Our Family ~ Nov 2017

Our Family ~ Nov 2017

Our Home & Life & Family

A bit about HOW we ROLL around here in the MTNS of Colorado!

A simple day is filled with getting kids ready for school and the gym, play dates, story time etc, heading out the door with home made packed lunches and snacks.  The Girls and  Gavin are off to school during the week.  Slade has preschool this fall  as well. My kids go to GREAT schools and our town has an alarmingly high concentration of families who make very great livings, children that have been adopted and very low crime!

I head to the gym for a good endorphin boost while the littles play around in the child care for 1.5 hours, til class is over. We head home- get lunch ready and after that play on our acreage with slides and swings, a fire pit, hot tub, sledding hills and trampoline. We may catch a few deer or elk running through our yard and often see plenty of rabbits around. After play- its cuddle time with mommy- Slade and Celise snuggle in and we watch a Toon or read a book before NAPS .

I get busy with house chores ( but have cleaners come every week too) and then find a moment to rest or work on projects/decorating or philanthropic UFA stuff, before the big kids get home. The kids enjoy Gymnastics, choir, band, art classes, ballet, and most outdoor activities. Gavin will start gymnastics and wrestling soon and Slade will get back into swim and gym! I get busy making a home cooked meal about 80% of the time each week. We use lots of FRESH ingredients/ organics/ non GMO etc but, we aren't so rigid on some things in our diets and meals ( Yes my kids eat white sugar every so often)


When it's warm or cold and homework and chores are done, we may hop into the hot tub at the end of the day with the kids and splash around, or go for a bike ride or walk, before its time to get ready for bed. Lots of TICKLE Wars ensue( mostly Daddy takes the beating and jumping on)- then cuddles, prayers, scriptures/books and tuck ins! I feel like the days go too fast sometimes and others seem to last forever. We enjoy ever precious second and LOVE being parents!  We can't wait for the SUMMER when we get more of our kiddos, camping time, exploring nature,  fort building, summer camps, lots of swimming and plenty of road trips to far off places visiting family and friends!

On weekends we often have or attend parties, outings, daddy dates with the girls, dates with each
other as often as possible and spend time working on the house or kicking it watching movies- if we can get away with it! We enjoy fishing, sports events, movies,game nights in, restaurants, the zoo, live shows and shopping too. We take the whole family out pretty regularly for dinner and the kids are getting so well behaved, after lots of practice!

On Sundays I make Special breakfasts like homemade waffles and fruit compote from scratch, we attend church and relax afterwards. We may go for a walk, visit others, veg or catch up with family and friends. We try to live our Lives to Glorify God and Do His will each day. We are imperfect, living life and loving it! We don't put on a show for others and We are who we are.

Now, about our home...

We have an almost 4,000 sq ft ranch style home with 6 bedrooms- one being a gym room and one a craft/guest room. 3 baths, newly renovated kitchen/ floors, doors, fixtures, two fire places, tons of window light and 2.5 acres of land! Our boys share a room with bunk beds, the girls have their own rooms with pretty chandeliers,  and are happy to share a room if we need to make space for a child
in the future. Our home backs up to open space that will never be developed and is brimming with deer, elk, rabbits, fox, and such- passing through to get a drink in the ravine ( tiny stream about 400 yards downhill.)

We love this house but, in the near future will be looking for a bit larger home for our growing family. Our Neighbors are so kind and sweet and the kids are spread out around here but, super awesome! I seriously have the best neighbors ever! This pic below is a shot of our acreage with our house on the left corner.


Our TOWN...
Evergreen is pretty SMALL but FULL of Amenities and Vibrant activities... Our community has monthly picnics and ball games in the summer months, and fun Holiday parties and meet up groups as well. The city has awesome fireworks over Evergreen lake every 4th of July and amazing little shops in downtown and TONS of historic homes & mansions. It's a place people come for a quick getaway from the Hustle and bustle of Denver and we are only about 35 minutes from Denver's outlying suburbs. The town is equipped with your main grocery chains and a few fast food places and lots of local mom and pop shops. The arts are BIG here so there is often music and art fairs in every season. There are ample theatre companies for kids, dance studios, piano and instrument instruction and everything imaginable from horse riding lessons to rock climbing and rappelling! We enjoy and try as much as possible! We are finding this town is continually surprising us and when we do move again- we will stay close and just get a bigger property overall!

Here are some stats on household incomes for people in Evergreen!

Our Leisure Activities and Vacations...

Well, we love to DATE each other and are still head over heels and we keep the love alive by going out and having US time! It could be shopping and dinner, a movie, a walk in the park, playing a sport or going to a Big Sporting event. We treasure our time together b/c we are the FOUNDATION our family is built on. Without good communication and strong bonds- people naturally tend to fall apart.
So we MAKE time for each other.

snorkeling in Kona, HI
As a Family, we Go out to dinners, games, plays, shows and of course on vacations. We camp and fish,
head to CA to the beach and my family there, Go to Theme parks and pretty much anywhere we wish to go. The Girls are coming to Hawaii with us this next year and every year we take a big trip!
We visit family and birth family in Utah, Nevada, California, Arizona and LOVE having reunions. We have traveled to Hawaii multiple times and plan to take the kids again this coming winter!
Machu Picchu


We just recently came back from a trip to Peru where we visited Machu Picchu and the Amazon Rainforest as well. The whole Trip was incredible!


Our Extended Families...

Brandon has one brother, Brian, who is adopted, is married in 2014 to Crystal! They are parents to JAXON who is almost 20 months now! Brian is finishing his degree in Special Needs Education- it will be his Masters and currently is teaching kindergarten. Crystal is a Dental assistant and stays busy with work, her dogs and  Jax. His mom Betty, is in NV with Brian and Crystal too. She is a widow, a school aid, loves to crochet, bake, and is  an adoptive momma as well! He has many cousins in UT and other states but, is not as close to them as He is to the cousins in NV. We see family as much as possible and about 2-3 times a year or more.

Corrine has 4 siblings, Her oldest is her brother, Todd, who lives in CA and is a Computer Techie. A sister, Cristi who has 3 boys with her hubby Wade, who is a professor at ASU, and she is graduating in may with her Masters.  Her younger brother Brad, who is married to Tirza, and they have 4 boys and live in UT- Brad works as a Computer back-end developer for a company there. Her half Brother Brent is a former Marine and is a student currently in CA. She has many STEP siblings that also have kids
MOST of the family
 ( ALL BOYS BUT 1) and her parents have a great relationship with their spouses and each other. One Christmas ALL the grandparents watched the grand kids while we all shopped! Both parents are kind, loving and God fearing Individuals! Leslie, Corrine's mom is a realtor, raises organic chickens , is a realtor, and decorates cakes as well, and her Dad , Danny is a retired UPS man and custom wood worker. Carl ( Leslie's hubby) is a custom home builder/ woodworker and owner of properties and storage units. Mary ( Dan's wife) is the Head of UCSD Medical center's Nursing Staff and a mom to two girls  and a birth mother to a girl as well. We love ALL of them so very much and strive to always have great communication and vacations together.
Aunt Dianne and Uncle Glenn ( Dan's sister) are like another set of Grand parents to our kids. Both of them, Brian and Crystal and Carl and Leslie all RIDE HARLEYS!!! They are in cool groups too, that are patriotic or faith based in nature.

Obviously- we LOVE Our family and have lots of FUN with them and our friends! Please look on our page about our BIRTH FAMILY ( Yep, they are so special to us- they get their own pages:)








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