Can't keep them apart

Keagan loves being with his little brother, but Logan needs his sleep.  We have the swing for little Logan to sleep in the playroom which has a gate to keep the kids in...or out.  Logan-berry sleeps so peacefully if it is quiet, which means that Keagan is outside playing.  When Keagan comes inside he always wants to check and see if his brother is awake.  The closed gate provided a safe spot for Logan until Keagan put his mind to work.  

 Keagan pulled one of the kitchen chairs over to the gate and hopped into the play room to give Logi a kiss.  But then there was the problem of getting out.  So he pulled one of his little chairs over and now he can hop in and out to his content.  So much for Logan's peaceful naps!

Gardening

Keagan loves watching things grow so decided yet again to dig up the garden and plant some seeds this summer.  The drought has been with us for the last 2 years so we don't get very much from our garden but we can always try!

 The biggest challenge for us weeding once the garden gets growing.  You would think the tripods of water would give us plants but it seems to only give the weeds water to grow...well and little gourds.  We planted the little gourds the first year and they have just spread themselves all over the garden.  So come fall we always have decorations to put around the house!  We can't seem to remember where we plant anything as our garden area is quite big but John solved this problem for us this year!  He got these outdoor rubber mats for a project of his and had lots left over.  So we have placed them in the garden to help keep the weeds down and mark where we planted our seeds.  It worked great and kept the sticky clay mud off our feet

The lack of mud on Keagan's feet definitely helped keep the house much cleaner this summer as he has mastered the screen door and the sliding glass door.  We honestly cannot keep him locked in the house.  It is a good thing the back yard is fenced in with cat fence.  If the cats can't get out, Keagan can't either.

 

Keagan the gardener was such a good helper with planting the seeds this year.  He would get them out of his package and help me "dump" them into the ground.  We might not have had straight rows but they were put into the ground with such enthusiasm. 

May 2013

Logan is 5 months old

Time goes by so quickly.  I can remember rushing to the hospital this winter to give birth to a little 6 lb 6 oz little boy and now he is over 15 pounds.  The little stinker is only nursing and won't even take a bottle even when mom is gone on Saturday mornings at Dr. Grimes clinic in Elizabeth.  We are enjoying the nice summer weather and of course being outside is our favorite activity.  He is sitting up well and has graduated to the baby backpack.  This makes walking fun for mom as one kid goes up in the backpack and one is in the stroller.

                                                       

When we are not outside both boys enjoy the jumperoo.  I think Keagan still loves it more.  Logan will go in it but he still prefers the Saucer. Keagan's eyes got huge when we got this out for his brother and of course jumped right in!

Summer wheels

Keagan is fascinated with anything that that has wheels this summer.  Trains are his favorite but planes are a close second.  But honestly anything with wheels or that goes fast is fun for him.   We have spent lots of time touring the trains at the train museum in Golden.  Or just playing with his own train set in the basement where it is cool.

May 28th

Spotting planes up high in the sky is a favorite back yard activity.  When he sees a plane he loves to point it out to me and sign plane.  It seems that the flight path from Colorado Springs to DIA is over our house and some days the planes fly so low we can wave to the pilots.  One day this summer we saw Airforce One and waved to President Obama when he was visiting Denver.

Keagan loves driving his own tractor while we push him around the back yard as well.  The bucket is great for storing rocks that he finds all over the yard and dumping or transferring them into the wheelbarrow is a good way to keep him occupied.  John's big blue tractor is still a little scary but the smaller green John Deere mower is fun to ride around on.  Too bad we never get any rain to mow the lawn.

Of course going outside is never far from Keagan's mind and playing outside while brother sleeps is a great way to make sure Logan gets a good rest.

Wake up brother and come play!

OK...Let's try again.

So finishing up the summer blog while trying to move in September was a little ambitious.  Moving was such a huge disruption to our life, I did not want to start trying to update this until I felt I could do a good job and keep up with it again. So here goes again now that we are mostly settled into our house in Minnesota.  There are still boxes that should be unpacked out in the garage but with the high tomorrow of -25 F we are not going outside unless we have to.

Moving proved to be a monumental task with not all of our belonging fitting into 1 moving truck.  Poor Jeff had to fly back to CO after we signed the papers on our house in MN and make a second trip in less than 48 hours.  Luckily we had family to help us unload the trucks here in MN to make it all possible.  It was beautiful weather for a few weeks then the cold set in and honestly we are wondering if we moved to Antartica.  It has been an extremely cold winter so far and they boys and I have been a little squirrely being locked in the house so much.  We really do like the area and love our house, but would love to bring the Colorado weather with us.  We miss the milder winter and being outside more often! So we have been finding things to do indoors and imagine our delight when  we realized MN has already figured out there needs to be lots of things for the kiddos to do to stay out of the frightful cold.

But before we talk about the cold winter let us revisit the beautiful summer we had in Colorado.  It was a wonderful summer with gorgeous temperatures for the most part.  We can't wait to go back this summer and visit this beautiful place again.

Happy Rider

Keagan loves his pony Anne but he is just not big enough for mom's saddle.  So we found a used one his size for his birthday.  He loves riding his pony around the yard or paddock and if Regen is available he likes being up high as well.

Where to start...

I now realize that when summer is here life gets to be too much fun outside and this blog just gets ignored.  So I am going to try to update our summer 2013.  We have had so much fun enjoying the nice Colorado weather this summer.  But it has been a bit hectic as we have sold our house and are moving to Minnesota September 24th.  Jeff got a job in the Minneapolis area and started working June 17th so he has been commuting back and forth all summer.  We were lucky that he would work for 2 weeks then have 10-14 days off in a row.  We took full advantage of having some time off together as I am staying at home with the boys.  Since we were leaving Colorado we decided to explore the state before we left.  Our trips into the mountains only made us realize even more how much we will miss Colorado.  It is very beautiful here and we are sad to leave but life marches on and we must go with it!

Keagan loves the summertime.  He spends every minute he can outside or at the pool.  He loves to go swimming and we are so lucky to have a nice community pool 30 seconds away from our house.  We can go every day and we don't have to take care of it or worry about the boys falling into a pool in our own backyard.  Having it heated to 85 degrees is not bad either.  When Keagan is not swimming he is usually playing in the dirt, finding planes in the sky, walking the trails with mom and Hannah, riding (or feeding) his pony Anne, playing over at John's house or picking the tomatoes in the Earth Boxes.  Since his birthday his vocabulary has expanded greatly as the summer has gone on.  At times it is difficult to tell what he is saying but he loves to talk now and it is fun hearing his commentary on life.

May 10th - We call this his Jedi pose

Our Logan-Berry is doing well too.  He has grown so fast this summer. He started sitting up on his own in June and began crawling in August.  He is pulling himself up on everything he can get his hands on now and even lets go to balance on his own 2 feet.  I am sure he will be walking before the year ends.  He got his first tooth right after his 8 month birthday and that has been a long slow process.  Of course introducing solid foods after 6 months has helped his little gums feel better.  He really liked baby food until I gave him his first finger food.  Now if he can't pick it up he does not really want to eat it.  It has been so fun having 2 little boys in the family.  Life is a little more challenging having 2 kids under the age of two but other than the lack of sleep it has been so much fun!