Monday, July 27, 2009

She'll Be Comin' Round the Mountain





Today (Monday) we drove over to Rocky Mountain National Park. We had a picnic in Endo Valley first and then drove up the one way windy road all the way up to the top to Alpine Visitor's Center. It was 11,796 feet that we climbed. The one-way road was gravel nearly the whole way and it was really creepy because it felt like you could fall off the edge of the cliff at any second. It was kinda nerve wracking and especially so because there were no guard rails to protect us as we drove. We drove the long 9 miles up to the top and along the way, we stopped several times for many photo ops. The views were breathtaking and the scenery, just simply gorgeous. We were also fortunate to drive upon a herd of Elk as we descended back down the mountain, which was also very cool.

VELO: We saw the Alluvial Fan as we drove by, but there were no parking spots left so we had to see it from the car. It was really neat to see--thanks for telling me about it. We may try to go back sometime this week and get a closer look since our park ticket is good until Aug. 2.

1, 2, 3, 4, 5...Once I caught a Fish Alive


We went to Trout Haven yesterday afternoon. It's this really cute little place near us. Anyone can go fishing and you are guaranteed to catch a trout. Whatever you catch, you pay for, 95 cents an inch. Papa wanted to take Brynn fishing, and she was so excited. This was her FIRST time going fishing. In fact, on the morning we were leaving, Brynn sat up at 5 a.m. in the morning and said, "We're going on an airplane today?" and then immediately after that said, "I'm gonna catch a fish!" So, she was really looking forward to this little fishing trip.

Papa helped her put her "dirty snake" on the hook and helped her hold the little pole in the water. Then when they caught the first one, (about 11 inches long), she let go of the pole and let Papa reel the fish in. It took literally 2 minutes to catch the first fish, and a little longer for the 2nd fish, which was 17 inches long! You are not allowed to throw the fish back in, so once you catch it on your pole, a kid comes over with a net helping you get it out of the water. Then, he takes out the hook and hits in on the head a couple of times with his hand and throws it in a bucket. Once you are done fishing, he cleans the fish for you. The first thing he does is kills the fish with a little piece of wood by hitting it over the head pretty hard. Then, he guts and cleans the fish. He took out the fish heart on the first fish and put it out on the counter so we could see it. Gross. Brynn did not want to watch that, so we took a break and got some fish food and fed the hungry fish in the pond. They were fighting the ducks for the food.

Anyway, you'll see in the pictures that Brynn would not get much closer to the fish while it was on the hook. It was floppig around and it scared her b/c she didn't know what the fish would do and didn't want it to flop on her.

It was really fun to watch her get excited about fishing with Papa. :)









Day 1 Continued...




We went on the Aeriel tram yesterday and then walked around on the mountain. There were so many chipmunks and the kids really enjoyed feeding them peanuts. The chipmunks were really tame/brave.



Sunday, July 26, 2009

Estes Park Day 1


I will try to post at least one pic or a little blog about what we are doing each day here in E.P. First of all, our condo is absolutely awesome! It is spacious and there are lots of amenities which is really nice. My parents, sister, Mary, and brother, Daniel met us here yesterday. They were unloading their suitcases and items as we were driving up, around 3:30 p.m. We relaxed last night and enjoyed the hot tub and some drinks.

Today we went up in the the Ario Tram and it was really neat. We rode up in this cable car 1100 feet up to the top of the mountain. The ride took about 5 minutes and yes, it was literally moving up the mountain on a steel cable. Once we made it to the top, we walked around the top and took in the view. Then we discovered a pathway to walk around behind the sidewalks on the actual mountain. There's a gift shop up top and my dad bought a bag of peanuts and then we walked around, snapped a bunch of photos, and fed the thousands of chipmunks that came out of their dens to eat the nuts. They are so brave that they'll come right up to you when you're kneeling down and take the peanut right out of your hand. :) Brynn and Baylen REALLY enjoyed feeding the chipmunks.

Aftewards, we drove over to Trout Haven and Brynn and Papa had some fun fishing. More on that tomorrow.





Tuesday, July 21, 2009

Funy convo #330

Bee: Dad, we're going to watch Diego after the baseball game.

Dad: No, we're not. You'll probably be in bed after baseball.

Bee: No I not. I am going watch Diego.

Dad: No, we're not.

Bee: No we're going to watch MY SHOW!

Dad: No we're not.

Bee: Daddy, you're driving me nuts!

Saturday, July 18, 2009

YESSSSSSS!

I just finished Breaking Dawn last night. It took me 3 nights. I couldn't put it down. LOVED IT. After being pretty much all Team Jacob, I am definitely Team Edward after that book just b/c of the events that unfold in B.D. Author totally set it up to happen that way. I was prepared especially after someone new joins the book early on. Totally obvious. I don't want to give anything away b/c I know some of you are reading them. Anyway, great great great book. Now I don't want to read anything else. Hmm. I'll have to look at my stack and pick something new. It will probably be a new young adult book Sharon Draper just released...hmmmm we'll see.

Friday, July 17, 2009

funny

Brynn always enjoys singing songs she hears...kid songs, songs on the radio, songs from her little TV shows, etc. Anyway, this is her latest choice of song lyrics..again, she's good at hearing songs like 2x and repeating them.

Bee: "Shush, girl. Shush your lips. Do the helicopter and talk with your hips!"



Real words: "Shush girl, shut your lips. Do the Helen Keller and talk with your hips."

Spray Park




On Wed. I took the kids to a new spray park not far from our house. It was a free thing so we decided to go and check it out. There were a lot of cool little toys and sprinklers on this little spray park and the kids had so much fun. Brynn just ran around like a mad woman getting wet in all of the little sprinklers and watching other kids to see how to run through them. Baylen took a few minutes to warm up to the idea but soon enough, he was out there (even though he stayed pretty close to mom) playing in the water and splashing his feet and hands in it.




Pool Time



It was nice and hot yesterday so we filled up the pool so the kids could splash around. Baylen actually stayed in the pool for a few minutes this time. He spent the rest of the tim messing around on the deck, but he did get in. Brynn loved it and stayed in for about 45 minutes. It's supposed to be another scorcher (90) today so hopefully we can stay cool down at the spray park near B. where we're going for a little while this afternoon. If not, we'll go back to the other Spray Park in T. which we visited a couple of days ago.

CEC



I took the kids to Chuck E Cheese on Tuesday for about 2 hours. They had a great time. They are not going to want to go back to school b/c we're always doing fun things every day. LOL

Wednesday, July 15, 2009

Fun with Dad



Dad and Bee are trying to give Baylen a nuggie...(sp?)

Monday, July 13, 2009

16 Months Old!



Mister Mister is 16 months old today! My oh my, time has passed us by so quickly. He is such a funny little guy and has become quite the ornery dude. The past three weeks, he has really been saying a lot of words and really trying to talk more. It's so funny to hear words coming out of his mouth because he has been kind of a quiet guy (pre-ear tubes) as a baby.

His new word list includes: bubble, doggie, daddy, dada, mama, papa, eyes, shoe, bye, me, mine, no, down, mammy (for Cammy), get down, moo, baa, meow, neigh, roar, cheese, poopoo, peepee, cheers, yay, ZoeZoe (for Zoey our cat), this, up, two, three, A, thank you, stairs, mimi (for his paci), bump (which means jump), and please. I LOVE when he says please b/c it is the cutest thing I have ever heard come out of his mouth! There are more words he's saying, but I can't think right now, so I'll add them later.

He is really stubborn. Really stubborn. I know he gets this from his dad.

Baylen has been throwing a lot of tantrums and when he's upset or mad if one of us tells him no, he goes boneless and drops to the ground or arches his back if we're holding him and bawls his eyes out. This drives me nutty, but I have learned to walk away from it or ignore it as best I can and it usually stops a lot faster than if I give in and say something to him.

He has recently moved from his high chair to Brynn's booster seat and sits at the table with us with no tray. He seems to like this a lot, but we still struggle with him doing things like handing me food he doesn't want to eat, flipping his placemat and food flying everywhere, and my LEAST Favorite: pushing himself away from the table. He also thinks we have to "Cheers" the entire meal. Cute as it is, sometimes, that gets a little old. Brynn moved into a different "big girl" chair so she's content with the change as well.

He is still the world's messiest eater. I'm so not joking. I gave him a chocolate chip cookie today and he refused to sit down and eat it. Before I knew it, he had ccc all over his onesie, just huge smears of chocolate all over his face, his hair, smears of chocolate on his legs and his hands were just covered in it. Later on, Dj found a chocolate imprint of his little lips on the wall. How sweet.

He loves drinking out of juice boxes by himself, straw and all. He thinks he is such a big kid when he does this.

Mister has to do everything Brynn is doing. Whatever she does, he copies her. If she screams, he screams. If she climbs in the couch, he climbs up right behind her, usually falling off at least once, but then he's right back up there. The other day, she was using one of their play brooms as a "golf club" and he was copying her trying to hit little farm animals in the living room until I caught them. Also, this past week, Brynn has been pretending that the broom is a horse, so she rides it around the house and shouts, "Neigh, Neigh!" and guess who is copying her? Yep, he's doing the same, riding the mop yelling, "Neigh, Neigh!"

He takes toys away from Brynn constantly. He likes to be the instigator of most of the fights between the two of them. The look on his face when he is planning his attack is priceless.

Baylen has these pretty little curls in the back of his head that are just so lovely. Yes I said lovely. Dj keeps threatening to cut them off b/c they look girly, but I told him NO WAY. They are too cute. I want to keep them as long as I can. I'll try and get a pic of them to post later this week.

Some mornings he will wake up at like 4 or 5 and he'll be ready to get up for the day. NO WAY. So we bring him in bed w/ us and then he keeps popping his head up like every 5 seconds. We threaten by asking, "Do you want to go back to your bed?" and he loudly shouts "NO!" and then I"ll say, "Then lay down and go to sleep!" And he'll lay down for a few seconds or minutes and then he pops back up again. This usually goes on for an hour, sometimes more unless I get tired of it earlier than that and take him into his bed, which then causes him to freak out and he then agrees he'll be a good boy and sleep nicely with mom and dad...

He understands SO much of what we say to him or tell him to do. He can do simple tasks like help pick up certain toys if I give him very simple directions such as "Baylen, go pick up that french fry (fake food) and put it in the bucket" and he'll help clean up. He also likes taking clothes from the washer and putting them in the dryer if I hand one piece to him at a time. He loves throwing things away in the garbage, like wrappers. He loves helping clean up.

His dancing consists of him stomping his foot. Dj has named Bay's move the "Spider Killer." it's so cute. He loves "Ring around the Rosey" too and will do it with Brynn and me as often as possible.

He loves to feed baby dolls or push them in a shopping cart or stroller and he loves to put legos/mega blocks together. Lately, he has become more interested in puzzles and can match the pictures to where they go but sometimes has a hard time figuring out how to fit them in exactly.

Mister MOnkey: climbs on everything. Stands up on the toybox. Stands up on the couches. The play-doh bin. The stairs. His stepstool. The drum. Tries to sit in Brynn's doll highchair. Tries to climb head first into the tub when there's water in it, and even when it's empty. Brynn's bed. My bed. The climbing list is endless.

He has learned how to go DOWN stairs sliding on his butt. This is huge progress from him thinking he can walk down on his feet standing up.

He has latched on to a stuffed camel we named Cooper (which he picked out himself from the zoo gift shop last week) and still enjoys hugging his "lovie" football taggie blanket at bedtime. He's taking less and less milk b/f bed, but still has to have his pacifier. We're working on toning down the usage of that paci, but some days are easier than others. He's been going to bed easier for us these days since we started getting "hard" about it. He sometimes goes down without any crying and other nights he will cry for a bit but then go to sleep. He is finally napping in his crib again during the day. Success!

He continues to love the bath and enjoys filling up cups in the tub and then pouring them on himself or on me. I don't prefer the latter of the two because he tends to dump them outside the bathtub onto my clothes, soaking me. After the bath, he looks forward to brushing his teeth. He would brush them for hours if we let him.

His top 2 molars have pushed through..this happened right around the 15 month mark.

He loves art time at home. Stickers, bubbles, painting, coloring with crayons (when he's not trying to eat them), play-doh, etc.

He finally has begun to love being read to. He'll go pick out a book and ask to sit on my lap and let me read to him. He doesn't stay for very long, so we have to read very short books, but he's showing more interest, and that's exciting to me. Dj laughs because the other night, I was reading so fast that I sounded like the Micro Machines guy (remember him?) because there were like 3 sentences on each page and I knew his attention span would be short, so we flew through the book before he decided to take off.

He still comes in like a bull in a china shop. Bull is still a nickname that follows him around. Always ALWAYS on the go. He's such a boy.

We're working on the whole stop feeling yourself up thing and it's getting better actually. If I make less of a big deal about it, he seems to be less interested in trying to cop a feel on himself all the time. As soon as he's naked though, it's a lost cause.

Baylen loves fruit. Any kind. He will eat that more than anything else you put in front of him. His favorite? Strawberries.
He has not been eating much lately and has become more of a picky eater. He just shakes his head if I try to give him food to try on a fork and loudly says, "NO!" and refuses to eat any of it. I try a couple of times but if he's adamant, I let it go and hope that maybe next time he'll like it.

He can point to his eyes, head, mouth, legs, hair, and belly. (sometimes ears) When I ask him where his mouth is, he opens it and then just grins.

He is a very lovey guy. He loves to give hugs and kisses. He loves when Brynn has to tell him she's sorry for whatever she's done or said to him and always opens up his arms for the hug first.

He loves to sing and when the song, "Love Love Kiss Kiss" by Akaline Trio is on, he'll sing the "blah blah blah" part every time the chorus is sung. It's way cute.

He still falls a lot/trips over things and just kinda flies into the room in mass chaos. That's just who he is. The kid has a ton of bruises all over his legs from all of the falling he does or things he gets into which cause injuries, such as cat scratches, or marks on his legs or arms.

Mister really enjoys wrestling, riding on our back like a horse or piggy back rides, and just horsing around in general. Boy. Boy. Boy.

Mister Orneryness:
He torments the cats. They are not fans of him. He'll purposely run after them and pull on their tails, ears, fur, or whatever he can grab. We're working on this, as he's been scratched twice b/c of it and even Cammy has been hissing at him when he gets too rough. The poor cats try to be nice as long as they can, but gosh darn it, that hurts and I can't really blame them. He hasn't learned his lesson yet, and continues to laugh and run after them as soon as he spots one of them. If they hear him coming, which isn't hard, they take off in a mad sprint up the stairs and hide.

He'll nonchalantly walk by the dishwasher and turn the dial and start it up and then walk away like it's no big deal. He picks up the phone and starts dialing numbers. He pushes buttons on the remote, DVD players, Wii, or TV constantly. If I ask him to come give something to me he's not supposed to have, he'll grin and run the other way as soon as I start walking towards him. (he's super fast these days)

GINORMOUS:
Actually, he's toned down quite a bit and has quite the skinny little waist, but a cute little bubble butt and thick old thighs. He's reaching the upwards of about 28 pounds. He can still wear many clothes size 18 months, some 24 months and some 2T (these sizes are a little big on him, esp. the shirts).

Man hands. Sausage feet. That's my Mister.

more crafts

I bought these little tins at the dollar store about a month or two ago and planned to use them for something completely different. When I opened them, I decided my original plan would not work. So, I then thought they would be neat to create letter and sound tins. I picked up a few little painted wooden items from Michaels for 25 cents a piece. Then, I used my Cricut to cut letters and my Xyron to secure each letter on top. They will help Brynn continue to learn the sounds and things that start with each letter. She'll be able to open them and play with each little item inside and learn at the same time. I just need to go pick up a few more for the rest of the alphabet and fill them with little items for each letter. I think I will also print out pictures of some and just glue them on cardstock so I don't spend too much time searching stores for little trinkets to fill each letter tin.



This is a new bow design I tried today. I left off a small "top bow" b/c I didn't like the way it looked and added a button here instead.

Sunday, July 12, 2009

crafty




I have had more time to work on some of my scrapbook pages. Many days it feels so overwhelming to tackle this huge project, but I have so much $ invested in this hobby, there is no going back. I have had some time at night when the kids go to bed to work on some pages. I am almost done with Brynn's first year. Yeah...I'm REALLY behind. But, the good news is, I have figured out a way to prioritize and get certain pages done a little more quickly once I have a little direction and a goal. I just wish I had more ideas floating around in my head to get more creative with the page layouts. Some of the pics are a little blurry and the lighting isn't great at 10:30 at night in my dining room, but I was too lazy to go back re-take the pics. Some of the layouts I tried to show a close-up of the new crop-a-dile tool I used.





Saturday, July 11, 2009

Funny Convos #336, 337, 338 & 339


Lots of funny things coming out of this girl's mouth lately!

Brynn walks into my bathroom and sees Zoey, our cat laying in the window.

Bee: "Hi Zoey! (high pitched sweet voice) It's nice to meet you!"



Brynn: "I'm a nice sister. I like to share my toys with Baylen."



Brynn: Mom, are we going to the other beach tomorrow?

ME: Yep

Brynn: Great! But we gotta to watch out for Swiper the fox! (can you tell she likes watching Dora the Explorer?)


This happened at Wendy's when we were eating a quick lunch before we hit the beach:

Brynn: (all of a sudden in the middle of eating her chicken nugget) AHHHHH!!! (high-pitched scream)
Me: What's wrong? Please stop, why are you screaming?
Brynn: Um I see a snake!!
Me: Where?
Brynn: Right there on the wall!