Liebe Mutti, Unsere geliebten Freunde zu Besuch kamen.

1/1/14 ~ I’ll be working over the next couple of weeks (thanks to DC’s amazing Christmas present) to catch up your Dear Mom posts on here. . . .wish me luck! Below is one I started on time but finished today. :)

Week of November 11 - 17

It was a very busy week, getting Fluffy and DC ready for a chilly campout, and also preparing for our beloved German friends the Wingens to come. We had such a wonderful time with them and feel very honored and loved that they would come just to see us! (Well, Andreas had a conference in Denver, but still they rented a car and drove up to Fort Collins. Sie sind überaus nett. :o) More to follow. . . .

Rosebud has lately loved the book Saint George and the Dragon, and has been trying out a knight persona (much to DC’s chagrin when a plastic sword blow to the head caught him off guard!) She is cracking us up!

Here she is as a Princess-Swimmer-Knight in pj’s and a sweater. (Note the plastic shield :).

 

Hummer gave a lovely FHE lesson on gratitude and spent literally hours cutting out leaves and preparing this tree. He is super awesome.

 

I’m pretty partial to these ones, too. :o)

 

 

We had a Relief Society Mother-Daughter meeting (did I tell you one of my callings is to be on the RS meeting committee?) and when we went that morning to set up Fluffy made himself the hero of the day by playing with all the littlies in the nursery room.

Rosebud was SO excited to get to come with me that evening. (And, truth be told, it had been my idea to make it a mother/daughter because all these years I have looked forward to one of these. :) Here we are with our cookie dough truffles for the cookie exchange.

Fabulous recipe here.

Doesn’t she look sweet? We had the best evening. My favorite part was making an ornament with her and it was her favorite part, too. <happy sigh>

On Friday we sent off these two brave souls to camp in the chill at Carter Lake. I am so glad DC could go with Fluffy this time! They had a great time, and even texted to reassure me they weren’t freezing like little popsicles in their tent.

Meanwhile the rest of us cleaned and organized and prepared with excitement for the Wingens to arrive, which they did Saturday morning just as DC and Fluffy got back.

They had never been to Colorado before, and we had never been to Rocky Mountain National Park, so we thought that sounded like a great plan. Due to September flooding we had to take a longer way to get there, and it was snowing once we got into the park, but we still got to see a herd of elk up close and have an impromptu snowball fight. :)

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Here’s from when we tried to drive further up. . . .we gave up and decided to play. :)

We explored some lovely shops at Estes Park, then headed home. I loved riding in the car with Andrea and Andreas and talking about Christmas traditions here and in Germany and all kinds of other things.

The next day after church we had a lovely dinner together.

Then, since we live in Fort Collins and not Estes Park (not that we’re biased). . .

. . .and it was gorgeous weather. . .

. . .we went to the park! :)

It was a great ending to a wonderful visit with them. Hope we can see them again soon!

Love,

Michelle

P.S. Hummer made this to add to the Benjamin name-collection. I love that he remembers his little brother!

Dear Mom, ‘tis not that time of moon with me.

Week of November 4 - 10

(Fluffy and I have been watching/reading simultaneously Shakespeare’s Twelfth Night and I love that line of Olivia’s in Act I. It has nothing to do with the post, really, I just like it. :)

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The moon looked almost exactly like this through the binoculars that night.

You will note in this post the beautiful photos of night-sky wonders. They are because of a fun date DC and I had – there was a free telescope event at that natural area by the temple site that I took you to. Some volunteers with shmancy telescopes were there and they let us take turns peeking into the eyepieces and they explained to us what we were seeing. It was amazing! And it brought back memories of Bro. Lewis teaching us about the Tucson night sky back in the day. I’ll include more of what we saw farther on down. . . .

Rosebud is in a new and wonderful phase. She is often hilarious and occasionally aggravating, as I’m sure anyone who has had an almost four-year-old can relate to. Mostly she is sweet, though, and I love being with her. Her fashion sense is becoming more developed, which means she will soon pass me up. :o)

Who will help me grind the wheat? (I am loving my little I–will!)

 

Fluffy had a band concert, his first one here in Colorado. The ‘bone section sounded awesome!

I love that he can still participate in this while he is homeschooling. He really enjoys it and it probably is good for him to be with people outside the family regularly, eh?

 

One of my favorite parts of the week was when Rosebud figured out she could draw smiley faces all by herself. They are so dang CUTE!! And the first ones she ever drew in her whole entire life were for you! (I was madly jealous).

Their hair is so awesome, isn’t it? And when she drew some for me with only one eye per face she informed me that they were cyclopses. Gah! So adorable!

But first she had to make sure this one got mailed to you. I got the envelope ready for her, and then. . . .

She put it in her “tricycle trunk” and drove it up to the corner where our mailbox is.

Hummer tried to escape this picture, but he was no match for me. heh heh heh.

And off it went. :) Since then she has made one for Grandpa and two more for you, but I think I’ll collect them for a while so I don’t run out of stamps!

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It has been a tough semester for both DC and Exacto. The news this week is that the OT program here was just named the #1 in the country based on alumni recommendation! Great news for future prospects, hopefully, but the ranking is not without reason. It really is grueling to stuff that much good content into 27 months of study, especially for someone who is changing fields so completely. He is pulling lots of late nights and early mornings and all-day Saturdays. Exacto’s right there with him. The high school here seems to believe that we really don’t need/want to see him more than 10 seconds a week! grrr. Here’s to hoping that next semester is at least a little better for both of them.

Here’s Exacto with his new study companion. (Rosebud let him babsit. :)

Gratuitous photo designed to make you (and all my siblings) suddenly wish fervently to move here!

Rosebud wore the dress you bought her on Sunday. We took these (actually Fluffy did) just for you. . .

 

And to end, here’s more of what we saw Friday night. It was soooo cool!! I want to go again!

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The Ring Nebula, very much how it looked to us through the telescope.

 

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One of my favorites to find without a telescope, the Pleiades. They looked so beautiful closer up like this!

 

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Andromeda. Apparently one of the only (or THE only?) galaxies visible to the naked eye outside of our Milky Way.

Thank you for all the wonderful things you do for us, Mom. I am so grateful for you and Dad and DC’s parents and all of our supportive family. Our burdens are so much lighter because of you.

Love,

Michelle

quotables

11/6 ~ Exacto was shivering during dinner, and Rosebud looked at his face with concern, saying, "You have goosebumps from your acne."
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~ We were at the mall and walked by some headless mannikins wearing fancy clothes. Rosebud said, "Look, there's some scary americans!"
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11/5 ~ The Mexican hot chocolate drink was ready to serve, and I called up to DC: "Sweetie! It's ready!"
Rosebud, helpful as ever, yelled: "COME FOR ABUELITA, SWEETIE!"
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11/4 ~ Rosebud had a baby towel on her head. Daddy said, "That's a nice hat." Rosebud responded, "It's not a hat. I'm going to be Mary. And Mommy's going to be an angel. And Exacto will be the hay."
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11/2 ~ Rosebud and Suzie-Q. . .
Rosebud: "Do you ever buy anything expensive?"
Suzie-Q: "Yeah, sometimes."
Rosebud: *GASP* "That is NOT good."
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10/29 ~ We were listening to Grandma Baker's CD as we drove to King Soopers, with her beautiful singing of I Feel My Savior's Love. I parked and turned it off. Rosebud said sweetly, "I love Grandma Baker. And I love Nana. And I love King Soopers."
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~ Rosebud: "Grapes have raisins in them."
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10/28 ~ The boys' epithet for rap:  King Noah's poetry
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~ Rosebud was on Song for FHE and insisted that we sing "Shoo fly, don't father me."
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10/24 ~ Hummer, referring to the cute little bowl of M'n'M's on the counter: "May I please have an M'n'M?"
Me: "Sure."
I was reading something. A minute later. . .
Hummer: "May I please have an M'n'M?"
Me: "Sure. Didn't you just have one?"
Hummer with a grin: "I was hoping you would have déjà vu."
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an old one I just found. . .
9/12/13 ~ Rosebud: "Scary things are cool."
< pause >
Rosebud: "Do you want me to tell you a story?"
Me: "Sure."
Rosebud: "Once upon a time there was a centipede and a girl.
“She screamed for help.
“And then Daddy came, and happily ever after!
“The end."

Dear Mom, I’ve got love like a river.

Week of October 28 – November 3

So, this week.

Here’s how it all went down.

This was an exciting event. haha! Here’s to 177,777 more! (Our other car has about 50K more than this. I’m thinking that’s one of those “significant, subtle blessings” Elder Bednar talked about.:)

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A new niece safely arrived! Congratulations to my beloved sister Becky and her family! I can’t wait to meet her.

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Rosebud had the honor of having her artwork exhibited at a community college here, thanks to a pretty neat library program. They had such a nifty little reception, with refreshments and everything. It was fun.

 

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One of those magical peaceful moments when everyone’s getting along. I love that I can take a picture of it, and it’s like it’s suspended and can’t change! ha!

 

I already mentioned this walk, but can’t help posting a couple more photos. . . .it was so lovely!

C is for Corn-husk Dolls (and candles and cocoa and cozy. And curry. And candy :).

Way harder than I thought! I’m super impressed with whoever came up with these to begin with!

On All Hallow’s Eve—as Fluffy has taken to calling it—we went to Mt. Everest Café and partook of Himalayan cuisine. It was yummy! We also went to the store and let everyone choose a smallish bag of candy, then came home and shared it all.

Friday is when everything suddenly fell into place for our temple trip / balloon release. A couple more photos from that wonderful day. . . .

Again, so grateful for Suzie-Q and others who helped make that possible!

We came back home and had his "birthday breakfast” for dinner (this recipe’s a keeper! I subbed ww flour and they were still amazing.)

 

Sunday was so peaceful and just what I hoped for. DC, Fluffy and I went for a walk to the same place as on Wednesday (I wanted to show DC how beautiful it was.)

We had Benjamin’s traditional birthday dinner and invited a few sweet friends over.

The best parts of the day were the emails, phonecalls, texts, etc. from the people in my life I am so blessed to call family and friends. I especially loved getting to talk to you on the phone for a long time while sitting in the car in the garage (so I could hear you :).

Isn’t it amazing how deep and far-reaching a mother’s love can be? I feel yours here just as much as I did in Florida and as much as I do when I’m with you. It is so awesome to also be on the other side of it now and feel that towards my children.

It is awesome to see that even after 6 years of not being physically together, I still love my Benjamin. Yep.

And even more awesome is to think of how that compares to Christ’s love for all of us.

Can a woman forget her sucking child, that she should not have compassion on the son of her womb? yea, they may forget, yet will I not forget thee.

Isaiah 49:15

Love,

Michelle