Christmas 2016

Christmas was great this year.  The girls are in the prime time of enjoying Christmas.  They definitely understand what's going on, but no one is too cool for all the fun yet.  The beginning of December started off a little rough with the second round of sickness working its way through the family (even Mom and Dad got pretty sick).  Very fortunately, everyone started to feel better right before Mimi and Papa came out to visit.  They flew out here the week before Christmas and Uncle Trey also flew out a couple days later.  It's been a couple of years since Trey's been out here, so the girls had a great time showing him all their toys and just hanging out with him in general.  We also got out a bit to check out the local attractions.

One day, we headed down to Denver to check out the Denver Museum.  Trey hadn't been there since he was just a little kid, so he had a great time checking it out.  We didn't get to see much since we got out a little late, and Emily ran out of steam shortly after noon.

The city sets up an ice skating rink every year around Christmas.  Papa, Uncle Trey, Dad, and the girls headed there the morning of Christmas Eve while Mom and Mimi did some prep work for Christmas.  Kara had taken ice skating lessons a couple of years ago.  She was a little rusty at first but was skating all around by the end.  Emily tried to skate a bit at first but ended up just letting Dad pull her around in a sled.  We were the first ones there, but within 30 minutes the rink was packed with people enjoying the nice day and the skating.

Emily learned the words to several Christmas carols - Frosty the Snowman and Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer were her favorites - and would sing them over and over again for everyone.  Kara enjoyed teaching Emily alternative versions of Christmas carols ("Jingle Bells, Batman smells...").  We bought a little bear that plays a version of Vanilla Ice's "Ice Ice Baby" that Emily loved to dance to.  Unfortunately, we never could get a good video of her dancing.  Maybe next year.

Christmas day was a blast.  Grandma, Grandpa, and Aunt Amy came over early in the morning to get the day started.  The girls got some amazing gifts this year from Santa.  Emily was still a little slower with opening presents.  She always wants to play with her new toy, while Kara is definitely at the age where she just rips into all her presents.

The girls are already planning for next year!

Kid quotes:
"We need to keep up appearances... for Emily." - Kara, as we were putting out cookies and milk for Santa.  I think she's on to us...

"Drat." - Emily's favorite new phrase

Link to December pictures

Link to Christmas Day pictures

Back to school... for everyone

This was a month of first days of schools!  Kara had her first day of first grade on Thursday, August 18th.  Kara is really excited to start another year of school.  Emily had her first first day of school this year on August 31st.  She is starting preschool at the Rec Center, which meets for a few hours every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday morning.  That means...  Mom actually has time to herself on a regular basis!  So exciting!

Mimi came out to visit us for a couple of weeks this month.  We got to hit all kinds of sites around the city.  We hit the Celestial Seasonings factory, Denver Museum, which was awesome as always, the Hammond Candy factory, the Denver Aquarium, and afternoon tea at the Huckleberry.  It was quite the whirlwind visit!

Kara started playing soccer with some of her friends from teeball.  So far she's having fun, but it's mostly just a bunch of the girls running around after the ball.  But she's having a blast!  Kara also lost her 3rd tooth.  We think she looks pretty cool with the gap in her smile.  :-)

Link to pictures

July 2016

The summer is just flying by.  It seems like every weekend is jammed packed with activities, and we still aren't getting everything done that we want to.

The first weekend of July, we headed down to the Denver Museum of Nature and Science to check it out.  While we were there, we got an annual membership to the museum. If anyone wants to meet up there, let us know!  Both girls had fun, though Emily was ready to go back home well before Kara had seen everything she wanted to see.

Kara stayed up for the first time this year to see the fireworks on the 4th (they start around 9 pm).  Emily went down at her usual bedtime (and thankfully stayed asleep through the fireworks), but Kara stayed up and watched Zootopia with Mom and Dad.  There's a local fireworks show that we can see from our backyard.  After the movie, we got ourselves set up in the backyard and enjoyed the fireworks show.  We eventually got Kara down to sleep around 9:30.  We paid for it the next day, though, as Kara was quite grumpy and moody since she didn't get enough sleep.  Maybe someday we'll be able to do exciting things with the kids without worrying too much about sleep.

We went up to Breckenridge for several days later in the month (separate blog post to follow soon).  We attempted to do our annual backyard camp-out the weekend after we got back, even getting as far as getting the tent set up, but Kara had a bit of a melt-down as were getting everything ready.  It was probably too much excitement.  We'll try again in August.

Kid quotes:

- After dinner one night, Emily chose jelly beans as her dessert (the girls get a small dessert if they eat all their dinner). Mom said Emily could have 3 jelly beans since she's 3 years old.  Emily grabbed 4 jelly beans, and Dad pointed out that Emily was only supposed to get 3.  Looking very innocent, she quickly popped one into her mouth and showed dad the 3 left saying, "look there are 3."

- After our 4th of July grill out, Mom said, "Wow, I am stuffed!"  Emily promptly replied, "We don't having stuffing, we have bones inside!"

- We've been having some minor issues with rabbits eating things in our garden.  Emily noted, "Something's eating our plants like bunnies... or sharks..."

Link to pictures

Summer 2012 Visit from Mimi and Papa

We're a little behind on blog posts...this one is from Mimi and Papa's visit mid-June.

It was a pretty hot couple of weeks while Mimi and Papa were here, but we managed to find some neat indoor activities.  Kara really enjoyed a visit to the Denver Museum, which had an exhibit on snakes and reptiles, along with a kids area, dinosaur skeletons (a favorite), and mummies!  We also watched a planetarium show with Big Bird and Elmo - that was a big hit.  It was Kara's first "show", and she talked about it for days afterwards.  There was a Chinese Muppet character in the show too, who she refers to as "Elmo's China-nese friend."  :)


We also managed a mid-week visit to the Denver Aquarium.  Kara enjoyed all the fish and the "mermaid" show (girls in tails swimming).  She was very brave and pet a stingray too!  "Soft and squishy" - Kara's words.

Mimi and Papa were here to help us pick cherries from our tree!  Kara had a great time picking (and eating) the sour cherries, and Papa enjoyed the fresh pie.

For Mimi and Papa's last weekend in Colorado, we drove to Glenwood Springs.  Unfortunately, it was just as hot there as it was at home, but we still managed to have some fun.  Everyone enjoyed something at the adventure park there (the Alpine coaster was a big hit, and Kara loved the tram ride).  Kara enjoyed the hotel pool, and Mommy, Daddy, and Kara had a nice hike up to Hanging Lake.  Very scenic!

Kara had a wonderful time with Mimi's and Papa's full attention, and we will miss them until next time.


Link to pictures