Anniversary

  We have officially been married for 6 years.  Our anniversary was on the 27th, but everything is delayed during vacation :)  We went to Joe's crab shack and the next day went skiing!!!!!!  The best of both worlds :)

  We look pretty young back then huh?  I'll post a few things (maybe 6?) that I know now that I didn't know in that picture.

       1.  Dave is really clean, he likes the house and his body to be clean, always.  Luckily he cleans the house just as much as I do, so this doesn't mean extra work for me.

       2.  We really do finish each other's sentences.  Before we knew what my seizures were he would always finish my thoughts when I would black out so I wouldn't be embarrassed.

       3.  Laundry, dishes, cleaning, grocery shopping, etc.  Is all way more fun with your best friend.

       4.  You can have absolutely no money and still have a blast.

       5.  The biggest thing I miss by not having girl roommates anymore is sharing clothes, I just don't seem to fit right (or look good) in Dave's .

       6.  Dave's feet are never cold, they're always toasty warm...and Michelle recently told me that they never smell (because Maugers don't have smelly feet).  Interesting.

   I've also learned that marriage does get better with time.  I thought nothing could beat our first year of marriage, but the next year is always better.  I'm excited for #7!

Merry Christmas!!!

  We had a great Christmas here.  I didn't post a ton of pictures though, because they're all the same...a kid or an adult holding a gift they just opened with a great smile on :)  

    We woke up and took the kids to look at our tree and stockings and they weren't even close to excited (we were though, as evidenced by Dave).  They needed warm milk and some cuddles before tackling the presents.

  Then they got into it.  Lydia got a stroller that she just LOVES, my mom even made a dolly blanket for her.  Alex got a walking triceratops and playdough.  Dave got a gigantic summer sausage (shown below).  And Dave got me a book of art...I love it so much that I honestly almost cried.  It was a complete surprise.  There were other presents that all were wonderful too.
  After we went to the Maugers' and ate a lot, and then we went to the Rozeskis' and ate a whole bunch more.  Great Christmas :)

The big 4

Alex turned 4 years old on Friday...he's so big now!  A couple months before we told him how 4 year olds buckle themselves in the car, and they don't have sippy cups anymore..etc.  To prepare him.  Yesterday he told me that he doesn't get bedtime stories since he's 4 either.  I think he thought that 4 meant that you don't have any fun anymore :)

We celebrated with a few of his closest friends by going to "pump it up".  It's an indoor inflatable playground.  There were many bruises, tears, laughs, obstacle courses, jumps, slides, and pretty much every kid had a perpetual smile.  It was awesome!  I even got to go on the obstacle course, but Jaxen AND Madeline beat me.  I'm so old...
Autumn made it for the big day, she's chunkin' up rather nicely.
Jaxen with Al's new magnifying glass.  It's HUGE!
All the kids checking out the presents
Both sets of grandparents were there, great grandma too.  We also had Melissa and her clan (Autumn, Elijah, MAdeline, and Jaxen) and then Alex's school friend, James.  I love Alex at every stage he's in, and they continue to get better, so having him grow old isn't sad at all.  Although I dread the day when he doesn't just want to hug and kiss and cuddle on the couch with me...

snowday

  We had our first real snow this past weekend.  I found almost all the snow stuff except for Lydia's boots, but she was totally happy having baggies over her normal shoes.  They could've played outside forever but I started getting cold so we went in to have hot chocolate...yum!

  In other news, thanksgiving was really fun.  The Rozeski family laid low because of the newborn baby, but the Daniel and Michelle visited from Utah so we had a big dinner with the Maugers.  We played games, made cookies balls, and even got to see Twilight.  We also did a little shopping in there too.  It was great, and it's nice to just relax now :) 

New Baby!!!

I always have my pictures in reverse order.  So, to see Jason & Melissa's new baby  Autumn Grace Rozeski...scroll to the bottom.  This is a picture of Lydia frosting christmas cookies..this is pretty much how I thought it would go.  Mostly eating, decorating, licking the cookies, generally messy.  It was fun :0

Alex concentrating on his gingerbread man...made out of sugar cookie dough...he did really well on this little guy.  Then he started eating frosting and this was his first and last cookie decorated :)
Here's where all my bowls and spoons go.  I think they're warriors.
  Here she is!  She was born Friday night about 8 pm.  She's so little and very happy.  She's only a day old, but we can tell :)
  She fell asleep in Dave's arms, he was really excited :)  So there's our big news!  We love new babies, especially when you just get to hold them and cuddle but you're not expected to change diapers and wake up in the middle of the night with them.  Congrats Jason & Melissa!

Family Pictures

  Melissa took our family pictures a few weeks ago.  Alex was none to happy to be there.  He wouldn't smile at all until Melissa bribed him with ice cream (it was 8:30 am).

Then all of his pictures were like this :)
  She did a great job.  She's really got an eye for the right kind of light and background, and somehow she always makes us look good.  Thanks Melissa!  I also like her artsy style...I like artsy.

Halloween

Happy Halloween!!!!  We've had so much fun here this year.  Al was a dinosaur.  This was at his preschool party, he's fighting with a pink pterodactyl.  His best friend is Superman in the background :)
  We had a ward party and Dave and I dressed up too..can you guess who we are?  (no one famous ;)

  Lydia the pirate:)

Happy trick-or-treating everyone!

pumpkin patch

  Jason & Melissa invited us to go to a pumpkin patch in Northern Colorado.  It was on a Thursday so Dave couldn't go but, we still enjoyed ourselves thoroughly.  It's a place you could stay for the whole day, easy.  There were plenty of animals, we even fed a buffalo (very slobbery!) They had hay rides, corn mazes, hay mazes, food, pumpkins, little trains, a haunted field that we didn't go into, and you could even pretend milk a fake cow (kind of disturbing) that the kids loved.  Melissa took all these pictures, she's pretty artsy :)

  This last one is Alex explaining something in depth to the old farmer.  He called his tractor Olly and made us all ask her to pull us nicely :)  They immediately bonded.

big Al

 Yesterday at church we were listening to the speaker tell a story about a little boy's faith.  He said the little boy looked down a big dark hole to give his Dad lunch (his dad was in the hole) and couldn't see anything so he called for his dad.  His dad yelled back up and said "just jump down, I'll catch you"  so the little boy jumped.  It was a touching story and the speaker went on to talk about faith and about two minutes later Alex asked grandpa "how did they get out of the hole?"  It was great :)  I'm impressed he was listening that closely.

6 quirks

I've been tagged.  I need to post 6 quirks about myself...here they go

1)  I believe that I am about the same height as people who are 6 feet tall.(I'm actually around 5'5")  I was totally surprised that Dave and I were at such different heights in our wedding pictures...yes I dated him for years thinking we were around the same height :)  Also, people my height I feel like I tower over.  Like my mom, she seems 5 feet tall.

2)  I think I am a technical genius.  I know relatively nothing about computers and things but I'm not afraid to press all the buttons at once or press the dreaded "yes" command to something I have no idea what it means.  It usually works.

3) I always have to have multiple things on my "to-do" list.  And none of them are the everyday normal things like clean the house or do laundry...it's usually like organize the closet, paint the bathroom, built a lattice :)

4)  I hate cooking the same thing twice.  I get tired of dinners very fast and I love to experiment.  The only thing I could eat over and over again is cereal.

5)  I am a big texture person.  I hate biting into an onion, even though I like the taste.  I hate chewy chicken and I can't have ice cream that is too frozen, ugh!

6)  I tap my toothbrush three times on the edge of the sink after rinsing it off with water.  Dave makes fun of me about it so I guess that makes it a quirk.

Now I'll tag these 6 lovely winners!

  Catherine Hatch(yes, you again :)

  Keri Troyer

  Jenn Savage (try not to copy all of mine :)

  Allison Smith

  Chelsea Monson

  Lauren Osborne

Rules :post 6 quirks about yourself and then tag 6 more people.  

Bathroom

  I'm sure you're all surprised but I decided to tackle yet another project :)  Our bathroom that most of our guests use is pretty ugly.  There was stick on fake tile on the wall, gross white walls, and an ugly old mirror.  There's also a blue tub and toilet but I didn't fix those things :0

  These two are the before pictures.  Yes that is a toilet brush up there(baby proof :) and behind that toilet brush is the stick on fake tile (lovely, isn't it ?)

  Fluorescent lighting and old mirror...
  Tada!!!  Yellow walls to match the blue toilet :)  No more tile  (and I did find a better place for the toilet brush)
A new light and I framed the old mirror in baseboards, so it looks practically new again :)

Hike at Golden Gate

  We took a short hike up Golden Gate Canyon to look at the changing colors (mostly aspen gold).  Gary and Jaynie went with us, but the pictures with them wouldn't turn around in my computer...so I'll post them another time.  We LOVE fall!

   Lydia now says  "cheese" with every picture...so she usually has this face...

Yawns & Cries

 Remember last post when I said that Lydia was pretty much always happy?  Well, there are exceptions...tonight being one of them.  It is around 2 am and Lydia has been crying since around 10:30.  Dave and I have a system with this but it doesn't seem to be working tonight...  The biggest problem is that I have to take an EEG test tomorrow, which I can't sleep more than 4 hours before.  It's a test that induces seizures to see where my levels are.  So I'm already up, and Lydia feels she should be too.

  All I can say is poor Dave!  He wants to sleep and needs to sleep, but it's hard with a child screaming!  Alex, on the other hand, sleeps like a rock through this.  Hopefully she'll be asleep before I need to fall asleep.

Preschool!

  We started preschool this week!  Although Alex is only there for two hours, he still felt the need to bring his back pack and take a picture before school with it :)

  When I dropped him off he went right into the room, no big deal.  But when I left there were a whole bunch of moms crying in the hall...I guess this is way harder on the parents because I didn't see any kids crying :)
  He came home singing booger songs, so it looks like he found the fun friends...oh my.  Then, this Saturday we went to a parade in Arvada.  We got SOOOO much candy that we actually needed another bag besides my purse to put it all in.  It was like Halloween!

Fruita

  We had a Mauger family reunion in Fruita...it's really close to Grand Junction and pretty much a half-way point for everyone.  Because we're really horrible at getting pictures, this was the only one with Daniel & Michelle (right) and Steve, Kass, & Weston (left).  

  This was a cool bench there (notice Lydia's pigtails!)
  At the dinosaur museum there they have animated dinosaurs, it was awesome!
Driving back we had a little traffic, but the kids did great.

  All in all it was great, we even did one bike ride where I was humbled once again.  It was great because when the kids went to sleep we adults could all stay up and talk and play games, Dave and I had a blast...and Alex was sad to leave.  Lydia's pretty much always happy :)

Arp's visit

  This summer Al has been in heaven.  The Rozeski's moved here and Al has been playing with his cousins at least once a week, which is awesome!  But, sadly, school started two weeks ago and Alex has been in low spirits ever since.  He likes to play with Elijah, but always asks where Jaxen and Madeline are.  So, my sister and her two kids decided to visit from Maryland (I'm sure it was all for Alex :)

  We had to make our trip to Casa Bonita, and although I didn't go, Dave said it was a blast!  Here are a couple pictures he managed to take, Casa Bonita is hard to keep track of your kids...so there aren't many times you can just sit and relax.  The first picture is of Alex and Sonya outside next to the water fountain, and the picture below is during dinner when they have little skits next to the waterfall.  (from left to right) Grandma, Jaxen, Superman (Elijah), Madeline, Alex, Sonya, and Papa.  They don't ever eat much at Casa Bonita, which is probably just fine since the food is the worst part about the whole restaurant :)
  Besides this fun we've done a few things here and there.  Nikki is so fun and relaxing to be around and I miss her more when she visits.  We'll be sad to see her go, but we had a blast while she was here!

Messy

  For some reason I've never been into putting a bib on Lydia...Alex wore one constantly, but Lydia never kept them on and now I haven't put one on for months...can't even find them.  But, now of course she's starting to use a spoon and we like snack packs at our house...so this is the result...

  not too bad right?  For dinner before we had pasta, so this is on top of pasta sauce in her ears and hair.  Her favorite thing to do is grab a glop of pudding and rub it on her tummy, we didn't manage to get a picture of that though :)