Mike's Colorado Photos

Here are my favorite nature/landscape pictures that Mike took on our trip to Colorado earlier this month:

The first several photos are from an ice storm that hit so early in the year that most of the trees still had green leaves, there were flowers in bloom and vegetables on the vine in the garden. For a day or two everything was covered in ice as if nature had forgotten that it was still mid-autumn and not yet winter. The beauty and frigid temperatures didn't last long however and the sun came out, the ice melted and autumn resumed.

I was surprised that the delicate structure of both the flower and the spiderwebs held up against the weight of all the ice.

In many places it was easy to see which direction the wind was blowing because the ice engulfed only one side of the plants.

A day later and 2 hours away Mike went camping with Alma (his best friend) and my dad.

They enjoyed the luxuries of staying in the Sherwood TeePee. They stayed warm and of course took advantage of the scenery.

The Triple Crown

'The Triple Crown' as my dad refers to it, has become a family holiday. Traditionally our family and my parents get together to celebrate the birthdays of my mom, Annabelle and I. We three share a birthday and it has made celebrating really fun. This year we got together in Colorado.

Traditionally we have cheesecake, which is my all time favorite favorite. My mom enjoys trying out different recipes. Which has worked out every year with the exception of my 7th or 8th grade year when she tried a recipe with gelatin in it. I had some friends from school over and my mom began to serve the cake. By the time we all had a piece in our hands and she headed back into the kitchen the cake reached room temperature and began to melt, leaving little clumps of gelatin that looked like boogers as the only solid on the plate. Upon reaching the kitchen to eat her own piece of cake my mom noticed the mishap and ran back into the party. My friends were sitting there politely trying to scoop up the delicious tasting mess with their forks. They insisted that the cake tasted great but we have laughed about that cake ever since.

Last year I went with a store bought cake as I was hosting the triple crown. I had bought a chocolate cheesecake from this particular store before and it was so delicious that I was sure that the fact that it was store bought could easily be overlooked. When I went to the store to buy one however, they did not have the chocolate version. I bought a plain and raspberry cheesecake instead. Of course they tasted like cardboard and I am determined to bake my own cheesecakes from now on.

This year my mom found another recipe that included gelatin. We excitedly agreed that THIS was to be the year that we conquered the booger gelatin cake. As my mom sat down the night before our birthday to read the recipe she realized that it had eggs in it even though the cake was never baked, only refrigerated. Grossed out we all opted for an oldie but a goodie: Cheesecake with chocolate ganache topping! The topping tastes like the inside of a chocolate truffle and my mom describes it as "wicked good"! Jealous?

Besides cake the birthday bash was fun. Annabelle wanted to go to Chuck E Cheese's and so we made sure to go. Annabelle had requested of my mom that she have a "king, queen, princess, castle, pony, unicorn, rainbow" birthday cake. My mom did her best and found a cake with a rainbow and three princesses. Annabelle was satisfied. Our friends Alma & Nicole met us at Chuck E. Cheese as well. Their little Jagger and Annabelle enjoyed the arcade and the pizza.

Another memorable circumstance of this year's celebration was the INSANE cold front that hit Colorado right before we got there. Who would have guessed that we would have had snow and sooo much ice on our birthdays?

Mike got up early one morning and took some beautiful pictures of what autumn looks like when frost comes early. We'll post those along with some of our other favorite landscape pictures from the trip soon.

Fat and Happy

Our Asa is four months old! He still has his happy little disposition. He has learned to fuss but pretty much only does so when he is hungry or tired, which is understandable. He is tickelish. He loves it when we sing to him, especially Annabelle. She is so animated that he gets really excited. He giggles and coos when we talk to him. He loves sitting with us at the dinner table. He'll squawk at us while he watches us eat. He loves kicking and splashing in the tub. He can roll over and is getting sturdier at sitting up. He is at the stage where is wants to put everything in his mouth. If I leave a burp cloth on his lap I'll look over to see him shoving it into his face trying to get a good taste of it. I am convinced that is how he learned to roll over, he was really just trying to get a taste of the floor. He is still pretty snugly which I appreciate.

Asa's most striking feature is his blue eyes. People always seem to comment what a bright blue color his eyes are. I hope the color is here to stay. His dark hair is disappearing for the most part (with the exception of at the nape of his neck). And there is a lot of blonde hair coming in underneath. It is still too fine and light to really capture in a picture but I'm sure in the next few months it will be more visible. Other than that he is just a happy little chub.
We went to his 4 month check-up today. He weighs 17 and half lbs. and is 27.5 inches long. That places him in the 90 and 95 percentiles. I'm allowed to start him on solid foods at this age, but don't feel any real rush to. We'll see, I think he would enjoy it.



Most people say he looks a lot like Mike. I have a hard time seeing features in my own kids. A friend told her husband she thought he looked exactly like Mike and his response was "Yeah, except with less hair, and shorter and fatter." Who knows but I love both of my blue-eyed boys!