Weekly Dinner Date with Nate

 Since the girls leave at 6 on choir night, that's Dave's night to stay a little later at work and get caught up. Nate and I like to get Dad's dinner ready for him right before he gets home. Nate and Dave have a tradition of playing Mastermind (a super fun game that really makes you think) while Dave eats his dinner. Well, one night Nate said he wanted to get Dad's dinner all ready. Here is what it was. I thought it was so cute that he had the game all set up ready to go, too. Nice dinner!

Nate loves to help me make Dave's lunch. He wanted to stick a note in his lunch one day. He always starts with "From Nate". To translate the note: From Nate. To Dad, Thanks for all your'e doin'. Love Nate"

Happy Birthday Ash!

 Since we knew we were moving 4 days after Ashlyn's birthday, we had a party for her a couple weeks before her real birthday. This was such a fun group of girls.

 Ash wanted a strawberry cake with cream cheese frosting.

 Watching "Newsies" at the party with a donut for cake. It was the greatest idea one of my kids had a few years back. A donut is so easy for a party!

 Most of our things were packed on Ashlyn's birthday, hence her presents being wrapped in boxes and with packing tape.

It's hard to believe our baby is 12! And even harder to believe that she will be heading on to college in 6 years???? She is so happy to be 12 and is enjoying some of the privileges of being 12...while Sadie is jealously watching on and thinking it will be FOREVER before she is 12.

Work with Dad

 Nate's staff member was sick a couple days this week so I got to go in and help out! One of the days I brought Nate with me and he was beyond excited to go to work with Dave. He got ready, with his "meeting shirt" and even a tie. He wanted to look like his dad. He helped me pack a lunch for the two guys. I put two cookies in Nate's lunch so he could share one with Dave. Nate was so excited when it was lunch time - to show Dad what he had to share.

Here they are with their lunch bags all ready to eat lunch!

The Beat of Battle

Here's our Lego movie we made (inspired by Beck and Gibson's movie):

Dead fish, Cookies and Tie-dye

It's been a while since I have posted anything. Here are a few pictures out of order. 

 While at Sadie's soccer practice, Ash and Nate fashioned their own fishing pole from a hook they found by a pond. They didn't want to kill the worm so they placed the worm on top of the hook. Of course it just fell off in the water. They finally killed the worm and then caught a fish. They were pretty excited. We ended up dissecting the poor fish for a little science lesson. Dad had the right tools (and gloves) at his office.

 We have had a major project going on at our house. Cookies, cookies and more cookies. We have found that cookies are a great (and affordable) gift for referring dentists (and dentists that you wish to refer!). The kids are a super big help to me.

 We made 50 batches of dough, and stocked it in the freezer for baking day. The pictures are out of order, but the finished product is down a few pictures. I set up stations all around the kitchen. You can see the papers taped to the cupboard. Each station had the ingredients, amounts and instructions for that particular part of the cookie. We got a pretty good rhythm down. Nate needed a haircut and wanted it all shaved off. We didn't want it shaved off but figured he is 5 and it will grow back fast. We are glad to finally see some hair back on his head.

 Dave has a memory as a child of lying under the tree and looking up at all of the magic in the tree. I had to snap a picture of Dave and Nate looking together.

 We made 340 cookies yesterday. The chocolate cookies weigh 5 ounces and the cranberry/white chocolate cookies weigh 4 1/2 ounces. It was interesting how the different recipes needed different amounts of dough to make the same size cookies My scale came in handy to make each cookie the exact weight (and more importantly, size).

 Our oven went nonstop from 7:30 am to 5:30 pm.

 I was running an errand when Ash called to tell me that Nate definitely needed stitches. I was close to home, and came home to this cute sight. Ash was taking good care of Nate and Nate was beyond THRILLED to get stitches at Dad's office. I've never seen a kid so giddy about it all. He got 7 stitches and wore them so proudly.

 So glad Dad needed another implant! It makes for a fun long weekend before the implant! We had so much fun going on a hike in beautiful Estes Park. Before the hike, we had a picnic and the kids kept climbing through this "tunnel". They wanted Grandpa to go through, so off he went!

 The picturesque spot at the end of the long hike!

 Grandpa LOVES cherry pie so we had to stop at this cute cherry shop to get a cherry pie.

 Playing in the leaves.

 The kids all wanted to take such good care of Grandpa after his implant. Grandpa was still a little drugged!

The kids held their 2nd annual neighborhood Halloween party. They have so much fun with all of the planning. 

 Just some of the cookies all wrapped up. We did 100 bags in all.

 Way back in the summer, we tie-died about 40 shirts for home school group. My friend and I wrote a sentence about school and then diagrammed it for the front of the shirt. It was a fun activity to learn the tie-dye process!

Nate turned 5!

 We had such a fun visit from our favorite babysitter in Missouri, Christina! She helped us for a week with the kids while Dave and I worked day and night to get ready to open shop! Not sure how I didn't get any pictures of when Grandma Shelly came to help the week before we opened. Probably because we were never home to take the pictures of the fun they were having!

 What a fun visit from the Draper's! Nate wanted to re-enact the Civil War for his birthday party. We went to a spot behind our house and the kids fought. Ash and Sadie mapped out who would be on the north and south. Nate wanted to be General Grant. Nate's only complaint was that some of the kids didn't splat on the ground when they were "killed". He wanted full on acting!

 Dave and the cousins made Nate's Civil War cake. They had a little too much fun with the red frosting.

 We had a big open house for our office. The girls made a darling sign for a raffle we were having. The morning of our open house, Nate woke up concerned that he hadn't made a sign for the open house. He skipped breakfast because he was so engrossed in making a sign. We weren't sure where to put it but ended up putting it right on the front door. It was a hit. Especially the picture of Dad working on a patient. Nate is really into making "bubble" letters these days.

Ash and Sadie had a blast helping at the open house. We got lots of compliments on our two cute receptionists!

Let's Build a Business

May 11th we got word that things weren't going to work for us to buy the practice that Dave has been working with all year. In a really short summary, that day we decided to go out on our own here in Fort Collins. Since that day it's felt like a crazy sprint to get to this point. We've been working harder than we've ever worked before. This last week was full of mostly 16 hour days while we got the office all ready to open. It's been a whirlwind the last two months but it is finally all done. Dave starts work tomorrow. Mom made a last minute trip to save the day. We wondered how we would get everything done while having three kids to care for! Mom has been such a fabulous help to us!

Last week, the girls had an idea to make a surprise for us. They were doing webcam with Grandpa John and he had the idea to make a song for us. With lots of help from Grandma, they sang this darling song for us tonight. Their surprise also included a fun treasure hunt with cute notes and treats, and ended with us finding a gift card in our mailbox to Cafe Rio. They pitched in some of their hard-earned money to help pay for the gift card. The girls know how much I love that place, and they recently opened one here.

I cried through the whole song! Mom wrote all of the words on the plane ride here. I wish I inherited her talent of writing songs!

Here are the words in case you don't catch them all. And it's true about the 100 hours of painting.

Let's build a business, yeah, yeah, yeah
We can have a lot of fun
Let's build a business, yeah, yeah, yeah
Lots of work before it's done

100 hours of painting, done. Right?
You work all day and 1/2 the night. Together

Oh, we really think you're swell
Uh, huh, you really ring the bell
Ooh-ee, we want to shout yipee
Thanks for all you're doin
You're the best and we're not foolin

Let's build a business, yeah, yeah, yeah
Lots of jobs and work galore
Let's build a business, yeah, yeah, yeah
Never done, there's always more

Until you lay your weary heads
All tucked inside your comfy bed

Together!