Our new home!

This is our new home.

View as you walk in the front entrance.

Living room and garage door.

Our nice big kitchen with dining room.

Master bedroom.

Master bath.

Mac's room. He wakes up every morning and says, "I love my new home mom." So cute.

Jack and Jill bathroom between the kids rooms, very nice.

Baby/spare room. We will be repainting!

I don't think the pictures give this house justice at all. It is a lot bigger than the townhouse and we still have a basement to finish some day. Chris loves being able to park in the garage and has already done a lot of work in the yards. More than he thought it would be and still a lot more to do with them. I love cooking in my new kitchen, I have more room than I know what to do with and having a pantry is really nice.

Our neighbors are great and very friendly. Lots of kids in the neighborhood. The park is just across the street from us and the rec center is just down the block. It's so nice to finally have a house and a yard for Mac to play in.

We officially have renters in our townhouse and hopefully the market goes back up enough in a year so we can sell and not lose too much.

I'll take more pictures of the baby's room when we get it painted and set up.

Love to all,

The Donatell's

Malachi singing "Jesus loves me"

Here you go Jeanne, I hope you enjoy it.

Other quick update for everyone.

• We will hopefully be closing on our new home August 19th and start moving everything in the 20th.
• Pray that we find renters for the Townhouse by September 1st.
• I am enjoying my part time job at JCPenny Salon as a receptionist.

Hopefully I will be on here more often to keep everyone up dated.

Summer updates

May:

1. Birthday, Mother's Day, Anniversary trip to Glenwood Springs so much fun

2. Chris began the Application process for Fort Collins PD

June

1.Chris made it through the Physical Fitness test and interview

2. Began volunteering in the book store at church

3. Took Malachi on his first camping trip to Buena Vista

4. Visited Melissa in Guernsey

July

1. Chris was accepted into the background process for Fort Collins and passed the polygraph

2. Spent six days Wisconsin for Malachi's second birthday and went to Lake Superior

3. On our way back from Wisconsin we stopped in South Dakota and went to Bear Country USA and Mt. Rushmore

4. And a birthday party at home

Now we are settling down so I can find a part time job to save more money to hopefully buy a home in Fort Collins. Continue to pray for us and move to Fort Collins. We will know if Chris passes the background in September so I will let you all know then. Chris also A banded for Patrol with the Sheriff's Office, so if Fort Collins isn't where are to be right now Chris shouldn't be stuck in the jail to much longer. That is all for now, love to all.

Busy, busy, busy!

May is jam packed for us. With Mother's Day, birthday, and anniversary one weekend after the next we have a busy month ahead of us. Looking forward to it though. Mother's Day will be spent in Denver at my mom's house with family. My birthday weekend will be spent in Ft. Collins. We are so excited for this for two reasons. One, in April Chris applied with the Ft. Collins Police Department. He was invited to begin the testing process on May 15th starting with the Physical Fitness Test (which they have requirements for unlike El Paso) and the written test (regular high school altitude test). Two, we get to see some great friends in which it has been to long since we last saw them. Finally, for our anniversary weekend Chris and I are leaving Malachi with Grandma and spending the weekend in Glenwood Springs at a Bed & Breakfast. We are looking forward to it, but I am nervous since it will be the first time I've been away from Malachi for more than a few hours. Chris thinks I'll be just fine, I hope he is right.
So we ask the you would pray for God's guidance and patience for Ft. Collins, if that is where God desires us to be (we hope so very much!) and that we would enjoy our weekend away and that Malachi is great with Grandma. I will update you and let you know how things are going.

With Love,
Cassie

Arm Update

Now he isn't just crying becasue of the saw and the noise. Malachi has been crying like this since we left the waiting room and entered the exam room. Ever since his first visit to see the doctor when he first broke his arm they hurt him pretty bad. Now he doesn't like any of them, especially the nurse in the video. We have a check up the 20th of May to make sure mobility and range of motion is good, but he has been using his arm like he was never in a cast ever since he got it off a little over two weeks ago. Not to worried about it.

First broken bone

It's not as bad as it looks. Chris and Malachi were playing around on the bed like they always do. Chris throwing Malachi up a little and Malachi leading on his back on the bed, a game Malachi loves to play. Well the last time Malachi came down he landed on his arm wrong and broke the little bone in his elbow. It didn't swell up right away so we didn't think it was broken, but after an hour and medicine, Malachi was still crying and wouldn't move his arm. So we called the Doc and they saw him right away. They took x-rays, but his Doctor couldn't see anything that stuck out, so she thought he had what's called "nurse kate's elbow" where the elbow is pulled out of socket. She tried the maneuver to fix it, but only made Malachi hurt more and not want her to touch him again. So she sent the x-rays to a radiologist and he said there was a small fracture in the bone that hides the point of your elbow when you bend and straighten your arm. A common fracture for all ages. Drove across town and waited an hour and a half in the waiting room to see the ped ortho. Then it took the nurse an hour to cast Malachi because he was putting up a fight and did not want another person to touch him or his arm. I definitely got a workout holding him so the lady could cast him. She said it happens all the time and the kids usually bite her, Malachi didn't so he wasn't that bad. He only has to wear it for 3 weeks too. There is little swelling so he is on Ibuprofen to bring it down and help with any pain.


But he is happy as ever. Since he is right handed he is having difficulty eating. He can get a fork in his mouth with food still on it, but dumps the spoon before it gets to his mouth. He is also a little off balance only having one arm to catch himself, he is falling a lot more than usual.

He is also having hard time climbing on things cause he doesn't have both arms to pull himself up, so he pulls his step stool to where ever he wants up. I'm trying to let him figure everything out on his own so he doesn't get use to me doing everything for him, but it's so hard to watch him struggle.

After everything though he is still his normal self, running, playing, chasing the cat, and a happy happy baby. Almost like nothing happened, until he tries to do something he needs both hands for. It's only been a day in a half, I'm sure he'll get the hang of it soon. Otherwise we are all doing well, Happy Resurrection/Easter weekend everyone!

Date night

So Chris and I were able to get away last weekend and have a night to our selves. We started off with dinner at Olive Garden and each ordered something new and it turned out amazing. Then we saw Brain Regan at the Wells Fargo Theater in downtown Denver. His brother Denis Regan opened for him and he was hilarious. Brain had all new stuff, or at least stuff we hadn't heard yet, and we were rolling in our seats. Our faces hurt afterward from laughing so much. Our seats were the very last row on the upper level, but we had a foot rest so it was very comfortable. It was a great night, the only thing I would change would have been my shoes and to remember my scarf. We had the wrong address so instead of only parking a few blocks away from the theater, we had actually park a mile from the theater. I wasn't planning on walking that far in my dress shoes or in the snow. It was cold and my feet hurt!

Malachi and my mom spent the evening together and had a good time. Malachi loves going to Grandma's house because there are so many new things he can get into and play with. Why I bring his toys thinking he'll play with them, I don't know. Malachi is learning new words every week and we had been working on "Nana" so when we saw my mom we would just have to put the two together. It only took one time for Malachi to understand who "Nana" was and it was so funny. My mom was so happy too. His favorite word right now is bye-bye. He says it every time he leaves the room or you leave the room. He gives great hugs and kisses too and already teases you with them. He is such a joy.

We recently bought a web cam, but are now waiting on the microphone we ordered to come in so we can chat on Skype. Our name is: Donatells. We hope to be chatting soon, and here are a few more pics from Christmas taken by my talented sister in law, Cassie.

So long, no post?

I know it's been a while and I'm sorry, I'm really bad at this. Where do I start?
We made a trip to Montana to see Kendi and Cory for the baby shower, it was so great seeing them! The holidays were great. We spent Thanksgiving in Denver at my moms and Christmas in Wisconsin with Chris's mom. We definitely had a white Christmas, it snowed the whole time we were there. It was so great to see all of Chris's family again though. Cassie took a break from the nice Florida weather and spent Christmas in Wisconsin as well. Needless to say we are invited to Florida for Christmas next year so she doesn't freeze again. =)
As usual it took about a day or so for Malachi to warm up to people, but it only took a couple hours before he was sitting in Aunt Cassie's lap. He loved her! We all got more than we needed for Christmas. Chris received enough gift cards to get Rock band and we love it, I got a Kitchen Aid Mixer and it is wonderful, Malachi got a lot of clothes and toys. His favorite toy is a blender, Kendi received one at the baby shower and Malachi fell in love with it. Mom and Dad got him a 4-wheeler that he loves to ride around in. These last few months have been amazing and we have definitely seen God providing for us over and over again. For the first time since Chris has worked for El Paso County they paid out up to 30 hours of comp time and a pay for performance bonus. We just had work done on our Aztec and it added up to just under $10 of the money we had just received, so we able to pay for everything and not worry about it. Also for this year's income tax return we planned on trying to pay off a student loan. We just filed and are getting enough back to not only allow us to pay off a student loan, but also our credit card that we weren't planning on being able to pay off for another year. All of this is on Chris's income alone too. One of our biggest worries in anticipation of Malachi being born was could we survive off of Chris's income alone and for how long. Well, it's a year and a half later and we are almost debt free, have gone on numerous vacations, and haven't had to worry at all about money. God has continued to provide for us over and over again even in our doubts. "The Lord's lovingkindness indeed never cease, His compassion's never fail. They are new every morning: great is Your faithfulness." Lamentations 3:22, 23

What a Summer!

Last time I blogged was the end of May; so let me catch you up with highlights and lots of pictures.

June
1. Drove to Wyoming to say good-bye to David and Melissa before they left for Guam.
2. Chris’s Dad came out from Wisconsin for Father’s Day weekend.
3. We attend Kevin Brinkmann’s wedding and it was beautiful.
4. And Chris went on two extraditions to N. Carolina.

July
1. Celebrated Malachi’s first birthday. We happen to find out that we can’t put sunscreen on Malachi’s face that day too. He broke out in a rash, only on his face, and his eyes were very puffy. So he wasn’t having a very good day. And he didn’t like being laughed at after he shoved his hand in the cake.

2. Jodie came out for 10 days that weekend too. It was so nice having her here.

3. Visited the Cheyenne Mountain Zoo, no offense, but it was much nicer than the Denver Zoo. Malachi feed a giraffe, above video.

4. The El Paso County Sheriff Office entered the Peak Co Challenge of the first time. There were six team building activities and the teams had to consist of a min of 3 women and 3 men, teams could have more for subbing and incase of injuries. Any company in the Pikes Peak area could enter. EPSO took first place in one of the activities and second place overall out of 40 teams, pretty good for there first appearance.

5. We went swimming at our friends Rich and Kirsten’s house a couple times.

6. Celebrated my mom and little brother’s birthday.

7. Malachi got his first black eye.

7. Chris attended SWAT school while Malachi and I went to Ridge camp for a week. Chris had a lot of fun learning the ins and outs of the tactics and logistics of SWAT. He especially enjoyed the day he was gassed (C/S gas). He said it plays on your fear of suffocating, but he rather have to go through C/S gas again then ever encounter O.C. again.
Malachi and I had a good time in Montana. It was rough at first because Malachi was teething. Yes teething, he now has two teeth. It was also a lot colder then we are use to for the last week of July. Needless to say I didn’t pack enough warm clothes and blankets, but thanks to Chris Lycan, she took care of us. It was really nice to get out of Colo Springs and see everyone at Ridge.

August
1. August started off with a bang, literally. My loving mom was so nice to take Malachi for a day so Chris and I could attend Heaven Fest. This is the second time Heaven Fest has been to Colorado and there were 80 different bands on 8 stages on 70 acres of land. It was awesome. Some of the bands included Matthew West, Kutless, Seventh Day Slumber, Skillet, Third Day, Stellar Kart and Disciple. We sat in traffic for an hour before turning off on a side street and walking a mile to the church that was hosting it. We made it in time to see Kutless, Skillet (the main reason for going), Stellar Kart, and Disciple. It was an amazing show and we are definitely going again next year.

Front of us Behind us.

2. We did a lot more swimming at Rich and Kirsten’s.
3. Chris tested to transfer to the road and B banded, so it will be a little while before he is called over.
4. Finally the end of August ended with a bang too. We went on our family vacation and stayed at The Inn at Silvercreek, just 15 miles outside of Winter Park. The resort was beautiful and the weather was great. There was a veteran’s bike rally in Winter Park the weekend we arrived, so we spent a day doing that. We drove to the very top of Rocky Mountain National Park (gorgeous), went fishing (didn’t catch anything), a bike ride through Winter Park, and spent some time relaxing at the resort. Oh and don’t eat the pink snow.

All in all we had a busy yet very exciting summer. Chris has had extra duty jobs just about very weekend this summer so we are looking forward to the fall and winter months for everything to slow down. I’m looking forward to the Women’s Bible study to start up again the end of September. Thank you all for being so patience we with me for not blogging the last couple months and I promise to keep everyone updated. Love you all.