Waldo Canyon Fire

I wasn't sure if I was going to blog about this, but it was a pretty big event around here. On June 23 a small fire started in Waldo Canyon, which is a beautiful hiking area about 5 miles from the west side of town. The fire quickly became the most important fire to fight in the country because of the proximity of houses and how close it was to a major city. The fire kept getting bigger and bigger and neighborhoods starting going under voluntary evacuations. On Tuesday the 26th, the unbelievable happened and the fire jumped down into Queens Canyon, which is right behind Garden of the Gods where we love to go. Then the winds picked up to 60 mph and the fire rushed down the Canyon jumping from tree to tree. Mandatory evacuations went into place and people had minutes to grab their things and get out of their house. Needless to saying watching this on tv I was a nervous wreck. The part of town that was burning up was where all my high school friends loved and where I spent the majority of my teen years. In the end the fire fighters did an amazing job. By the grace of God only 346 homes were lost along with 2 lives. It should have bee MUCH worse. We were always safe, but we did pack a few things just in case. Tyler played fire fighter constantly for the next 3 weeks and Carter just acted like everything was fine. However he was the first to ask how we can help so the boys took their money to the dollar store and bought a bunch of toys to give to a toy drive for kids who lost everything. I am curious to see if the boys will remember this fire when they are older - I know Justin and I always will.

Rockies Game

We had another family day, which is always nice. We started off getting Olivia her first pair of walking shoes and then went over to the Barbers to play. The kids had a great time playing in the sprinklers and Nolan made sure everyone was in the pool like they should be! We then took the boys to a Rockies Game with the Roses and the boys did very well. As long as they were fed, they were happy. We had a great time catching up with the Roses and really didn't even watch the game. However the boys were excited to bring their gloves and where their hats and we didn't even need to take them to the playground once. Towards the end Carter got a little tired, but considering he is not that into baseball I was still very happy with his behavior. A very fun night and happy to see we an start going to game again without the kids asking to leave after 3 innings!

Summer

The main reason I am so behind with blogging is that its hard to find a time with all the kids at home for summer. We have been trying to fill up our days with fun things. One day Heather took them to Skate City - I went along too. The boys did pretty well for their first time and didn't want any help from us. They mostly walked around, it it was still a good time. Tyler found a friend he went to school with so that was exciting. However then I was embarrassing to him, as he didn't like when he tried to skate with him or do the chicken dance - its starting already! It was a lot of fun though and so great of Heather to want to take the boys!

We have also been hitting up the splash parks which the boys love. The older boys will come in to dry off and warm up, but Nolan will stay out there until I drag him out even if he is shivering - he loves water in any form! We have also spent a lot of times outside and of course on the trampoline, which Olivia loves that she can now be a part of. A great summer so far!

Father's Day

I am so blessed to have Justin as my husband and father of my kids. They have no idea how lucky they are. We had a very nice Father's Day. Justin wanted to watch the US Open, so we had a pretty low key day. He also got some cards and pictures from the kids and his favorite meal for dinner. Happy Fathers Day Justin = we love you!

Speech Update

Nolan had his 6 month evaluation since starting speech and he us doing great! He now has about 55 words and is starting to put 2 word phrases together. The minimum they would like is 50 words at 2, which means he is where he should be! He still has some issues imitating what we are doing. If I repeat a sound over and over again he can't always repeat what I am doing, even though we see him trying to. Its when he has to think about it that he has a harder time. He also like to take the easy way out. When he does puzzles with the therapist and she asks do you want the pig or the cow, he will just say "dis one" or "dat"  and point instead of the animal name. So he is still getting therapy once a week at our house but I am loving his improvement so far, as is his therapist.

Hard Labor

The boys are boys and while they are great kids and we are so proud of how they treat others, they do make bad choices. One day they were outside in  front playing when we heard Carter crying. He said the neighbor girl threw a rock at him. When we asked what prompted that they told us they decided to have a "rock fight" with the neighbor girls (who are about 10) because it would be fun. We are still not exactly sure what happened, but we are pretty sure the boys initiated it. No matter who started it though, they should not be throwing rocks at anyone and even more so not girls. So for the next week for an hour everyday they had to move rocks for us (we were going to move them anyway). They did pretty well everyday and didn't complain about their punishment and I would say they moved about 5 large wheelbarrow full of rock. Hopefully they won't be having anymore rock fights.

Zoo Member Night

One of my favorite things about the Springs is our zoo. We go there a lot, thanks to Oma and Opa getting us a membership every year. They will open the zoo at night just for the members and we an see them feed and interact with some of the animals. We always try to go to these and always have a great time. This was no exception. We had a blast seeing all the animals. Olivia got to feed the giraffes which she liked, but Nolan was unsure of this time. Also Olivia got to ride the train with her brothers. She sat with Nolan and the Tyler held her hand from the car behind her - very sweet. Always a great time at the zoo.

Sick Girl

When we got back from the Royal Gorge we found out Olivia had a fever of 103*. I was a little worried but figured it would go down and she would be better the next day. Well the next day she just wanted to lay on me and do nothing else. She did eat normally however, which made me think maybe it was teething or something. When Justin got home her fever was 104* even with me give her medicine all day and she was getting more and more lethargic so I took her into our after hours clinic. The doctor was concerned because she was just so lethargic and irritable. We got a urine sample there which came back negative but I had to go to the hospital to get her blood drawn to make sure it was nothing serious. While I was getting her blood drawn she seemed a lot hotter to me. By the time I got back home to wait for the results so we would know what action to take, her fever was at 105*. This meant we had to go back to the hospital, but this time to the E.R.  They let us right in and gave her some more meds and a chest x-ray. Once the blood results came back we know it wasn't anything to serious and her chest x-ray showed it could be pneumonia. By then her fever was coming down as well so they gave her a shot of antibiotics and sent us home. We had to see our pediatrician first thing in the morning however. Luckily her fever was still down so they gave us two more shots. After a couple more days she was back to her old self. I am so glad it was nothing serious!

Royal Gorge

Justin took a day off so we could have a family fun day and we decided to go to the Royal Gorge. It was a great time and the kids loved it. We got to ride down into the gorge and watch rafters ride the rapids, then we walked across the bridge which moved with the wind. After that there were donkey rides, a petting zoo, a little zoo with a  lot of buffalo and deer and then we got to ride a tram back across the gorge. We ended it up with carousel rides and a little train ride. It was a great day with lots of memories made!

Cousins!

BJ and Abbi were in town on their way to California so Todd and Jessie came over and we had a great day hanging out. The cousins had a blast jumping on the trampoline and playing in the sprinklers. It was fun to catch up with my brothers as well. At the end of the night we headed over to Todd's house to get one last picture of all the cousins on the rock. Hopefully it won't be too long before we are all together again.

10 months!

I can't believe how fast this is going! Olivia is getting bigger everyday and to celebrate turning 10 months old she took her very first steps! She also learned to clap ans it so cute to watch. She loves to eat, but is getting tired of the bottle. She loves to crawl everywhere, but still can't go down the stairs the correct way. Her favorite thing is her brothers and her mommy. While she does love her daddy, she is in the phase where she really only wants me. I am ok with this, I will admit. She is starting to take a longer afternoon nap which gives me hope that she will soon be napping in the same room with her brother every afternoon. Most of all she is just a happy girl who bring us so much joy! Love you Livi!!

Big Helper

Nolan is such a big helper around the house. He is very orderly and always need everything in its place. If something needs to be thrown away, he will do it. If you leave a cup out, he will put it in the sink. He puts all the shoes away where they go (after he throws them down the stairs) and he puts his dirty clothes away as well. He also helps with his sister, getting her things, and is always looking at for her. One of his favorite things to do to help at though is to help daddy mow the lawn. He is just the cutest thing when he does it as well. He follows along doing everything Justin does. So sweet!

Minnesota Trip

Time to catch up on this blog! Over memorial weekend we drove to Minnesota for cousin Kim's wedding. We spent one day driving out there, and got there in 13 hours. The kids did SO well during the drive. We had a very nice time seeing all of Justin's family as Nana and Bapa and both of Justin's brothers all stayed in the same hotel. The boys loved playing in the pool with all their cousins. We were all in one hotel room and Nolan had a hard time going to sleep every night, but considering it was his first time sleeping in a bed and not a crib he did pretty well.
The night of the rehearsal dinner we went over to Aunt Dawn's house and saw all of the other cousins and family. It was nice catching up; the funniest part of the night was when Nolan was carried over to us by someone we didn't know covered in mud. That boys find dirt wherever he goes. Luckily there were some spare clothes we could borrow. The wedding was very nice as well, although I had to spend most of it outside with the two babies. The boys had a lot of fun at the reception - what kid wouldn't like a reception that had a candy bar? We left Sunday afternoon after saying bye to everyone and having one last cousin baseball game. We headed to Rapid City so we could see Mount Rushmore on the way home. This was the only part of the trip we even used the dvd player, and it was just one movie late at night.
We had a nice time at Mt Rushmore but it was pretty windy and cold. We then headed home where the kids once again did a great job in the car. I am happy all the prep work I did for activities worked and we can now look forward to more road trip in the future! Enjoy the pictures!

Nolan Muddy

All The Pederson Cousins

The Boys at Mt Rushmore