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Golden Gate Bridge

Goat Rock Beach, CA

Half Moon Bay, CA

We returned Sunday afternoon from our Thanksgiving weekend visiting Pat's family in California. There were a few bumps, such as the kids not going getting to bed until midnight (CO time) on Tuesday night due to airplane issues and me getting another round of strep throat. I'm also pretty sure Niamh was feverish for a few days. In spite of all that it was a pretty good trip. Most of the photos I took are all still on my camera; these are from my iPhone. We are slowly, slowly getting back to normal here, so hopefully I can get some more pictures up this week.

A Sixth Birthday Interview With Rowan

I've come across several bloggers that have a tradition of doing birthday interviews with their children. I'm hoping this is something I can maintain year to year with each of our own children, as it's such a great idea!



A couple of notes: Rowan's alleegah is his bunny (pictured in the post below), the Shinkansen song he talks about is Bullet Train by Choo Choo Soul, and the airplane book he talks about is DK Big Book of Airplanes by Caroline Bingham. We did a practice interview a few hours before this one was recorded and many of his answers changed in that short amount of time.

Rowan-Six Years Old

Happy sixth birthday to our sweet boy!

Train Party!!!

Rowan turns six tomorrow (!!!), and had his birthday party yesterday. Including our own children there ended up being thirteen kids at the party, which was quite chaotic. At least, that's how it felt to me. Ro had a great time, and it seemed like the other children did too, so I suppose we can call it a success. The kids played with Pat's electric trains (a huge hit), decorated train cakes, played games, and ran around like crazy.

A special thanks to our friend John, who took all of the above photos. In all the madness I took none, so I'm very glad John volunteered to be our party photographer!

Muriel & The Big Red Thomas Book

Friday, 11.12.10

misty sunrise

egg-free chocolate chip pancakes for breakfast

sick boy

potty practice (I think Niamh was as excited about this as Muriel)

preparing for Rowan's birthday party next week

trying on her big brother's hat & backpack

playing in the melting snow

Niamh loves the snow

poor mitten-less Muriel

Muriel + Paint

First Snow in Colorado

We woke up to a bit of snow this morning. It's melting now, but the kids had fun playing in it this morning. Even our little sickling, Rowan. He is in the midst of another one of his bouts of fever, where he has no symptoms except for a high fever which comes and goes.

Halloween 2010

We had a great Halloween and the kids are super sad this morning that it is all over. There was a visit from the Great Pumpkin, deliciously spooky stories, haunting music, time spent with friends, roasted pumpkin seeds, eyeball soup, mummy dogs, costumes, and trick-or-treating, which of course ended with a lot of candy. Muriel was a little scared at the beginning of the night when everyone started getting into their costumes, but warmed up once she got into the spirit of trick-or-treating. My only regret is that in all the chaos I did not get a photo of Pat, John, and Jennifer dressed up in their costumes (Darth Vader, and two characters from Mario Kart). I did not have a costume, but have big plans for next year. As do the children. They are already dreaming of next Halloween!