS Church’s children’s program’s, which are focused on service, developing faith and goal-setting. Between the ages of 8 and 11, children are challenged to complete their Faith in God and when they are 12-17, the young women do Personal Process while the young men to scouting and Duty to God.
Many people marvel how good our youth are. It’s because we keep ‘em so busy they can’t get into trouble.
Hadley has been slowly working on her Faith in God goals. I say slowly because I don’t want to make goal-setting a negative stress and have been letting her choose what new challenges she’d like to take on at her own pace. Under “Developing Talents,” she decided she wanted to cook us a healthy, gourmet meal. She and Bode frequently help me in the kitchen but this was by far her most ambitious attempt: Grilled coconut-lime chicken skewers with peanut dipping sauce, garlic and truffle oil mushrooms, honey-ginger green beans and made-from-scratch brownies.
She spent several hours with me in the kitchen and, though we were both exhausted, she was delighted with the result and declared she loved cooking.
So do I. Especially when someone else (like an unsuspecting kid) takes over dinner duty from me in a few years. #MyEvilPlan
She set the table in our best china and called us all to dinner. With each bite, she waited with great anticipation for us to pour on the praises, which Jamie and I did. Bode, on the other hand, was reluctant.
“C’mon, Bode. Just try the peanut dipping sauce. It is delicious,” she begged.
And then my personal favorite as her frustration grew, “Do you know how long this took me to make, Bode?”
Couldn’t have said it better myself. In fact, I pretty much do every. Single. Week.
After we finished cleaning up, she looked at me with great appreciation and said, “Wow, Mom. You do a lot of work to prepare our meals every day.”
And it was so nice that she finally acknowledged it.
I'm a Canadian-born mom of two, former Denver Post columnist, family travel writer, editor of MileHighMamas.com and 9News contributor. Expert on all things Utah, Denver, family and travel. Lover of laughter and life. Happily married to a man obsessed with growing The Great Pumpkin. 