Day 1 in Winter Park

The great grand girls, Willa Dee, Hazel Marie, and Kylee Ann! Miss Hazel at the playground.

Sideways flowers! ahhhhh

Cousin Maddy pushing Willa.

The Group.

The Casper Carnival!

I am working on my blog while listening to my family snore! I am currently in a beautiful condo in Winter Park, CO. It is beautiful and the resort is VERY family friendly! We are all in a suite, soooooo; I have Willa on the floor in a dark corner, Hazel on the hide-a-bed and Tim and I am in a bed that folds into the wall! It is pretty cozy but super cute! I am actually just sitting in the dark listening to the trio of snoring bliss. If this doesn't make me feel like a mommy I don't know what would! Anyway- I am behind on some of our events and wanted to catch you up, atleast with the pictures. Here are some of my favorites of our day at the carnival!Willa enjoyed her 2nd ride more than the 1st.This is hilarous, Sommer racing Hazel and Maddy.Maddy, Zach, and Hazel all squishing in!I think that this picture is symbolic of my life.Hazel and her gramps.This is my best friend, Jen's, little guy, Ryne. He liked going to the carnival for the first time!Zach mastered T-Bone, the bucking bull!

Mercer House Family Day!

Hello All!! I have made a new addition to our blog!!! Our wonderful Mercer House Board member, Tom Lacock, has put together a wonderful video promoting our Family Day on Tuesday, July 13th!!! Unfortunatly, I am in the video and I was NOT prepared! Very much a FAT day!! Anyway, I have attached the video to the right on the side bar. I hope that you can join us for Family Day if you are in the neighborhood! Also look for us in the parade on the 13th at 10am!

Happy 4th of July!

This is my new favorite picture of Willa! She is such a goober! She is really starting to show alot of personality and has a lot of facial expressions! These expresions come in handy since she still isn't interested in talking. She turned 15 months this weekend and doesn't say much more than "mama", "dah (dad)", "do (dog)", and "ba (ball)". It is interesting but I am sure she will just wake up one morning and decide to start talking in full sentences!

Here Willa is showing me her bebo (bully button)! Her hair is a hot mess!! I like her long hair to the side and the curls in the back but it is really hard keeping her hair out of her face! Most of the time she has a pony on the top of her head but I have been trying to train it back since it almost will tuck behind her ears!

Hazel and Grandpa Mike were shooting off poppers and aparently their was one that was supposedly REALLY loud! So, I prepped myself to get the "scared-to-death" face.

This subject throws me on a strange tangent.......

I remember being a child and watching the neighbor boy run his bicycle into the wooden planter outside our house and my mom running up to check if he was ok; all while laughing herself into tears! This seemed to happen often. Either my little sister, Patricia, or myself hurt ourselves and mom burst into a fit of laughter. I always thought this strange....untill, I became a mom, of course! Certaintly, it didn't kick in right away. Tim could attest that I did NOT laugh the first time Hazel choked on her own spit-up as an infant OR the time I walked away for just a short moment and she decided to roll over the first time; which, coincidentally meant rolling off of OUR bed onto her small little head! But eventually, it kicked in. Hence, me knowingly getting ready for a funny picture of Willa crapping her pants when the "loudest" popper went off! I know that most of you are laughing as you read this, because I know that you are alot like me and think that our kids are the best intertainment we have!

I think that this picture sums up my little rant! (and P.S. I was a little dissapointed when she wasn't even concerned about the darn popper!)

Here is Hazel assuming the popper position!

This is us all ready to watch the show! Willa was very concerned about sharing her pop-its. This was by far the coldest 4th that we have had in a long while. (I was actually wishing for MORE body fat!!! Yeah wierd!) Anyway- Tom, Sommer, Mike and Jane and my gang all went up to the college to watch the lights from afar. This location seemed less crowded than going to the event center which requires road closures and an hour (4 mile) drive back home! Soooo....besides the cold and the crying Willa, whom should have been asleep 3 hours prior!!!, it was a good night.

This was our view and was pretty good!

Hazel looks like a peeping-tom with her binoculars creeping around in the bushes!! haha, just thought that I should throw that one in for fun!!

I hope that you all had a fabulous 4th of July and I hope that you had the opportunity to reflect on what the holiday means to you. I shared with Tim my favorite 4th of July show. It was in Cheyenne at the Frontier Stadium about 9 years ago. If you aren't familiar with the show you have to be there hours in advance to get a seat. Of course I got there early and listed to the concert and bands play and OF COURSE eat concession food! Duh! As it got later they did a flag ceremony which is really cool to see and then the best choreographed show I have ever seen began! This was not yet 2 years after the 9/11 tragedy and us Americans were (and still are) really pledging our patriotic love for America. The show was shot from right in the arena and before it was over we literally sat in cardboard shrapnel. All of the music was obviously patriotic but being the home of the "daddy of em all" their was a large cowboy edge! I will never forget the lyrics of Toby Keith's Red, White and Blue and the fire works going off like bombs in the sky. Amazingly, you could hear the crowd scream in approval, even over the blasting shells over head!

I pray that you all had an amazing weekend and an even better time with family and friends!!

Laura:)

Simply Perfect!

Tim and I decided to take the girls for a drive Saturday evening (hoping that they would fall asleep early and LEAVE US ALONE.) We drove around a little up towards the mountain and then around the gardencreek area and looked at houses for sale in the area. We drove up a large hill and ran into this view! Go figure the lot we were standing in is for sale and would be amazing to see everyday! The picture looks like a dark storm but there were really just many layers of clouds. The sun is peaking out just before the sunset! I thought it was awesome and completely blew me away!