Easter Saturday

 On Saturday we started the Easter Celebrations...

First we headed over to Mimi's to dye Easter Eggs - probably Ashtyn's most favorite craft/thing to do!

Mimi's been collecting egg dying kits for what thirty some years now - so the options to choose from are almost overwhelming - every color imaginable, stickers, tye-dye, paint, stamps, crayons, glitter - you name it!  Its all there to make the most unique egg you can think of...

 

 ...and they all have fun doing so!  Carson was awesome at making his eggs three different colors in perfect stripes - I was impressed!  He's come along way - I remember his first Easter dying eggs he tried licking the egg dye off the floor!

 Eli of course had no desire to dye eggs but pigged out on Mimi's Chex mix - it is the best!

Ashtyn is Brooke's little buddy these days - she loves getting to hang out with her older cousins!

Once Matt got off work we all headed over to the Trujillo's house to have Easter dinner with the other side of the family...Kodi made a ham and Sandy and I made all the fixings to go along!

The kids of course all played so well together and its so fun to watch how big they've all gotten! 

Eli and Cheyenne of course just crack me up - they honestly could be little twins with their facial expressions and they both LOVE their Grandpa Butch who played with them non stop!

After dinner we all went to church together which was just the perfect way to celebrate Easter!  Eli dislikes, very much to go into the kid area for church - he throws the most dramatic fit EVER!  So we decided to take him into the service with us and he actually did great!  He absolutely LOVED the music and the drums, but kept asking where the tubas were?  Flatirons needs to get some tubas in their band!  It was such a great night going to church with the whole family and a great reminder of what Easter is really all about...

Spring Break Fun

 Last week Ashtyn was on Spring Break, so Matt took Thursday and Friday off so we could have some family FUN!  And fun we did have...

Thursday we headed up to the mountains to play in the snow.  We stopped at Old Chicago's for lunch and then headed over to Copper Mountain.  They have a really cute park for just kids which includes rides, playgrounds, tunnels and a tubing hill just for them...

We picked a GORGEOUS day to go up to Copper Mountain - Its a good thing I didn't have my ski stuff, because I probably would have ditched Matt and the kids to go ski in that nice snow with the sun shining down!

  The kids enjoyed tubing the most...and went up and down the hill a million times with BIG smiles on their faces...

 Eli was a little hesitant at first, so I rode down with him a couple times and then he was ready to go by himself - he would giggle the whole way down and then crack up laughing when his tube would bump into Ashtyn's at the bottom - it made Matt and I laugh...

 Matt had the chore of pulling the kids up to the top of the hill - he definitely got a work out!  They really need to install a pulley system like the big tubing hill has...that would be my suggestion anyways!

 The kids had TONS of fun and Ashtyn got very upset when it was time to leave!

I initially wanted to take her on the bunny hill and introduce her to skiing, since every time I would come home for skiing she would ask to go - but I think once she saw how big the mountains were and how many people were coming down she changed her mind.  She did however want to ride the ski lift...so maybe next year we will try again!  Eli on the other hand wanted to go skiing and if they made boots small enough I would have started him that day!

So maybe next year I will be skiing with my babies - I know for sure with Eli!

We headed home late that afternoon and thankfully didn't hit any traffic!

On Friday we laid around the house as a family - it was so, SO nice!  We forgot how nice it was just to be home with all four of us...

After lunch we headed to the Broomfield Rec Center to go swimming!

The kids have kept asking to go ever since we saw the pool and I thought it would be a perfect time to go...well so did the rest of Broomfield! 

It was the craziest place EVER, but the pool is really cool and we jumped right into the chaos to have our own fun!

I am very impressed with the Broomfield Rec Center - all the amenities are very, very nice and the swimming pool has so much to do!  The slides were absolutely my favorite, and we went up and down them a million times too!

Swimming totally wiped us all out, so we headed home to do our favorite thing ever...

Eat popcorn and watch a movie!

It was a great spring break and I loved having us all home for a couple days!

Even got some home projects finished up and of course started some new ones...

Thanks babe for taking a couple days off to hang out with us...we loved it!

Spring Snow

Colorado is a bit backwards it seems...

We were all wearing flip-flops in December and now its snowed every week since the beginning of March...but you have to love the Spring Snow!

I did buy a Copper Pass this year and have spent all my time skiing in March - the snow has not been that great until this weekend - and Finally, we had powder up to our knees...it was awesome, cold, but awesome!

Its been fun getting back up to the slopes with my dad and brother this year...even got me some new boots!  I am hoping to get Ashtyn on some skies during Spring Break, so maybe next year she can join us!

I lived in the snow this weekend - skiing on Saturday and then sledding on Sunday! 

My kids had not played in the snow at all this season - Mainly because it hasn't snowed much until now, and every time it did one of us was sick - horrible flu season this year!

But on Sunday there was still a ton of snow to play in and none of us were sick so I bundled us up to go sledding and we had so much FUN!

 

 

 "Cheese!"

 We screamed all the way down and when we were at the bottom Eli would say

"I wanna do that again..."

That was the best thirty minutes of my weekend...



Chicken, Airplane, Solider...

For all of those seasoned in swimming you know what Chicken, Airplane, Solider is...

It's the most important thing to master before being able to advance to the next level of swimming lessons and actually be able to swim across the pool! 

We finally got Ashtyn registered in swim lessons at the Broomfield Community Center - which I remember swimming at in High School!  She did so, SO well!  I was very impressed with my little fish...

 I was very determined to have my kids swim by the time they were 6 months old, and got Ashtyn in the pool as soon as I could, and even though she has always loved the water and was comfortable the idea of "learning" to swim was just not in her to do list.  I struggled with her in swim lessons - she didn't listen, would never do or try to do what they were asking and just plain did not participate!  So instead of wasting the money I pulled her out and that was the end of swim lessons for awhile...

 Then last summer, she broke out of her shell and started going under the water without forcing and/or bribing her, jumping in the pool/lake, going down slides by herself, and actually finally having the desire to learn to swim!  So I jumped at the chance and got her registered, and it looks like we might actually advance out of level 1 swim lessons!  She's pretty good at the Chicken, Airplane, Solider thing and just needs to get more comfortable floating on her back...hopefully next summer we can do swim team!

I've learned with Ashtyn that she will only do things in her own time - there is no forcing her to do something she is not ready for.  So hopefully this is a good start for her and she will stay motivated in learning how to swim - we do live in the water during the summer, so it's so important that she does!  Now if I could just get Eli to focus long enough for swim lessons that would be awesome, but I think that is a long shot...I will just work with him myself until he is ready as well! 

Level 2 here we come...

Life Lately...

Life Lately has been all about adjustment...

It all started with moving into our new home and getting settled in.  Finding the right grocery store, knowing where each Starbucks was located, getting a rec center card, finding the quickest route to work while going through what seems like ten schools zones, and so on... 

But the real adjustment came when Matt's work schedule changed mid-January.  For the last five years he has worked your typical 8-5 sorta thing with weekends off, which in turn had completely spoiled me.  I LOVED his schedule - loved it!  We ate dinner every night as a family, we went to bed every night as a couple and we spent every weekend together with friends and never missed a holiday celebration.  But being a police wife you know the reality of what they do and the schedule it involves and at some point it was going to change, I just wasn't quite ready for that amount of change or adjustment coming our way.  Whether I was ready or not the comfy schedule I had gotten so used to and LOVED was replaced by the opposite schedule where you and your police husband are now "single" parents with opposite days off!  I am not going to lie, I don't like the new schedule and the first week of spending four straight days with my kids with no help or "tag-team" from Matt (who is an amazing, helpful dad) while still trying to take care of all the house chores, about killed me... 

But I have been adjusting and the schedule is slowly becoming easier.  I am not going to say I love it, but it is doable.  The positives - yes there are some...we rely on nobody for daycare, which is a huge sigh of relief and the four straight days with my kids actually allows me to bond more with them then when we were all home together - weird huh?

We seem to stay pretty busy while Matt's at work...

We go to Sweet Cow for ice cream and to bounce on the little cows...

 Have been invited to a ton of birthday parties for Ashtyn's preschool friends...

 Emma, Ashtyn and Kiley!

And of course we try to make some sort of dessert to enjoy when Matt gets home, or just so we can lick cake batter off spatulas...

Aside from keeping the kids entertained, I have also dove head first into home improvement projects, which just adds a whole other layer of chaos to our lives.  With opposite schedules we are never on the same page of wanting to work on them...so I have a handful of "unfinished" projects all throughout the house!  So yes, life lately has been a little busy and out of control for me, but I am adjusting and trying to find a good balance...

 And as soon as I do find that balance - BAM!  Schedule change again...

That's right every six months we will be adjusting to whatever crazy schedule it is Matt has to work and the process will repeat!  But the reality of it is - Matt is awesome at his job, he loves his job and I love and support him, so no matter what crazy hours he works, or how many holidays he misses we will just figure it out and ADJUST!

I may pout a little while doing so...

...but everything always seems to work out and plus, we have a ton of family and friends to help when we need a little break.  They really should have support groups for the police wives, but until then I will just blog...