Sweets For Syria!

Sweets For Syria turned out to be a huge success!

We made pumpkin bread, whole wheat bread, cupcakes, chocolate chip cookies, and lemonade. Our best sellers were the cookies and lemonade. We hardly sold any cupcakes- I guess they are too messy for people.

Our stand raised $92.50. But, there were 8 families who did 6 stands and we raised a total of $1060.50! The girls loved doing the stand- Claire wanted to stay there all day. People were really generous, and I learned another lesson: I need to do a better job at stopping at lemonade stands. I always try to, but sometimes I am in a hurry, but now I'm going to make sure and always try to stop.

Anyway, it was lots of fun, and I hope the kids learned something. They seem very happy to be able to help the Syrian refugees!

Do You See Claire On This Front Page of the Local Paper?

Colorado Wind Ensemble takes Case Pavilion stage

Concert part of HRCA’s Culture on the Green Series

Children danced while listening to the Colorado Wind Ensemble at Civic Green Park on Aug. 28.

TARYN WALKER

• As a part of Highlands Ranch Community Associations’ Culture on the Green series, the Colorado Wind Ensemble performed at Civic Green Park on Aug. 28.

Music enthusiasts got cozy on the grass to listen to the contemporary sounds of 45-plus woodwind, brass and percussion members perform on the Case Pavilion stage.

The band, under direction of David Kish, played for an hour and a half while the sun set over the park as a close to the sounds of summer.

“This park has never looked so gorgeous,” Mimi Epling of the HRCA said.

Some visitors brought their chairs and blankets to take full advantage of the relaxing space at Civic Green. Others stopped by spontaneously.

“We just happened to be walking by and heard the music. We didn’t know about it, but the weather is perfect and we love music, so here we are,” said Angela Adam of Littleton, who enjoyed the free concert with her husband and two kids.

The final event of the series will feature Ballet Ariel of Denver on Sept. 25. The concert begins at 6:30 p.m. No dogs or glass containers are allowed at the park.

Funding for the events is made possible through the Scientific and Cultural Facilities District. For more information visit hrcaonline.org.

Claire Plays Soccer

In our effort to raise our children as unmainstream and unorthodox as possible, I did not think that we would sign any of our children up for soccer. But, my dad convinced me that it might be good for Claire- something to help her run her energy off.

We signed her up, and I already regret it. It is quite time consuming, and I realize how much I dislike soccer parents. Claire had her first game on Saturday, and the parents were silly. I mean, seriously, these kids are 6. It isn't the World Cup. There is absolutely no skill involved- because they are six. It is literally just a bunch of kids playing bunch ball. But you would think these kids are all destined to be Mia Hamm based on the parents reaction to every pass, score, or kick. So ridiculous.

But, sigh, we are in it. Claire seems to have fun. She may have had more fun running to the sidelines and waving to her cousin Mackenzie, but nevertheless- there were lots of smiles, and that's a win. I suppose if she likes it, that is all that matters- regardless of annoying parents.

She hung back a lot waiting for them to come to her

But here she got in on the action

Going Dancing!

It has been probably 8 years since we have been dancing. But, we actually really enjoy dancing- and by "we" I mean Ben as well as me- he likes it, too.

I found out they were doing a Big Band dance night at the historical mansion in town, and we decided to invite some friends and go on a group date.

It was so much fun! If the only thing we did was listen to the Jazz Band, it would have been worth the ticket price, but adding the dancing on top made it just awesome. We really did have a fantastic night!

The dance went from 6:30-8:30 so we figured it was catering to the 65 + crowd. We were right. There was one couple younger than us. But, we didn't care- that time frame is much more our style anyway.

One of my favorite dates! We need to go dancing more often!

Five Mile Park

I took the girls to a co-op at Five Mile Park just east of Denver. It was so cool! They had all sorts of different activities for the kids to do- including churning butter, playing Native American and Pioneer games, panning for gold, and doing pioneer chores. I was incredibly impressed.

Audra got really good at this game- and it is hard!

Mom Of the Year

I am pretty sure that I just won Mom Of the Year. I have written my speech and everything.

I took Audra and Claire camping. By myself.

Yes, we stayed in a cabin. Yes, the cabin had a heater and the campground has real toilets with running water. But, still. I did it.

While growing up my dad would take all five of us kids camping and leave my mom to have the weekend off. I can tell you that that will not happen in this household- I will never get the weekend off while Ben takes the girls to the mountains. I love Ben, but before the trip I told him that I wanted he and Camille to come, but that if he came he could not whine, complain, or be grumpy. He had to have a smile and not worry about bedtimes and dirt. He couldn't commit to those requirements, so he stayed home with Camille.

They joined us on Saturday afternoon, and Camille was NOT happy to see us! She was so mad at us for leaving her for a night.

But, we did have a wonderful time. We went up to Golden Gate Canyon Park. We had never been there and I had absolutely no idea what to expect. I looked up my friends old blog post (Thanks, Jenny!) who had been there before to get some sort of idea of what we were heading into. Her yurt pictures were quite nice, but I was still shocked when I saw the cabin- it was awesome! It had actual beds with mattresses!Seriously, I have never in my life camped in such nice circumstances.

To cap it off, the weather was perfect, as was the company. We went with the homeschool group and the girls loved playing with the other kids. It was really, really nice. Pretty perfect, actually. The group does this camp out every year, and we will definitely go back. Next year, however, I want to stay for two nights instead of one. It is so much work, whether you go for one night or 10, so we might as well stay for a little bit longer next year. But, this year was a learning year as we figure this out.

We drove up to Panaroma Point which had gorgeous views of the mountains.

I brought up some tin foil dinners. Claire refused to eat hers because of the salt and pepper in them . She traded that for a hot dog that her friends were cooking. They got the better end of the deal.

The girls also worked hard to earn their Junior Ranger patches.

The cabins were so nice! Electricity, heater, etc. Granted, you still had to walk 50 yards to the bathroom, but these cabins were worth every penny.

It took us awhile, but I finally got a fire started. I finally remembered that I had lighter fluid- the wood didn't stand a chance!

We had some pancakes. Notice the burned one- we had one bad batch, but otherwise we ate quite well.

The girls are ready for the hike. They were actually pretty grumpy for the entire hike. They would much rather have just stayed at the campground and played with their friends. 

Love these girls!

How did she get so cute?

Art Museum

Yesterday we took our annual trip downtown! We rode the train (which, by the way, we found out they are about to open 4 new lines which we think will be HUGE for Denver- it's very exciting!), ate lunch at a yummy sandwich shop called DuckSoup, saw lots of interesting people dressed up for the International Anime Convention, walked through the Taste of Colorado which happened to be going on right in front of the museum, and then to the Art Museum.

The girls did great! I was kind-of surprised. They were so excited the whole time. They enjoyed looking at the art, and participating in several different activities at the museum. They were much more interested than last year, and each year I think it will just get better and better.

We ended the trip with a stop for ice-cream, and headed home. A total of 7 hours- wow! That is a long time of walking around with three small children in very crowded areas. But it was well worth it- we all had a great, albeit exhausting, time.

Here is Camille entertaining everybody on the train ride home with her killer dance moves:

Anger Management

At the encouragement of her Behavioral Therapist, I signed Claire up for an anger management class through our insurance. It is a four week class, and tonight was her first class.

The class is geared for 6-12 year olds. Expecting Claire to be the youngest, I was surprised that there were several other 6 year olds in the class. Apparently we are not the only parents dealing with an explosive child.

While I don't love the demeanor and teaching style of the leader of the class, the material is pretty good, and Claire and I were able to talk about some issues that she is having which was helpful. She also drew her picture of an Angry Monster:

I am grateful for this class. I think this is a class that Claire needs- as do we as parents. And I certainly don't want to minimize what we are going through with Claire- it is a tough road with this child. But, while sitting in the class, I realized that it could be A LOT worse. There was one boy who said he gets angry "when Caleb and Kevin tell me they are going to kill me with their dads sword" or "when the boys at recess threaten to kill me." Or the two kids who just sat in stony silence the entire class- just looking straight ahead with the angriest faces I have ever seen on such small children.

Hopefully this class will prove helpful. I am also reading a book called "The Explosive Child" which is really helpful. At least I do know that Claire knows that she is loved and that we will try and get her whatever help that she needs to figure out her feelings in an appropriate way. Most of the time she is happy, but when she is not- she is not! It's tough, but hopefully we can get it figured out and give her the tools that she needs to calm herself down and behave in acceptable ways even if she is angry.

The Invention

Audra and Claire LOVE inventing. In fact, sometimes when I am ready to start school they will yell from downstairs, "but mom- we're inventing!" They know that will get them out of school for another 15 minutes.

Anyway, this invention has been in the works for a few weeks. I am not quite sure what exactly it is supposed to do, but has something to do with hot dogs.

I finally bought some hot dogs so they could test out their invention.

The blow dryer was to slide the hot dog through the machine. I believe there was supposed to be some sort of condiment dispenser system but that got taken out due to lack of performance. So basically they just put the hot dog in, blew the blow dryer (which they originally wanted to have cook the hot dog, but we nixed that idea and had them pre-cooked), and then pushed it out the end onto the plate.

I don't think it worked as well as they had dreamed, but they didn't seem to mind. After all, isn't it the inventing that counts?