Catch-up

I thought I'd update our activities since moving to Colorado. The kids and I don't do too many exciting things after Daniel goes to work since he takes the car and we no longer have another vehicle. This is my aunt and uncle's house where we have been staying. Some of our belongings are being stored in the garage, but it's nice to be able to keep Erik's bike and the stroller in there instead of bringing them in the house everyday.

This is Scout, an English Setter, who is full of energy. He loves being around people. Erik loves chasing him, hugging and petting him, and playing with him. Most of the time Scout likes to play, but when Erik grabs his tail he doesn't seem too happy. As you can see from the picture, he is wearing a bark collar. This is because Lily is deathly afraid of his barking, which is very loud and sounds very ferocious, even to me. She isn't too sure of Scout much of the time anyway, but when he barks, she runs over by me or Daniel or jumps up on the couch. Then she tells us "Scout's barking doesn't hurt me, it's just loud." This is what I tell her everytime. I know she listens, she just hasn't realized fully what that means I guess. Scout also wears the bark collar because he barks at every little sound he hears, and goes crazy. It sounds like he's attacking someone trying to get in the house, when it's really just a truck or car going by outside.

We spend a lot of time playing out in the backyard in the afternoons. The mornings are now very cold and Erik doesn't like going out when "it's really chilly." Lily still tries to go out in the mornings in her pj's and sandals. Luckily, yesterday afternoon it got up in the upper 50s and was very nice, so we were able to spend about two hours playing outside. Drew was still happy at this point. About 5 minutes later he wasn't so happy and ended up taking a 3 hour nap. Yay for me because then I got to spend some much needed time playing with just Erik and Lily, who I think are feeling somewhat neglected since Drew takes up so much of my time still. I'm still learning how to balance my time between three kids. Look at how chunky Drew is now! How cute are these three!

Erik playing on his horse.
Lily pushing the now empty stroller. They took turns playing with the horse and the stroller. At one point Lily pushed the stroller to the other side of the yard, into the rocks, sat down and got mad because the stroller wouldn't "go". I had to explain that the stroller wouldn't push in the rocks.
Two days ago we raked up the leaves and made a pile. Erik and Lily jumped in them a bit, but they were very wet, so they didn't get too crazy. It's hard to tell in this picture but there's also a "fence" of leaves up on top of the bricks lining the garden. Erik kept telling me it was a gate, so I explained the difference between a gate and a fence. I was then told the long line of leaves was a fence.

Some of the beautiful fall colors in the backyard. It's not a huge backyard, but it's fenced, which is really nice. The kids can go outside and play without me having to be out there with them. I can just check on them once in awhile. This is probably the biggest reason I want to get into a house....just so we can have a backyard of our own.

This was Lily's little house, inside this circle of rocks. The tree was her bed and she would lean up against it, close her eyes, and pretend to snore. I know Erik looks like he's in pain, but he's not. He was trying to watch Lily and say cheese at the same time. What a goofy kid!

We also spend a lot of time drawing with chalk on the driveway. I was drawing Halloween pictures yesterday. Lily and Erik would then come behind me and color them for me. Lily would tell me "I colored on your picture, Mom!" She's so funny.

Lily drawing. I can't remember what she told me it was, but I remember it was a Halloween picture. Lately, she has been drawing circular shapes, and adding lines out from the side, like hair, arms, and legs.
Erik has also been riding his bike a lot. We go on walks, or we did before it got soooo cold, and he rides his bike ahead of us while Lily and Drew are in the stroller. Erik, Lily and I went for a walk Monday morning, but it was pretty cold. My lungs hurt when we first went outside. This is a great neighborhood for walking and riding bikes. There are two parks within walking distance of the house, so if it's nice we go play for awhile. The hard part is that one of the parks is about 20 minutes away, and on the way home Erik gets tired and wants to stop a lot. I try to explain to him that the more we stop, the longer it takes to get home. Drew isn't always happy either, and walking with a crying baby isn't exactly relaxing. There is a trail a block over that goes along a little stream where the kids like to walk as well.

Taking a break from running around the yard. When I take these two in the stroller it's quite a work out since they are both getting so big!

A few other things that have happened since moving here:

1. We search all over the northern Denver area and communities north of Denver for a place to live. Aurora, which is just south of the airport, has affordable housing, but it looks a lot like South Salt Lake, West Valley, and Kearns combined....and not the nice parts of those cities. I think we would have been the minority in Aurora (not that there's anything wrong with that).
2. We finally find a place to live in Broomfield. They call back after a week and tell us we're denied, then call back a few hours later and tell us they forgot to enter Daniel's salary, so they didn't think we were earning any money. Now we're accepted. Two days ago they call and tell us we make too much money to live there....due to doing math the wrong way. (Divide Daniel's check by 5 because he worked 5 days. Then multiply by 365, even though he doesn't work every single day of the year. That equals $51,000. We would LOVE to make that much money. However, if she did the math using his hourly rate, it came out to what his salary really is, which is NOT $51,000...it's not even close to that! So the HR lady resends the paper with Daniel's start date. She puts down he was hired a few days earlier, so now the apartment lady divides his pay by 7 days in the pay period-not 5- and when that amount is multiplied by 365 it works out to his real salary.) Now we're waiting to hear back from them again...hopefully telling us we're accepted and we can sign a lease. In short, denied-accepted-denied-hopefully accepted. Who would've thought applying for an apartment would be such a roller coaster ride! Geez. I just want a place to live.

3. Drew gets a cold and is really congested, making for very fussy evenings. He is finally going be bed easier and even slept for 7 hours two nights in a row. Not the last two nights, but at least now we both know he CAN go longer than 3 hours at night! Hopefully we'll get back to going longer at night quickly.

4. The kids chose their Halloween costumes. Erik-Optimus Prime Lily-Elmo Drew-a ghost onesie. Thanks Grandma Dub for the Halloween costumes.

5. Our car died on the way to church last Sunday. The fuel pump went out, so we walked about 1/4 a mile back home. Not too far, but we're all in Sunday clothes and I'm wearing high heels and carrying Drew. And the wind makes it a bit chilly and we're on a somewhat busy road. The next day Daniel finds a shop who can fix our car cheaper than everywhere else. It's still expensive, just not AS expensive as it could have been. So, we rent a car on Monday for a week, because we weren't sure how long it would take to get the car back. We ended up getting to rent a crew cab Chevy Silverado! It was sooo nice! Erik and Lily couldn't touch each other, so riding in the car was much more peaceful. Daniel also had a ton of leg room. Maybe someday....... We get the car back Tuesday afternoon, so we take the truck back Wednesday (how sad!) Now the car runs great.

6. We also play pool and watch cartoons in the mornings. The kids love rolling the pool balls across the table to get them into the pockets. They're actually really good at this!

I think that about sums it up. Cross your fingers that we hear back from the apartments and we are accepted this time. Then we can start going to our new ward and Erik and Lily can get used to their new primary and nursery classes. We also hope we don't have anymore car problems. Cross your fingers that we don't get any snow yet.....I'm enjoying the fall weather. I'm not ready for snow yet.

I'll do better about keeping current now that things are a bit more settled, at least for now.