A glimpse into the future...

I think it goes without saying that these pictures are perfection for Robin ;-)  I know we're biased, but Tyson actually has amazing rhythm, and when he sings (which he loves to do), he has incredible pitch!  I'm not surprised, considering his very talented father, but I was hoping to start with a more..."soothing" instrument than the drums!  He's obsessed.  Hopefully when the time comes we can convince him to start with guitar or piano before moving on to a drum kit.

"What are you looking at?  I was in the middle of playing, thank you."

Lost in the moment.

I am afraid (and a tiny bit proud, I'll admit) that this is a glimpse into the future of the Schween household.

Halloween Birthday Party

We don't "celebrate" halloween at our house, but at the same time, it's hard to resist the chance to dress your kids up in costumes (especially when they're too young to care what they're dressed as!).  This year we were invited to a 1st birthday party on halloween, so we went to a friend's house to celebrate their daughter's birthday, and then walked around their neighborhood before heading home.  It was fun!

The bumblebee and the monkey belong to us ;-) Next to Ty there's a cutie little ladybug - that's the birthday girl!

My baby bee :)

Monkey man.

Out walking the streets.

Taking a break...he was tired from running house to house and being SO excited!

Sleepy bee.

Aaaand we're spent for the night (hence the lack of smiling children, lol).

Movie Night!

We recently had our very first family movie night.  It was so much fun!!  We rented the new Winnie the Pooh movie for Ty (which may have been because I wanted to see it...), made some popcorn, and snuggled up on the couch to watch our first feature film :)  We realized that Ty hasn't really even had popcorn because we always make it for ourselves when we watch a movie after the kids go to bed. 

Ty eating his first bowl of popcorn (out of THREE!) while JJ gets her bottle and some snuggle time with daddy.

Very serious, I'm surprised he even took his eyes off of the TV for a picture.



And there it is, the new Pooh movie!  It was cute :)  The whole next day after we watched it, everything Tyson played and pretended had to do with honey, lol!  He made honey in the kitchen, bought honey at the store, and pretended to feed Jersey honey.  It was hilarious.



The best part about movie night?  How STILL both of our children were for extended periods of time!  Robina and I both took full advantage of the cuddles.

Caught him sneaking some of Ty's popcorn.

This would be bowl #3, and water cup #2.  We had to cut him off because I was afraid his tummy was going to hurt if he ate too much popcorn right after he'd just had a big dinner, lol!  And of course all of the popcorn made him thirsty - he may have leaked through his diaper the next morning because he drank so much ;-)

First movie night was a total success!  The only bummer about renting a movie for a 2-year-old is that it doesn't sink in that we don't actually own the movie, and he can't watch the "new Pooh" whenever we want to.  He loves the old versions, so we'll probably have to buy this one eventually (okay, and it might be because I love it, too ;-).  We are looking forward to more movie nights with more of our kids!

Bath Buddies

A couple of weeks ago the kids had their first bath together, so we had to document.  I dont' know why it took us so long to put them together.  Maybe because Jersey wasn't very sturdy and I didn't want Ty to knock her over, or because Jersey loves to splash and Tyson is not very fond of BEING splashed, lol.  We've kind of let it be their own separate "play times" as a break from each other, but this was too funny.

Don't they just look THRILLED to be in there together?!  LOL

Ty learning to share his favorite bath toy

She doesn't really care, as long as there's something to chew on...

"Here Jersey, hold still and I'll squirt this in your eye.  It'll be really fun."

Bearded lady.

A great time was had by all, and we had more than a few laughs.  Two kids so close in age is definitely challenging, but it's also so fun since they really interact and play together now!  I can't wait until Jersey is walking and talking and they can actually "pretend" and play together :)  Love my little bath buddies.

Bike Ride adventure!

Okay so these pictures are at least a month old, but definitely couldn't let them go unseen :)  Robin has been dying to go up to the mountains, and we've also been wanting to use our bike trailer with both kids, so we combined the two desires and went biking in the mountains!  Robin did a little research online and found a great place to go, so we loaded up the car (Jeep), both kids, two bikes, and a double bike trailer, and headed to the mountains for the day.  It was an adventure, to say the least!

First stop when we got to town: the first playground we could find!  The kids had been sitting in the car for over 2 hours and needed to stretch their legs, and eat lunch, so this was our stop before the bikeride.  I know it's not the best view of the park, but you have to appreciate the stunning views of the mountains from there!

My cutie crawler!

Tyson went straight for the sandbox - no surprise there.

First time on the swings together :)

FINALLY at the trail head, and trying to unload all of our junk...uh, I mean, gear.

And this is why we no longer own the Jeep.  We sold it and bought a Yukon a few weeks ago.  Even with just two kids, it was ridiculously tight just to try to drive somewhere with all of our stuff for the DAY, much less for a weekend or something.  Plus, we couldn't fit a 3rd car seat in the Jeep, so we had to upsize anyway.  I just had to get some pictures of how much we crammed into this little Jeep.  It took Robin a while to reassemble everything for the ride.

Jersey girl playing in the back while we got everything together.

Brotherly love (aka, you're squishing me!)

Are you KIDDING ME!?  Most beautiful bikeride EVER!

Great views the entire ride (especially for me, riding in the back !  Sorry Robin, I couldn't resist the comment ;-)

We rode through some really neat old mines along the way.

Aaaaand then the real adventure began...  My bike got a flat tire :)  And Robin had just put a brand new tube on this same tire specifically for this trip!  We weren't that surprised, honestly, because my bike has been cursed since the day we got it.  It's always had problems shifting and keeping the chain on, yet when we take it into a bike shop, they say it's running perfectly and theres nothing wrong.  Well, this was NOT the best day to get a flat!

Luckily, my super-biker husband is always prepared and we pulled over so he could patch it with the patch kit.

Biker girls!

Juuuust chillin on the side of the path, trying to keep the kids OFF of the path in case other bikers came flying by!  It felt like the longest 20 minutes of my life (Robin had a hard time finding the tiny tiny hole, and we were almost out of rubber cement for the patch, so it ended up taking a while).

"Mom, what is that big blue thing on your head!?"

After all that, we finally finished the ride!  Robin's face looked like Christmas morning the whole time :)  It was worth all the time and effort just to see how happy he was to be biking up there! 

Thankfully, we now have a larger car which will make trips like this much less crowded and stressful.  It's hard to do anything when you have to carry the diaper bag on your lap, food at your feet, and barely have room to breathe in the car!  It was a lot of work, but I think that's just going to be the way it is for a while when you have little kids :)  A 4-hour drive round trip, 12 mile bikeride, me being pregnant (and nauseous/exhausted in the 1st trimester!), at 10,000 ft elevation...made for one tired mama the rest of the weekend!!!  But like I said...worth it to see how happy Robin was the entire day.

Garden of the gods

First off, can I just say that I am not this behind in blogging on purpose!?  I have literally been uploading pictures individually for at least a week and a half.  Between Blogger having issues, our internet being slow, and our ancient computer being on it's last legs...it has been FRUSTRATING, to say the least, to get these pictures posted.  UGH.

Secondly, I should say that there are a lot of pictures to this post!  A few weeks ago we drove about 30 min south of our house to a tourist spot called "Garden of the Gods."  It's a gorgeous site with beautiful red rock formations and miles of paved paths for people to enjoy the natural beauty.  We packed up the car on Saturday morning, no showers, no make up (for me, obviously), and took off right after breakfast.  Now if I had been thinking ahead, I would have realized that this would be an amazing photo opportunity!  I would have showered, put make up on, dressed Jersey in a cute, girly outfit, and had Tyson wear something other than a skull and crossbones shirt that someone gave us (it was almost Halloween so I figured if he was ever going to wear it, this might as well be the time).  Poor outfit planning on my part...mom fail.  Oh well, we still got some cute pics.  Enjoy!

One of the "starting" poitns for some of the paths.

Fist family photo...and I'm wearing a hat and sunglasses in every picture.  Like I said, poor planning.

Boy heaven: rocks to climb, trails to explore, and dirt to play in!

Jersey had to sit in the stroller most of the time, but she was a trooper!  I keep trying to tell her the sooner she starts walking, the better it'll be for everyone.  Then she'll be able to get down and explore more easily!

I may have failed with outfits, but I did have the genius idea to bring Ty's scooter with us!  He looked SO CUTE scooting all over the paths.  Not to mention, he was exhausted by the time we left after working his little legs so hard!

In case you can't read it, we thought this plaque was pretty cool.  It explains where this land came from and why it is what it is.  The plaque explains that it is dedicated "by the children of Charles Elliott Perkins in fulfillment of his wish that it be kept forever free to the public."  Pretty cool, eh?

It's also a hot spot for rock climbers to practice and show off their skills.  Ty was quite fascinated, but couldn't quite understand why we wouldn't let him do it (over my dead body!).

Just strollin and scootin'.

Just one of many gorgeous scenery pictures along the way.

Me and my main squeeze ;-)

Me an my "secondary" squeeze ;-)

Fall colors with snow capped moutains...so pretty.

Occassionally the little legs needed some help going up hill.  I can't believe how long he lasted scooting around!

Ty discovered a little "hidden" path off of the main path and loved exploring to find out where it went.

...which eventually was just a dead end.  But even dead ends are an exciting adventure for a 2-year-old. (Which, P.S., side note, he's going to be 3 in January!  That's so crazy so me!)

Dirt pile!!!!  Bliss.

Just the girlies.

Another family attempt.

Finally we found a great little enclosed spot full of leaves where Jersey could get down and crawl around and play.

Happy camper!

After many attempts, this was the best one we could get of the two of them, lol.

Eating leaves.

Trying to figure out how all of these fingers coordinate together!

Aaaand back to simpler things...like eating leaves.

The two best buds.

Pretty girl.

So much to see and touch and eat!

Daddy time.

Well, there you have it!  Sorry it took FOREVER to get this post up.  I have at least 4 or 5 other posts I've been waiting to do - sheesh!  Hopefully they won't take a decade to upload like this one did.  Happy Thanksgiving week!!