What's Done, Is Done

Goodbye 2009 and Cheers to 2010!

First Christmas with the boys

This was our first Christmas with Lochlan and Gavin and we both agree that Christmas is more fun with kids around!

Gavin spent the night with his mom on Christmas Eve, then he came back on Christmas morning. Matt, Lochlan & I walked to the Children's Mass at the Sacred Heart Catholic Church about 10 blocks away on Christmas Eve. It was bitter cold, but definitely a memorable first Christmas Eve with Lochlan.

Matt & I had exchanged our gifts to each other right before Gavin came home on Christmas morning; meanwhile Lochlan was still sleeping.


So Gavin came home and Santa had left a big wooden train track and train set for him. He is so into trains and could barely open his other gifts, because he was so focused on the train set.




Taco, Tav and Lloyd wanted to be a part of the action so badly:

Lochlan finally woke up and watched us open his gifts for him! My favorite Christmas gift that Lochlan received was from Nonnie & Beba (my mom and stepfather), who donated food to their local Keene Community Kitchen for Lochlan.


We finally made it through the presents, then I started cooking our tasty Christmas meal! Gavin hung out in the living room while Matt was watching football and Lochlan hung out with me while I cooked our meal.

This was the best Christmas EVER! It was so nice not to have to travel anywhere, but to hang out at home with our sweet little family. We definitely were blessed this Christmas.

The Incline

Matt had this brilliant idea that we'd hike The Incline today in Manitou Springs (just a couple of miles from our house). Their website boasts "this will test your strength and endurance". I have to say that this statement is a ridiculous understatement. That, and this mama is wicked out of shape! Matt hears me complain all if the time about the extra baby weight I haven't been able to get rid of, so he suggested this hike that we had learned about as a good workout. It was a GREAT idea to go hike The Incline, as I think I lost half of the baby weight through my pores. HAHA!
Barely into it, and I decided Matt should wear Lochlan up instead. I was already huffing and puffing and we had only gone about 100 steps.


Halfway up, I told Matt that we don't need gym memberships if we climbed this thing regularly. Actually, I didn't "tell" him, as I was gasping for air between each syllable and trying to get this statement out.
Three of many, many times that I made Papa and Lochlan stop:
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Looking back down. Holy caca! This thing is steep! There are some parts where it was 50 degree angles. The whole "pictures don't do the real thing justice" is so very true in this case:




We made it to the false summit, and we knew that Lochlan was done for. We fed him a bottle which we had stored away just incase and it's a good thing we did! He was starving, cold, and extremely upset that we dragged him out on this adventure.

We decided not to go the entire way back down the steps, so we carefully made our way back down the icy, snow-packed steps to the trail head for the Barr Trail. Lochlan was having a meltdown on the way back down the steps, so as people were climbing up past us, I kept apologizing for the "lack of serenity" until they got past us. HAHA!
In length, the Barr Trail was much longer than going back down the steps, but we figured it was safer. It was really icy on the trail as well, but we made it down safely to the parking lot right at dark.
We're thinking Santa might have to leave us some spikes for our hiking shoes underneath the tree this year!
Lochlan, post-hike (cold and so happy to be home!):

Baby & Toddler Hikes

I joined a group a few weeks ago called Colorado Mountain Mama's, which is a group consisting of mama's in the area who like to hike with their kiddos. It's been a great way to meet other like-minded women and their kids. I took Lochlan on a hike with one of the moms and her son a few weeks ago at Ute Valley Park here in Colorado Springs. It was a fast two mile loop and was a great time with Kelly and her son, Coen!

Today I took Gavin and Lochlan on a toddler hike with the group at Garden of the Gods. There were six moms, six toddlers and one baby (Lochlan). The toddlers got to climb all over the boulders and red rocks, play in the mud, slip around on the ice, etc. It was a 1/2 mile loop and was such a good time! Gavin had fun running around with all of the other kids and made it almost the entire way until the end before he had a meltdown. He was so muddy in the end that I had to strip him down for the car ride home, or else he would've been sitting in muddy clothes the whole way home!
Gavin is the kid in the front of the photo laying down with his back to the camera.

Story Time!

I took Lochlan & Gavin to their first story time ever at our local library, Old Colorado City branch. It is just about 10 blocks away, so we walk over there regularly, but had never gone to story time. The guy that runs it is wicked animated and the perfect person to be running story time. He held Gavin's attention almost the entire time and Lochlan had fun watching the story time guy, as well as all of the toddlers. The guy read stories, did some sing and clap alongs, did a dance with little hand shakers, put snowflakes on a felt board and had a sweet bubble machine which all of the kids loved!

Decorating our Charlie Brown tree

Matt brought Gavin outside this morning to get him used to playing in the snow and to burn some energy. We also left the tree outside overnight and planned on decorating this evening, once Gavin had gone back to his mom's.





Matt & I ended up decorating the tree tonight, with Lochlan hanging out watching us!





Although our tree isn't one of those big full trees that you can get from the commercial farms, it's still perfect for us. It's a good thing we don't have years and years worth of ornaments, because we wouldn't have been able to fit them on the 10 branches or so that our tree has. Lochlan still seems to approve of it though! We have those twinkling LED lights on it, and he and I just sit in front of it and watch the lights. Baby's First Christmas!