Well, Obama has the Boulder kids market sewn up...

Just a quick pre-election post. Logan came home from school today to tell us that his class had a secret ballot election and the winner was Barack Obama by a 9 to 1 margin. Not sure which kid voted McCain, but if we find out, we won't let Logan play over at THAT house. (Kidding).

Sick Day

We won't have confirmation until tonight when we go to see the doctor, but it looks like Logan has strep throat. He's got classic symptoms - very sore throat, fever, but no other symptoms of head cold or post-nasal drip, plus he has this fine red rash all over his body that is consistent with Scarlet Fever. Sounds scary but according to the Internet that just means his body is having a reaction to the toxins produced by the strep bacteria, and it's no more serious than regular strep.

Anyway, what do most kids do when they stay home sick? Watch TV, right? Here's a picture of Logan's morning sick activity. He got out his dad's calculator and did some math problems. OK, so he did finally ask for TV, but only after he'd added up to 2048 ("Mom, a new record!")

UPDATE: The Dr. took one look at Logan's rash and confirmed it was strep. So he'll take antibiotics for 10 days and that should be the end of that. Now we just have to hope no one else in the family gets it!

First snow of the year!

It's been rainy and cold all weekend, and the paper kept saying 45% chance of snow...well, last night the weatherman was finally right. We woke up to a very light dusting of snow. By the time I thought to take a picture it was melting in the lovely warm sun, but it was legit!

In other news, Jason and I have started ice skating on Friday mornings as a way to get a little exercise and have some time for the two of us. We skate at the Y where Jason plays hockey, and a few weeks back I got my very own pair of ice skates. I'm improving every time we go, but no double-twist-axles any time soon.

Fall is upon us

Seems like this summer just flew by, doesn't it? I have a few retroactive posts to do regarding a few of our fun summer activities, but first some of the latest things we've been doing...(check out additional photos here).

Logan started Kindergarten at Jarrow Montessori school in August, and Zach moved up from the toddler program to the primary program there as well. Logan has the same morning teacher and mixed-ages class (3-6 yrs) that he's had since we moved to Boulder, but after lunch he and the school's other Kindergartners mix up, switch classes, and spend a few hours with their specific age peers. He loves it, but is definitely tired by the end of his long day! Zach has a new teacher, classroom and almost all new classmates, as he is also now in a 3-6 year-old mixed group. But he took to it with no trouble whatsoever and seems to really enjoy himself there.

A big event for Logan was to attend the wedding of our nanny, Mindy. He got to wear a suit (rented!), have cocktails (Shirley Temple) with Dad, cozy up to some ladies (bride's sisters) and dance with the bride herself. He had a great time.

I did a little gardening over the summer, and we actually managed to get edible food from my tiny backyard veggie garden. Here is a picture of part of my harvest - beets and purple and orange carrots. They were very tasty and fun to eat right out of the ground.

At the end of September, we had a nice visit from Herb and Kathryn, who stayed with us for almost a week before heading off to London. We tried to convince them to take several of the kids, or me, with them, to no avail. While they visited we went to the Denver Art Museum, which not only is a great museum but also has hands-on kids' activities all throughout the exhibits. It was surprisingly nice, although the boys were still maybe a little bit too young for it. But we also took the opportunity to walk to the center of Downtown Denver, get a good look at the State Capitol Building and collect oak leaves and acorns from the gardens.

Since Max's first birthday was coming up, we decided to have a very small party for him while Herb and Kathryn were with us (see more pictures here). Kathryn helped me make the cutest little train cake - my mom had given me the pan a few years ago but this was the first time I was brave enough to try it. With Kathryn's great suggestions (and her willingness to go out to Powell's Sweet Shoppe to buy a bunch of goodies) we ended up with what I think was an adorable cake, and two side-plates of cute cupcakes. A fun time was had by all, and Max definitely enjoyed his first bite of cake!

Finally, this past weekend we packed up the boys and headed out to Pachamama Farm, the organic farm where we bought a produce subscription this year, for an end-of-year Pumpkin Festival. The boys had a great time splashing in the puddles, feeding the chickens, finding toads and grasshoppers, and picking out their pumpkins. It was a nice end to the year, and a good chance to meet up with other people participating in Community Supported Agriculture with us.

That's all for today...we've got lots more pictures to post, if I can just figure out a better way to do it. Unfortunately Apple re-vamped their Internet file and photo sharing programs and they aren't as easy to use as the old Mac Gallery program. But I'll work on figuring it out. Cheers!

The OBerks see Obama

Jeanne and I were lucky enough to get tickets (along with 84,000 other people, according to news reports), to see Barack Obama accept the Democratic nomination for President of the United States of America. I put together a short video of our day - which is below.

In short, we left our house at 10am, caught a 10:20 bus from Boulder to Denver, entered the Stadium about 1:30, Obama went on at about 8pm, and we were home by midnight. It was, in short, amazing. The energy of the crowd, the diversity of people we saw there, and the sheer spectacle of it was something I've never seen. It was like a Pink Floyd concert, with more secret service sharpshooters and less weed.

Unfortunately, the lighting was either intense sunlight or really bright spotlights, so the video is a bit washed out looking, but it's got some good shots in there. Here's the short video of our day:

We got the golden ticket!

Jeanne and I scored the hottest ticket in town right now - two seats to Barack Obama's acceptance speech on Thursday at the Democratic National Convention. Regardless to how you stand politically, you can agree that this will be a historic event. We just found out that Al Gore will be a speaker, so that's exciting as well. So Jeanne, myself, and 70,000 others will pack into Invesco Field next Thursday. We'll post photos and videos afterward.

Jason playing hockey

A video of my newest obsession - HOCKEY!

Cute Photos

Since we've been bad about keeping up with blogging, here are some early summer pictures. Max in the hiking backpack, kids at a fire station open house - including Logan driving the bomb-squad robot, hiking in Chautauqua, and summer reading in the hammock

Alex's Memorials

Last month, my Stepfather, Alex Combs, passed away. I flew to Anchorage for one memorial service and then drove and boated to Homer and Halibut Cove for another.

In addition to my brother and Mom, Alex's three sons - Sam, Jonathan, and David - were there along with Sam's wife Jayna, Daughter Alexa, and David's daughter Analise.

Because Alex was quite a well-known Alaskan artist (called "The Father of Alaskan Abstract Art" in a newspaper obituary) as well as a long-timer art professor, the Anchorage memorial was held in the Anchorage Museum. Alex designed a series of friezes that adorned the outside of the building for years until it was remodeled at which point the friezes were moved inside. Over 100 people attended the Anchorage memorial including former colleagues, students, friends, and neighbors.

Two days later, in the small, island outpost of Halibut Cove the entire community gathered to inter Alex's ashes in a hole dug into bedrock which was later capped with concrete. Overlooking Katchemak bay, the small cemetery has beautiful views in all directions. As a temporary gravestone, a bust of Alex, sculpted by one of his students was set up over the grave. The bust has been sitting outside for 20+ years and was covered in moss and lichens and gorgeously aged.

At the Halibut Cover ceremony, members of the community spoke from the heart about their love for this big bear of a man who was always quick to laugh and to hug, slow to anger, and a generous giver of his time and himself to all who he met.

Also, because Alex wished it, we sprinkled some of his ashes over his garden (the potato patch to be exact).

After the memorial, we made s'mores, and toasted to Alex with a bottle of Absinthe he had in the cupboard. All in all, it was a celebration of the life and art of this great man who rose from abject poverty in rural Kentucky to go on to build ships and act as a salvage diver in WWII, play professional football (WAY before the NFL), study in Europe, move to Alaska, teach high school and college art, and finally to retire to a small island where he created art literally until the day he died.

Alex lived "A Long and Artful Life" and we'll miss him very much. A link to some photos of the memorials and the trip can be found HERE.

Why do they always want to grow up so fast?

So, I'm talking on the phone with my friend Kara this morning, and Max, who is just shy of his eight month birthday and who has been crawling for all of about two weeks, scoots over to me and pulls himself up to standing. And now that he has realized he can do it, it's all he wants to do all day long. Doesn't he realize he owes his existence to the fact that I wanted another baby???

I remember when my sister-in-law Christene and I announced our third pregnancies almost simultaneously, my mom sighed and said "it's like puppies and kittens - you girls want more babies, but you forget that they grow up!" Don't tell my kids, but my mom was kind of right! :-)

Oh well, luckily I'm still pretty enamored of my older kids - I guess I'll keep the lot of them. But from here on out I'll have to get my baby ya-yas by befriending expectant mothers. :-)

Jason joins YouTube's fame-seeking masses

Jason has a new favorite coffee, produced by the lead singer of one of his favorite heavy metal bands - Dave Mustaine of Megadeth. He loves the coffee so much that he made a commercial for it, which you can find on YouTube, or watch it right here. It's fun for a laugh. Incidentally, Zach was napping during the shoot so he's not featured in the video. Enjoy!

Quarterly update

I'm going to skip the usual apologies for the long gap in postings, etc etc. Suffice it to say we've been busy! Here's a photo gallery to accompany this posting, with some narrative details to follow.

When we left off, Logan had just celebrated his birthday. The first picture in the gallery shows him opening his first bank account using some money he got - our credit union has a kids' savings account with lots of incentives for saving. Now that he's five, Logan gets $2 per week to do with as he pleases - he distributes the money among spend, save and share jars and actually has done a great job of depositing saved money into the bank. We keep a bank register, reconcile his quarterly account statement, and he has given some money to charity and used his spending money mostly for gumballs, but also to buy stamps from me when he insisted on using real stamps for an art project or for the occasional treat that we didn't want to buy for him.

I'd better tighten this up or this post will be as long as a novel before I'm through! Anyway, later in February we celebrated my birthday with a trip to Benihana Restaurant. It took us two times to get there - the first time we relied on my car's GPS navigation system and ended up about 50 miles from home, south of Denver, somewhere in a remote office park. It was a fiasco of epic proportions - we were uneasy that we were on the wrong path the whole time, called the restaurant several times to double-check the address, and still ended up in the wrong place. But the boys were real troopers (it was actually particularly heartbreaking how completely they trusted that we were taking them to get something to eat!), and when we went back they very much enjoyed the show and we all had a fun time.

Let's see, other highlights include a trip to the Denver Aquarium and the Gold Exhibit at the Denver Museum of Science and Nature. Also, Logan's class was doing a unit on musical instruments so Jason took a couple of guitars in, demonstrated the differences between acoustic and electric guitars and did a singalong. We also had an arborist come out and prune all of the trees in the yard - creating 25 large wheelbarrows full of chipped wood which I used to mulch my flower beds.

Max continues to grow like a weed, and after working diligently has mastered crawling. I'm happy for him to pause at this stage for a bit, but he's already moved on to pulling up on low objects and it's only a matter of time before he's cruising and then walking. Sigh.

Spring unfolded slowly and beautifully here, just like last year, and I have been doing some gardening. I briefly took possession of a plot at the local community garden but then relinquished it (after spending four hours cleaning out grass and weeds) because it was just going to be too much on top of everything else I have going right now. But I did claim a couple of small areas in my back yard, even fencing them against the deer, and now have a small herb garden (rosemary, chives and thyme) and veggie patch (beets, carrots, lettuce and peas), along with my tomatoes and cucumbers in pots on the deck. Basil, cilantro and parsley go in next week, and we signed up for a share in Pachamama Organic Farm so each week from June 4 through October we'll get a basket of fresh, locally grown organic produce.

The last set of photos in the gallery are from this past Saturday, when we took the kids to the Boulder Creek Festival. Zach enjoyed going on the swing ride (like a swinging merry-go-round) and he and Logan got to do some fun adventure activities. Logan will be attending a 1-week day camp sponsored by this organization later in the summer.

Yes, it's hard to believe but summer is upon us - school ends June 5th. We will be doing some traveling, having some visitors, doing a few day camps and some fun activities, and we'll try to keep you posted! Until the next post! -- Jeanne

Jason and Andrew in New York City

Last week, my brother Andrew and I met up in New York to do the "5 Boroughs Bike Tour" a slow speed ride through all 5 Boroughs of New York with 29,998 of our closest friends. The next day, we visited Hyrian's Brooklyn office. Here's a quick video of our trip!

Where do I start?

We've done a lot since my last post, most of the days threaded through with a series of illnesses on the kids' part, including six days of stomach flu each for Zach and Logan (thank goodness not at the same time!). But for now the whole family is healthy (not even any residual coughing!). So on to some of the fun we've been having!

First of all, here's a photo gallery to accompany this posting.

Logan's reading ability is amazing all of us, and this birthday a whole new world has opened to him with the gifts of some chapter books from various grandparents. He has been introduced to the Magic Treehouse series by his Grandma Kathryn and Grandpa Herb, the Spiderwick series by Mimi and Pop Pop, and his very own personal serial called Sam the Magnificent, authored by Grandma Diana (no link available - yet!). We have been sharing the reading with him - he usually reads the first page or two of each chapter and we read the rest. Of course, as always, we as a family still enjoy regular trips to the Boulder Public Library, which has an incredibly well-stocked children's section.

In fact this past Saturday we had a big family outing to the library, but since the weather was so nice we took with us a big bag of bread crusts we've been saving and fed the ducks at nearby Boulder Creek. I have very fond memories of feeding the ducks at Pollywog Pond when I was a girl, and the boys seemed to enjoy it just as much. I think this will become a regular activity for us. Looking at the photo gallery you'll see that the weather has warmed considerably but there's still a little ice on the creek - it's clear and nearly invisible, but still strong enough to hold the ducks so they look like they're walking on water. And also, we should mention that here in Boulder, even the ducks get whole grain foods! :-)

The previous weekend we had a wonderful visit from Mimi and PopPop as well as my Aunt Judy and Uncle Jim, who are spending about six weeks in California from the East Coast and decided to take a quick side-trip to see us. My mom and dad took most of the pictures and I need to get them from them, but we snapped a few cute ones of Aunt Judy holding Max.

That's it for now, love to all!

Obama for President

A brief departure from the personal stuff for a political message: Jason and I are very big fans of Barack Obama and we've just seen an emotionally powerful video that we'd like to share with our family and friends. Check this out:

A few lessons for a California girl

"That which does not kill us
makes us stronger" -- Friedrich Nietzsche

So this winter has definitely been a learning experience for me, having a) never lived in a cold climate and b) never known any families with more than two kids while I was growing up. Here are some things I've learned in the last few weeks:

1) Snow must be shoveled off of the driveway and front walk as soon as possible after a snowfall. Here in Boulder anyway, the snow comes down very light and fluffy (famous Colorado powder) and is relatively easy to clear when fresh. But walk or drive over it a few times, and the trodden parts compact and get heavy, and then the temperatures warm up and the compacted snow turns to ice. The front of our house faces North, so that ice will continue to thaw and freeze, forming an inches-thick, Zamboni- slick, injury- and lawsuit-attracting ice rink until it is chipped away.

2) The driveway has to be cleared AS SOON AS POSSIBLE. It's no good to, say, go out a 7am and clear just enough to get one car out so as to take kids to school in the morning, then try to clear the rest in the late morning. By then the temperature gets up in the 40s, and even the snow that has not been mechanically compacted gets very heavy and sticky and takes a lot more effort to move.

3) The depth of snow that falls at 362 Hawthorn in Boulder seems to be dependent on several factors: a) how long of a business trip Jason is on, b) how many children in the household are ill on that given day and c) how many children, for whatever reason, need extra attention on that day but must be left under the watchful eye of the TV while said shoveling is accomplished since no other adults are present to help. Bonus depth is added for school days, days when we are expecting nannies or housekeepers to show up and need parking or access to the front door, days when trash cans need to be brought in and milk is delivered, and days when all three kids are coughing and boogery, and one also has a very messy intestinal flu as well.

4) The number of sick children in the house also appears to be directly correlated with the timing of Jason's business trips as well as with Jeanne's sleep deprivation level, the arrival of snow and the inability of nannies to come to help out because they have caught colds from the kids.

5) Pictures of people shoveling snow are usually taken on weekends when everyone's happy and having fun and it's kind of a game. Pictures don't get taken when all of the factors in the preceding points are in force all at the same time, and the shoveler is grumbling and bitter and stressed out.

Don't worry dear readers, all of this is behind us (for now, until the next business trip, I imagine) and the kids appear to be on the mend. I'm just very grateful that I did not contract any of the various viruses my kids were harboring, and that the snow did not affect Jason's ability to get back home to us. I should also acknowledge that Jason didn't have an easy week either - and he's letting me go out to see a movie all on my own tonight as reward for a rather tough ordeal.

I should also say that I am SO grateful for the new van - when all else was going awry, at least I didn't have to worry about being able to get out of the house and back.

Logan turns five!

We celebrated Logan's 5th birthday today! The theme for the day was Mars and the solar system. So we started out with Marscakes (red pancakes), Saturn rings (bacon strips) and Jupiter winds (scrambled eggs).

Not only is it his actual birthday, but since it's Saturday we also hosted his party today as well. This year we decided to go small - we told him he could choose six friends to invite, and all but one were able to come so we had a total of four boys and two girls (poor Zachary is still under the weather, went upstairs for an early nap and ended up sleeping through the entire party.)

We've posted a Web Gallery of party photos here (77 photos total - it may be split into two pages). I made the invitations by hand from a template in a magazine (oh, OK, I admit it was Martha Stewart Kids). When the kids showed up we started out just playing with Logan's toys...some kids played Star Wars in the basement while others enjoyed the piano. We then had lunch and played three games. The first was Pop Rocket Long Shot, in which each child got to launch four pop rockets at a set of targets. Scores were based on the distance each rocket went. Amelia won with 85 points.

The second game was Pin the Rover on Mars - pretty self-explanatory. Charlie was the winner of that one. Third, we played a space version of Hot Potato we called "Sizzling Moon Rock." Logan won the game, but we had coached him before the party that he could play the games but not win the prizes since he was the host, and we were very proud at how graciously, with no prompting, he gave the prize to the second-place winner, Sophie.

After games Logan got to open his presents, and then we brought out the cake. I'm pretty proud of this cake...it was red velvet, and I baked it using a tempered glass mixing bowl as a pan so it had a round shape. Then I tinted the frosting red, and sprinkled it with a combination of crumbled up chocolate sandwich cookies, red velvet cake crumbs and a little red-colored decorating sugar. Jason found a cool set of Mars Rover matchbox figurines on Ebay and I bought a NASA play set and we used some of those on the cake. It turned out really cute, was tasty and most importantly was a hit with Logan and the kids.

A great time was had by all. After the guests left we spent the rest of the day relaxing and playing with his gifts. Later we gave him our gifts (we kept it small but he did get the Ladybug Land he's been asking for) For dinner I served spaghetti and Marsballs (you can probably figure that one out). Zach was concerned that he'd missed the cake but his tummy's been a little off today so I promised him we'd save him a piece for when he was feeling better.

It's hard to believe that our little big boy is five years old already. That five years ago Jason and I miraculously transformed from couple to family. Honestly it's hard to remember what our life was like BK - before kids. Maybe a little more sleeping in on the weekends, but definitely not as much love.

Trapped!

Today has not been fun...Jason's in Minneapolis and both Logan and Zach had fevers last night so I had to keep them home from school. Occasionally, when he's home and working from his office, Jason will have one of those days where he just can't focus on work...he keeps coming out to visit, or play with the kids, or find some other way to goof off. Well, let's just say that today I was having a hard time focusing on my job. I kept the kids fed, and hydrated, and warm, and even gave them baths to help break up the goop in their sinuses, but it was not a stellar day in terms of me keeping them stimulated with activities (OK, what I'm really trying to say is that we had a TV-free-for-all today. So much that the kids actually got bored and asked me to turn the tv off!) The good news is that they eventually got so tired of trying to get me to play with them that they actually played on their own! Without too much sibling conflict! :-)

Anyway, they both seem to be doing much better and I think they'll be back to school tomorrow. And Max appears to be fine - probably protected by the antibodies in my milk.

School, by the way, is going great for Zach. After two days of very minor crying last week, he went through three or four days where he would simply say to me "I'm not going to school" in the mornings as we were getting ready, but by the time we got to class he was fine and there was no visible separation anxiety. And yesterday when we went in he didn't even say that. So I think we're out of the woods.

In other news...some of you may know that I've decided it's time to re-start my consulting business, Biolexica. I'm putting out feelers to my old clients right now and hoping to start getting some assignments soon. Cross your fingers for me!

School progress, and regress...

A quick update on Zach and school - On Friday of last week I was able to drop him off in the morning and pick him up at 11 with nary a tear, so the teacher and I decided we'd try having him stay all day ('till 12:15) on Monday. It went swimmingly both on Monday and Tuesday, and then I think Zach woke up to what was really going on. We've had tears both yesterday and this morning, with lots of "Mommy, are you staying with me?" and "Please stay Mommy!" It's completely heart-wrenching for me, even though  I went through all of this with Logan and I know from experience that Zach will be fine in a week or two, and indeed even now he recovers quickly once I leave the classroom. But it still breaks my heart to leave him when he's crying and asking me to stay with him. I'm dreading tomorrow, especially since he declared this evening that he wasn't going to school any more. Alas, the tuition contract Jason and I signed with the school says otherwise!

It is worth noting that, between Zach's school schedule of 8:30 - 12:15 and his nap, which starts at 1:00 and often lasts for 3 hours, the amount of time we spend together really has been abruptly shortened. I'm going to make a point to make sure he gets quality attention on the weekend and hope that helps (whether this special time is more for his benefit or mine, gentle readers, you may decide for yourselves). 

Zach's First Day of School

One last entry for today - we wanted to document Zachary's first day of preschool yesterday. He started in the toddler program at Jarrow Montessori School, which is the school Logan has been attending since we moved here to Boulder. Zach was very excited and proud to finally get to go, although we're following a soft-entry program to ease him into it. Yesterday Jason and I stayed with him in his class for an hour and then brought him home, and I did the same today. Tomorrow I will take him, stay for about 20 minutes and then try to leave for 20 minutes or so to see how he does. Then if all goes well I will try a regular dropoff on Friday, but it will probably be a short day again. Eventually Zach will be attending the same hours as Logan, 8:30 - 12:30 every day (they didn't have a three-day-per-week option).

Pictures here include Zach showing off his new backpack, putting his belongings in his cubby, washing his hands in his class (a favorite activity of his), doing some of the works and being taught how to self-serve his snack by his teacher, Angelica. The cutest (to me) part of his first morning was when he was getting his snack - Jason and I were sitting across the room, observing, and Zach looked up to say "look Mommy, I'm having a snack. Do you want a snack?" He proceeded to get up and pull out a neighboring chair for me. It was very sweet and more than a little heartbreaking...he doesn't quite realize yet that this is an adventure he will be embarking on by himself. From previous experience I know he'll be fine, will love going to school and will still be my little sweetheart when we are together, but it's still a little tough to know that this is only the beginning of a long process of letting him go.

Tummy time

The last post and the next one don't include pics of Max, so here's a cute one of him working on his upper body strength. He's not crazy about tummy time but getting better, especially now that mommy has a star chart to help her remember to flip him on his tummy from time to time. He'll be crawling after his brothers soon enough!

Mommy and Logan and Zachary Day

With our new little guy needing a lot of my attention (and nursing every few hours or so) over the last three months, my ability and energy for real quality time with Logan and Zachary has been pretty seriously impacted. But we've been working toward getting Max to take a bottle reliably, and this past weekend Jason decided he was ready for a quiet morning with Max while I took Logan and Zach to Denver to visit the Denver Museum of Nature and Science.

This was an especially exciting outing for me because at 2 1/2, Zach is finally at an age where he doesn't automatically run off when presented with a large, crowded space where he could easily be lost. It's sad to say but this is the first time I've taken the two boys out on my own for a fun outing in a loooong time - it was too tiring at the end of my pregnancy and then it's been too difficult since Max was born to do something like this.

Anyway, Sunday morning I packed up a bag with just a few emergency supplies, we kissed Jason and Max goodbye and hopped in the car for the 40-minute drive to Denver. When we got to the museum I decided to take a chance and leave the stroller in the car, and it worked out wonderfully. Both boys were very well-behaved, had lots of fun exploring but stuck reasonably close. The highlight of the trip in my opinion was going to the planetarium to watch a short film about the solar system - both kids are really into planets and space exploration right now, and I was thrilled that Logan overcame his fears about movie theaters long enough to become captivated by the amazing special effects as we toured each planet.

After spending some time in the space exhibit we headed to the Hall of Life to learn about human physiology with lots of fun hands-on activities, then it was time to get lunch before heading home. We stopped at a nearby McDonald's because it has a play place, and I can say I am not a fan. The kids ate the (to me, completely unappetizing) chicken-flavored-nugget-products but the restaurant was out of the milk and apple slices that they supposedly offer with happy meals. So it was fries and apple juice. Ah well, I guess I'll pack lunch next time.

At any rate, we had a really nice time and it was a nice chance to reconnect with the boys after a somewhat tumultuous few months.