Fletcher, ready for his inline hockey practice...

The Colgan Kids' Art Gallery...our family room!

Jan.26, 2012 Fletcher's Ninth Birthday

Our Dallas Stars fan (hence the yellow and green colors for the birthday balloons) lays peacefully sleeping on the 25th but...

is awakened by his parents and siblings at midnight (hey, it's the 26th now, baby!)
Fletcher gets to open a present in the middle of the night, and this year it is Noah's gift to him, a Pirates of the Caribbean Lego set.
We can't believe Fletcher is NINE!
A jumping Monster truck from Tommy and from Parie, a Lego plane that is just like Johnny Rocket's plane in WWII (a character from Charlie's made-up stories that the kids beg to hear on car rides).
We had a super fun family day full of outdoor rollerblading at a local park's hockey rink (the snow is finally melted!) and then watching Fletcher's second indoor inline hockey practice at the Aurora Skate City where the kids' public school from last year held their elementary skating parties. Fletcher is having his inline hockey party there on Saturday with his buddies and siblings. Everyone is so excited. Both Charlie and I got fun "dates" alone with Fletcher today, as well. I got him during the little boys' nap time and Charlie got him during Sarah's Bible Bowl practice this evening. They got to see one of Charlie's co-workers play a real roller hockey game at the Parker Rec Center. Micah's team won 11 to 2, and Fletcher was so excited to have seen him slam someone into the wall (despite the fact that they are not allowed to "check" people which is a HUGE disappointment to Fletchie who just loves the rough and tumble checking in ice hockey!) Apparently, this slamming of the opponent into the wall was more exciting even than the three goals Micah scored for his team!

Noah, sweet boy, just watching his big bro painting

Sometimes, when you are the little guy, you just get to stand there and watch all the fun!

A Way to Keep Tommy busy...

PAINTING SNOW!!

Worked like a charm...
and it was a great way to use up the bottom of the bottle of all these paints.
There was plenty of "canvas," too!

Our new friend, the Great Horned Owl...

in our tree, none-the-less! How COOL is that?! This tree is right off our backyard patio. The tree is visible from our kitchen sliding glass doors and from the window by our kitchen sink. We can also see the tree from the windows when we go upstairs to the kids' rooms. SO, it is perfect when our friend, Mr. Great Horned Owl, visits because we have three "viewing areas" from which to spy on him. This is the first picture we snapped of him on his first visit taken through the sliding glass doors from inside the kitchen. He is slightly right of center towards the top right corner of the picture. We could very easily see his huge yellow eyes, feathery tail, and pointed "ears."

In the second picture, the owl is looking at the two black birds that have perched themselves strategically in the nearby branches to SHRIEK their caws in warning that a predator is way too close for their comfort. They were going buzzonkers cawing at him. There must have been more than ten surrounding our tree safely screeching from our neighbor's roof. That was the only reason Fletcher and I found him!

Precious Noah was actually the first to take notice of the hubbub going on out our back door. He tuned in to the black birds cawing like crazy (surprisingly, I'd found a way to notice it with my ears but not my brain!) I heard them but didn't think through how unusual that was that a plethora of birds was screeching insanely in our backyard. Noah began to call back to them imitating them remarkably well! His little hand was just a'bangin' on the sliding door to let him out to investigate these birds he could see on our neighbor's roof and hear squawking. Fletcher and I rolled at Noah calling back to the birds in his own version of their angry caw!
This picture makes him look small. Not so! Online we read that the Great Horned Owl is a fierce bird of prey taking out other birds, SKUNKS, and even cats! Sometimes, they eat so many skunks that they start to smell like the musk of a skunk. Glad I don't smell like what I eat!
Cool view of his "horns."
Peek-a-boo, we see you! For many, many minutes! SO thankful all five kids got to enjoy watching him with me. Poor C. was at work. Maybe next time though...
Pretty neat visitor to have when the kids and I have been praying very specifically for wisdom!

Not wanting to forget...

the sight of Noah doing his "wounded veteran" scoot around every square inch of our house. He was walking by Christmas day (16 months old), just like Charlie predicted. Noah didn't use walking as his preferred mode of transportation until he was 16 and a half months old. By the second week of January, he was walking everywhere instead of scooting. He was initiating the walking on his own and not just cruising between objects and along walls anymore. He surely was pleased with all the fuss he got from his six family members going absolutely bonkers cheering for him when he chose to walk anywhere!

the day I unloaded and reloaded four complete cycles of dishes in our dishwasher. And this was a normal day. Nothing unusual going on. Ringing in my ears was my mom's advice from before I got married, "Find contentment in the everyday stuff. Like washing dishes." I quickly found contentment in that I had a dishwasher- what if I'd had to do these by hand?! How DID Jen do it all those years without a dishwasher in Ventura?

Noah's first word, "Go." Not clearly pronounced by any stretch of the imagination, but still clearly his first word. "Go." Like time to GO, Mom. Like outside now, Mom. Let's go! Time to GO. How appropriate for a Colgan baby. Like Gammy's always said of our kiddos, "Outside baby." Noah, yet another "outside baby" who wants to be anywhere on the other side of that door. Noah sits near and/or pats both the front door and the kitchen door leading into the garage as he mutters, "go." I have to say, Noah probably acquired this word from me addressing him with, "Ready to go? Let's go on a car ride. Time to go, buddy." In fact, when I first heard him mutter, "go!" in reply, I wasn't sure if he'd just said "car." Weird that "go" and "car" in baby talk could sound even remotely similar, but Noah had me stumped. At almost seventeen months, it sure seemed like my fifth child's first words were, "Go! Car." Wow, really? "Go," huh?!