June

Father's Day

Walking to the parade

Evergreen Rodeo Parade

Little beggars asking for candy at the parade

Father's Day hike on the way to the alpine slide in Winter Park

At Tammy's

LoLo and Gwendolyn have been at Tammy's since they were babies

The whole crew at Tammy's-- Kaitlyn, Gwendolyn, Max, Logan, & Ama

Proud of herself for hanging up her socks and shoes

Sidewalk chalk at Tammy's

Amelie is 3

At 3, Amelie is sweet and sassy and funny. She has a style all her own-- loves dresses, winter hats with every outfit, sparkly shoes, and socks on her hands.  She loves all things pink. Purple blankie goes everywhere with her. She is a collector of sticks, rocks, and shells-- a trait inherited from Mark. She loves babies-- real ones and her doll babies-- and girls, not boys. Her favorite show is Doc McStuffins and she likes to listen to heartbeats, check temperatures, and give medicine. She likes band-aids ("ban-bans")... and generously covers herself, her dolls, and her furniture with them. She likes to help cook, both in her toy kitchen and the real one, and is good at whisking, mixing, flipping pancakes, and cracking eggs. She loves digging in the sand, underdogs, and walks around the neighborhood to visit the goats, horses and llamas. She's a good hiker and can go a ways by herself. She likes to sing and often makes up her own songs.  She has figured out her little sister role, and is really good at getting under Logan's skin.She loves Kenny and Alayna and Olivia and Tori. Her nickname is Ama Bahama Mama.

Mark's present to Amelie-- a sandbox!

Jac, Logan, Riley, & Ayla (January babies)

Blowing out her candles

Birthday girl with her very pink cake

Ama & Olivia

When her dress got wet from water gun fights, a tiger costume was the perfect outfit.

Taking care of baby

Doc McStuffins outfit

Sidewalk chalk

Ama in her new sandbox

Spring in Rifle

We spent much of the spring climbing in Rifle this year. We now have a second home at the EconoLodge in New Castle. We know the staff, we have our favorite room (113), and we have found the best bike paths, the best parks, the the best gas station pizza.

Rifle Mountain Park is a beautiful canyon where the kids can ride their bikes and dig in the sand and build forts in the woods. On the other hand the river is raging this time of year and cars zoom through the canyon, so I'm always afraid they're doing to drown or get hit by a car. But all in all, its a pretty nice place to spend the spring.

Ama & LoLo hiking up to Hanging Lake in Glenwood Canyon.

We made it!  Its only 1.3 miles and it took us over 2 hours at Ama's pace.  Nothing like kids to make 1 mile seem like 10. (To her credit, it was all uphill.)

Hanging Lake

Hanging out at Rifle

Most of Ama's time at Rifle is spent making dirt volcanoes and sand soup.  Her specialties are vanilla and chocolate soup.

Their spot under Mark's route, with Kindles babysitting

More Rifle digging

Ninja moves

I get many dandelion bouquets

More ninja moves

Ama is a stick collector.  Sticks and dandelions, everywhere we go.

A couple times we ran into our friend Rob Pizem who has two boys the same ages as our kids.  Ama and Orson got along great and liked to go exploring in the woods. 

The best part of climbing for Logan is the swings

Mark & LoLo at Grizzly Creek in Glenwood Canyon.  The rivers are high right now so there are lots of pretty waterfalls.

Me & Mark

Me & LoLo

Glenwood Springs has great bike trails.  We found one with a tunnel through a culvert.

The New Castle fire station put on an open house one day, complete with free lunch, tours of the fire trucks, and water hose games in the parking lot.

Ama with her new firehat

She loved all the buttons in the firetruck.

We do still have jobs and stuff so we're home 4 days of the week.  We celebrated Mark's birthday and Derby, but mostly we just went to work and daycare.

Ice cream for Daddy's birthday

Avery & Ama at Derby

New barrettes from Grandma

Photos from Ama's days at daycare:

Ama and her buddy Kaitlyn at daycare

Super Ama

Kaitlyn & Ama

Max & Ama