Springtime in the rockies

This spring brought about many opportunities for fun and loads of changes! We had a visit with my parents around the time of Luci's birthday, Sprout House for spring break, riding a bike with no training wheels, Easter egg hunts, the end of Pre-school and a trip to Grand Lake, CO.  As always, we were surrounded by much love and wonderful experiences.

Luci's last day of Pre-school was a bittersweet moment for all of us. We love Blue Mountain Montessori and would have loved for her to stay but the price of full time Kindergarten at BMM is just out of our budget. We feel excited about her next chapter and definitely are excited about having a 14 yr old babysitter for the summer~

Princess Anna and a birthday celebration

February marks a great time of year for us. Nana and Papa visit and we celebrate the "Goose" with a  birthday celebration. She is very much a princess herself and loves to celebrate with other royalty.  This year was no different although the theme was inspired by a little something called Frozen.....perhaps you've heard of it?

If you are like most households of small children you have no doubt spent hours belting out "Let it go" or a favorite of ours, is "For the first time in forever" the duet version! No room for self consciousness here, you just have to grab the nearest remote control or whatever can double as a microphone and join in the song. Pickelicious and I had a serious routine for a few months each night where we didn't read any stories, but rather we acted out these two songs. Exactly like they are in the movie.  We did get to take turns being Anna and Elsa.

I really like going overboard in the party planning and decorations. Maybe it is because I need a creative outlet or maybe it is because I am so influenced by my surroundings...whatever the case, I LOVED transforming our little house into a winter wonderland. My little Princess Anna, really enjoyed herself and her friends had fun too! It is so hard to believe that 5 years have passed since this incredible gift came into our lives. 

Stories with Anna

Games with Anna

before the madness

The food display

no sugar food..haha

One happy little Pickelicious

A January like no other...

January started off with our return back to Co from our family visit for the holidays. We were happy to home and enjoying some of the snow. And then my phone rang.

I was sitting at my desk on Monday January 13th when I received a call that you never want to receive. A friend of mine from California called to share the news about our friends daughter suddenly passing the day before. In an instant, I couldn't breath as I choked on my tears and my heart was ripped out of my chest thinking of the pain of my dear friend M.  We shared our wedding planning- getting married 1 day apart; announcing our "early" pregnancies at the same time; we shared our baby registry and all our up's and downs of being pregnant. Our daughters were born a week apart, we had our first playdate after the hospital with them, and we had our final playdate with them the day before we moved away. How could this be? How could something so awful happen to a family that had so much love to give and are wonderful parents? I am sure my friends will wonder this for the rest of the their lives and I don't mean to make their grief in anyway about me. We share in their grief and feel that loss every day when we see our beautiful daughter. 

I was able to fly to So Cal to be there for the services which were beautiful and gut wrenching. I wanted to be near my friends and to support in any way I could. There was no cause determined for the reason for the death and that was very hard- not knowing. The news would come a few months later that little B had passed because of an infection had attacked her little heart. 1 in more than 1 million die from this. This was truly unbelievable. 

I returned home and it took me a good few months before I didn't shed a tear at least once a day thinking of their family and the hard road in from of them. If my sweat pea has so much as a sniffle I'm ready to trek over to Children's hospital. I think I will be that way forever. Forever changed. 

I have to say, we have lived away from OC so I didn't really know the little girl that B had become.... she was barely 2 when we left but the stories I heard and how the family described her is no surprise. You could see that twinkle in her eye when she was little and I see that twinkle now when looking up at the stars shining in the sky. 

She will be missed by so many ~ more than words can say. 

Holidays 2013

So it would appear that I am good for update about 1 time a year. That is so crazy because I actually spend the better part of my days sitting at my home office desk in front of two computers all day. It has been a super busy year so here I am in August sitting down to do some updates for the year.

I want to start with looking back at our holiday break with my family in Santa Rosa. As usual we spent about a week in town visiting with the family.  There was something different in the air this year as I knew it would probably be our last holiday with my dear grandpa with us.

Grandpa has been mentally and physically deteriorating the last year and we saw a pretty steady decline in 2013. He has a hard time remembering anything happening in his daily life but can still remember the war (WWII) like it was yesterday. This year, I really wanted to make sure we spent enough time with him that I could leave in January to go back to CO knowing that he knew I loved him and how much my life has been enriched by him being a huge part of it.  I made sure to bring Luci with me to visit my grandparents every day. We would spend an hour or so just talking and being together.  Luci really seemed to take to Grandpapa (she always has)... as she would sit right next to him and hold his hand and talk to him. He would smile, pat her hand and say things like "well isn't she a cute little thing" & "I sure love you". I'm not entirely sure he actually knew who she was but he knew he loved her and he told her often.

I was really looking forward to Christmas Eve & Day as this year would really be the year when Luci was excited about Santa coming and not afraid that "some big man comes into our house while we are sleeping"... that didn't sit well last year.  We had so much fun wrapping presents and getting the cookies and carrots ready for Santa and his reindeer. We set up our camera to capture that jolly guy in the action and the girls were blown away in the morning when we showed them the video of Santa bringing their presents during the night!

From here, things went a little downhill. The flu made a nasty appearance. One by one, people started vomiting. The worst was Isa vomiting all over Luci while they were asleep in bed. Luci didn't even wake up until I had to pick her up and put her in a shower to get everything off of her. It was awful. Poor Isa, was so sick and felt terrible about throwing up all over.  We were able to relocate Luci & Isa into separate spots, get everyone cleaned up and back to sleep. The only two people who didn't get sick were Luci and me! We were so lucky.

Louis and I got a day on our own to see some friends wine tasting! We drove a few hours and met up with Natalie and AP and had an awesome time.

After this crazy week, we flew home to Colorado to settle back into the snowy winter and to prepare for Luci's upcoming birthday.

the boys celebrating Pliny 

Louis's own trail

The view from my parents is always amazing

Claire I mean Sophie our elf (Maybe a new name this year)

Sleeping sweeties

cousins

2nd cousins

Lagunitas

good friends

Gigi and Grandpapa