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.