Girl Talk

8-25

The girls brought the tent downstairs one day shortly after school started. They talked and giggled and played in there all morning! Even Hattie joined in on the fun. We have spent some quality time in this tent!

 Hattie's expression - ADORABLE! (Week 44, by the way.)

Pulling Up To Everything

8-21

 One of, if not the first time Hattie pulled herself up to a stand on the couch! Her bare feet act like little suction cups on the floor to aid in the process. :)

 8-23

Aaaaand Hattie's first time ever pulling herself up in the crib! We have left her crib on the highest setting because we haven't had a reason to lower it. Until today. She was pleased as punch with herself! Such a big girl! 

Summer Updates

Hattie
- got her first top tooth on July 31, her top right one. The top left one is only days behind it. (Update: Her top left front tooth came in today, 8-8. And do you know what she was doing by the end of the day? GRINDING HER TEETH TOGETHER. Why, babies? Why do you all figure that out and make that terrible grinding noise???)
- learned to clap her hands on August 2. I have been practicing with her lately and she finally started clapping on her own. It's so cute! She learned just in time for the Sky Sox baseball game we went to. Lots of clapping opportunities at a baseball game!
- figured out how to sit up from a crawling position at 9 months. She can now scoot all over the floor and then sit herself up to change her point of view. She's getting to be such a big girl.
- About 9 1/2 months, Hattie started pulling herself up on the bottom step of our staircase. Then she pushed herself into a standing position on the bottom shelf of the sofa table. Then she was able to pull herself up on me when I was sitting on the floor with her. And now, just shy of ten months, she pulled herself up to a stand on the couch. She is all about standing these days!
- her top second from the right tooth poked through just after we got to Minnesota - 8/11. Her smile is changing pretty fast these days. 

Molly
- started potty training on her half birthday, August 3rd. I'm sure her success will earn it's own blog post. Her tiny hiny looks pretty cute in teal colored undies with a hippo on the front. :)
- we put her in underwear for bedtime a few weeks (8-19) after she was daytime trained since she wasn't wetting her diaper anymore.She hasn't had any accidents yet! I'm hopeful that it continues. We're so proud of her! She has been doing really, really great.
- Matt and I have both noticed that her tantrums and screaming have tamed a bit recently. I'm so thankful for that. For a while it seemed like every little thing set her off and then Molly would be in full tantrum mode over nothing. I'm hoping her second half of the terrible twos is better than her first half. 

Alanna
- said to me this morning (8-8), "When I grow up, I'm going to be nice to my kids." What a pleasant way to start off a Monday morning. When I asked her what she meant by that, she said that she thought that I wasn't nice because I get them(meaning herself, Charlie, and Molly) "in trouble". I said probably two more things to her and then I just quietly ate my breakfast. Reasoning and perspective are lost on preschoolers.
- a conversation:
A: "If you die, and Jesus is in heaven, then he'll get you off the cross."
Me: "We don't die on the cross. JESUS died on the cross."
A: "We don't die on the cross?"
Me: "No. Just Jesus died on the cross."
A: "How do we die then? What happens to us when we die?"
Me: "People are buried under the ground."
A: "Under the ground? How will we breathe under there?"
Me: "You won't need to breathe because you're dead."
A: blank stare and slow head nod... followed by "You would get sand in your mouth if you open your mouth."
- the kids smelled smoke in their bedrooms upstairs from someone burning a brush pile nearby (or not nearby since it's perpetually breezy around here). Alanna said, "Maybe it's someone smoking. Like that white thing that you blow into and smoke comes out of. That's called smoking." 


Charlie
- has been so into the Olympics. He happily picks a team from whatever sport is on at the moment and cheers for them. It has been fun to watch!
- I asked Charlie if he was still interested in taking piano lessons (from me) this fall and he said yes. Immediately followed by, "Can we start tonight? Can you teach me how to play the Star Spangled Banner?" Wow. He's setting lofty goals.
- a conversation after school today:
C: "Miss Lindsey does the actions when Mr. De Herrera is talking."
Me: "Oh, really?"
C: "Yeah, like if he says 'tie your shoes', Miss Lindsey does this (putting his foot on the table and mimicking tying his shoelaces)."
Me: "That's called sign language. There must be someone in your class that can't hear."
C: "What?" (I KID YOU NOT.)
Me: "There must be someone in your class that can't hear. Do you know who it is?"
C: "Yeah, me! I can't hear."
Me: "No, someone in your class is deaf."
C: "Death?!?" (I'm not even making this up, you guys. I CAN'T make this stuff up.)
Me: "No, deaf. A person who can't hear."
C: "I can't hear."
I just stopped talking after that. The conversation needed to be over.

Pueblo City Park Rides

8-20

Continuing our attempt at seeing summer off in a big way, we took the kids over to Pueblo on Saturday afternoon. One thing Charlie said he wanted to do this summer was see The Secret Life of Pets in the movie theater. Pueblo has a drive-in movie theater that we have never been to so I was waiting and hoping that the movie would be showing at the drive-in, a more casual and accommodating place for the littlest girls. Alas, it never came to the drive-in. A bunch of cousins went to see it in Fergus before we arrived in MN so we missed an opportunity there, too. I was thinking that it would be too late by the time we got back from our trip. Thankfully, the movie was still showing in Pueblo - yay! On Saturday, we all drove over to Pueblo; Matt took Charlie and Alanna to the movie and I took Hattie and Molly to Target and the mall. The kids said the movie was good except for a scary part with a python (I think). Why? Why does there always have to be one part or one thing that is scary for the kids? We picked up the big kids and Matt after the movie and dined at the ultra fancy Sam's Club cafe for supper. Nope, you don't have to be a member to eat at the cafe. We aren't! (FYI: I didn't think it was as good as the Costco cafe. Do your own research. Just my two cents.) After that, we went over to Pueblo City Park where they have a little area with rides for the kids. The rides are all geared toward little kids, perfect for Charlie and Alanna. Each ride costs one ticket, and tickets cost $0.25 per ticket. It's such an inexpensive way for kids to try out rides! There are probably a dozen rides total with a carousel, a train, a bounce house, and more. We started the kids off on this small fire truck and train ride; very tame, only does circles. Charlie was actually too tall to ride this one so he just watched. The girls did great! They seemed to have a good time. Alanna came off the ride ready to tackle another one while Molly came off the ride wanting to hang out in the stroller. I don't think she was scared because she didn't cry or even make a bad face while the ride was going, but I think she was content to watch the others from a distance. Works for me!

 Charlie's first ride of the evening - a classic car ride similar in style to the trucks/trains one the girls did.

 Charlie and Alanna were pretty excited to do the ferris wheel!

 Charlie and Alanna rode the roller coaster while Matt, Molly, Hattie, and I laughed at their huge smiles. It was hilarious to watch!! The kids did the roller coaster two or three times because it was so much fun.

 All of the kids and I did the carousel; Hattie was in the Ergo, I was standing next to Molly, and Charlie and Alanna rode their own horses. Why do carousel horses have to look psychotic?!

 Matt took this picture!

 The last ride for the night was the one Charlie was the most excited for - the TRAIN! It makes a loop around the park and a pond. As you can see, it was almost pitch black out by the time we got over there, but in typical Charlie fashion, he wanted to save the train for the very last ride. Best for last seems to be his motto. We had a really great time on the rides! The rides area is only open Memorial day through Labor day. I'm glad we were able to make it once this summer! I think Molly might enjoy some more rides next year.

Happy Apple Farm

8-20

I heard about Happy Apple Farm at the beginning of summer from a woman I met during swimming lessons; how they offer berry picking at the end of summer. I filed that little nugget of information away and pulled it out shortly after we got back from MN. I looked at their facebook page and found that they were just starting up for the season offering apple and berry picking. We didn't know what kind of berries until we went out there on Saturday morning. Turns out the farm has raspberry bushes and blackberry bushes! The crop was super, super light - as in, two ripe blackberries per row of 25 plants. We saw lots of red ones, so maybe sometime soon I'll go back out to see if I can pick some. Their price is pretty high... but anything would have seemed expensive compare to all the free blackberries we picked in our neighboring backyard last summer in Roseburg. :) We picked a small bucket of apples as well, but the apples are pretty tiny and it's quite early in the season yet. There will be time for apples in September! Unfortunately, due to a late hard freeze last year I think, a lot of fruit trees in and around Canon were killed off. Happy Apple Farm is one of the only local orchard that even has apples. We took a hay ride out to the edge of the berry patch and spent an hour wandering around the orchard. It was a cute place; very fallish! We spent a few hours out in the beautiful fallish weather and came home with a bucketful of apples.

Bonus Summer Day

8-19

The day after the first day of school called for something big, something memorable, something that fully embraced our last summer day together - CHEYENNE MOUNTAIN ZOO!! We had one last big outing on our last bonus summer day and boy, did we have a great time. Matt and I decided to go for the year membership (again) so we can go back as often as we want. Even with Charlie in school, the girls and I will have a decent amount of time to make a run during the week as long as we're back by 2:45. The zoo opens at 9 leaving lots of time for us to explore. As it was, I planned for us to be there for most of the day exploring nearly every nook and cranny of the zoo as if we had never been there before. We did just that! It wasn't too crowded and the weather was absolutely BEAUTIFUL. It was amazing. Charlie and Alanna remembered some things, Charlie moreso than Alanna for obvious reasons. I ended up carrying Hattie around on my hip for a bulk of the day since I accidentally left the Ergo in the van and we were too far into the zoo before I realized it. Hattie and Molly also sat in the stroller on and off. Sometime in the near future, I'll have to evaluate my need for the double stroller anymore. I do love the extra cargo space while pushing a stroller, but at some point the scales will tip and the extra space and seat won't be used often enough to justify pushing it around. Today, it was awesome. :) We arrived at 11 and didn't leave until 4 making it a very full day. The girls all fell asleep on the way home! I packed a picnic lunch and snacks so we were set up for a day of wandering through the zoo. Is that a Dutch Bros coffee cup in the stroller?!? Why, YES IT IS! There are three Dutch Bros locations in Colorado Springs. That makes my Oregon heart smile. :)

 Slathering on the sunblock before we really dive into it. Charlie offered to take a picture of the girls and me.

 One of the probably 15 (or more) stars of CMZ - the giraffes!

 Charlie and Alanna decided on their own to wear matching tie-dyed shirts. Charlie asked me to put Molly and Hattie in theirs but Molly just wore hers the day before.

 When our membership expired last, the black rhino and the elephant exhibits were the newest ones at the zoo. The black rhino wasn't even walking all the way out to this spot in his exhibit space, he was still being trained. It was really neat!

 Elephants

 This is outside the tiger exhibit but we didn't see the tiger that day. I'll have to do some comparison photos of the kids in this same spot over the years. Eventually, Hattie will be standing up there as well. Fun!

 On our way to see the grizzly bears. Charlie wore his backpack filled with animal tracking books and materials nearly all day long, only setting it down for a short time while playing at a playground. He also carried his camera around for most of the day. He was so responsible with it, not forgetting it anywhere and having to go back. Charlie snapped several photos throughout the day and more than a few times, people asked him or me if his camera took real pictures. Yes! Albeit grainy ones, but yes!

43 Weeks

8-18

43 Weeks! Look at those chicklets! 

 Still a bit drooly and snotty from the cold. Plus I think Hattie thought I was going to leave her in the crib. 

 A few more with the teddy bear. Hattie's legs look so long in the first picture! I love the knee crease. :)

 Cheeks for days!