Colorado...Here we go, time to start settling in!...

So it's already been almost a month that we've been here in Colorado. We're slowly getting settled. Making our house a true home seems like it's going to take some time. Especially with 2 monkeys trailing around! Hopefully we can soon get some of our personal, special things up on the walls and out around the house. Even some kitchen and door rugs will help!--we're working on it.

The drive up here was a big first for all of us. One I don't care to ever repeat again. It wasn't horrible, and was actually the best way we could've done it, still--who wants to drive overnight for two nights? We left after bedtime bottles, right in time for the babies' bedtime from The Woodlands. I started out driving because it's way easier for me to stay up "late-ish" than to wake up in the middle of the night and be fresh and ready to go. Matt is weirdly good at that alternative and can additionally down super strong coffee to give him even more pep at 2am. So that was the plan. I actually drove all the way through Norman, Oklahoma. Crying my eyes out during my entire driving stretch definitely helped keep me awake, but I don't recommend that method. :( Babies and Mario--and Matt slept the whole time, though. Things were going well until we stopped to get gas shortly after in middle-of-nowhere Oklahoma. Our credit cards wouldn't go through because they suspected stolen identity behavior. Guess it's not really our "norm" to get gas at 3am in no man's land Oklahoma. We ended up finding a debit card that wasn't as quick to suspect things (they did a bit later, we discovered in a similar fashion though) so all good---Until the motorcycle brigade showed up at the gas station while finally filling up. Not kidding. Like 4 LOUD LOUD motorcycles pull up. Needless to say, we had to put Mickey Mouse Clubhouse back on the DVD player to calm the babies down and get them back to sleep again. We pulled into Nana's house in Wichita around 5am. The next day and a half we spent relaxing, spending time with Angela and her family, and letting the babies and Mario be free until the next night drive. We left Wichita around the same timing with baby bed time and drove all night Sunday night again. This drive was a little shorter thankfully, plus we gained an hour venturing into our new Mountain Time Zone. My drive time this stretch was played out by belting out lots of great tunes on my iPod. Of course Britney and Boy Bands were part of the repertoire, but Matt was particularly "fond" of my Genesis/Phil Collins greatest hits portion of my own, personal concert. And can I just say that once past Salina, most of the rest of western Kansas smells AWFUL?! I was warned, but no one can prepare for that horrible stench until actually experienced. Whoa. We pulled into our Colorado home around 3:00-4:00am or so. Having no furniture yet, Matt went in to set up the pack-n-plays and our air mattress (our bed for the next week and half or so!) while I drove around keeping the babies asleep. Not sure what it meant that I got lost within minutes just driving around the neighborhood?! I'm sure all our new neighbors wanted to call in this suspicious, loaded rental car driving around aimlessly at 4:00am. I'm crazy. Thank goodness for GPS on my phone. All went smoothly though and surprisingly enough, all 5 of us slept in late Monday morning. As mentioned before, I can't think of anyone who wants to drive all night. But with two 1 year-olds and a sweet puppy dog, it was the best option for us and we're so thankful to have arrived safe and sound after it all.

Our furniture arrived Tuesday and Anne and Grammy arrived Wednesday. Boy was their help welcomed! On a separate note, I seriously wonder about the lack of brain activity going on with the people who packed our house up? I've never seen such a horrible job of packing. Nothing was labeled correctly and I've never seen so much wasted paper in my life. I consider myself a very "light green" person when it comes to the environment, but I was horrified by the amount of trees it supposedly took to pack our house. To give an example, one large box contained easily hundreds of sheets of packing paper all for 3 hand towels. Not kidding. And I think that box (along with about 20 others) was one of many simply labeled "lamp". We only have 3 lamps. And we're still finding boxes carelessly labeled "lamps". Thanks to our idiot packers our garage is full of wasted boxes and an absurd amount of paper that we take in loads to the local recycle area when we can. It's going to be a while until their despicable job of packing is cleaned up. And our unpacking has taken quadruple longer than it should since it takes forever to go through one box--because we have to sift through and deal with 1,000 sheets of packing paper in every box for a total of 2 items. People doing a poor, careless job frustrates me so much. Okay, there's my rant.

The frustrations of unpacking aside, other things have gone well. We've gone to a couple of our MOPS meetings and I feel so blessed that Tami has encouraged me to be a part of a group of such genuinely sweet ladies. The babies do well during their MOPS time too.

School (Kinder Care) has been great too. Well, aside from two sicknesses in one week, but unfortunately I think that was inevitably our fate, all things considered. I've been told multiple times that kids get slammed with sicknesses at first from day care, but then they end up being super tough in the long run and our sick days will shrink to a minimum. I'm holding out for that--but I'm looking for a little more immediate encouragement to get me through these initial sick times. The first thing we all got was an awful stomach bug. Both Cam and Cole got it at the same time over the weekend after just our first week of day care. (They go two days a week.) Our weekend was full of constant throw up Saturday-Sunday from the two of them, poor babies. It broke my heart. We were so sad that we had to miss Cooper's birthday party in Ft. Collins that weekend too, we had really been looking forward to it and know we would've had so much fun. :( The babies made a turn for the better Sunday night and all was looking on the up and up. Then I started throwing up early Monday morning. Oh. My. It was awful. I can't remember when I've felt that sick. I'm so thankful Jennifer came the next day with an actual shot of phenergan for me. I was wiped out for the next two days. It sounds so pathetic but I couldn't even walk from one room to the other without having to stagger there and catch my breath--after like 8 steps! Pathetic. After two days I started eating again--Goldfish. I've worked my way back to normal now, but I can't remember when I've felt so miserable. Not wanting to be left out, I guess, Matt got it too Tuesday night. With his iron stomach though he was only out 1 day and was chowing down on dinner later that same night. That horrible bug slammed the parents almost worse than the actual babies! Once we got toward the end of the week, we were so relieved to have the babies go back to school Thursday and I was set to finally get my long-awaited infusion that day. It wasn't meant to be. We didn't even make it to lunch before I got a call saying Camryn had a fever and needed to be picked up. (I actually have my infusion tomorrow, so crossing my fingers all stays well at least until tomorrow evening so I can get some meds in me!) Very fortunately we were able to get into our new pediatrician the next morning where we learned Cam had an ear infection. At least it's something that can be treated--oh, sweet amoxicillin, how we love you. Cole managed to avoid the ear infection so far...but this is actually the first ear infection any of my preemie babies have ever had so far. I'm proud of them for that :) Let's just hope these ear infections don't become a common occurrence, though...

All in all, school has been a great thing. Everyone there is so great and the babies seem to be adjusting. From what we hear, they play well and eat well there. They're all about table food now and they've gotten to try things they wouldn't normally have here with us. One big favorite is beefy mac & cheese. Chili and cornbread is another favorite, along with rice crispy treats (shocker-yeah, right?!) and our new favorite snack, graham crackers. Whenever I drop them off it is a tear fest, which I know is normal, and the teachers have called to tell me afterwards that they both stop crying and move on to playing within 1 minute of me gone. Matt doesn't get the tears as much so the drop offs are more smooth when he's the dropper-off meanie!

I had fun with Tami and friends this past weekend celebrating her birthday. Matt and I have also had fun exploring our new hometown. We are in love with Golden and the cute, fun downtown area. We also love Old Town Arvada. We feel so happy with our decision on where we live. We've also had to go on a bit of a shopping spree. So I guess it's not as common to wear flip flops everywhere here? I thought anything and everything could be done in flip flops? I had to branch out beyond those and all my flats--and like the babies, I'm having to get used to wearing socks too. Starting tomorrow we're getting a cold front--a true cold front! Like 50 degree weather. Good thing I now have some pants recently added to my closet. Guess flip flops, shorts and cropped pants won't cut it anymore?...

We're so excited that Mimi comes this Friday, and shortly after she leaves after a long weekend Grandpa and Grandma Jackie come to visit! I miss my family so much, I'm so looking forward to everyone's visits.

Here we are right before we headed to the babies' first day of school We're standing in the driveway of our house. Pretty area where we get to live, right? Guess this pic is kind of small and you can't really tell--but it is! (Coming from flat Houston, that is)

School was ready for them! So sweet...

While Anne was here she introduced C&C to pickles much to my dismay. I hate the word pickle. I'm getting sick to my stomach typing all this out right now even. I despise them so much, their grossness--I can't even put into words. Anyway, I was horrified that the babies loved that disgusting piece of food so much.

This is Cam, further grossing me out to the ultimate, giving me a close-up with pickle juice coming out of her mouth.

While in Old Town Arvada we tried out a most fantastic place called Scrumptious. As mentioned before, these babies are kind of ice cream fiends. They LOVE ice cream. Here is Cam more than ready for a bite of Grammy's--and Cole moaning for more. We've created true ice cream monsters.

We loved having Grammy and Anne here. It's so special having bedtime bottle and settling in for the night with Grammy.

Our new mall-Flatirons Mall--is AWESOME! For example, all connected in the mall: Container Store, Pottery Barn, Crate and Barrel, Nordstrom's, and too many more to list. Thinking it's probably a good thing for the babies to have at least one pair of shoes that fit them for the cooler weather coming, they each got some new shoes while there. They love them and are so proud of them. Too bad they won't actually wear them, though. Once on (no matter how expertly we think we've got them on), they each find ways instantly to get their shoes and socks off. The babysitters at MOPS stop trying to put their socks back on them after about the 3rd time or so they get them off and toss them across the room. We've got to work on the whole shoes/socks thing.

At the awesome play area at Flatirons Mall

Cole is ready to play with the big kids

We absolutely love our chairs from Mimi (notice Cam's signature smile over hers)!

Mario is settling in well too. We haven't seen any squirrels but we see numerous cotton-tailed bunnies. They are Mario's new obsession now on our daily walks. Unfortunately we've already spotted 2 coyotes (only late late at night so far, thank goodness) pretty much right behind our house near the park. We are on the ultimate alert for our sweet Mario. No coyote is going to get near him!

And sweet Cam, loving her chair, loving not taking naps regularly lately, etc. Good thing she knows she's cute and gets away with most anything these days--especially with her Daddy. She could catapult herself to stand on the coffee table to dance and get smiled at rather than in trouble for it. Oh wait, she does do that. And all her Daddy does is smile at her for it. Yikers, we're in trouble with this one.

Updates more regularly, promise!!