Painted Ladies

Wow, it's been a few days, huh? I wasn't neglecting you guys, promise. Just busy around here... And this weekend is going to continue along those lines so I thought I'd sneak online (at 7:00 on a Saturday morning! What kinda crack am I smoking?) and say hello.

When I was growing up, my family had all kinds of traditions. In fact, my mom was so good at that kind of stuff that you knew what would happen before it did... like the reward for getting A's in school... going out for breakfast alone with Dad if you made honor roll... the surprise treasure hunt that accompanied Valentine's Day... the yearly trip to the pumpkin patch when fall came around. It definitely gave us things to look forward to, throughout the year, and not just at the Holidays.

We have some of our own traditions here as well, surrounding the different Holidays. Plus each evening we play High/Low. I stole it from a movie, but each night at dinner, we go around the table and talk about what our high and low of the day was... It's a really great way to get the boys talking about the things they "forgot" that happened at school, and I'm hoping it will be a means to spur conversation even when they're teenagers and hate us and it's impossible to talk about anything meaningful. Hopefully I'm exaggerating.

So when my mom sent me this book she found, for my birthday, we dove right in. In fact, Tyler spent all evening reading it (you would not believe what a good reader this kid is... he can read just about anything he wants to now!). We are still a little up in the air about which night of the week to do it, but I'd like to do this on a weekly basis as our first one was such a hit!

Gavin actually got the idea from a magazine they get. I have never thought of painting rocks to look like bugs before, but it seemed like a fun thing to do so we collected rocks at the bus stop while waiting for Tyler and went out to buy some acrylic paints that evening (thank goodness for leftover night!) to paint them with.

The kids had a blast, as well as Shawn and I. Though I am not very creative, it was fun to try... and I always love spending time with my boys.

Here is the finished product:

So we're off with some neighbors to Breckenridge today for Oktoberfest. We're going with two other couples, who each have just one kid. We're only taking two vehicles, so with 6 adults, hopefully two will be sober enough to maneuver the mountain roads on the way home. I'm really looking forward to today, though. I'll hopefully have some good pictures to put up to show you soon.

Oh, and you may be wondering why I haven't posted our family portraits yet? Well maybe you aren't. ;) I am getting a little impatient, myself, as it's been a week and I was told it would take just a couple days. So I emailed our photographer to find out what the dealio was and he promised them by this weekend. He also said this:

"I wanted to thank you for being so nice, I haven't seen such a nice family for long long time. It was so delightful, I mean lately I've been surounded by couples where they almost hate each other, it felt like there is no love anymore. But you two fixed my perspective of love again, so thank you! I wish I have more people in my life like you. "

Isn't that sweet? I know that Shawn and I feel the love that we have for each other, but it's nice to know that it's palpable to others as well, you know? Anyway, just thought I'd share.

Have a great weekend, kids!