Coach Coop

An arctic blast is heading our way tomorrow. Ooooohhhh! It sounds so chilly doesn't it? Today was definitely the calm before the storm. I decided we better head out and enjoy some outdoor time while we can. So we took a jog around the neighborhood with a little pit stop (read: excuse to stop and catch my breath) at Mark's office.

In order to make it enticing for Cooper to "run" with me, I ask if he'll please be my coach. Then he's all over it and happy to climb aboard.

His idea of coaching .......

'RUN MOMMY! RUUUNNNN! FASTER! Now roar like a siren and pretend you're a fire truck!' All while I'm trying to run, push, not break a hip or cough up a lung. But hey, it's nice to have some encouragement. I'm enjoying our stroller rides right now as I'm thinking our stroller days may be numbered for awhile (thanks to Jack Frost).

Check out that sky!

Scones

I have moved on (in defeat) from my pumpkin pushing efforts. It became clear that I had to as my pumpkin treats sat (untouched) taunting me with their little voices saying 'eat me.... you know you want to'. Yes pumpkin goodies, I do want to.....but BACK OFF! I just can't go at this alone even with the help of Little C.

Now I'm pushing cranberries. Pumpkin is soooooooooo four days ago ;)

Cranberry Orange Scones

I won't be turning this into a cooking blog because I can hardly classify myself as a "cook". I am a self proclaimed FollowDirectionsAndReadRecipes'er. I follow several cooking blogs and have downloaded quite a few recipe apps. I'm working my way towards becoming a cook.......one recipe at a time. Call it boredom but I'm actually enjoying it! I think C&C are as well.

ThankFULL

We have been enjoying our 4 day Thanksgiving Weekend doing the typical Thanksgiving'y type things one would expect. It has been mellow and full of nothing overly exciting or spectacular. Mainly we've been enjoying family time and spending time together. After so many months apart this past year, I am definitely most thankful for our time TOGETHER.


We spent Thanksgiving Day with Mark's boss and his family. It was so nice of them to include us and it was great to spend time with them and their kids. Coop and Cruz had a blast.

The rest of the weekend (so far) has been spent cooking, baking and watching football. We decided to cook a Thanksgiving feast on Friday. Mainly so we could enjoy the leftovers and continue to gorge ourselves throughout the rest of the weekend. We've been doing an excellent job in the gorging department.

We hope all of our friends and family had a wonderful Thansgiving!

Gobble

Coop learned a new trick during storytime at the library this week. He can make a turkey with his hands and he thinks it's pretty cool.

Try it....it is pretty cool!

Chef

I've been on a quest this weekend to bake pumpkin treats and convince the rest of my family that they should love everything pumpkin as much as I do. So far, Cruz seems to be the only other member besides myself on Team Pumpkin. Thanks, Cruz! I'm so glad you can feel the pumpkin love. Just for that, you get another treat........

Truth be told....Cruz would eat an old shoe smothered in pumpkin as he eats just about anything you put in front of him. It is still possible that for the rest of my life, I will be baking pumpkin-y treats for me, myself and I only. Can I get a little pity here?

Cruz loves to help out in the kitchen. While I was prepping the turkey, he decided he would whip up a little something himself. From the looks of the picture below, I think he was hoping for a Thanksgiving Duck.

Hmmmm...it needs a little more salt.

Decorate

We've had some little helpers with the Christmas decorating this year.

Parade

Last night we decided to check out The Estes Park Christmas Light Parade. Luckily for us, it started at 5:30pm and since we had an early day after Thanksgiving feast, we decided there was no excuse not to give it a try. We bundled the boys in their snow gear, filled some thermoses full of warm drinks and ventured out into the snowy darkness. It started snowing pretty hard as we left the house so we thought for sure we'd be coming back home very soon.


The town was packed! Duh! I guess we didn't think that everyone else in town would think it was a great idea too. We meandered through the traffic, parked the car what seemed like miles away and started our roll (with the wagon) to Main Street.

The boys were ready and rarin' to go and we could hear the firetrucks announcing the start of the parade. And then the famous ESTES PARK WIND that everyone keeps warning us about kicked in. It was blowing snow sideways and pelting us in our faces. By that point we were pretty far from where we parked so we decided we needed to make our move. Stay vs. Go. We decided to abort the mission and head back to the car -----insert Debbie Downer whonk-whonk-waaaaaaaahh noise here----. Cooper was not happy about this decision at all. We made the mistake of talking up the parade before hand and might have mentioned something about a man in a red suit being the grand finale.

As we were heading back to the car (and Cooper was crying) we decided to hunker down under an awning and take cover to see if perhaps the wind would let up. We had our blankets and cover and the boys didn't seem to mind a bit. We figured we'd give it a few minutes and then Mark would run and get the car (if need be) while The Woman and Children stayed warm and dry.

Well, the man in the red suit must have played his cards right because low and behold the wind disappeared and the blowing ice/snow went away just like that. It was an early Christmas Miracle. Cooper got to see the big fat guy (Whooooo Hoooo!!! Or in this case, HoHoHoooooo!) and Cruz was all about the horsies.

In the end, it all worked out beautifully and fun was had by all. The (phone) pictures we took are horrible. It was dark, there were lots of floats followed by lots of oooohhhs and ahhhhs. I'm sure you get the idea........

He is having fun. I promise.

Sadly, we don't have any pictures of the man in the red suit. But I'm sure you have a visual. There was far too much excitement for a photo op at that point.