Halloween

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  Norah with her best friend Sam just before getting on the bus- they wen trick or treating together

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  Freya with her preschool buddies

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  Getting ready to trick-or-treat

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Bartels Farm

Ashley suggested we visit Bartels Farm in Fort Collins. I was skeptical if it would be worth the hour long drive but it turned out to be a big win. It reminded me a lot of Iron Kettle Farm - a pumpkin patch we used to go to when we lived in upstate NY. Bartels farm was charming free range goats, geese, chickens and kids running around. There were were so many photo ops that with the exception of a cute goat, I exclusively took pictures of my own pumpkins and didn't take any of the pumpkin patch. $20 bought us a porch full of colorful pumpkins which will be photographed at a later date!

Freya's 4th Birthday

Freya was very clear about what she wanted for her birthday party: a party at Aunt Ashley and Uncle Matt's house. Her aunt and uncle rolled out the red carpet for her in the form of a slip and slide and we had a wonderful afternoon celebrating together as a family.  We keep scaling back birthday parties for our kids and sometimes I feel worried that Future Freya will think she was shortchanged so let me just document that she had a great time and did not cry at her 4th birthday party (unlike Norah did at her 4th birthday party). Freya has still never had a friend birthday party but she got to go on a double daddy daughter date with her friend June and June's dad Robert. Freya often asks to go "balling" when we drive past Punch Bowl Social (which is in the old control tower so we drive past it constantly). So for her birthday daddy daughter date they went bowling and I think it was all the more special for excluding her sisters.

4th of July

 

Mimi Visits

Mimi came to visit over Memorial Day weekend for Norah's birthday. We went to the Botanic Gardens, aviator pool, paddle boated at City Park and played a lot of croquet with the new croquet set Mimi gave Norah for her birthday. That croquet set got a lot of use all summer long!

Norah turns 9!

Norah is the biggest Harry Potter fan I know - and lets be honest, isn't everyone a Harry Potter fan? So that really is saying something. As fate would have it, the IMAX at the museum planned a Harry Potterathon around her birthday and was showing one of the films each week. My birthday gift to Norah was tickets to see the first 4 movies. She went to the first two with her best friend, the third movie she saw with a minivan full of friends for her birthday party and the 4th movie she saw with Mimi and her dad on her actual birthday.

Here are her friends showing off their homemade wizard wands at her birthday party
Norah requested an Ice Cream cake from Sweet Cow
She had sparkler candles which was very wizardly

In front of the IMAX - the kids all had Harry Potter Ties and glasses and I gave them Bertie Bott's Jelly beans and chocolate frogs to eat during the movie. Apparently the Bertie Bott's beans really are disgusting. They were a little too authentic. We always celebrate the kids birthdays twice in our family - Here is Norah with her Lemon cake on her actual birthday. The pools had just opened for Memorial Day weekend and we spent the afternoon swimming at Aviator. Norah is just showered off in this picture and getting ready for her late night at the IMAX with Mimi and Bryan. Alice and Freya are in PJs getting ready for bed. It was a pretty perfect birthday.