NCAA Men's Basketball

I am going to see 2011 NCAA Div. I Men's Basketball 2nd & 3rd Round at the Pepsi Center. Want to get tickets and join me? Here is my event info: sec: 316, row: 12, seats: 9-16
WOOOOO HOOOO!! We tried to get tickets through the lottery and they didn't draw our name, but I just got an email and we are in!! I bought 8 tickets for the NCAA tournament on March 17th and March 19th. If anyone wants to join us, we will have 2-4 extra tickets (Darnells- you are in).
WOO HOO!!

Cheese and Sausage Festival

Join us for the Family Fun Cheese and Sausage Festival in my hometown of New London, WI in September. Jeff and I have registered for the 5K run that morning, we would love to have more people join in the fun! We will be celebrating Jeff’s Birthday!

Reading to baby

Two of her favorite things- books and baby dolls.

Silk commercial audition

OK, not really.... but it sure looks like it, doesn't it?

Shopping

These carts are the best!

Sushi

Last night we went to Fontana Sushi, one of our fav’s in our neighborhood. They know us, and the older woman who served us was so happy to see Lauren again. They surprised us with a special roll that they made just for her (free- how nice :) )- it was laid-out fancy on a plate with garnish and all, and the pieces were tiny, just right for her hands. The outside was made of egg (yep- :( ) and inside unagi, all drizzled in a special sweet BBQ sauce. She explained how it was all cooked and safe for a baby (this same lady chastised me a few months ago when I gave her uncooked- oooops!) and they made it up just for her. Luckily Lauren was interested in the fish tank when she dropped it off- because she certainly could not eat a roll made of eggs. As soon as the lady walked away we chopped a bunch of the pieces up like we were giving them to Lauren and Jeff and I chowed down a few. It was so yummy and I am sure Lauren would have loved to have her own special roll- darn egg allergy! It really is a bummer sometimes…

Time Out

We have started to implement “time-out” for Lauren, and a funny thing happened this weekend. She was getting a bit feisty and she hit me, so I made her go into time out- we have her sit on the floor in her room and close the door for a minute. Then I came back and we talked about how she should be gentle and not hit mommy, that it hurts. She told me she was sorry and gave me a hug and a kiss too. So sweet, I am thinking maybe I can get a handle on this parenting thing. Then about a half hour later she hits me again- I think. She had a toy in her hand and just lightly hit my face, so I wasn’t sure if it was an accident. Until I saw her face with G-U-I-L-T written all over it. She looked like she was about to cry and said “hurts”. Then she climbed down off the chair we were sitting on, walked into her room and closed the door. SHE PUT HERSELF IN TIME OUT! How easy was that? Now I only hope she is good at grounding herself, too…

Designer Diapers?

Please tell me this is a joke. They are cute, but cost around $0.60, about 3 times what I would normally pay for diapers. Thanks Pampers, perhaps you could put some of your research energy into real improvements (less chemicals, less waste, less leaks,...)

GABF

More beer festivals. We got our tickets to GABF (Great American Beer Festival) - we are going to the saturday afternoon members only session. We actually have 4 tickets (I think) so we have room for 1 more - Jeff's dad will be coming with us. Hooray! How lucky are we to live in the city that hosts this great event? As much as we love to volunteer as beer pourers, this really isn't happening anymore now that we have a little one

2009 GABF Quick Stats

49,000 Attendees (includes brewers, volunteers, and ticket holders)

3,308 Beers in the GABF Competition

3,000 Volunteers

2,100 Beers served in the hall

495 Breweries in the competition

457 Breweries in the festival hall

132 Judges from 10 countries

78 Categories judged + Pro-Am category

72 Beers entered into the Pro-Am Competition

51 Breweries attending for the first time

Summer Brew Fest

Next friday- July 24th is Denver's Summer Brewfest. My mom will be getting into town that night, and we have hired a sitter and are heading out to the brewfest. Should be fun! PS- if you want to come with us, the more the merrier!!

Playing with the hose

I bought Lauren a sprinkler, but haven't set it up yet (it is a ball you blow up- looks fun).  Yesterday we just played with the hose, because it is scorching hot here- in the 90's!

Every kid needs to drink from the hose on a hot summmer day!

Then it got a little wild. I stupidly had clean clothes on the drying rack set out on the porch, after the hose incident- they needed a little more time to re-dry.

Tent

Although we fight the urge to buy a bigger house, we certainly had to buy a bigger tent for camping. Our old tent (that we love) is a 3 season backpacking tent that was cozy and perfect for Casey, Jeff and I- but certainly no room for Lauren. This is our REI Taj:

Last year we bought a cheap tent that was large enough to fit her pack-and-play and it ripped when we were setting it up for the first time- we used duct tape to make it work for the weekend, and and promptly returned it to Bass Pro Shop. In our quest for another big tent it occurred to me that the Taj might be out of commission for quite some time- even when Lauren doesn't need the pack-and-play to sleep in, we are still going to need a bigger tent than the Taj. So, we decided to not cheap out on our next huge tent purchase.

This is our new tent- it is a Kelty and is also a 3-season tent, there is a rainfly that covers the full tent. We set it up in our yard last week and Lauren and I played in there for a while. It is certainly huge- you can stand upright in there! I just hope that doesn't mean it will be freezing cold- we will see. We plan to test it out in a few weeks camping in the mountains, I just hope the late-night howling is better than last year. Still wondering if my brother really has a conflict, or if he isn't coming camping because of Lauren's nighttime entertainment last year.

The Hills

The Hills is over- did anyone else catch the series finale last night? I wasn't really thrilled with most of it- I dont really like Kristen and think the show is dull since the swapped her out for LC. Also, Spencer and Heidi held a lot of entertainment value, as annoying as they were. But the final scene- OMG- pretty shocking.  They basically called themselves out as the whole show being fake and taped on a set. WOW~ cannot believe they would cop to that. It kind of takes a bit away from reality TV for me.

Baby Blue

When I was younger, I wished so desperately that I had blue eyes. That song, "wont you turn my brown eyes blue?" would make me tear up. And when I found out about colored contacts- Oh Man! I actually borrowed my best friend Anne's colored contact lenses in college, but they couldn't cover my dark brown eyes. I look into Lauren's eyes and think, wow! So many years of wishing my eyes were blue, and here they are - gorgeous blue eyes that look at me lovingly each day.  Its like my wishes came true only better.....

Today Lauren's teacher Arthur sent me this picture from his iphone.

Fourth of July

We had an amazing fourth of July weekend. We spent the weekend up in Winter Park enjoying the cool weather and beauty of the mountains- and it is so slow-paced and laid back up there. On Sunday, we went fishing in the morning and Lauren got to try out her new fishing pole that Grandma V got her for Christmas.  She is a bit wild with it, but she has a great time- although it was tough to keep her out of the ice-cold water.  After her nap we went to the 4th of July celebration in Fraser- they had 4 different moon bounce things- she was a bit overwhelmed by all of the bigger kids, but tried it out a bit. They had more clowns, and carnival games- she won a pink spy-glass thing and was very proud. And she got to play on a great playground with a bunch of other little kids.  The had a circus performer show too, and all of it was free, including the fair games. We didn't make it up late enough to watch the fireworks, because Lauren needed to go home to bed.
It was such a nice time, we were all sad to come back down to Denver.

Rodeo

Saturday we went to the rodeo in Fraser, it was so much fun, Lauren is able to enjoy it much more this year. We started with checking out the horses and cows in their pens (well- I was corrected by a 5 or 6 year old boy that they were not cows- rather bulls or steer or something- Lauren and I continued to call them cows...). Then we grabbed seats in the front row so she had some room to run around, and the rodeo clown stopped to talk to Lauren and autographed a picture for her. She was mesmerized by the clown, and spent most of the rodeo pointing at him saying "clown!".

Run for Independence

This is our second year running, the proceeds benefit the kidney center at The Children's Hospital. The race starts at Winter Park Resort and is a 5 mile run to Fraser. The views are spectacular along the way, and all of the people are so nice- there were over 600 runners this year. I will have to say that this year was much easier than last- the course is at about 10,000 feet altitude, and last year I was nursing Lauren who was 7 months old. I saw a lady finish the race and sit down to nurse her baby, and it all came back to me why this year seemed much easier. Lauren sang and pointed out doggies along the way, and she had US flags all over her stroller so she got a lot of "hoots and hollers". When we got back to the resort a *scary* clown made her a balloon flower, which promptly popped within about 5 minutes. Tonight we are planning on going to the rodeo, so I may have even more photos to come.

Hiking

We took a little hike today with Lauren, she was reluctant* to leave her stroller behind, so the baby had to come with us. I think that Lauren needs a Bob stroller for her baby- the plastic wheels on this one were not meant for trail hiking. My how our lives have changed! By the way, is anyone else wondering why I dressed her in white pants to go hiking on a muddy trail?

* reluctant= threw a tantrum

Barnes & Noble Book Sale

So, I learned from The Krazy Coupon Lady about this great sale at Barnes & Noble. They have a TON of books on clearance, and zillions of children's titles for $1.78, $1.99, $3.99... I just picked up 13 books for $28.69 with tax and free shipping- mostly board books with a couple sticker books thrown in. You have to spend $25 to get the free shipping, but that is pretty easy in this sale, and you can also get 20% one item- here are instructions- I am copying them from the Krazy Coupon lady- thanks for the deal!!

http://clickserve.cc-dt.com/link/tplclick?lid=41000000031849333&pubid=21000000000203393

(1) Click here, you’ll immediately receive a 20% off highest price item in your cart code.

(2) Next, click “books” in the top menu.

(3) Now click “Bargain Books” toward the right of the top menu.

(4) Then you can sort by price, age, or any number of other ways!