blessing bags

one of my sweet friends in California, Julie, had a wonderful idea to give Blessing Bags to the homeless. Now, I am not sure if I told you or not but there are SO MANY homeless people in Denver! I am constantly, what the heck? why are you in Denver? Even though it so cold, apparently, it is THE place to be if you are homeless. The police dont bother you and you are welcome to stand on the side of the road, day in and day out, and ask for money.
So we had a few kids and families over a few weeks ago to make these Blessing Bags....we filled them with toothbrushes, toothpaste, deodorant, granola bars, and things like that... It was a great opportunity to talk to my kids about why people are homeless, how to identify them, what shelters are, etc.
If you want to hear more about these bags contact me! We keep them in the car and hand them out to the "regulars" that we see. The kids love to be on the look out for people we can bless.

hiking

one of the AWESOME things about living in Denver is that the Rocky Mtns. are just a few miles away! Lately, on Mojo's days off (which are usually Mondays) we head up to the mtns. to hike. There arent many people out then and we have found an easy mtn. for the kiddos with amazing views.
We try to keep the hikes short with frequent stops along the way and snacks on hand. Harriet is so happy in this place, its ridiculous. She runs NONSTOP and then sleeps for two days straight. It seems its the only time I'm not frustrated with her for shedding or trying to take Abraham's food. It's so great to see her in her element. The kids do great especially if we allot time for playing on rocks and general goofing around. We probably only end up hiking one or two miles even though we are on the trail for two hours at least. {little feet dont cover much distance} I end up carrying Abe on my back at the end of every hike...:)
Franks enjoying the view on Daddy's back...

Abraham enjoying the view while climbing rocks!

 It was cold this day!

But not this day! Look at that sky! It is so amazingly blue!

Snow on the ground and Daddy in a t-shirt. Denver is weird like that. If you are in the sun, you are plenty warm.

They are yelling, "Mountains!"

The views are so amazing I kept saying, "oh my goodness, its just so beautiful!" We are so blessed to live here!

Harriet taking off....

november update

so  many good things in November, so little pictures.
I had a glorious 25th, I mean, 35th birthday...Good friend watched the kids while Matt and I had a glorious long lunch at a AMAZING vegetarian restaurant here in Denver. Almost everyday here I say, Ugh, can the weather be any better? My birthday was one of those days. We sat outside and enjoyed the cool air and glorious sunshine. I only got two pictures that day... lunch with the minister.

And Me and Mags right before we headed out to eat that night with the other staff of St. Patricks. We have dinner out once a week or cook meals for each other. That night we went out since it was my birthday and it was a fun time to just enjoy each other, not talk ministry, and just laugh and eat awesome food.

 Here are the kiddos one night right before bedtime in the family/play room.

Thanksgiving day was unseasonably warm. We "played" football in the yard and had friends over for a big Thanksgiving meal. I realized after the fact that it didnt "feel" like Thanksgiving because there was no joint cooking. The good friends we had over brought dishes, but I missed making the meal together and chatting while cooking and just hanging out...I'll know more for next year! This was the only 'stateside' Thanksgiving I've ever missed. The only two I have missed I have been in Prague with Mojo and in China. And sadly, this Christmas will be the FIRST in 35 years that I havent been with my family! Sad! Here are the Morginskys on Thanksgiving afternoon...

 Here is sweet Frankie, almost 9 months old after our big Thanksgiving meal...

And here is our "thanksgiving" tree where we added leaves everynight with more of our thanks. You can tell I am such a good homeschooler with Maggie writing "baba" instead of "dada"...ha! those b's and d's are tricky!

 one of the MANY glorious sunsets we get outside of our windows everynight. so much to be thankful for!

candyland and other things

this was two days ago when Frankie pulled herself up for the first time! look how proud she is! ugh, i want to eat her up!

here is our front yard a few weeks ago when it snowed (again)

we had so much fun trick or treating this year. we walked up and down our beautiful neighborhood, got to know folks and where other kids lived. perfect! Maggie asked to be a ghost and i gladly obliged, i mean, how easy is that? here we are at Boo at the Zoo....candy and animals-my two favorites! Frankie is a monster from Where the Wild things Are and she is on my back and Abe is a dragon!

a little bit of this

i feel a need to back track a bit and tell you about Maggie's 5th birthday! i'm a lame mom and didnt blog about it! plus, my camera is broken and all the good pictures our on my dad's camera. but i want to write it down for memory's sake.
Maggie had a choice to do a birthday party with friends or a girls day with me and a family party. Much to my happiness she choose a girl day with her Mama! So we both got pedicures. She liked it but not as much as I did! I dont think her feet hurt like mine do so she didnt get the whole soak your feet in hot water thing. It was fun to do with her though! Then we went and got lunch at Panera and then went to a fancy cupcakery and picked out fancy girly cupcakes. Then we went and picked up Abraham and went and saw Cars 2. It was so good! Definitely better than the first Cars. It was the middle of the day in the middle of the week and we had the whole theatre to ourselves. That made it super fun and the kids could keep switching seats and it didnt matter.
Then we had Mellow Mushroom pizza, had her cousins over and more cupcakes and presents!

It was a really special day!

the past two weeks have been filled with new adventures and beautiful weather. we went to the children's garden which sit atop of a 4 story parking garage. sounds weird but its huge and has amazing views for the mtns. there is a river with "spring melt" and an area to dig dirt. who knew a pile of dirt and some shovels could entertain the kids for so long? they seriously played happily for over 30 mins. digging in the same spot!

we have been the denver zoo. and i did not take pictures because i am pretty sure all of denver was there that day (free day). we will be skipping free days from now on and just going straight for the membership! any grandparents out there want to get us a membership so this mama doesnt have to fight 5 million people to see a zebra?

also, another pretty great thing is one of my closest college friends is here! she moved to denver back in the early spring and lives only a few miles away! she is a nanny so a few days ago we had a play date with the twins she watches and my kiddos. she is also a photographer and took these great photos....

this is me trying to climb up a rope. seriously, where has my upper body strength gone?

it really is so much sunnier here. you have to sunglasses at all times! its wonderful!!!!

then yesterday we took the kiddos on their first hike in Boulder. what a great city! we did like a half mile up the mtn. but it was a tough hike for sure! and it was stunning!

it's amazing here folks! come visit!!!!

we're here.

we're here. tired and ready. happy and sad. denver greeted us with uncharacteristically hot weather. with no A/C in our house, we spent the first few days covered in sweat and up to our ears in boxes.

the boxes slowly became unpacked. and the weather slowly became cool. it actually snowed a bit too. as you can imagine, my sinuses are having a field day going back and forth like this.

we are enjoying getting to know the city and slowly feeling our way around in the midst of work and boxes and three kids. we have been on the search for the closest coffee shop (one block) and library (5 blocks) and yoga studio (half a block). it quite perfect actually. and its a privilege to drive out of our garage and see the mountains! The Rockies! Covered in snow!

It hasnt hit us yet. We are just going through the motions of setting up shop and taking care of the kids. Our house gets amazing sunshine throughout the day so it has provided much happiness as we trudge through the difficulty of moving states.

So we're here at least physically. Our hearts arent here yet, although we know it will get here soon. How could it not? We're exactly where God called us.

very Frank lloyd Wright, no?

 afternoon sunshine

into the dining room

denver or bust?

there are a lot of things going on but i thought i would pause and write about the emotions heading into tomorrow. problem is, there hasnt been alot of time to process our move. leading up to this week i was so very excited but now there isnt a whole lot of time to do much thinking at all.
so here goes nothing. the car is packed and we are headed on a 3 day journey across the country!!!
rocky mtns. here we come!!!!

summer reading

my summer reading list has been growing and growing. i have been consuming because a)there is nothing on tv this summer and b)my sleeping as all been off. my tiny little girl is not the best sleeper to say the least. so i am up all hours of the night and then Mojo takes her at 6ish and i sleep for a couple uninterrupted hours (if the other kiddos are kind enough to not come in and jump on me.) but then i am not tired enough to go to sleep at 10 or 11 so then i stay up reading and then the cycle begins all over. so although i am tired most of the day, at least i am getting some good reading done!

here is my list of what i have read so far:

Persian Girls-autobiographical of life in Iran as a young girl wanting an education.
When Katie Wakes-another autobiography of a woman in a domestic violence situation who adopts a dog (Katie) and that dog helps her get out of the situation.
The Tipping Point-Malcolm Gladwell-he wrote the next three books and calls them "intellectual adventures". They have been by far my favorite non-fiction of the summer. so Good! and the sociologist in me just loves all the research he presents. a must read (all three!). Tipping point is about what makes trends and epidemics happen...what is the "tipping point" in those situations.
Blink- how our intuition and the few seconds we assess something in a "blink of an eye" is usually correct. fascinating!
The Outliers- what makes a successful person. its not just people who work the hardest and can pull themselves up with their boot straps.
Hunger Games-um, totally awesome. I read all three of these books in the Hunger Games Triology in one week. apparently they are making them into movies. i cant wait! so fun!!! and although they are in the young adult category, like Harry Potter, they are a bit gorey and i wouldnt recommend them at all to anyone under 18. they are so good though! a perfect vacation read.
Catching Fire
Mockingjay (my favorite of the series)


I also read numerous CIA novels but they arent worth mentioning. I mean, they are my favorite kind of go-to book but not really blog worthy. As you can imagine, I spent a bundle on my kindle buying these books. its too easy! I am looking forward to having a library card very, very soon.

my SWEET kiddos

arent they just edible? my stellar kiddos.