Hiking Pics

A couple pics from our recent hikes

Red Rocks

Golden, CO

I Love Summer!

I don't think I blogged about this but Katie left yesterday on a plane to San Antonio all by herself! I took her to the airport, walked her to the gate and waited with her till she was able to get on the plane. I was really nervous about letting her travel alone, not so much about how she'd handle it, I knew she'd be fine. My concern was something happening, like a plane crash and her being all by herself and taken from me. It's VERY hard for me to let my children out of my sight, especially in regards to moving vehicles. Fortunately she arrived safely and is now having a great time in San Antonio w/ grandma. She went to "Camp Grandma" last summer (someone flew with her there and back though) and had such a great time. It's so nice for her to get a break from the babies and spend a couple weeks just doing stuff she enjoys but can't do often here because of her brothers. She gets totally spoiled and deserves every minute of it. :)

So to keep the boys entertained we have been staying pretty busy. The weather has been absolutely gorgeous - I LOVE Colorado in the summer. Yesterday we took them to a nice open space park that has great jogging trails and a big playground. We put them in the jogging stroller and got to run for about 4 miles. They played at the playground and we brought soccer balls and they ran around the field kicking the balls. Kobe is amazingly fast for his age and really coordinated. Very unlike his big brother Kyle! Poor little guy had 2 left feet. But Kobe can run and kick the ball with amazing control, probably even better than Katie when she was older than him and first playing team soccer. I raced him up and down the field several times and was really impressed with how fast he can run. I think he's going to be our "athlete", he LOVES to run and seems to have been blessed with great coordination and balance. He can catch and throw really well too so it will be interesting to see which sports he ends up liking. I think I'm going to start him in a gymnastics class very soon and probably soccer in the fall. On the way back from the playground he didn't want to ride in the stroller and said he wanted to run so I jogged with him most of the way back. He finally got tired and started stretching his arms and says "That was good run today" It was so funny the casual way he said it, Kevin and I both started laughing. I love that he is growing up seeing me and Kevin running all the time and just thinks that is a normal daily thing you do.

Today we decided to go for a hike so we loaded up the boys in the hiking backpacks and packed a healthy lunch and headed out. We went up to the Boettcher Mansion and hiked for about 3 miles on beautiful tree lined trails overlooking Golden. When we got back up to the Mansion we stopped and had lunch then walked around and checked out the Mansion. It was amazingly beautiful and the coolest part were the thousands of Lady Bugs everywhere, I'm not sure if it was their breeding season or what but I have never seen so many lady bugs in my life. Afterwards we headed down to downtown Golden and took the kids to the cute little old fashioned soda shop/ice cream store (Kobe loves this place and insists on going there for ice cream) Kobe and Kaleb shared an ice cream cone and Kevin and I got chocolate covered bananas - yum! We sat outside and enjoyed the sights and sounds of downtown Golden, it was a beautiful day, warm w/ a cool breeze and there was a great live band playing at one of the restaurants. I really love Golden, it's such a cute town.

We thought about taking the boys to see the movie "Up" but were so beat that we ended up just making dinner at home and getting them bathed and into bed. Now I'm enjoying a little peace and quiet and will probably hit the sack myself soon. Tomorrow we might take them to a local waterpark if the weather cooperates. I took some great pics today, I'll try to get them downloaded and post them soon.

New Blog

So I started a blog specifically about the changes I am trying to make in our diet and to use a log for food and exercise - check it out: http://christinem80.blogspot.com/

Busy!

I just realized I haven't updated on what's been going on with my acting in a while. So, let's see, in the past 2 weeks I have signed on w/ Lincoln Talent, auditioned for and booked 2 films. One is called "Big Cities & Small Towns" and the other is called "Down Angel". They both seem like really fun and interesting projects and I'm excited to get on set and start filming both next month. I also had a call back audition for the film "The Dead Rose" which I had originally auditioned for over a month ago. I think the call back went really well but I still haven't heard anything back yet so I'm started to get anxious. I wish they would just let me know, one way or the other, I just HATE waiting and not knowing. Yesterday I went on another audition for a film called "Kung Fu Sushi Chefs" and I think it went well. It was the longest audition I've ever been on! I was there for about an hour and they asked me to do both my monologues, read 2 different characters each with 3 scenes and each scene several times with different direction, different accents, etc. Asked me tons of questions about my past roles, special skills, etc. I guess it's a good sign that they were interested in me or else they wouldn't have wasted their time. Right??

So, anyway, I've got a couple films in the works and couple more that might turn into roles. It's definitely going be a busy summer. I'm excited to be able to beef up my resume and hopefully have enough footage to put a decent reel together so next year I can start sending submission packages out to agents in LA. Apparently there is a ton of filming going on in New Mexico right now and my acting coach is urging me to get an agent out there but I'm just not sure how easily I'll be able to travel down there for auditions and work.

Anyway, that's about it, things have also been really busy on the home front and with Hip Monkey but I'll save those updates for another time. :)

A good trade :)

So Kevin is still out of town and my dad left this morning so I am completely on my own with the kids until tomorrow. I decided the day would just drag on if we didn't get out of the house so I packed up the kids and we headed out. For the 1st time EVER, I took all 3 kids to a sit down restuarant by myself. I have to say, it went about as perfect as possible. It seems like Kaleb has grown up SO much in the past week or so. Suddenly he is the easiest kid in the world. Happy all the time, doesn't cry in the car, stays in his high chair and stroller happily. It is SO much easier to go out places with him now. So anyway, we had a great lunch at Pei Wei (Chicken Pad Thai - YUM!) then headed over to Barnes & Noble. I offered to take the kids to get ice cream after lunch but they wanted to go to the bookstore first. I guess it's a good thing that my kids prefer books over ice cream! Again at the bookstore, the kids behaved wonderfully. I let each kid pick out a book. Katie got a book all about dog breeds, we had to go the "grown up" section because the books in the kid section were too babyish for her. She is growing up so fast. Kobe got a book about tractors and Kaleb got a book about animals. I got the new Dean Koontz book - YAY!!! I can't describe my excitement when I see a new Dean Koontz book on the shelf! I've been reading his books for 17 years now (I actually had to do the math and figure that out, I can't believe it's been that long) and he is still my favorite author. I also picked up a book for Kevin about hiking trails in Colorado. On the way home I told the kids that I had a really great time and asked them if they had fun and Katie goes "Yeah, it's AMAZING how much fun you can have when you spend a lot of money!" Haha, I bursted out laughing so hard when she said that. We've been trying really hard lately to save money by not eating out or spending money on "stuff" we don't need so today was a real treat for them.

The best part is I recently put up all the old car seats in my garage on craigslist and a guy came yesterday with cash for one of them so our whole trip today was financed without dipping into my bank account at all! I'd say it was a good trade, a car seat for a great day. :)

Talking Baby!

Kaleb just turned 15 months old and boy has his speech picked up! I really need to get the camera out and record him talking because it is sooooo cute. Here is a list of his words:

Mama

Daddy

Katie (sounds like "Daydee")

Kobe (sounds like "Bobee" - with an emphasis on the "bee")

Nice Nice (while petting the dog)

Eat (very clear - also does the sign for this while he says it)

Grandma (MaMaaa - you can tell the difference between Mama and Grandma by the way he drags out the maaaa at the end of Grandma while "Mama" is very clipped and short)

Milk (does the sign for this too)

No (sounds like "Na" - also shakes his head no while saying it)

Eye (very clear) - also points to his and your eye when asked

Belly Button (Beyeee buu") also points to when asked

Mouth - also points to when asked

Ear- also points to when asked

Hair - also points to when asked

Hi - and waves

Bye - and waves

Night Night

Ball

Vroom vroom (while playing with cars)

Bug

Bath

Boo (while playing peek a boo)

More (does the sign for this too)

Animal Sounds - when you ask him what the animals says, he says:

Woof woof (for dog)

Meow (for cat)

Moo (for cow)

Snorts for pig noise

eee eee (for monkey)

Rawr (growling roar for dinosaurs, lions, tigers, etc)

Nieghhhhh (for horse)

He is at such a cute age right now and babbles all the time in addition to the words we can understand. He is a very vocal baby. He loves music and starts bouncing up and down dancing whenever he hears it. He also understands EVERYTHING, you can ask him to go get pretty much anything and he'll get it, ask him questions and he'll answering you by shaking his head, etc. He's been getting much easier lately and loves to play with the older kids. It's so cute as they all run by with him at the end doing his half walk/half run to keep up. I can actually take a shower during the day now and he'll play happily w/ Katie and Kobe instead of screaming at me and banging on the glass the whole time. lol He is also super attached to Kevin which is REALLY nice, he actually wants to go with daddy more than me a lot of time. Kevin puts him to bed every night which is wonderful after Kyle & Kobe who both refused to go to sleep with anyone but me.

I'm really loving this age, he's still so cute and babyish and chubby but running around, talking and interacting. I'd like to just keep him at this age for a while. This is the age where you start to forget how hard the first year really was and start thinking that they are so adorabe and fun, another one would be nice. ;) If I wasn't pursuing my acting I can see how I'd start to think "just one more" at this point. But no, I have my hands beyond full with these 3, the business, the non profit and my acting. I don't think I could handle much more and maintain my sanity, something would have to give and I don't want to give anything up so I think that means no more babies for us. But I am thoroughly enjoying Kaleb's babyhood while it lasts!

I'll post soon w/ some more recent pics & videos of my little Monkey-moo :)