Love from Cali

Knowing that we will see them again in three weeks for Thanksgiving made it so much easier to say goodbye to my sister and nephew after their visit.  Wait...THREE WEEKS!  No!  That's too long!!!

When Tommy was born, Leah spent her first Halloween with us, helping me with the baby, schlepping around from one soccer game to another, enjoying the beautiful Rockies autumn, sucking up that awesome nostalgic/cozy feeling this time of year brings when family is around.  And just like that, she was ruined forever--hooked on the Colorado Conlin Halloween!  Since then she has been with us for three more, and we all love to share this time together and especially love that her visits over the past two years have included our sweet Kai.  We are so grateful for her effort to pack us into her family's busy schedule, even though traveling with a toddler can feel like a glimpse into insanity at times.

It was a wonderful visit full of laughing together, late-night chats, a few tears over deep talks, errands and soccer and birthday and Halloween, eating all kind of yumminess, adorable moments left and right, cousin bonding, chasing Kai around the house, perfect and good togetherness.  We are counting down the 22 days until we meet up for Thanksgiving in Steamboat!

Kai!  Always generous with those smiles.

Cuddle time.

The boys were grateful when the weekend arrived so they wouldn't have to split the day between school time and Kai time.

Kai wasn't totally sure he loved the trampoline, but he tolerated it to entertain his cousins.

Wagon walk.

There's always gotta be a sister pedi...and we wanted to match.

Text from Adam: "I'm good hanging out with the guys, Mom!  You go ahead and enjoy that pedicure with Auntie Colleen!"

Kai especially loved his fur cousin, Ruby, and she loved him too!  He is still learning "gentle" but she didn't mind his rough hugs and tackles at all, and particularly enjoyed their unspoken agreement that Kai would deliver 50% of his meals to the floor for her to share.

The boys adore their Uncle Jason and were incredibly bummed that he couldn't come along on this trip.  Although he couldn't be here, he sent along a special treat for his nephews to play with so they'd know he was thinking of them and wishing he were with us!

Ben's baby love is boundless!  He loved doing all he could to help with Kai.

I had to include this blurry picture because it is a PERFECT representation of the stage Kai is in!  The "I'm way too busy exploring my world to stop for you to take a picture of me" phase.  His theme song is "What's This?!" from The Nightmare Before Christmas, "What's this?!  What's this?!.."  He was so adorably busy...just as he should be!

Loves!

Ben didn't even mind the grumpy moods.

Kai didn't know what to think about the giant, prickly leaf pile that the cousins seemed to be enjoying so much.

On a couple of different evenings, as I was bustling around the house or helping little boys get ready for bed, I could hear the older boys talking and laughing with their auntie.  It was so wonderful to hear how they simply wanted to share their world with her, and how she enjoyed being a part of it.

Thanks for sharing your Go-Gurt slurp photobomb with us all Tommy.

Why don't you just come and get in the picture with us?

Such adorable cousin bums!  Tommy was willing to take a cooler bath just so he could have one with Kai.

One last pic for Mom, who loaded up our Starbucks cards so we could have a tasty drink together on "our" Starbucks patio.

Our Favorite Halloween Baby

When Tommy woke up on Friday morning, he came down the stairs and exclaimed, "It's Daddy's birthday!"  That says it all.  Halloween is a great holiday, and we all love it, but we love Dad so very much more!  In spite of the holiday, which is one of the busiest as far as holidays go, we do all we can to make sure he is shown how we feel about him and how much we appreciate him. 

Adam really is as good as they come.  He spends his days devoted to working hard to provide for us, and spends his evenings and weekends dedicated to quality time with all of us.  He is thoughtful, kind and caring.  He leads, guides and nurtures his sons gently, but firmly when necessary.  He is present, involved and brokenhearted that he can't be everywhere at once when we have special events.  He feels his responsibility as a father and a husband deeply and strives to shine in every facet of it.  He loves us and is careful to show us how much so that we always know.  We are so lucky to call him ours and are grateful for this special day to celebrate him! 

A favorite lunch for our favorite guy!

There was more than just crispy fried green beans, but I think he wouldn't have minded if there wasn't, which is why I ordered two: one for him, one for the rest of us!

Present time!

A new family tradition thanks to Tommy--a muffin from Zac.  Hahahaha!  Maybe you had to be there....

Tommy loves that he and Dad wear matching superhero tees and will often go to change if he sees Adam wearing one that he has too, but he was always disappointed that Dad didn't have a Batman shirt.  Problem solved!

The only gift he ever wants from me: homemade dark chocolate covered sea salt caramels.  A labor of love!

Cheesecake and candles!  Three star candles and nine spiral candles to represent his 39 years.

The big boys were still trick-or-treating when Adam returned with the littles after one go-round of the neighborhood, and said little boys were happily munching on the fruits of their spoils, so it was just Leah and I singing "Happy Birthday" to Adam over the flaming cheesecake.

With such a busy Halloween evening, we saved Adam's special birthday dinner for Sunday night.  Flank steak, fried squash and roasted brussels sprouts and broccoli: he was one happy boy!

Adam didn't ask for any special treat, but the boys would have been brokenhearted if we didn't do anything after Adam's birthday dinner, especially since the older boys had missed out on the pre-cheesecake birthday singing, so I had grabbed a pumpkin roll at the store.  It just seemed silly to dirty a plate just for a presentation that Adam sure didn't care about, and we were nearly out of candles after three birthdays, so...pumpkin roll in its plastic container with a single left-over candle stuck in...the Conlins are keepin' it classy!

Halloween Festivities 2014

Halloween week is always full of awesome Halloweenie activities that are sure to thrill the Chaos...and bring copious amounts of candy into our home, followed by the guaranteed post-sugar-high grumps.  But sometimes you just gotta live for the moment and go for it.  And we sure did! 

The BEST part of the week was our fall visit from Leah and Kai...more on that later.  But it also included two preschool parties for Tommy, the ward fall festival and trunk-or-treat, an Oktoberfest celebration at the boys' elementary school, Red Ribbon (Drug Awareness) Week dress-ups for all (which I didn't photograph), and, of course, donning the carefully chosen costumes and trick-or-treating around the neighborhood.  The kids each had their own idea of what they wanted to be this year, and a very particular reason why they wanted to be their particular Halloween-alter-ego, so, although family themes were tossed around, they are on the back-burner for now...maybe next year!  This year we had--Tommy: Captain America, because he is awesome and a hero; Luke: Washbuckler, a Skylander, because it is his favorite Wii Game; Josh: Marouane Fellaini, who is a Belgian National Team/Man U midfielder that Josh admires (although he wanted to wear a mustache, which Fellaini doesn't have and wouldn't wear the afro wig...so....); Ben: Skinny Skeleton Skin Suit, because he really wanted to wear a skin suit; Zac: Zac-Zac the Lumberjack, because the beard was hilarious! 


It was a great, festive week with a lot of late nights and fun, busy days!  Happy Halloween!

Preschool co-op Halloween party

Famous from Oslo to West Oslo: Olga and Shmerga--The Operatic Viking Sisters!

Luke invited his best pal, Holden, to join us for the ward party.

Josh brought along his two closest school friends, Canyon and Eli.

Alyssa (one of my Beehives) and Tommy--it was so cute that they were matching we had to get a pic!

Party time.

Zac, Ben and the cutest octopus in the ocean, Kai!

Arrrrgh!

Walking the costume parade catwalk

Chilling in the hallway while the cousins play carnival games.

Preschool Halloween party and costume parade

The AIES Chicken Dance and Volksmarch Oktoberfest party

The octopus is a perfect costume for this little man, who, at 20-months, is grabby, reachy and wiggly just like one!

Ready for trick-or-treating!  I love them all!  We were joined for the fun by Ben's pal Owen.  Adam took the two little boys around; Josh went with his friend Canyon and Canyon's dad; Zac, Ben and Owen met up with a few friends from the neighborhood and took themselves around...they are growing up!

"I am so put upon.  The things I do for my humans...."

Loot.

The Bits: October 22nd Through November 1st

The Bits to take us to November!

He turned five and BAM!

I love this beautiful place!

The only rain squall we have had in the past couple of weeks (lame!) came last week.  It started five minutes before the middle school boys were let out of school and ended ten minutes after the little boys walked in the back door.  My thought: Terrible timing!  The boys' thought: Perfect timing! 

Two weeks ago, for a combined youth activity, the kids went out and did some S.W.A.T.--Service Without a Trace.  Since then, Ben seems to have caught S.W.A.T. fever and has been running around the neighborhood, secretly raking yards.  Not to be outdone, Zac and Tommy took some time last Saturday to do a little S.W.A.T.ting themselves!  These boys!  They are amazing!

Bravo Josh!  The fourth grade production of "Colorado!" was phenomenal!  Especially that Gold Rush Miner Rapper #3...he killed it!  Fun fact: Josh was the third Conlin boy to have a part in the Gold Rush Rap.  He and his classmate, Kitty, petitioned for parts in the rap, claiming it was "tradition" because Kitty's two older sisters and Josh's two older brothers performed the Gold Rush Rap together in the year their grades did this musical.  Fortunately, Marcia Cole, the music teacher humored them and let them do it, and they were fantastic.  Too bad Kitty has no more sisters to carry on the tradition with my little two!

Adam made sure we could safely view the partial solar eclipse last Thursday by using an index card with a tiny hole to filter the light into a shadow of the event.  Our camera phones caught the eclipse in a different way...reflection of the eclipse's light off of the cameras' inner lenses.  So cool!

Ben was excited to discover his picture in the Colorado Soccer Association's "Goal Post Scripts" quarterly magazine from when his team played in the President's Cup earlier this season.  He was famous!  For about five seconds and only in our home...but famous!

The autumn view from our bedroom window is a pretty good way to start the morning.

Tommy and I finally got around to visiting our new Trader Joe's!  YES!  It's a favorite store for quality products at decent prices and fun specialties, and we have been hopeful that we'd get one in Colorado for awhile.  When a store opened up in Boulder in February, followed quickly by two in the Denver area, we knew the time for one in The Springs was close.  I didn't want to go when it was crazy brand new...but even waiting for two weeks after opening day, it was still pretty crazy there.  Totally worth diving into the madness though.  YUM!

Zac's team finished their fall season strong with a 3-1 win on Saturday.  They had had a couple of tough losses over the past couple of weeks, so it was so exciting to see them finish on a high note.  It was one of the best games I had seen them play as a team.  Zac had a very strong season and has been giving his all.  Over the years, because of his great love for the sport, he has consciously developed an aggressiveness on the field that is necessary for soccer but doesn't come naturally to him, and, this season, playing primarily as center defense, he has shown how hard he has worked.  He is TOUGH.  He is an asset to his team wherever he is placed on the field and is subbed out rarely because his presence makes a difference.  We are so proud of him!  That is my boy, #42 (the answer to Life, the Universe and Everything), making a beautiful backwards cross pass to a teammate while he played center-mid in the game.

Sunday morning the clouds looked like an impressionist painting.

Sunday afternoon we spent some family time at the park.  I love these sweet family days!

By Monday afternoon the warmth of Sunday had been blown away by a cold front, but it was hard to complain about the freezing, windy soccer practice that awaited Ben and Josh after school because there have been so few this season!

The wind carried with it a bit of dry, puffy grauple.  The boys were SO excited!  When they started to predict a school delay, we had to dash their hopes by pointing out that it had stopped after five minutes.

We watched the first sunrise of November from the soccer pitch while we waited for Ben's early game to begin.

After an exciting win, Ben's team finished the season today with a 7-0-2 (W-L-T) record, placing 2nd in their league.  They worked SO hard this season and absolutely earned it!  Woot woot!

Josh's season also finished up today with one last away game in Denver.  Unfortunately, the boys lost the game, but they had a strong second half and could celebrate their many wins over the course of the season.  They were a fun team to watch and a really nice group of boys.  Josh was a solid player for the team, both in goal, which he loves, as well as on the field.  His love for soccer has certainly been reignited and he is already excited for spring!