The Celebration Continues...

Spending the last day of 2011 in CO Springs today with my family. Mom, dad, Ronnie, Ethan, Patrick, and Reo headed partway up Pike's Peak today on the cog railroad. They didn't get to go to the top because of 75-100 mile per hour winds, but they went about 12,000 ft up and had a great time. Nick, Cayle, Michelle, Lexi, and I stayed around the house and hung out. Cayle did succumb to a haircut today (second try's a charm) - although begrudgingly - and he looks so old now!

We spent the afternoon watching college football and basketball. Dad made homemade pizzas tonight for dinner and we exchanged Christmas gifts. Things were going well, until both Nick and Cayle got sick. Nick spent most of the evening in bed with a stomach ache. Cayle threw up on me five times. I'm glad I was able to take care of both of my boys :)

For the rest of tonight, we plan to all hang out, play games, eat snacks, and head outside to the front porch to watch the fireworks off Pike's Peak at midnight.

It's been an unbelievably fun break from school. We have had lots of time to spend with our families and spoil Cayle with non-stop attention. We have so much to be thankful for, and so much to look forward to in the new year!

STEAK!!!

Natalie's brother took us out in Colorado Springs for steak tonight. We went to The Famous Steak House in downtown. Best steak ever! Period! All the boys went, Patrick, Reo, Ronnie, myself, and Big Ron. We all got the same thing. Some scrumptious appetizers and 20 oz. Colorado raised boneless ribeyes. It was absolutely fantastic!

2nd day in Colorado Springs

We introduced Natalie's mom and Michelle to the game of sequence and have been having some INTENSE games the last 2 nights. Michelle and I are winning the most right now. I think our record is 4-2.
We took Cayle and Ethan to get their hair cuts today. Ethan did great, and Cayle liked sitting in the car, but he was not a big fan of the lady trying to comb or touch his hair. We left with no hair cut... :-( He has done fine with the previous 2 cuts, so not sure really...
Cayle was being crazy on the couch with Uncle Patrick tonight!
Cayle loved playing in the play area at the focus on the family kid play area. He was super excited!
Getting ready to go down the slide with cousin Ethan, under Grandma's supervision.
Cayle has been asking to sit on the couch and watch college bball a couple minutes before bed each night.
Cousin Ethan loves to "help" clean up Cayle after he is done eating! What a great cousin! :-)

Planes, planes, and more planes

Last Thursday flying back into Denver from IL one of the coolest things (in my honest opinion, (IMHO)) happened! We had made a bunch of turns in the air in different directions in the last 30 minutes of the flight, not really sure at the time what was happening, but I think the pilot was buying time to land and just getting lined up with the landing area.... It was super cloudy out the entire flight. When the pilot announced to prepare for landing, Cayle and I began looking out the window. Soon we saw another large plane just a little distance away from us traveling in the same direction parallel to us. We then disappeared behind some clouds and when we emerged, there were now 2 planes flying parallel to us! The first was less than 1/4 mile from us, and the 2nd was about a 1/2 mile. Or that's about what it seemed like in the air. At this point Natalie began to get a little nervous, wondering if we were all shooting for the same runway space... yikes! Because all we really know is that at the airport behind our house there is only 1 runway. Turns out we were all 3 landing at the same time on different runways. It was really neat! Flying in that large of jet in that close of proximity to each other was really cool!
Monday, the day after Christmas, the Eagle County Airport broke it's own record for the single busiest day in it's short history. 350 flights either in or out through the course of the day. I noticed, all day flights were leaving (privates) about every 5 minutes. We don't notice flights coming in though, and when I drove past the airport on tuesday, there were at about 200 planes in the parking lot!!! The most I have ever seen there! On the map, all the blue planes are flying into Eagle. It's kind of like a puzzle, the flight controllers have to get all the incoming into one runway, and all the outbounds out on the same runway in between the inbounds.... Sounds like fun!

Another good day

We have had tons of quality family time the last couple of days! Cayle is loving his bike and his basketball hoop! Mainly just his basketball hoop!!! He has spent HOURS!!! shooting baskets the last 2 days. It was 4 degrees when we woke up this morning, and when we went to the park to play at about 2pm it was 40 degrees and sunny. It was really nice out. Cayle and I played at the park for about 15 minutes, then I put him back in the Chariot and ran another 4.5 miles. Beautiful afternoon. When we got home he shot some more baskets, ate dinner, shot some more baskets, and then went to bed. Before he went to sleep he made us promise him that he could shoot basketballs in the morning.... It's kinda crazy really... One more day of hanging out around the house before we head down to the Springs to celebrate Christmas with Natalie's family.

The Best Laid Plans...

What a fantastic Christmas Eve and Christmas Day! Nick and I have been working on plans for these two days for a while since we were pretty excited about starting some of our own family traditions with Cayle. Ever since Cayle was born, Nick and I have been pretty good at going with the flow, understanding plans will change, and just trying to be generally more flexible. So, it should have come as no surprise to us that even though we put lots of thought in to our plans for the past two days, nothing went exactly as we had planned. But we still had lots of fun with the three of us having lots of time together!

We had planned to put Cayle down for bed at his regular time on Christmas Eve (about 7 pm) and let him sleep until we left for church. Nick and I were planning to play board games, watch Christmas movies, and have some appetizers while Cayle slept before church. But, about 15 minutes in to "It's a Wonderful Life", I went to bed, and slept for 2.5 hours! So much for games, and movies, and appetizers :( Nick woke me up and we got ready for church and headed out to look at Christmas lights. Cayle loves looking at lights! So we drove around Eagle a bit, then headed up to Beaver Creek for church. The place was packed! Cayle did well, but he is in a very talkative state...so he seemed very loud as he pointed out all of the lights at church, and made cow and horse noises, and said "bye-bye" to people who got up, etc. He was by far the youngest person at church (by about 7 years??), and he stuck out like a sore thumb! But he did a great job and even got lots of smiles from those sitting around us. We got home from church about 145 am and put Cayle to sleep so that Nick and I could play Santa. What fun that was! After putting out the gifts, Nick and I had some yummy cheese sticks and played a game of Sequence (I won yet again!). We finally went to bed about 3 am.

presents all set out by the tree

chef nick with the cheese sticks

Cayle slept in a little bit today - all the way 'til 730 am! We had a butter braid (yummy pastry) for breakfast, and opened some gifts. Cayle skyped with grandma and grandpa Brummer for a bit and showed off his new toys.

having fun opening his gifts

he played with the basketball hoop for hours...literally

his new bike!

it's so cute when he lays on his belly like this in front of the computer

I started lunch, and figured it would be served with perfect timing for when Cayle usually eats his lunch. But, he decided to take a nap about 11, so Nick and I went ahead and ate without him. We had a ton of food - ham, brussel sprouts, mashed potatoes and gravy, macaroni and cheese, rolls, and cheesecake. Nick and I had planned to go cross-country skiing with Cayle after lunch...but the little guy ended up taking a 3.5 hour long nap! When he finally woke up, he had a little lunch, and then we were able to head out. When we got to Sylvan Lake, we found they didn't have nearly enough snow for us to ski, or even snowshoe, so we ended up just going on a walk. We spent the rest of Christmas skyping with grandma Hammers and just hanging out.

daddy and cayle on the hike

mommy and cayle by the frozen lake

Nick had been concerned about us not differentiating to Cayle that some presents were from Santa and some were from mom and dad...no worries here, he had no idea why he had presents to open, or who they were from, or why we went to church at midnight last night. I think he's just enjoying all the attention he gets from mom and dad being around 24-7. I promise you, his mom and dad are enjoying all the family time. He's a great little boy, and tons of fun to be with :)

Merry Christmas!!!!

What a great year it has been! Thanks for reading the stories about our lives! Have a Merry Christmas!

Our Christmas Traditions

Last year, Cayle was only 7 months old, and obviously not much of a participant with regard to opening presents, talking about Christmas lights, playing with the "baby" (Jesus) - that kind of thing. This year, he is a much more active participant, and we are really excited to start to some Christmas traditions with him - even though he'll probably never remember exactly what we did on Christmas Eve and Christmas when he was 19 months old!

Nick and I have spent a fair amount of time discussing our childhoods and family traditions and what events we enjoyed the most, and what we'd like to do as we start our family Christmas traditions. Even though it's Christmas Eve, we don't yet have everything set in stone! But, here's what we have so far:
Christmas Eve
board games/appetizers/watch Christmas movies (evening)
drive around and look at Christmas lights (before church)
midnight mass (literally, at midnight)

Christmas
butterbraid for breakfast (it's a yummy pastry)
open gifts from Santa
yummy lunch of ham, potatoes, brussel sprouts, mac and cheese, salad, rolls, dessert

We're still unsure when we'll open gifts from each other...but we'll figure it out I'm sure! We're also contemplating going cross-country skiing, but are still waiting on Cayle's skis to be returned to us from some friends who borrowed them. I'm thinking a nap is also an essential part of today since we'll be up so late tonight!

It's another girl!

The Hammers family is getting a bit lopsided! There are now 4 girl grandchildren and 2 boy grandchildren. Shay Lee Steele was born to Michael and Lindsey on Wednesday, December 21 just after 9 am in Rockford, IL. Shay was almost the heaviest grandchild in the family, but Cayle was born one ounce heavier than Shay's 8 lbs 2 ounces. Sadly, I have no photos for you :( But, Shay is such a good girl, she got to go home from the hospital today! Both Lindsey and Shay are doing well, and Finley (now a big sis!) is trying to adjust :)

A trip to IL

We had a fun time in IL celebrating Christmas with Nick's family. Cayle spent a lot of his time asking for balls, and wanting to play in the gym. The last three days we were there flew by, so it will be easiest to give a picture montage of everything we did!

Nick's birthday was on Monday (the 19th).
Grandma and Grandpa joined us for his birthday dinner!

Grandma and Grandpa passed out their Christmas presents to everyone after dinner.
Grandma made Cayle a pillow cot to take naps on!
We also received some new hot pads that she made for us!

We stopped by Grandma Alice's house on Tuesday for a short visit. She had a piggy bank for Cayle that plays music and helps him learn to count. He loves that pig!

We went to dinner at the Firefly on Tuesday night. It was amazing! We had stuffed mushrooms, lentils and pitas, pizzas, entrees (Nick had the Ahi Tuna and I had the crab cakes with baked shells and cheese), dessert, and, of course, plenty of wine (I had hot apple cider)! After dinner we drove Cayle by some houses that had Christmas lights synchronized to holiday music. We thought his neck was stuck because he spent so long staring at the lights!

On Wednesday, Grandpa took Cayle to the John Deere store to look at tractors.
Turns out Cayle really likes John Deere!
He has only been home a few hours, and he has already
been playing with his new tractor from grandpa!

On Wednesday night, we had an intense game of family wiffle ball in the gym.
It was a great game filled with some untimely strikeouts and errors!
We also exchanged gifts with each other. Cayle is really learning how to unwrap gifts. He got some new farm animals that he loves playing with! Nick and I got some new clothes
and some other fun items (ask Nick about his awesome new boxers!).

The trip was a lot of fun, lots of good family time, and lots of good laughs. Cayle did great on the trip with the travel, and adjusting to a new place to sleep and a new schedule. He learned everyone's names and was able to say them and recognize everyone.

Now that we're home, we'll spend a few days relaxing here at home and starting some Christmas traditions with Cayle. Our only real plan is to have some appetizers Christmas Eve - probably about 10 pm? - and then head out to drive around and look at Christmas lights. We'll take Cayle to his first midnight mass on Christmas Eve, then head home to get some sleep and let Santa have time to drop by!

Family day

Today was family day, so we started off at church.
After church, we had an awesome brunch and did some relaxing. Cayle took a nap while the others got their bikes ready for the ride to go get the Christmas tree. At the tree farm, Cayle came up close and personal with a horse, which he didn't care for!
Then, he didn't show much appreciation for his time with Santa either!
Once the tree was up, we had dinner and decorated the tree. Cayle helped grandpa put up the nativity set.
I also played Nick in knockout and one-on-one basketball tonight. I didn't fare well in either event, but I did enjoy the exercise!

And away we go!

So we finally got through the three weeks of school between Thanksgiving and Christmas break - yay! Immediately after school on Friday we left town with Tiffany and Carter in tow. We headed down to Highlands Ranch, where we all had places to stay for the night - Nick, Cayle, and I with Nick's cousin Jodi (and her husband Luke and their son Nathan) and Tiffany and Carter with Tiffany's friend Jodi (and her two kids). It was a short night as we all five had to be at DIA for 9 am and 935 am flights. The security lines went smoothly, and the flight was short on turbulence. We arrived in STL about 1230 pm, got our bag, and found Nick's mom in the parking lot quickly. After stopping for lunch at St Louis Bread Co, we arrived in Teutopolis at 330 pm CST. The rest of the day was spent playing in the gym. Cayle loved it! Tina, Emma, and Brady were able to join us for a bit. We all had a great time!

brady, cayle, and grandpa playing a game of baseball

emma and i playing with the glow in the dark balls

nick teaching brady the "victory" dance - used after kicking a soccer goal

emma, cayle, natalie, brady, and tina :)

Tebrew

Man this whole Tebow thing is really outta control! I think it's super cool that they are winning, and he is doing his thing. Plus it's a ton of fun to watch in the last quarter. Bonfire Brewery in Eagle created a Barleywine and named it TEBREW.... They went from being this tiny little brewery "which we love to visit," in Eagle, CO, to now being all over the news, and having people yell at them on their Facebook page, all just because the name of the beer represents a Christian football player who doesn't drink. It's amazing how angry some people get over this kind of stuff. I personally think it's great publicity for them and for the town. It's very creative, and kinda cool! I hope to try some next week. Hopefully they don't run out too quickly!

Hang in there!

Just a few more days and we'll be out of school for 17 whole days! Absolutely cannot wait to spend time with my 2 favorite boys, and see our families! We will head down to Denver Friday night, fly to St Louis Saturday morning, spend time in Teutopolis for a few days and fly back to CO on Thursday, the 22nd. We're going to spend Christmas here, and start some traditions with Cayle. We'll leave again on the 28th to visit Ronnie and Michelle and kids, and also meet up with Mom, Dad, Patrick, and Reo. It will be a fantastic break!

A few pics from this past weekend:

Cayle showing me exactly where he threw the yogurt on the wall...

Cayle "painting" ornaments (very little paint actually made it's way on to the ornaments...)

Nick had his basketball end-of-the-season party on Monday, so the season is now officially over. His kids won the league championship, which was pretty exciting. Nick has done lots of laundry so far this week, and we're working on lots of little things to get ready for the big trip: clean the car out, leave few leftovers in the fridge, wrap gifts, clean the house, etc. Tomorrow night is packing night, and we'll get it all ready to load in the car Friday morning.

Tonight we celebrated Nick's birthday (a few days early) with some friends at Bonfire Brewing. We had Costco pizza and a pineapple cake I made, and the boys played some Foosball and shuffleboard. Happy almost-thirty-first birthday to my handsome husband :)

Nick showing off his shuffleboard skills

That's a wrap!!!

What a great basketball season it was! I liked coaching in IL but the season went on so long, and there was always a Christmas tourney, and then the season didn't get over until end of January or so. My first season of coaching in Colorado was for sure a different experience, but I did really enjoy it! The season was 7 weeks, which turned out to be about perfect. Over the week before Christmas. My team started out kind of slow, lacking confidence needed to take down the big teams (Summit and Eagle). As the season progressed I could see their confidence growing by leaps and bounds. They also learned to play better as a team, and learned to trust each other. I could go 10 deep and really not have to worry about anyone not wanting to play with anyone else, or have to worry about attitudes or egos. It was so nice in that regard! We finished up the season in fantastic fashion! Taking down the 1 seed and the 2 seed en route to a league Championship! We just kept getting stronger as the season progressed! If all these kids keep playing they will have a heck of a team next year, and on into high school! I had a great time teaching the game to my kids, and look forward to watching them in 8th grade next year, as well as getting a new group of 7th graders to work with.

Busy weekend!

This weekend was very busy, but productive! Friday night, Nick attended the GCMS staff holiday party while I stayed home with Cayle and his friend Carter. I was able to get Christmas cards done Friday night...yay!

Then on Saturday, I had math grant meetings from 8-4, while Nick had his league basketball championship tournament. The math meetings weren't overly exciting. But the tournament was! Nick's team entered the tournament with the third seed in the league. They took out the 6th seed, then the 2nd seed, and finally won the championship trophy by 4 points. Yay! The boys were pretty excited. Nick has his basketball party tomorrow after school, and then he'll be completely done with the season. Last night, we continued to work on wrapping presents, baking cookies, and making ornaments.

Today we finished everything up and are ready to start packing for our trip to IL later this week. Only five more days of school! That calls for a double yay!

Done

Had our last basketball practice tonight. It has been a ton of fun, but I am excited to be coming home after school again to be with Natalie and Cayle. We have the league tournament on Saturday, then a team party on Monday, and that's all she wrote. We have the 3 seed in the tourney and start off by playing the 6 seed, then we will have the #2 seed if we take care of business and win game 1. We beat the #2 seed on Tuesday of this week, but it may be difficult to beat them again. Hopefully the last win gave the kids some confidence! Regardless, it should be fun!

Basketball and a.... Lion!

What an awesome Day! Got a message this morning that a friend's husband had gotten a mountain lion last night (there is a mt. lion hunting season.) She said I was welcome to go look at it if I wanted. It was on the porch of their house about 10 minutes from us. So I called Rob, next door, to see if he wanted to go look at it with me, and he said of course! It was pretty freaking cool! What an amazing animal! They are apparently always watching you when you are in the woods, and you just never see them. Super sneaky. Always in the back of my mind when Mt. Biking. It's paw was the size of my hand, and it was about 6 feet long!

I have been in several overtime games with Middle School basketball teams, and have always come out on the losing end. Took care of that one tonight! We were playing the #1 team (Summit) in the league at our house. Played great the first half, and then laid a goose egg the 3rd quarter while they scored a bunch. Down by 7 to start the 4th quarter. Some aggressive steals off the press and a timely 3 and we tied it up with 4 seconds left!!! Held them on defense and into overtime where we took control until they drained a 3 with less than a minute left in overtime to cut it to 1. They fouled us immediately, and we drained our next 2 free throws to seal the win! Great win! Great team effort to comeback! Great fun!!! Love coaching this age level! 2 more practices then the league tourney and the season is over!

Christmas Preparations...

...are well under way! Last weekend we had decorated the house and put up lights but did not have the tree! Well, now we do! Here's how it all went down...

Friday after work, we came home for a bit before heading out to Pazzo's for some pizza. We had a great coupon (large pizza for $11.95), so that made the night even better. Once Cayle went to bed Nick and I pent some quiet time hanging out on the couch together, spending time relaxing.

Saturday morning Nick worked Saturday School and Cayle and I hung out around the house. I had lunch with Jess and Alana to celebrate a belated birthday for Jess. Then we got ready for the Christmas on Broadway celebration. We headed over to Eagle with Mark and Blue a little after 5 to join in the festivities. There were lots of people walking around, a few stands offering soup, hot chocolate, and cookies. And Santa was there...but we missed him :( We hung out in the coffee shop a bit to await the parade's start. Cayle wouldn't keep his gloves on, so his hands got very cold. But he didn't want to watch the parade from inside...that boy is so indecisive! After the parade, we headed over to Justin and Melinda's for the Ugly Christmas Sweater party.

Cayle still happy at this point!

Cayle ready to go home :)

Our ugly Christmas attire

On Sunday we had a nice breakfast of pancakes, sausage, and eggs before heading out on the tree search. We left Eagle with Mark and Blue, Rob, Yvonne, and Zoe, Torrey and Alana, and Jeff and Jess and arrived at our destination just after 9 am. The temp was 10 degrees :) We set out looking for the perfect tree amongst the thousand of trees in the forest. Just over two hours later, we found a keeper. (Let's not discuss the fact this tree we found was one I had noticed when we first arrived...) At least we got some great exercise snowshoeing through several feet of snow! We got the tree decorated today (Cayle loves the lights). Once Cayle got up from his afternoon nap, we took some great photos in front of the tree.

Nick cutting down the tree

Not a bad looking tree!

2011 Brummer Family Photo

Cayle Joseph hanging out in front of the tree

Now I've been able to order the Christmas cards! We just have a few more people on our shopping list. We're down to two more weeks of school before we leave for IL. Nick and I are both super-excited for Santa to arrive on Christmas morning! The countdown to Christmas is on!