Boondocks birthday celebration of the six-year-olds..

Boondocks was a new discovery for the Koel family in 2013.  We learned about the free birthday pass, and that's all it took to get us there!  The birthday kid gets a pass to do everything for free on his actual birthday, and it's totally worth scrounging around the house to locate a birth certificate, which they do actually require for this sweet deal.    This particular day was Caleb Schmidt's 6th birthday, so we met the Schmidts at Boondocks for a bit of joint 6-year-old birthday fun.

This was possibly the slowest go-kart you've ever seen, but they had a blast anyway...and probably don't know the difference.

From left to right:  Haley Schmidt,  Gage, Caleb Schmidt and Gavin.  Gavin was holding up six fingers, and the younger siblings are trying to hold up three.  It's been so fun for Andrea and I to have kids that are the same ages.  Interestingly, my feisty one came first, and hers has been her second child. Girl, I'm so glad that we can go through all of it together!

Gage has a new friend in Avenly...

One of my best friends, Amanda (Hipsher) Fox has moved back home!  And with her comes her husband, Aaron, and their two kids, Avenly (4) and Finn (1).  (Amanda had been living in California for a long time, hence my excitement to have her back in the state...and that makes it sound like she's still hours away in a small no-name mining town in Colorado, but she's really in Louisville, which is even better.)  One of the best decisions she's made since coming home was signing Avy up for pre-school just around the corner from our house in Broomfield, which has meant an automatic play date  for the mommies and the kids once a week when Amanda is picking up Avenly from pre-school and I have an hour with Gage before picking up Gavin.  The kids have played well together, and Amanda and I relish any and every chance to try to squeeze in some adult conversation.  Isn't that the story of motherhood?!  Glad you're home, Lee!

Kite Flying (Attempted)...

It has been ages since we have been able to fly kites around.  I am not quite sure the reason, but life seems fairly busy and when you do actually have time the wind isn't always there.  I thought we might have a rare overlap with the conditions, so we headed out to the local school park to see what we could do.  There was a fair breeze but it was kind of off and on.  We would get the kite up and then it would drift back down.  Eventually we gave it up, but we had a good time and look forward to the next opportunity together.

Grandma Koel visits...

It was so nice to have Brent's grandma visit from Kansas in the fall.  She spent a day with Jackie and the girls and a day with us.  I'm so glad that the boys know their great grandma.  You're always welcome here, Grandma Koel!  Thanks for coming to visit.

Happy Birthday, Daddy!

My three boys!  Gavin and I made Daddy a really cool wooden boat for Brent's birthday, and I was probably as proud of the finished product as Gavin was.  (Gavin and I love doing crafts together!)  We wrote "#1 Dad" on one side of the boat.

Playground time...

We took the boys to a fun park near our house.  It's so fun to watch them play!  They are fearless little lovers of adventure...

...in nearly matching outfits that day, apparently.  Man, they're cute!  They were wearing their matching hats in these pictures, and come to think of it, this may be the place where we lost one of 'em (the hats, not the boys, just to clarify).  Darn it!

Just me and my guitar...

This was our six-year-old ham with his little stringless guitar and microphone made out of tinker toys.  Awesome!  Brent often feels the need to clarify from whence these crazy genes have come (me!), and I take great pride in the connection, really.  That's my boy!

Gavin's 6th birthday party...

Gavin turns six!  We have been rocking the park scene for his birthday parties for all of his previous celebrations, and this year was no exception.  This time, we decided to hit up one of his favorite parks: "The Frog Park."  It has earned that name due to the pond which is next to the playground and water area.  It always has tons of frogs, a few fish, maybe a turtle or two and some other random creatures lurking.  In the picture above, you can see Gavin and his posse with a yellow insect net trying to capture whatever they can find. 

Another big draw to this park is the huge rock structure they have for kids to climb.  Through things like these, our kids have really developed a love of climbing.  I have to admit it is a bit scary to see your three-year-old scaling a 12-foot wall without any ropes or anything to keep him from falling. 

The party theme was Matchbox cars, and here is Gavin's cake.  It is quite impressive if you ask me.  It turned out fairly tasty as well.

Here is Gavin with several of his friends ready to blow out his candle.  It was great to see Gavin have such a big group of great friends.  He has always been very social and loves to meet new people and jump right into whatever they're doing.

And what's a birthday without a picture of the birthday boy and his mama?!  Happy Birthday, Gavin!  We are so proud of you and who you are becoming!  

Gavin and Gage's First Day of School

Here is Gavin on his first day of school.  You can actually also see Gage in the background in an orange shirt as he runs to the bike rack bars which he uses as parallel bars to hang on.  Both of these guys were excited to be at Apple Tree for another year, though the way they both ended up there was quite complicated.  Gavin started with a new teacher (Mrs. Ryan) in Kindergarten and goes Monday through Friday for a full day program.  Gage has Mrs. Higgins for the 3+ and goes Monday, Wednesday, and Friday while staying for lunch bunch, which is the after-school enrichment program.  One of the biggest challenges was that Apple Tree started about 2 weeks after Tara's new teaching job started so we had to coordinate how to keep them busy all day through friends' and family's help until their school started.

Cousin cuteness...

Wow!  I'm not sure what more I can say about this one.  Wow!!!  The three boys--Gavin, Gage and Rylan--were all in their CU gear and making their daddies proud.  Does it get any cuter than this?!  And to Zach and Lorna, remind me why you're so far away again?!   :(