Prehistoric Dandelions

Need I say more? These things are HUUUUUGE!! Hate to see those weeds!!

New PETS?!?!?

Well... I guess I have had to get used to the local wildlife and insects of Colorado pretty darn quickly. Everything you see in this post is literally within minutes of our home here.... or directly ON our property. The boys are in heaven here.... ME? Some things I love.... the creepy crawlers are taking some getting used too....

Here are some monster bucks and a cute mommy and fawn:
We have HUNDREDS of these grasshoppers in our backyard.... Landon LOVES to catch them!!
The boys wanted to keep this little guy.... I am thinking NOT!!!And this guy is named Stumpy.... he is there every night.

This little bat is Stinky... he poops on our front porch a lot.... GREAAAAAAAAT~

And here is the Mommy snake.... She is FAST and very big!!

~~BIRTHDAY BEADS~~

A huuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuge thank you to both Angela and Beth, of the ever so awesome and in demand Bedford Beads.... check her out here: http://www.etsy.com/shop.php?user_id=5366265
These girls conspired together to make me the best dang set of lamp work beads I have ever laid my eyes on!! This beyond awesome set is awe inspiring!! I tell ya!! I am so blessed to have those 2 girls in my life!! Thanks girls for making me the bestest birthday bead set in the world!! You girls ROCK!!!

Birthday surprises!

Got lots and lots of fun stuff from family and my best friends!!
Got some cute animal print scissors from my Mom/Landon:
Pretty flowers from my honey:

A GORGEOUS, GORGEOUS, handmade button bouquet from my super talented bestie, Beth! ;) She is just amazing, isn't she? She made every single one of these buttons and it will match my scrapbook room PERFECTLY!!

And these SUPER cute finger puppets for my boys (although I am keeping them for me....sorry boys). If you know me, I love robots and space monsters.... anything cute and funky.... I LOVE it!!

Thanks everyone for making my birthday as special as can be!! I miss you all in Cali!!

Are you kidding me?

So we are building out some of our unfinished basement next week so we were tooling around down there trying to figure things out. I told Trafton, " Oh my gosh..... I thought that was a real spider!" That was me thinking that the boys had a fake spider out.... since it was literally 4 inches long! Trafton screamed... " THAT IS A REAL SPIDER!!!" And then the hysteria began.... not only did we find one..... (we found the dark one first) but then we found an even BIGGER one.... and yes... that gives you an idea how big it was... that is a 2x4" piece of wood.
GROSS...eeeeeeewe.... yuck.... sick....gag!! TWO wolf spiders in 3 minutes... Trafton was the brave one that shoved them in a box and took them WAAAAAAAAY far away from our house. We didn't have the guts to kill them. So I hope they remember that and never come back. Now I am the only one brave enough to go into the basement.... but it REALLY gives me the willies.

Mason's first day....

New GI JOE backpack..... cool "big kid" shirt..... his long, shaggy hair.... and butterflies in his stomach..... Mason did GREAT on his first new day at school. He is at a year round school now and he started late so he was in school for 4 days and now off for 3 weeks. I told him not to get used to that schedule!! He has made 2 new buddies and the neighbor kids love the boys!! We are in a great neighborhood of kids and people are happy to see the house occupied after being vacant for 5 months. We are settling in nicely.

I'm back!!

Another year older and in an entirely different state.... but I am back!! :) There are going to be a lot of posts over the next week or two so bear with me.

We left California on Monday August 3rd.... at some unholy time of morning.... here was our view:

We got through 4 states in one day.... the boys did AWESOME and here were a few of our awesome sights on the way.

Las Vegas, Nevada (the boys loved the planes and fighter jets more than the crazy buildings):

We hit the Arizona border... just long enough to see some beautiful mountains, cliffs and heat. The boys were not bored yet!!

We ended up in St. George, Utah later that night and did a little sightseeing, a yummy dinner, some swimming and a trip to a wildlife museum. I'll post some pics from that later!! We made it to Grand Junction, CO on Tuesday night where we walked through downtown, swam some more and enjoyed a $14 movie (Monsters vs. Aliens). It was well worth it though.... the boys laughed and fell asleep.... until we woke up early again.... I don't like early...

Since this was the last leg of our road trip, I was jazzed!! Couldn't wait to get the boys to our new house and finally arrive HOME!!

The boys were AMAZED by the scenery and the huge mountains.... they wondered why God made the sky more blue in Colorado than California.... that was pretty funny to me. We saw lots of wildlife on the way and they were so excited to be in Colorado finally!!

And here are the boys getting their first glimpse of their backyard!! They are in HEAVEN! They spend all their time outdoors and don't ever want to come in. We also came home to this sweet sign on our garage door. Our sweet friends spent 16 hours (35 large bags of weeds) in our yard getting it prepared for our arrival and it looked GREAT!!

So THAT was our journey from California to Colorado.... I am so tired all over again!!

Elle's Studios

YEAH!! I am so honored to be the guest designer over at Elle's Studios!! It is always a pleasure to work with the awesomely sweet Elle and it was SUPER fun to work with her new goodies!! So stop by to see my creations all month long!!
http://shopellesstudio.com/elles-studio-inspiration-kristin-hayne09.php

Sidenote: Thanks for all the well wishes on my move. It is very bittersweet for me to leave such a wonderful group of friends, neighbors and families!! I have lived here in California for 34 years and it will be strange to be in a new state as I turn 35!! It is still unreal to me!!
However, I plan to be back as often as I can to visit!! I will love and miss you all tremendously!! Come visit me in COLORADO and stay in touch as often as possible!!! Bye everyone!!!