Waterworld with Joshua

When we moved here, little did we know there were so many cool things to do around here.

Waterworld is one of them. I've only been to a couple of water parks in my life (one of them was in France) so my opinion isn't worth much but I'll still brag that this one is the best in the world! It is huge and very family friendly. Although Josh isn't 3, there were plenty of cool rides to do with him.

I think his favorite ride was the voyage to the center of the Earth; a giant tube ride with fake Dinosaurs, and freaky sounds and lights. He was really quiet during the ride and I was afraid he was going to come out of it terrified, but instead he jumped out of the tube and said "Dinosaurs, so much fun! Do it again!". And he called the tubes "boats" the whole time we were there.

It was a little difficult for him to wait in line so long (up to 40min for a ride!) but he did amazingly well and we managed to do 5 rides in one afternoon and let him play almost an hour at the toddler area (which he loved too).

Our friend Heidi watched William while we were there and even made us dinner when we came home! How lucky we are to have such wonderful friends!

Preschool and Summer catch-up

After a week or so of diligent attempts (or not), I had to admit to myself that #3 on my list will not go on. Yes I'm a chocolate addict, but I haven't reached the repenting stage yet.

I'm still working on the rest of the list though.

So, the summer is over... basically. Josh goes to preschool two mornings a week and he's ecstatic (so am I). We're slowly getting used to our new schedule but it still kind of feels like summer with the extreme heat, the afternoons at the playground and the dinners outside.

Monday was Joshua's first day in Preschool. He was exceedingly proud and excited. This is him on our door-step with Russell before school.

He was there for almost 4 hours. He had breakfast and lunch there, and he told me he played with an airplane and cars. I also noticed he started singing a song I didn't know that day, and he picked up a new phrase that he loves to use: "understand?" It's only funny if you imagine him saying it with a very stern, almost angry voice. It shocked me at first (because we've never used that exact phrase with him... at least not in English) but knowing my child I am not surprised he had to be disciplined and I'm glad for once I didn't have to do it.

We did some pretty cool things these past few months that I haven't had time to document, so I'm going to throw it all in here.

Skateboarding with Daddy on our way back from the library

(notice the big grin AND the strong grip)

Anne U. White trail with our Friends the Fergusons.

Have I already said we live in the most beautiful place on Earth?

Ready for a 3-mile hike, Josh insisted on leading the way the whole time (he always does)

 I'm a fan of the hands on the backpack.
A tired/bored William

 The much anticipated cascade (a little dirty in my opinion). Happy at last.

The way back: on Daddy's shoulders of course

Aren't they cute!

Soccer Club!

One of Joshua's favorite things is playing with balls so I had to take him there.

It took him a few times to get used to the rules (can you guess he wasn't very interested in taking turns and playing games rather than shooting the ball in the goal?)

Practicing knocking down/straightening the cone using only his feet,
Really tempted to take the ball and start running around... but he managed to wait
The tail game
Chasing the biggest kids around
Cute William messing with the soccer club equipment

William's 1st birthday!

July 16th. We didn't plan anything special. Our friends the Jacksons had watched our kids the week before so we could go to the temple so we watched theirs, and William had two big buddies to play with on his birthday (one of them named William as well).

It started raining a little bit so we picnicked inside.
 

Strawberry shortcake, presents and Grand-Maman's card

Colorado Springs

We took a couple of days off to go visit this amazing city only 2 hours away from where we live. We were mesmerized by its beauty.

Seven Falls

We took an elevator (inside the mountain) up to a platform where we had a stunning view of the falls.

 

Josh admiring the view

Then we climbed up the stairs along the mountain and the cascade to get even closer.

Don't look down William!

and then back to the cabin where we stayed one night:

they had a pool, which got both William and Josh really excited
William having his own kind of fun

Still in Colorado Springs: The garden of the Gods

Notice the excitement of being hooked to a trailer loaded with 2 kids.

I didn't make it very far and then Russell kindly offered to switch bikes and rode a woman's bike for the rest of the visit.

Amazing view

I said I wanted to work out...

Summer burnout and new goals

Why is it that for the last 2-3 weeks I've been feeling like throwing a pity party every single day?

I could write down a hundred reasons for it. Actually I have...

But after spending more than an hour, adding to the list, crossing off things, editing, reformulating, I've realized it wasn't helping a bit.

So I decided to take my mind off of it and start a new list. A list of things I want to do. So here it is:



1. Read a book in German

2. Make a quilt

3. limit snacks to 2 pieces of chocolate/day (haha)

4. Teach Joshua to poop in the potty

5. Be in bed by eleven, be up by 7am

6. Read scriptures before getting up.

7. Make a shopping list and stick to it

8. Get a zumba DVD from the library (or buy one), and try it a least 3 times before giving up...

9. Memorize my social security number

10. Write a blog (working on that right now, yeah!)

11. Read a scientific magazine

12. Exercise for at least 10min. every day

13. Learn to saw

14. Take my hubby to Morocco

15. Teach William to go down the slide by himself

16. Teach Joshua to swing by himself

17. Try at least one of the hundreds of recipes I have bookmarked

...



Ahh! I feel so much better already. Now let's hope I can cross a few things off the list before my kids have left home (especially #4) and before I add a hundred more.



Now I don't want to seem ungrateful because we've add a pretty awesome summer.

Our trip to France was fabulous (I gained 5 lbs!), the kids reached some really cool milestones (William is walking, Joshua is "almost" potty trained), Russell is basically done with his thesis... Ikea opened in Denver (exciting right?!)!!!



We took Joshua on a canoe a week ago (he'd been begging to "row the boat" for weeks after seeing a group of kids kayaking on the creek). He had so much fun. He threw a bad tantrum when we returned the canoe. We can't wait to do it again.

Last Friday our friends the Jacksons watched Josh and William while Russell and I went on a date. We went to a Moroccan restaurant on 28th street. The owner speaks French and he was super friendly. They had an awesome belly dancer and really good food. Only warning, the bill is salty as we say in French (it's pretty expensive).

Best Boulder Blast

Memorial Day Week-End is my favorite holiday in Boulder. We discovered the Creek Festival last year and had a lot of fun getting our free samples from all the booths and admiring local art. This year was even better with Joshua being a little bit older. He enjoyed the little train and tried the bounce house this year, he begged us to let him try kayaking on the pool but I thought he was too young for it so he had a complete melt-down. It still didn't ruin the awesomeness of the day.

Then on Sunday we tried avoiding the crowd and went on a walk along the creek, but in the opposite direction. It was still crowded but not as bad.

Try convincing me we don't live in the most beautiful place on earth!

Oh, and the best is still to come: Bolder Boulder is tomorrow morning and the rubber duck race in the afternoon!

A busy week

We are going to Fraaaaaaaaaance!!!!! I am so excited I feel like a 5 year-old on Christmas eve. It's been two years since I last saw my family in France. It will be the first time William meets his Grand-Papa and Grand-Maman. We are leaving on Wednesday and we will be there for 3 weeks.

I'm really lucky I have great co-workers who are so nice they will back-up for me during 3 whole weeks. I totally owe them. Since I'm going to be gone during almost the entire month of June, I wanted to work on a few things before I left. So I had the idea of making photobooth cutouts for the children's Festival that will be held at the end of June. Again my awesome co-workers helped and made some really cute accessories and cutouts for the photo station. They still need some work but I think the result is very cute.

From Little Monkey to Homo Erectus

I can't believe how fast our little Williboo is growing. He's already starting to balance and stand by himself. Sadly, I think we can attribute his strength and stability to the roughness of his brother. This little guy is tough.

This is him showing off his new skill this afternoon:

waiting for the summer

I think we've had the worst month of May in decades this year. We had to spend more time inside than we have in the entire winter. The rain poured for weeks and weeks, we had wind, storms, hail, thunder and lighting up until last week. At last it seems it's over now and we're going to enter summer without having a chance of tasting spring. Oh well...

I had a fright last week when I opened my door after a storm and discovered 3" of water on the courtyard, only a few feet away from 2 of my close neighbors' doors. This made the possibility of a flood so much more real to me. I must admit when I heard my manager talk to us about flood prevention during training this year and last year, I didn't take the threat very seriously (although the creek path was flooded for a few days last week). Well now I do, and I don't think I'm the only one.

On a good note, we definetely made good use of our rain boots and had tons of fun jumping in the puddles.

The end of a semester

Last week marked the end of a semester but especially the graduation of Russell with his Master's degree in Communication. The weeks that preceeded were stressful... very stressful. I'm so glad it's over now. As we were all in survival mode (meaning trying really hard not to murder each others) I didn't really feel in the mood to post anything.

However the kids have reached some pretty cool milestones these last few weeks. First thing William finally started crawling... ok now I realize he wasn't that late (8months and 1/2), but with the whole slow-weight-gain story (that's another thing that was stressing me out beyond mesure), the constant waking up at night, being toothless until 9months old, I was starting to worry that my baby was behind. And suddenly, after months of trying all the bottles and sippy cups on the market, we finally got him to drink from a bottle, and within a month to be completely weened. Since then he's gained 1 and 1/2 lbs in one month and... well, now he's refusing to eat with a spoon. Stubborn?

He also started pulling himself up on furniture and he's sleeping much better.

Joshua keeps learning new things. Things I don't even try to teach him, like fishing (with a baseball bat as a pole)? He can "read" his name, Mommy, Daddy and Cody and sing the entire alphabet song. He's a fun two year old, with good days and awfully bad days.

Here are a few pictures of things we've done recently:

"Fishing" in the bathtub (he's wearing a swimsuit because we were pretending to be in the creek), A fort under the table.

Random 104F fiever that made my day.
Water coloring

"Driving" the police car!
With Brian the Easter Bunny.

Posing by the police car during the FH Easter Egg Hunt

A hike to Red rocks up Settlers Park.

The Family Housing Family week : visit to the Butterfly pavilion

Fun times with neighbors and friends (eating with Sean and Kaden, riding the toy car with Lars, William and Ossam, and our Indian neighbor).

A Football game with Lars, a wagon ride with Katie at the good bye party for the Franke-Philips family, and Sammy’s birthday party.

Babysitting fiasco

A few days ago, Russell asked me how many children I wanted to have (we've talked about this before, but we've never decided on a specific number). I answered the same way I usually do: "as many as we can handle". Then he told me how many he might want, and I was surprised because it wasn't as many as I would have guessed.

Anyways, after debating what constitutes a large family, I started thinking about how "as many as we can handle" can be interpreted differently. For me, it means as much as I can. For Russell it means not TOO many.

After today and last Wednesday I've come to the realization that "as many as I can handle" might possibly be only 2.

Wednesday morning is the day I babysit our friends' children, Kaden and Sean as an exchange for them watching Joshua on Monday and Tuesday mornings (3 families, 3 boys about the same age). It usually goes a lot smoother than that, but today was a nightmare.

I'm surprised my neighbor hasn't called Social Services yet.

The funny part was Joshua giving his friends the evil eye because they were crying louder than him. He even went to Sean and told him: "Stop Seanie! My crying!"

Conference Week-End

This week-end was conference week-end (meaning we watched a live broadcast of the prophet and apostles talk from the Conference Center in SLC).

We decided to stay at home and watch them on our computer instead of going to church because I was on duty and it would allow William to take his nap.

The boys were so cute dressed in their white shirts and dark pants.

This is Josh taking "notes"...

Until he decided playing with his car was more fun.

In between two sessions, we made pipe-cleaner glasses for the boys. (I got the idea from one of my favorite blogs http://meetthedubiens.blogspot.com/2011/03/pipe-cleaner-glasses.html).

Josh loved them.

What a cute little nerdie

And William... Let's say we took this picture really quick before he grabbed them and put them in his mouth.

My favorite talks were Elder Richards' on Saturday morning (he talked about why we experience pain in this life), Bishop Burton's (about the Church welfare program) and Elder Scott's (treating our spouse and children better).

http://lds.org/general-conference/sessions/2011/04?lang=eng

I'm sure I missed a ton of really good ones, but I'll have to watch them when the kids are in bed, or read about them in the Liahona.

Anyhow I was so edified, I feel happy and confident that I can be a better person and I wish everybody could feel this sweet feeling of peace.

He's "almost" crawling

William is 8 months 1/2, he doesn't sleep through the night, he won't eat anything except breast milk, but he is "almost" crawling. And he sure is plenty cute!

Enjoy the video here

A Saturday without Daddy

The week-end of April 17th to the 21st, Russell went to DC to visit Gramma Rogers and Uncle John, so I had to find a good occupation for the kids and me.

Living in the Family Housing is a paradise during the week, but on the week-end it can get pretty depressing if you don't have anything planned.

During the week we kind of have a schedule set: In the morning everybody is taking care of their own business, some of us are organised with neighbors to take turns babysitting, we clean the house, go grocery shopping and take care of various chores. In the afternoon kids nap between 1pm and 3pm and the entire Family Housing is calm for "quiet hours". But when the clock strikes 3pm, everybody rushes to the playground (now that the weather is nice).

On the week-end it's different. Daddys are home. Often, people go out as a family, or the Dads watch the kids while the Moms go shopping, and surprisingly the playgrounds of the Family Housing are deserted.

So honestly, being alone with the kids on the week-end is deadly.

Since I've already been in this deadly situation, I decided this week-end would be different and I wouldn't be haunting the playgrounds like a loner. So after William's nap we took the bike, a picnic, pizza leftovers for the ducks and headed to the library.

Well, on our way, Jo insisted to stop at the playground, so we still had to eat our picnic like loners. But then off to "Boulder creek" to go to the library.

The path was not as crowded as it can be in full summer, so we took things at our own pace (meaning my snaily pace, given I haven't biked in 10 years and I was pulling two kids fighting for the same ball). Josh and William enjoyed feeding the ducks, although none of them seemed interested in our pizza... maybe as true Boulderites they didn't appreciate the pepperoni on it.

At the library, Joshua likes to look at the fish in the aquariums, and he loves to play with the puppet theater and computers. We also met our friends Sarah, Zoe and Owen who used to be our neighbors last year but they live in Smiley Court now.

On the way back, William fell asleep on Joshua's shoulder. He was really cute, until Josh nudged him with his shoulder and woke him up.

Introduction

People who know me well, know I'm the heights of a scientific geek. I like Maths, and Physics, playing with tools, and building stuff, but when it comes to litterature, philosophy or in this case written expression, I suck.

Add to that English is not my native language and I hate to do something when I know I won't be good at it (yeah it's vain I know), now you see why I haven't started a blog earlier.

Anyways I've decided to give this blogging thing a try (mostly out of pity for my facebook friends who are probably getting tired of my doting-mother-type video posts and pictures, and also because I'm hoping it will be a better way to share news with my family).

I intend to post random things about our life and interests, or anything I might want to remember (kind of like a Family journal). I don't know how consistent I will be, I guess the future will tell.

Now you've been warned...