Mail 'Sprung' from Colorado

Quick break from Colorado and the Olympics for me to be thankful.  I got to spend some time helping in Noah's classroom this morning and I got home and couldn't stop smiling.  I LOVE my 'job'.  I LOVE being a Mom.  I LOVE seeing my children grow and learn and succeed.  And so a quick shout out and debt of gratitude to my other half for making it possible for me to this FULL TIME.  I always wanted to be a stay at home mom and I am so thankful he works so hard and allows me to do crazy things like Family Olympics, State Projects, Kid Kitchen and just simply going to school and helping there, too.  Sure, there are moments I am not particularly fond of (see: Mikayla's behavior the past 4 days which culminated in her being held after school today for telling the teacher what she wanted them to do was 'stupid' and that she 'didn't have to) but for every one of those there is the moment like yesterday when Noah got off the bus grinning from ear to ear to brag to me that he got a 'caught being good' card at school for the first time.  Being a Mom is so cool :-p

Anyway, back to the Games and Colorado!

Today was Day 4 of our Olympics competition and we did a 'snowball' ring toss.  I made paper rings and you had to toss snowballs (mini marshmallows) into the rings to earn points.  1 point per ring, 2 points for landing in an area that the rings overlapped.  Check out the action and our winners in the pictures!

I brought a little of Colorado's southwest flair to dinner tonight by making Black Bean Veggie Enchiladas.  I was really surprised in my research to find that while not technically part of the southwest, a lot of the cuisine in Colorado borrows from there.  I also found out (Olympic tie in!) that a lot of the miners that originally settled in Colorado were Russian and there is also a distinctive Russian flair to the cuisine, especially in areas near towns that were originally established for mining purposes.

Tonight we got a chance to open our Colorado mail.  We are quite fortunate to have two very good 'hook-ups' in Colorado who sent the kiddos packages!  My Aunt Diane and Uncle Jack live in Colorado Springs on the side of the Cheyenne Mountains.  My uncle works for Junior Achievement, which has its US headquarters in Colorado.  My aunt is always posting the neatest pictures of the view from their house (they literally live on the side of the mountain!) and all the wildlife that she sees when she's out and about with their dogs.

I also have a friend from grade school, Angie, who lives in Colorado Springs as well with her husband, Greg and their two ADORABLE kiddos, (who are close in age to mine) Ethan and Leah.  Special shout out of congratulations as they recently announced Baby #3 will be joining their family in August AND they are in the process of building a house there!  Greg works for the US Air Force Academy and Angie, like me, gets the opportunity to be a stay at home mom.  She was a teacher before she had kiddos so I knew she would be a great resource when it came to this project.  She helped me out with my Colorado research and coming up with some ideas for how to teach the kiddos about the state they now call home.

Anyway, thanks from the bottom of my heart to both of these families for helping mine out.  The kiddos (well, Noah.  Mikayla failed to join us yet again...) were THRILLED to get to open their mail tonight.  I can't say enough how much I appreciate the time and effort was put in to this!  My aunt went through the books and made notes on everything and the Frey family made up their own book full of pictures of their favorite Colorado spots.  Thank you thank you thank you!

A little of this and a little of that tomorrow, completely contingent on if the demon that has taken over my sweet Bean for the past few days decides to loosen its grip; coffee with a friend, Kayla gets to hang out with Alexis for awhile, Day 5 of the Games brings a Bobsled race and we're going to start working on our own model airplanes as a salute to the Air Force Academy being in Colorado.  Another jam packed one from Farmington for sure!  Until then...

Colorado Fun Fact of the Day: "Beulah red" is the name of the red marble that gives the Colorado State Capitol its distinctive splendor. Cutting, polishing, and installing the marble in the Capitol took six years, from 1894 to 1900. All of the "Beulah red" marble in the world went into the Capitol. It cannot be replaced, at any price.

Colorado Mail

The rings for our game today

The Bean lining up her toss

Noah's turn

I get to give it a go

Then Grant - who ended up winning.  We had a three way time, but Grant ended up with the gold, Noah the silver and Kayla the bronze

Celebrating Daddy's win

Tonight's medalists

Black Bean and Veggie Enchiladas

Noah opening the package from Aunt Diane

WOW!!!!!!!!

He loves the coozie.  Seriously Aunt D, he wanted to take it to bed with him...

Lots of cool stuff from the Frey's!

They even put together their own picture book!

Perusing all the cool Colorado stuff we got!