Dinner time

Dinner time is always entertaining at our house.  Yesterday's dinner did not disappoint.  I called everyone to sit down at the dinner table and Elizabeth said, "ok mommy but I need to go potty first."  I turned around and saw that she left a little friend at the dinner table to help her out with her spaghetti-o's.

And then there is Andrew.  He always finishes his dinner first (Elizabeth is always last but starting to do a little bit better).  We're eating and look over and Andrew is calmly sitting on Gregario.  Gregario never let Elizabeth even near him when Elizabeth was 16 months old, let alone ride on him!  Andrew and Gregario are truly best buds.  Andrew asks about Gregario first thing in the morning and right after nap.  One of Andrew's  favorite activities is feeding his furry friend dog biscuits or whatever he has left over on his meal tray.  In the second picture, Andrew is bouncing up and down on Gregario and yelling Yeah!  A Texas cowboy in the making!

                             My loyal Julio.  Don't worry, he got quite a few treats after this one!

Day at the Zoo - For the Birds

Last Friday we went to the Denver zoo with friends and had a very fun time.  We were greeted by the lion king when we entered the zoo.  He was pacing and roaring and then peed all over his rock throne.  Elizabeth asked why the lion peed right where he was standing for a few days afterwards.

They have a special Lorikeet center at the Denver zoo where you can feed the lorikeets.  I've been in there before but the birds were never hungry.  To try to maximize our lorikeet adventure, we were there right when the center opened in hopes of hungry birds.  Tiff was such a sport as little did I know at the time that she not only dislikes birds, she flat our hates the creatures.  And here we timed our entire zoo day adventure around the lorikeets!   To my delight, the birds were super hungry.  So hungry that they would just come on over and sit right on us!  It was wonderful!  Andrew was not too sure about the birds at first but he really liked them once he figured out that they were not going to hurt him (but they do nip a bit).

And what is the Denver zoo without a ride on the carousel.  Elizabeth chose the "Big Bad Wolf Dog" as her animal of choice.  She and Andrew alike love the carousel!

We had a picnic lunch on a nice grassy spot at the zoo.  It was mass chaos trying to feed our kids and our friends kids and keep them in one place but that is just how we roll anymore.  I don't know what I would do if we had a quiet meal!  Anyway, we had a visitor for our lunch, a very handsome peacock.  He walked right up to Elizabeth and Andrew and tried to get their food.  And then when we were leaving, we almost got hit in the head by some low flying Canadian Geese.  It was a day for the birds at the zoo!

Playing in the Park

One day it's snowing and the next it's 78 degrees.  That's Colorado in March.  Andrew and Elizabeth love to play in the park.  We are so fortunate as there are literally 5 parks within 1/2 mile of our house.  Andrew is almost 16 months old and just as curious as his big sister.  He really loves watching birds and will stand on his stool and look outside the picture window for 10-15 minutes continuously at the birds and occasional squirrel.  Elizabeth will stand there with him with her Audubon book and try to identify the birds (most of which are finches or robins).  Today we went to the store and got three different varieties of bird food and another bird feeder (now we have 4) so that we can attempt to increase our bird options.  In the summertime we get lots of hummingbirds but not yet.

 Andrew is learning so many words and is trying so hard to communicate, of course getting frustrated more often than not.  He is really good at saying please, thank you and more and pointing at what he wants.  His most common word is "uh oh" and then a form of "spaghetti-o" at the end of it.  His favorite word is Gregario and he constantly asks where Gregario is?  Gregario is usually right underfoot at Andrew feeds him his food or has food attached to his clothes most of the time during the day.  Gregario is so well fed by Andrew that he is becoming lazy.  When one of us actually drops something by accident on the floor, we now have to call Gregario over to clean it up!

Today Elizabeth found 4 rollie pollies and she won't stop looking until she has found five.  Aunt Tiffy gave Andrew a bug box that is also a neck lace  (with a quick release on the back) but Elizabeth has aquired it (along with everything else in Andrew's spring basket) for the time being.  She even wore her rollie pollies around her neck during lunch, talking to them while she was eating.  It kind of grossed me out as I think they are gross looking.  I could not look at them and eat my hot dog and baked beans at the same time.

 Andrew and Elizabeth love dancing to Disney Princess.  I'll be happy when Andrew has some say in the music but for now, he is ok with Disney Princess too.  They dance around together and Andrew falls down, almost like he thinks that they are playing ring around the rosie.

The other favorite activity as of late is bubbles.  Andrew loves holding the bubbles himself and pours them all out within one minute.  He then carries the bubble container and wand around with him, making pretend that he is blowing bubbles.  Big sister says, "Andrew" and just laughs and shakes her head and says, "Andrew, you are such a silly little guy."

Playing in the Snow

We got a late winter dump over night and just couldn't resist playing in the snow!

We had a great time playing outside!  Here in the late winter the weather is extra unpredictable - the snow all fell over night while we were sleeping but by dinner time it had all melted!

Dad's 70th Birthday Party

Last week was my Dad's 70th Birthday.  He and mom decided to celebrate in style by renting a house in Marathon Keys, Florida (about 45 minutes from Key West) and have a family vacation.  And what an unforgettable vacation we had!  We have just started to get through some of the photos but just had to share some with the family.

The highlight of the trip for me was seeing all of the kids have so much fun.  Avery and Madeline played so well with Elizabeth and they never stopped from sun up to sun down.  Elizabeth got so much exercise that she, for once, would eat just about anything you put in front of her and actually finish her dinner!  Andrew and Regan were so cute together.  They would give each other hugs, laugh together, pull each others hair.  They were adorable.  They are kind of like two little irish twins.

Elizabeth, ofcourse, brought her bug box to FL and what a treat!  There were all kinds of bugs to collect.  The week started out with mommy catching Sebastian the crab.  She kept him in her bug box for a day until we convinced her that Ariel would be looking for her friend and that we should let him go.  She then found a butterfly, stink bug (I think that was Uncle Michael's contribution), catepillar (courtesy of Aunt Courtney), rocks, ants etc for her bug box so she was happy.  

Andrew as always was the happiest little boy all week.  He loves to explore and was into everything.  Some of his favorite things to do were to topple the girl's sand castles, dig in the sand, walk up and down all the stairs and ramps on the patio, sit on the stairs in the swimming pool and blow bubbles (he loves saying bubble but not as much as Elmo).

Avery and Madeline were little fish all week.  They were in the pool or the hot tub all the time with their flower floaties.  I really had fun playing with the girls in the pool!  

Regan is a little angel and so curious about what everyone is doing.  She was happy as a clam in the pack in play when someone other than mommy put her in it!  One of the afternoons, Jan and I watched all five of the kids while everyone else went out for a few hours.  The kids did great!  We had snacks, played on the beach and somehow managed the five kids without any bumps or bruises!  I love this picture as it shows a little bit of the managed chaos (and a whole bunch of sunscreen etc. etc.)

One of the days we decided to rent a boat.  Michael, Courtney, Jan and I and the three oldest girls went out for a long boat ride to explore the island.  We stopped to do a little swimming and ended up at Burdines for lunch.  Mom, dad, Andrew, Eliabeth, Aunt Carol and Aunt Jean then met up with us for a wonderful lunch of fish sandwitches, fries and ice cream bars for the girls and we gave them the kids to take home for naps.  Michael, Courtney, Jan and I then went out to Lighthouse Reef for some scuba/snorkleing.  I didn't really know what to expect with the dive and I was plesently surprised.  The dive was very shallow (approx 25 feet) which allowed us to stay down for a long time with plenty of air.  The visibility was no where near that of other places we've dove but the fish were amazing!  The density of fish and the health of the coral was better than that I've seen anywhere.  For example, there was a lot of brain coal that was just thriving (I now realize that the brain coral I usually see is dead or dying) and the fan coral was so colorful.

All the girls took turns driving the boat and had a great time!  They did a great job wearing their life jackets too - Safety First!

One of the days we went to Duval Street in Key West.  It was quite the experience!  Jan and I both thought that Duval Street was going to be a little more art and a few less bars and $5 T-shirt shops.  We made the most of the $5 T-shirt shops as everyone got a crazy T-shirt which you will see in some follow on photos.  Elizabeth was enamored by a parrot that a man was carrying around on his shoulder.  He was kind enough to let her pet the parrot for a few minutes.  I was glad that the parrot did not talk though as it's hard telling what he might have said!

We found a great place for lunch where we could all sit on a beautiful patio outside.  The girls were entertained by the rooster that sat in the shade during our lunch.  

Another fun part of the vacation was visiting the dolphin rescue center and then later on in the day, the turtle hospital.  According to my mom and Courtney, Elizabeth was hilarious on the 1 1/2 hour turtle hospital tour.  She loves to make comments and made comments during the entire tour that had the entire tour cracking up.  She is still talking about Scooter and Bubble But, her turtle friends.  

In addition to Dad's birthday, we also celebrated Avery, Courtney and Regan's birthday!  We had a really fun party with cake, balloons, pin the tail on the donkey and a pinata filled with candy.  The pinata would not break so grandpa gave the girls a hand.  As you can see, he is sporting his $5 Key West T-shirt (it even has riemstones on it!  Bonus!)  I think dad wins for the tackiest Key West T-shirt.  Next time we all get togheter, we are going to change the $5 T-shirt game rules.  Next time, we will all pick a name out of a hat and it will e your job to find a t-shirt for that person.  

And ofcourse we had to have a little family photo shoot.  

We couldn't keep the kids out of the water so I just gave up and let Andrew play.  He was soaked but happy!  

Thank you, dad and mom, for a wonderful vacation and wonderful memories!