Elephants and Cousins

Those who know me best would put it mildly to say I am not super into animals.  I can't really tell you why, but I want to blame it on my super-heightened sense of smell that is very closely tied to my gag-reflux I imagine.  I think many of them are beautiful and amazing creations...mostly to be admired at a distance where I can't smell them.

So when Aaron throws out his random what-if scenarios that if he had told me when we were dating that he wanted to go back to being a farmer would I still marry him, I say definitely not.  That's how I feel about the animal smell.  

Yet I have to say that I am willing to put that aside in temporary moments because my daughter (as most kids I think) LOVES animals.  So when we had some randomly and unbelievably sunny days a couple weeks ago, we decided to call up my sister-in-law and head to the zoo with the cousin and cousin-in-embryo.

The girls had a fabulous time, as did Barett whenever I took him out of his stroller to check things out.  He did not like me keeping him in there while walking between exhibits, but he's over 23 pounds and I just don't think I'd make it around the whole zoo!

A big thanks to Emileigh (and Krista before her and Krista's friend before her) who told us about this great deal that gets you into the Point Defiance and Woodland Park Zoos for free!!

And just as a bonus, because I couldn't resist, here is a little video of Adelyn's famous methods for showing her approval of the food she's eating.  Hope all you who live far away and haven't had the pleasure of hearing it first hand get a kick out of it.  I don't blame her though, those Panda Puffs ARE pretty awesome!

Six Months!!

I suppose the title of this update should read six months and two weeks since that's the accurate reality due to my slackerness, but oh well.  Just a few days before his six month birthday he started sitting up long enough on his own without falling for us to declare it official.  This is us trying to get a good picture of it but he was flapping his arms too much in excitement to get a good, non-blurry shot.

This one was the closest we got, but despite it's blurriness, you can still see plenty of his precious roundness.    At his checkup he weighed in at just over 22 pounds, 95th percentile.  To be honest, sometimes I am surprised that 5% of babies are still bigger than he is!!  Really it's no wonder I sprained my back.

At six months he has already had two ear infections and cut two teeth, something Adelyn didn't do for another five months after that.  Yet, he still hasn't slept through an entire night without waking up, something Adelyn did at 3 months.  The doctor said he was old enough and corpulent enough (exact word!) to let him cry it out, but the doctor hasn't been there to hear who desperate and piercing those nighttime shrieks are...this is what he sees:

Yes he is all in all a beautiful, happy, healthy baby who is already forming strong opinions about his world: loves carrots, applesauce, and peaches.  Hates rice cereal and green beans (can you blame him?).  He loves kisses from his big sister, playing the piano, dancing, meeting new people, watching cars drive by, splashing in water, and just exploring new things.  Love him!!

A Princess Ball

Our city parks hosted a Daddy Daughter Princess Ball last weekend and knowing how Adelyn loves princess (and her dad of course), we got tickets.  Adelyn was VERY excited the days leading up to it and the night before asked Aaron what he was going to wear because she didn't think he had any "prince clothes."

So they headed off the morning of the dance to find Aaron a tie that would match her dress and got some flowers for the both of them to make it official. 

They had girls dressed up as the princesses, interact with the girls, and sing a song from their movie.  You can see that they were quite the hit...Aaron said the little girls tried to copy everything they did and be as close to them as possible while they were out.  Yes I'm thinking a trip to Disneyland lies in our future.

 

Aaron said Adelyn was pretty shy at first and didn't want to get out and dance until Moves Like Jagger came on and she couldn't hold it in...so much that someone from the local paper took their picture and put it in last Sunday's edition!!

 I can't tell you how many times Aaron has looked at the picture from the paper and the ones that he took himself from the dance...pretty sure Adelyn wasn't the only one that had a great time!

In case you're wondering what's up with Barett...here he is showing off his own musical abilities.  We were making lame rap/songs up at dinner to encourage Adelyn to eat her food (our nightly torture), and Barett started "singing" along.

Fighting Diabetes

 In honor of my dad, my sister Kathryn, and the millions of other Americans with Diabetes, we formed a team to ride in this year's Tour de Cure. We'd love to have you join us! Check out Live to Last for more details....or call, text, chat, whatever, just come ride.

Colorado!!

We did it.  We embarked on our first official family of four vacation.  I managed to forget only one thing this time.  But considering that one thing held all the diapers and wipes meant for the plane ride, I suppose it was still a big deal.  Luckily Aaron's sister let us know that we left it in the car and were able to buy some at the airport (of course the tiniest pack of diapers and wipes for $20!!), for which we were very grateful since he indeed pooped on the plane.

Here we all are getting ready for takeoff, Barett so excited for his first flight, I'm sure.  Adelyn had  been looking forward to flying on a plane all week, but when we started the climb she said she didn't like the plane after all because it was too fast.  As we got going a little further she asked if our friends that we were visiting lived in the sky.  Love how their little minds work!!

Aaron had some meetings in Colorado, so since our really good friends moved out there in July, we decided to head out with him and rented a little condo together from some good mountain fun.  Adelyn and their two boys were peas in a pod the whole weekend, swimming at the pool, playing in the snow, giggling in their room at night, getting married to each other, sharing pack of gum after pack of gum, you name it.

One day we took the kids sledding and they had a blast while the parents had a workout pulling them back up the hill each time, which at 9300 ft is no joke!! Um, yeah, I only did it once...thanks Aaron! 

The 9300 feet combined with the dry air also was a serious shock for our noses--I couldn't make it through the night without having to blow it several times and both Adelyn and Aaron had a couple bloddy noses while we were there.  TMI?  If so sorry, just a tip to take some nasal spray if you're planning a trip to the Rockies anytime soon!

It was a small price to pay for those beautiful blue skies you see that we enjoyed EVERY single day we were there.  That is a rareity for we Washingtonians in the winter.  Even the day that it snowed all morning managed to have sunny blue skies by the afternoon.

The next day we headed to one of the main parts of the resort...America's largest Zamboni maintained frozen lake.

We took the kids out ice skating on it, something I would not recommend to any parents of a three year old!  Their five year old son started getting the hang of it with one of these "trainers", but their 3 year old wasn't having any of it and our three year old got pretty tired of falling pretty fast.  Bless her heart, she really did the best she could, but let's be serious, even I fall on ice skates and I'm 31!!

Luckily though, a nice neighborly dad saw our plight and let us use the toboggan they had rented when his daughters tired of it.  That was a much bigger hit...once again having the daddies do all the hard work!

At church we met a guy who makes ice castles, so we stopped to check them out on our way out of town.   

They loved this little sleigh ice scuplture, though couldn't quite figure out how to sit down on it without sliding off after two seconds.

It was a great trip and so fun to just hang out and visit with old friends.  When we got back to Denver we also got to see (and eat at Cafe Rio with!) Aaron's cousin who is married to our friend's brother.  A big thanks to the Ponders and the Crisenberrys for being such great hosts and making us so welcome on our stay.  If only you could have had a little more snow on the slopes it would have been perfect!

The most ironic part about the whole trip was the most snow we saw was when we flew home into a blizzard...13 inches of snow in one day...one of the five snowiest days on record for us!!!  Sadly Aaron still had the camera in Colorado, but here is a lame cell phone shot of our backyard with about 2/3 of the snow that we got.

Who would have thought?

THREE!

Adelyn's birthday is on New Year's Eve, which makes the holiday season even crazier for us.  And thankfully gives us a deadline to get the tree down and get the birthday stuff up.  We decided at the very last minute to brave a friend party for her and decided even more last minute to go with a pink cowgirl theme (mostly because I wanted to make chili).

I was really glad that I did...Adelyn woke up to birthday decorations and was so excited.  Everytime I have made a birthday cake for someone in the past six months she's been hoping it was for her, so she was ecstatic to have it finally happen. I know our hats may look a little Crocodile Dundee, but hey, it was the best we could do on the fly.  Don't be jealous, just go get one for yourself at Wal-Mart for $2.50.

I asked my little brother to take pictures during the party, but I should have been more specific in wanting more posed of all the cute kiddos and less candids of all the chaos.  Several dressed in western duds and looked darling.  Oh well.  We did manage some cute ones of the "cousins" afterward. 

We also forgot to sing and blow out the candles, so here she is doing it during our family dinner party.  What a special girl Adelyn is, who loves pink and princesses, letters and reading, music and dancing.  She entertains me daily and suprises me constantly with her intelligence (ridiculously she often beats me at the Memory game someone gave her). 

A big thanks to all of you who helped make her birthday celebration such an enjoyment for her.

New Blog

Well I came on here to post about Adelyn's three parties for turning three (not my intention, just how it turned out), but something is going on with the picture uploader!!  So you will just have to stay in suspense for how it all went down and I'll tell you instead about a new blog I am starting: Live to Last.

I know several of you who follow my blog that share my goals for the new year of losing weight or getting fit or eating healthier or something along those lines.  That blog will be a place to share healthy recipes, fitness tips, and overall good ideas for a happier, longer life so that we can all reach our goals together. 

So check it out, let me know what you think, and keep coming back because there is only more to come!