Isn’t it funny how as time goes by, all of a sudden, your new friends have become your old friends.  And you really don’t notice.  It just happens.  Sometimes I forget that we have lived in Colorado for 14 years and that many of our friends here have become like family.  We had some awesome moments this weekend with those kinds of friends.

Here is a picture of some wonderfully strong woman who have seen me through most of my biggest life moments (jobs, kids, moves) and have always cheered me on.  Thanks Vic, Ann, Nikki, Gretchen, Cindy and Annemarie!

 

I hope you all had a great weekend!  Ours was full and busy and so worth it.

Sunday morning I ran the Colorado Half with another amazingly strong friend, Kristin.  She keeps me running even when I really want to stop.  More on that tomorrow 🙂

Jennifer

So, I know a lot of you out there are starting orthodontic work on your children.  I am looking for some insight from those of you who have recently gone through this or are in the thralls of orthodontia right now.

We have been seeing a highly recommended orthodontist here in the county for a while.  Alice and Paige are both in Phase I of their mouth work and each of them have a lovely set of expanders.  At some point we know that they both will need braces (Phase II).  Sam’s mouth seemed to be in better shape; he has a bit of an overbite and some spacing issues.  So, a couple of weeks ago, I took Sam for his six-month checkup and the orthodontist suggested that it was time to start care.  He wants to put an apparatus on each side of Sam’s teeth to correct the overbite for a couple of months and then braces.  He felt like we should start very soon because Sam is approaching puberty and then after that it might be harder to correct the overbite.  The bill for this work seemed really high, even compared to what we are paying for the girls.

After a bit of discussion, Scott and I decided that we probably needed a second opinion.  Today, we took him to another local orthodontist.  This doctor took one look in his mouth and declared Sam was fine and needed no work at this time. This doctor believes that we should wait until Sam loses all his baby teeth (4 more to go) and then we can discuss options.  He did not think that Sam needed to have any correction on his overbite now and with time and some aging it might correct itself.

What do you think?  How do you feel about the phase method of orthodontics?  What did you decide with your kids?  Were you happy that you started early or happy to have waited?  We are leaning toward waiting but would love some input from those who are a bit more experienced in this wild world of teeth.  

Thanks for your help!!!!

Jennifer

You know those days when you try your hardest to be a good parent but you fall short.

Yeah, today I had one of those days.

I am going to preface this little story with the fact that keeping track of four kids can be challenging but I generally do a really good job of it.  Again, today was not one of those days.

After school, all my kids take to the task of clearing out their backpacks, emptying lunch boxes and getting homework done.  I am pretty strict about the afternoon chores because if not, something gets missed and it throws off our morning routine.  And mornings aren’t my favorite time of the day on our best day, if you get what I’m saying.

This afternoon, all the kids started working on homework.  Usually Mason brings home a couple easy readers for homework so he heads to his room to read to himself.  Today was no different, except for the fact that he could not find his backpack.  He searched all over the house.  Finally, I sent him outside to look in the car.  As he headed out I reminded him to grab his bag, shut the car door and come right back inside.  Welllllll……..let’s just say that I got busy getting dinner ready while simultaneously talking to Scott on the phone and helping Sam figure out the exact number of  Colorado State representatives.  Unfortunately, I dropped the ball on the five-year old and he forgot that he was supposed to shut the car door and come right back inside.  Anyway, about 20 minutes later I hear the back door slam shut and I think to myself Wow, how did Scott get home so quickly? Yeah, it wasn’t Scott.  It was Mason.  He did get his backpack and shut the car door but he got distracted by the neighbors two doors down and meandered that way.  I have no idea what he talked to them about for 20 minutes but he did mention inviting them in to see his grass.

Thank goodness, we do have very nice neighbors all around and that we live on a quiet little cul-de-sac.  Because my older three kids were painfully shy and would not have ever thought to even look at someone other than a close family member, Mason wandering off into the neighbor’s yard for a little chat has never crossed my mind.  After a long discussion about being safe and not wandering away or across driveways,  I am quite sure that with the chance he will in fact engage our neighbors in a lengthy discussion about our grass growing again.  He is just that kind of kid.  Sweet, trusting and very social 🙂

As for me, I promise that this is first time I have misplaced a kid (without knowing it) but it probably won’t be the last:)

Not winning any mom awards today, that is for sure. Oh well, thank goodness there is a tomorrow.

jennifer

Sorry that I have been a bit absent from my little blog.

I don’t have a lot of excuses.

Just ran out of things to say.

We are officially in mud season.

And you know what that means with four kids and dog.

Mud.

Just when we were all ready for some warm Spring weather, we got a whole lot more winter.

And it made me pretty mad.

At one point last week it was snowing so hard I thought it might be the end of the world.  I felt like I was in a snow globe.  All in all, we got about 2 1/2 feet.

But, alas, the sun is out and the snow is melting.

Spring weather seems to have arrived for now and we are enjoying it.

Today we broke out the bikes and headed down the rec path toward Breckenridge.  It was so beautiful that we didn’t want to turn around but sore heinies won out and we decided it was time to come home.

Spring, we have missed you.

 

 

 

Thank goodness we made it to the hot springs on Saturday because it started snowing   Saturday evening and has barely stopped. We are looking at about 2 feet of the fluffy stuff. We have had two pretty dry winters up here in the Rockies but it seems that winter is taking a stand or spring lost a bet.  I cannot complain because we are all warm and toasty inside and we really need this moisture as we approach the summer months.  Enjoy the pictures.  I took these just off my driveway about an hour ago.

Happy Spring!

Jennifer

When we wake up, peek out the window, and see the sun melting the snow, we know it is necessary to get outside and soak it up, the warmth that is.

Yesterday morning, that is exactly what we did.  There are millions of super cool places that we want to find and explore so we decided to make Radium Hot Springs our adventure for the day.  We have heard of this mysterious hot spring for some time but have never found it.  We spent most of the day driving and hiking (and stopping to eat, take pictures, talk about rocks, watch the deer, check out animal bones) looking for this “spot” and when we finally found it, we were not disappointed 🙂  The hot spring is literally a sweet little pool on the edge of the Colorado River.   Wow. Can you say beautiful beyond compare? Anyway, once we actually made it to the spring, we were all tired and getting hungry so after Scott and the kids had a quick dip in the “hot tub”, we hiked back to the car, all happy that we had such a fantastic day.  I can honestly say that being outside exploring this world that God has lent us with our little family is the best way to spend a day.  It truly is God’s country.

This was a great way to start our spring break!  Check back for more spring break adventures…..

Jennifer

I haven’t done an update on Mason in a looooong time and since we just celebrated his four year gotcha day, I thought it might be a good time to fill you in on our littlest man.

Mason has taken Kindergarten by storm.  The beginning of the year was a little tough for him and his sweet teacher.  We have all been working really hard and he is now having more good days than bad.  It truly is a blessing that he is so cute. Regardless of his somewhat naughty behavior, his teacher adores him.  Last week on a particularly tough day, he let her know that God forgives him when he make bad choices.  At least he is listening in Sunday school 🙂  He is reading up all the picture books in the house and continues to stump us with his silly math problems.

He is still forbidden to make his own breakfast after an oatmeal explosion in the kitchen but  he loves to help out in any way possible.  And he always does it with a smile.

 

His favorite game to play is Ninja but we had to put a stop to that after he had a ninja take down on the playground.  Taking down your friend at recess is not a good idea, even if he is playing the bad guy.  Legos are also at the top of the toy list right now.

He talks from the moment he gets up to the minute he goes to bed.  Seriously.  The boy has a lot to say and, frankly, it can be exhausting.  Especially because he gets up at 6:30 in the morning.  That is a lot to say.  If you don’t acknowledge him when he is talking or heaven forbid you ask him to wait a moment, his response is always… but, I got somtin to tell you!  We do hear that a lot.  Seriously.

He truly brings a light to our lives.  He keeps us on our toes.  He loves with all his heart and gives super duper hugs to everyone he meets.

Sweet, bright, beautiful Mason.

 This Easter was such a nice day in the midst of craziness. We have been remodeling our bike shop and it has taken a lot of time and hard work.  Scott decided to take the entire day off from work and the store and we enjoyed a great day, just the six of us. We got up and had a fun little egg hunt and then hustled to church.  After church the kids had another egg hunt with their Sunday school friends.  After we got home we had a quick lunch and headed downtown Frisco for ANOTHER egg hunt.  This time only Mason and Paige participated.  Can you believe that two of my kiddos have outgrown egg hunts?!?!?!  Once we had recovered from all the egg hunting, we threw on our snow clothes and took the kids tubing at the adventure park.  It was one super fun hour of barreling down a hill, spinning like a tea cup and trying not to fly off the side of the tubing hill.  Wow!  I think one hour was plenty!  Once we had recovered from tubing (read:short nap), we headed outside. The weather was beautiful and the girls had fun riding their bikes around the neighborhood.  Scott and I got the garage cleaned out and my car is finally inside!!!  It was a good day, indeed 🙂  I hope you all enjoyed your Easter Sunday.  

Paige waiting for the Easter egg hunt at church.

Mason and a friend from school after finding all their eggs.

 

And he’s off…..

Taking a short break at the top of the tubing hill.

I almost missed this picture as they went whizzing past me…

The loves of my life.

 

Today, we are all back to work and school.  I could not have asked for a better day with our family.

Love, Jennifer

 

Okay, all you creative people out there.  I am trying to spruce up my little blog and I need a new name.  Colorado Wescotts isn’t really all that creative and doesn’t show our fun side.  I would love to hear your ideas. My only rule is that it cannot include our names (first or last).  So, let me hear em’.  All your cute, adorable, creative, fun, super cool ideas!

Jennifer

 

Last weekend (wow, has a week already gone by) we went to the Denver Nature and Science Museum.  Sam has always loved everything Egypt and when he was asked which career he would like to learn more about (mentor program at school), of course, he said Egyptology. We could not find an Egyptologist in the county so we met up at the museum in Denver with a wonderful woman who has traveled to Egypt and is an amazing wealth of knowledge in the areas of ancient Egypt and the science surrounding it.  We found this Egypt mentor through some friends in the county and she happens to be the aunt of Alice’s good little friend, Lily.  Lily and her family also met us at the museum so we got the pleasure of touring the exhibits with them as well.  The girls also got to spend some time in the new mammoth exhibit.

Sam was in heaven.  He asked so many questions, his mentor, Kim,  was going hoarse by the end of the FIVE hours they spent touring the Egypt exhibit and pouring over books and pictures.  Thank you so much to Kim for spending the day with Sam!

These are three super cute paleontologists 🙂

Today it is snowing (again!) so we are heading to the movies. Have a great Saturday.

Jennifer