Spring Break

Last week the kids were on Spring break.   They spent much of the time just wanting to relax, watch movies, play video games, and the like.  And for the most part, we let them.  We're not in much of a position to travel right now, especially with how fussy Brooklyn and Michael have been (and how much they wake up at night even under the best of circumstances).  And with how busy things have been at work and at home, it was good to have a week with relatively low expectations.

We wanted to give the three older kids a chance to get away for a few days, though, so on Friday I drove them down to Garden of the Gods in Colorado Springs.  It was tough not to have all of us go together, but we knew that bringing Michael and Brooklyn would make it a miserable trip for everybody.  And since Brooklyn is still nursing, it seemed to make the most sense to have me take the three older kids on the trip and have Liz stay home with Michael and Brooklyn.  Besides, Liz has had a few ski dates with the older kids this winter so I wanted a turn having fun with them. :-)

The kids had a great time hiking and climbing the beautiful rock formations.

After we had been hiking around a while, I got a phone call from Liz asking where we were.  I replied, "Garden of the Gods".  She said, "Yes, but where exactly in Garden of the Gods?  I'm here with Michael and Brooklyn and we want to meet up with you!"  Apparently we had been gone for all of about five seconds before she decided to pack the babies in the car and come join us!  At least just for the day.  We kept it a surprise from the older kids and found a place to meet up.  Boy were they surprised and excited to see mom, Michael and Brooklyn!

 Michael particularly loved jumping off the rocks with mom and hiking with dad.  He would sign "1,2,3,jump!" and Liz would help him jump off the rock.

My sister Becky happened to be in the area that day and joined us for a picnic lunch.  It was so great seeing her as well.

We checked in to the Academy Hotel Friday afternoon, which is the same hotel we stayed at last year.  It has a great pool, so of course the kids wanted to go back this year!  Liz, Michael, and Brooklyn only hung out at the hotel with us briefly before we grabbed an early dinner so they could drive back to Fort Collins.

That evening I took the kids swimming at the pool, had ice cream sundaes at the hotel restaurant, and finished the night off in our room with a pillow fight and games.  Needless to say, the kids slept very soundly that night.

The next morning the kids wanted to go swimming again after breakfast, and I was so impressed with the progress they made in just a few hours.  Spencer especially went from being absolutely terrified of the water and unwilling to let go of me even with his life vest on, to "swimming" laps back and forth across the pool (in his life vest) without anyone holding on to him.  Whitney jumped off the side of the pool over and over again into my arms.  And Sarah did somersaults and handstands in the water like a pro.

After checking out of the hotel we drove down to Pueblo so our kids could play with their cousins.  Unfortunately their spring break is beginning just as ours is ending, but they loved spending all day Saturday together.  Sunday morning we drove back to Fort Collins in time to get ready for church.

This week is an important week for us, as we will be figuring out where Michael will go to preschool next year.  It's hard to believe he's made it this far.  When he was first going through his cancer treatments and therapies, we were told the state-funded therapies would end when he turned three years old, and he would start attending preschool.  That seemed so far away at the time, and to be honest we wondered if he'd even be with us that long.  Today he's only a few months shy of three years old and is doing amazingly well.  So we're looking into some of the special ed preschools in the area that can work with him.  We're particularly interested in ones with teachers that know sign language, since that's how he communicates.  Liz went to an open house at one preschool a few weeks ago, and is going to another classroom tomorrow to observe.  Then on Wednesday we meet with the school district to put in our preferences and decide what school he'll go to.  We've been so fortunate to work with excellent therapists so far, and we really hope he'll have a preschool teacher who he'll connect with and work well with.

February snapshot

Whoosh!  February flew in and flew out so fast!  Here's a snapshot of what happened:

Sarah learned how to make muffins from a box mix in one week, wrote a paper about it and did a 5 minute presentation for her class.  She worked hard and we are so proud of her.  She also became really enthralled with a game on the Nabi (like a kid ipad) and we've had to limit time on it after she began neglecting more important things to sneak time to play it.

Whitney keeps growing and growing.  Really, she's just 6 1/2 years old in 10 year old clothing.  She has been particularly struck with "Frozen-itis" and struts around singing "Let it Go" with total abandonment.

Spencer is still crazy about running as fast as he can and anything to do with superheros.  He also has a growing addiction for angry birds.

Michael is signing more and more everyday, particularly in the context of "Signing Time."  He can sign pretty much an entire episode without even looking at the screen.  He can spell his name in sign.  He also is making a renewed effort to make vocal sounds though they are so so difficult for him.  He's also borrowing a lighter-weight walker to get him more interested in walking.

Brooke survived falling down the stairs - twice - when Michael went down to the basement and left the door open.  She's an efficient and quick crawler now so she would go after him and tumble.  She's also had several scary choking episodes from kids leaving toys/knicknacks/paper/erasers/etc lying on the floor.  We've borrowed some baby gates to keep her fenced in until we can keep her safer around here.  She has the most adorable smile.

Both Michael and Brooke have been sick this week with really bad colds.

I took the 3 oldest kids to ski class and took one myself while Tim stayed home with the babies.  It made for quite the adventurous day, especially at the end when Spencer and Whitney were too tired to carry their skis and get off the ground to get on the bus to take us back to the lodge (so we missed it and I had to make the half-hour trek myself back to the lodge to fetch the car only to return and find Sarah had decided to abandon Whitney and Spencer and go looking for me), Whitney freaking out on the bunny slope and me having to take her skis off and have her walk down, and Sarah riding the lift with me and flying down the hill perfectly. Family bonding.

Valentine's Day Tim made the kids a special valentine breakfast and made special valentine's for each of them.  I did the same at dinner, setting a romantic table with special heart-shaped pizzas, martinelli's, and valentine's.  The kids weren't sure what the candles on the table were for and asked if we were supposed to blow the lit candles out after singing a song similar to "Happy Birthday."

The annual "Valentine Making" Day.  We got an awesome box from the Bellamy side of the family with lots of Valentine love inside.

Yep, Tim is pretty much the favorite one around here.  I came down stairs one morning to find everyone sitting around him like this laughing and having a good time.

Tim got these beautiful flowers for me after a string of pretty difficult days.  He is so thoughtful and kind.