August & September!

Working on getting back to blogging after many (many) months off!  Here are some of the Thomas highlights from August and September!

We love our summer mornings!  Lots of time to snuggle, read, watch shows and spend time together!!  We love playing with our sweet friends ALL day long in the summer!

First day of school!  Carson is enjoying 4th grade and has a "boy teacher" this year (as the kids call it in our house).  Aliana has the same teacher Carson had last year and is liking 3rd grade!  She never really "loves" school, so it's the best when she likes it!!

 

Aliana turned EIGHT in September and we had a fun time celebrating!  She invited her besties over for a "campout"!  We made s'mores, ate pizza and slept in a tent!

 

Aliana spent her actual birthday weekend in Colorado Springs where we toured the Springs Homeless Rescue mission and brought donations from home.  It is an AMAZING Christian organization that does so much for homeless in CO Springs.  Every year Brian and I have a girls/boys trip with the kids to practice our Thomas 5 (Love God, Work Hard, Live with Integrity, Walk in Wisdom & Treat Men and Women with Respect). These are such precious moments with our kids that we really treasure! 

This year, Aliana asked for a bedroom update!  Aliana worked VERY hard to get rid of a TON of little toys, papers, crafts, supplies, etc etc from her room before she could have an upgrade!  Mom is loving the simplicity of this new room arrangement ;)

 

We had one final birthday celebration with the cousins and a girls trip to see Frozen the Musical!  It was amazing!! Thanks Oma!!!

My birthday was also in September and I had a fun girls night with these sweet friends!! My friend on the left owns two restaurants in Longmont, CO with her husband and The Roost is going to be on Diners, Drive-ins and Dives!  They just finished filming!! This is their other amazing restaurant!

 

And the summer wouldn't be complete without a Triathlon (or 2!) in the summer months! Today was my last Tri of the season and it felt a little more like winter than summer!! It was 45 degrees this morning when we had to get in the water! Brrrrr!

Thanks for reading!!  Have a great week! 

February & March Fun!

It's almost Spring Break and we've been enjoying our time when we aren't at school: playing with friends, skiing, watching Carson wrestle and Aliana do gymnastics!  Here's a recap...

Carson's wrestling season ended last month.  

He placed 5th in the Rookie Division at state!  

Aliana has been enjoying her gymnastics classes at the local rec center.  

Brian built a balance beam last year and he added to our 

basement gymnastics area this month with a bar!

Brian's students re-built their space project (after the first one exploded in the 

rocket on it's way to the International Space Station) and have another date for launch!

I got to be a class mom and go with the 2nd graders to a Frog and Toad 

play at the Arvada Center.  It was fun!! (except the bus ride...)

Carson was honored in the Broomfield Art Showcase for a 

piece he made at school!!

We spent two nights in the mountains and skied at Copper with 

Brian's brother's family. The cousins had a great time!  

Please notice the family photo (above) that Aliana is 

choosing to not participate in! lol!

We love our friends!  The Lord has blessed us with some very special friends, 

both at school, at church and in our neighborhood!  We've been enjoying 

lots of weekend and after school playdates!

Happy ALMOST Spring Break!!

Mexico!

In order to avoid a week of winter in the month of January, we booked a trip to Cancun with some great friends and their sweet kiddos for 5 days!  Our friends have a daughter Aliana's age and a son Carson's age, and an adorable two-year-old who celebrated her birthday in Mexico!

We had such a great time.  We stayed at a resort that had close beach access - the kids enjoyed playing in the sand and then rinsing off and jumping in the pool!  The weather was awesome and everyone stayed healthy!  We build two epic sand castles while we were there and enjoyed the yummy food/drinks the resort offered pretty much around the clock!

 

 

  (you will notice two extra children in the photo on the right that wanted to come play ;)

End of Summer, Back to School!

Summer officially ended for the Thomas family last week, and we are all Back to School!  Even though I felt like this year I was a little more "ready" and excited to go back to work, when the first days of professional development and teacher work time came, it was really rough!  But now that we've had students for a couple of days, I think I will survive! :)  I have some REALLY sweet new kiddos on my caseload this year, and I am VERY excited to just have Kindergarten-Third grade students this year! (last year I had K-5 and it was nutty!)

 

(Left:  Carson and Aliana, First Day of School!)

(Right:  Mommy, First Day of School! ...along with two of my beautiful 

special education teammates)

*Not sure why we don't have a picture of daddy!

Girls / Boys Weekends!  We started a tradition when Carson went into first grade that every summer the "boys" and "girls" would have a weekend together talking about the Thomas Five!  (Love God, Live with Integrity, Walk in Wisdom, Work Hard, Treat Men and Women with Love & Respect).  The boys had their weekend at a camp ground in Wyoming with other dads/boys from Church as part of the Resoration / ManMaker project and the girls had our weekend at home this year (per Aliana's request!).  Last summer the girls we went to Colorado Springs and the boys camped in Estes Park.  It proved to be another wonderful weekend for our kids to learn about the will of God in their lives and His amazing love that He has for them!

                                                   

                                 

                               

                               

*As part of our girl's weekend, Aliana completed a summer service project and made bead jewelry to sell for Learn for Life Kenya... thank you for all of our lovely family members who supported her :)

The summer wrapped up with Brian finishing the deck project (he built a roof, and built BEAUTIFUL furniture!).  Carson finished up Archery and got to give his sister a little lesson, Aliana is still loving dance and will continue into the fall, Brian and I had a fun date night in Boulder and of course the kids have been continuing to enjoy playdates with their Besties!!!!

HAPPY FALL!!!