Kiddie Opera

Sometimes you sign up for events and hope for the best.  Most of the time you get a little bit let down, but every once in a while your expectations are exceeded.  As fruity as this event sounded, it turned out to be really, really good.

We went to a Family Fun Night at the Botanic Gardens (not fruity sounding) which included "Jeff Kagan and Paige Doughty performing their orginal, environmental music...." Yeah, we weren't all so sure about that part.  Turns out, it was great.  And funny, for all of us.  Who knew?


Songs included things like where the water goes (from snow to oceans), Bobcat Walk (don't be afraid of Bobcats!), and Thank You Honeybee.  The highlight?  The Girardia Opera.  You have to1)be from Colorado and 2) hear it to believe it to enjoy this song. 

The Bumblee Dance was a close second....

The Big Bash

We're on track for big birthday celebrations every other year now.  I think I can handle that schedule.  At the last minute, with much encouragement from the youngest member of our household, we sent out invitations for a Backyard Birthday BBQ.  FFM got to make his own guest list and it was creative and varied.

After nixing Thomas we agreed on "Rainbow Stars" as a party theme.  I promised lots of stars and colorful balloons.

 It was warm enough for the much anticipated slip and slide and water hopscotch.

 Hopscotch was a huge hit!

 Lunch with pals.  F's pals were not all pint sized, about half the guest list included his favorite adults.

 Yum!  What a perfect day we had.

 No hot weather summer party is complete without a water balloon fight...

 And of course a totally indestructible rainbow star pinata.  Julia was our star hitter, watch out major leagues, here she comes!

Thank you to all our friends who came out to celebrate with us, it was a great day.

Big Birthday Kisses

When you have a summer birthday it kind of goes on and on and on sometimes.  Or, it sort of gets passed over because everyone is on vacation and not around to celebrate it.  Luckily this year for F and I this year is one of the on and on and on years!

Last night we met The Gales and Grandpa for dinner at Gunther Toody's diner before Skylar's softball game.  Kids LOVE GT's.  Grandpa had a pocket full of quarters, and Ryan and F stayed busy playing two person pinball until our food arrived.

 FFM opened his present, boy, those Gales sure know how to shop for him.  He's recently become excited about "tiny Legos" and got a giant bag of them.  One set was a RV camper and this morning when he woke up his first words (even before his feet hit the floor) were "Mommy, can we do the tiny Lego camper now?"

 At Gunther Toodys the waitstaff all dress in sort of crazy outfits and the ladies all wear bright red lipstick.  Of course they sang and did funny birthday stuff for F but the highlight was the double smack kiss from two of the ladies.  Check out the grin.

Here's the song and dance.  There were two birthdays being celebrated so they both got to sing and dance. Our waiter said F had the best little kid twist he'd ever seen.

Salad and More Ice Cream

One of our favorite activities are classes at the Botanic Gardens.  We invited Suzie and Audrey to go to one this week all about picking your own salad.

Audrey showing off her allotted two lettuce leaves.

Inside the kids added some purchased lettuce (there's not enough grown lettuce to go around quite yet), carrots, cucumbers, and cauliflower.  They drenched it in ranch and chowed down. Audrey ate more lettuce than I've ever seen her eat and F finished off what she left behind.  What a great snack!

Afterwards we spent some time playing bug and flower dress-up in the Children's Garden.

Granny Annie and Eric are going to miss F's big party and actual birthday this year (and mine, too!) so they invited us all out to dinner this week.  F got to choose between Mexican and Greek and he hollered "GREEK!" so Greek it was.  He was suitably impressed with the flaming cheese appetizer and the waiter and staff who spoiled him rotten, but by far his favorite part of the meal was the surprise (to us all) dessert and singing.  He's still young enough that he loves (and is not at all embarrassed) by loud Greeks singing happy birthday to him.  I wasn't fast enough with my camera to grab the great expression on his face when the treat arrived, but I'm sure you can imagine it was priceless.  BTW, the ice cream was baklava flavored and was superb!

Smile for the Camera

We took the kids to a photographer at the mall today for some quickie professional photos.  Turns out FFM was sick and poorly and Audrey wasn't totally down with the whole photo shoot scene.  Things worked out OK in the end and the photographer got some shots. 

 F's own take on the chin in hands look.

 A classic Moore men pose.

 How old are you going to be again?

 The props got Audrey interested in joining the party.

JUMP!  Now there's a real smile :)

 It wasn't all fun and games.  It was time to put away the 2 and F got bonked on the chin with another prop.  I love this picture, it's an everyday face of childhood.

10 Pin

I love lane bumpers.  I would have been schooled by a 2.5 and nearly 4 year old at bowling today were it not for lane bumpers.  I am a rotten, rotten bowler.  But boy, did I have a good time.

It was really cold and rainy here today so an indoor activity was the choice for the morning.  This was the first time bowling for both kiddos, F's done play bowling before, the kind with plastic pins and balls, but announced at dinner tonight that he did "not pretend bowling today, Daddy."  It's the first time I've been in a bowling alley in more years than I care to remember.

Here we are, me helping to safely roll the 6 pounder down the lane.  FFM loved, loved the nifty shoes.  I think he would have taken them home.  Don't you like our coordinated bowling outfits?  We totally did that on  purpose.

After about 1.5 tries together Mr. Independent said no more and bowled all on his own.  Each toss ended with a characteristic F-flourish, a little leap into the air and hands way up high above his head.  He even ran from way, way back just like Aunt Suzie.  No sedate standing at the line for him.

 Suzie and Audrey giving it a go.  Audrey managed her swirly, shiny ball with finesse.

 Happy bowlers!

Camping Kickoff

It's camping season!  We're off to a slow start in CO this year.  While the plains, Denver included, had a dry, dry winter, the mountains had record breaking snows that still haven't melted.  Back in January when I made reservations I thought we'd be safe camping mid-June at a relativley low elevation, but we found out that all that snow is still making camping a bit tricky.We traveled not so far and headed out to our local attraction, Rocky Mountain National Park, with Suzie and Audrey (F's aunt and cousin) from Pennsylvania.

F showing us exactly how big Long's Peak is.  We didn't climb it this year.  Maybe next time.

 This rock was more our speed.  Happily our campground was littered with great climbing rocks.

 We promised Suzie and Audrey a hike.  Audrey's about 1.5 years younger than F so we looked for a short hike around a lake.  It started out nice and easy.

 We had some fun encounters with wildlife along the way.  That's a chipmunk on the edge of the rock.  F calls all wild mammals smaller than marmot 'critters.'

 Then the hike got a little more interesting.  This hike was the easy, 'wheelchair accessible' hike.

 Then it got downright adventurous.

I did not take a photo of the section where we had to balance on a log between a giant snow bank and a 5' drop into the frigid lake.  Travis was holding F's hand and slipped and luckily I was behind to snag F's jacket.  We nearly had a cold, soggy mess. Audrey got carried for the 2nd half, aka snow and glacier half, of the hike and that was a slip slidy adventure all of its own.

 Later that day we did a much different hike.  What a difference a little elevation makes!

Taking a break for some Tootsie Pops.

 Dessert back at camp that night.  What else but S'mores!

 Father and Son hauling wood for the campfire.

Breaking camp F asked why we couldn't sleep in a tent all summer and Audrey kept telling us all how much she liked the tent and hiking.  Even gritty, sticky, and wiped out at the end of today everyone agreed that they wanted to go camping again

I Scream for Ice Cream

Our city finally got a new piece of sidewalk installed that connects our neighborhood to a major bike path.  It's made a huge impact on our neighborhood, so much so that it was a major topic of discussion at a party we went to yesterday.  This sidewalk does another important thing, it gives us a safe and easy pedestrian or bike route to ICE CREAM!

F and I have been carefully watching the construction and awating the removal of all the cones and "sidewalk closed" signs.  After the thunderstorms moved out, the party was over, and F had a little rest, he woke up and asked Daddy,
"Daddy, can we ride bikes to Query Deen?  I mean Queen's Dairy?  I mean that place where the ice cream is in the CONE!"

So they went for their first ride on the new path and made it safely to Dairy Queen.

Losing Stuff

I don't lose stuff.  I'll add to that by saying I do sometimes misplace things, forget where I put them for awhile, but they always turn up (knock on wood).

Early last fall I couldn't find a favorite pair of earrings.  I was pretty bummed about it and did a thorough top to bottom of the house search several times.  Then, I decided to let it go, that they would turn up.

It took a really, really, really long time.  I'll admit, I was starting to think my curious, handsy, loves all my jewelry little boy might have done something untoward with them *gasp!*  But last week my long lost (diamond!) earrings showed up in a jewelry storage bag that I know I searched at least fourteen times before.  Thank you sprites/fairies/leprechauns, for continuing to look after me!