Happy Easter!

A at the MOPS egg hunt. They put on a nice egg hunt at Marshdale park down the road from us on Saturday.  There were a million eggs just laying on the ground and around the playsets.  Logan was very choosy-- he only picked green, yellow or purple ones.  There was candy in some eggs, and in others certificates for books, stuffed animals, or toys.  A got a giraffe.

Dying eggs, round 2.  Round 1 was eaten.

 

Amelie & Logan with their Easter loot.  I took this picture about 30 times and this is the best I got.  Logan makes the wierdest faces in pictures now.

Amelie and Ginny chatting

Fashionable ladies

We had friends over for Easter brunch & an egg hunt. 

On the hunt.

Logan would only pick up the ball eggs (they looked like basketballs, baseballs, soccer balls).  He passed by all the regular colored ones.

Our attempt at a group shot

Easter baseball. 

Wagon rides- Lucian, Arbor, Logan

Sharon, A, Jac

Spring

Grandma Z got Logan an Easter egg dying kit about 2 months before Easter.  We tried waiting but broke down about a month before Easter and made some early Easter eggs.  I guess we can always do another round. 

Logan decided to ride his brake-less Strider bike down our steep driveway.  I came out of the house as he was hurtling down the driveway yelling Mommy!  I tried to catch him but I think I just made him wipe out. This is the post wipe-out cleanup operation... medicating with lollipops.

My cousin Tracey and her daughter Courtney came to visit for a couple days. We went out to dinner at Hacienda Colorado.  Restaurants are difficult to choose these days... has to be the right mix of nice enough for visitors and not so nice that my children will bother everyone.  When Logan started doing handstands next to other tables we decided it was time to leave.

Family pic outside the restaurant

Mark's been doing lots of hard climbing in Clear Creek, and has gotten some nice publicity on the climbs and on his & Mike's book. Climbing at this level can require a lot of sacrifice-- particularly in the cookie department.  For a while he was starving himself to get extra light for his route and we were all miserable.  Logan asked him about 5 times a day if he was mad, because when you're starving, you look mad all the time.  But then he sent his hardest route ever and we welcomed the cookies back home, so everyone's happy now... at least until next season:).

The book is here!  We have spent many hours signing, stuffing, sealing, postage-sticking, and baking cookies to keep the mailman pacified.  

Amelie and her bud Levi.  They're 8 days apart. 

Amelie has a bunch of hand-me-down summer dresses that she's about to outgrow before summer arrives, so we played dress up one morning.  She was very enthusiastic at first, but after the 4th or 5th one was over it.

Mom, why am I wearing this dumb hat?

We had a beautiful 70 degree day today and went for a hike at 3 Sisters.  Logan walked the whole ~2-3 miles by himself... I think that's a first. It was nice to get a warm day outside before the predicted 8-16" of snow arrives tomorrow.

Amelie- 9 months

At 9 months, Amelie grabs for everything and has a surprisingly long reach given the fact that she does not move.  She does not seem at all inclined to crawl-- she immediately rolls onto her back, no matter how many times I put her on her tummy.  I lift her up on all fours, move her hands and feet for her, but she is just not interested. Mark says her head is too big and she can't possibly lift the weight of it.  (She does have a 75th percentile head circumference, compared to her 10th percentile height and weight.)  So maybe she'll skip the crawling. She's starting to stand more now at her little activity table.  She's a big fan of story time at the library, and watches the librarian and all the other kids intently. She's recently acquired stranger danger, so while she's happy to look at everyone, if they try to pick her up she bursts into tears.  She likes songs, especially the ones that involve bouncing her or throwing her up in the air.  She has a lot to say, but no real word-like sounds yet. She loves food now, her favorites being puffs, yogurt, broccoli, and ice cream.  She loves Logan.  She sleeps through the night, for the most part, except when Logan wakes her up.  Sharing a room is tricky, but she has adapted to the point that she sleeps best when there's lots of noise (she took her longest nap ever at daycare the day the roof was being replaced and workers were pounding on the roof all day). She's a happy little girl, and makes everyone else happy too.  Its nice that such a little person can bring so much joy to those around her.

Amelie's favorite foods

We started baby food with A at 5 months, but we could never get her to take more than a teaspoon. I had various theories on this, including that her girl body image issues were kicking in extra early, enforced by me repeatedly telling her how big she was getting, and Mark role modeling a borderline eating disorder as he cut weight for climbing.  We eventually gave up baby food and just started giving her real food-- she likes that much better.

The only pureed baby food she'd tolerate was sweet potatoes and squash, and she wasn't particularly fond of it.

Rice crackers are a hit

Mmm broccoli!  Her favorites are broccoli, butternut squash, avocado, and cheese.

Grandma Z's visit

We got an unexpected visit from Grandma Z in March.  Unfortunately it was because Ginny was sick, but she is doing better now.  Grandma Z was here primarily to take care of Ginny, but we did get to see her a few times.   Some photos from the visit:

Amelie- 8 months

At 8 months, Amelie brings a lot of joy into our lives.  Every day I feel so lucky to have her.  She wakes up smiling and laughing and goes to bed the same way... its just fun to have such a happy little person around. She brings good balance to the rest of us:).

She has started  grabbing at everything within reach, including tipping over water bottles, pulling hair, and interfering in Logan's iPad games.  She loves the tags on things-- loves eating them, loves flapping them back and forth.  Her favorite toy is a cloth book called Pet's Tails, which has various animal tails hanging off of it for easy chewing.  When she gets excited she waves her arms back and forth, like a little dragonfly. She is just starting to get interested in eating food.  After months of trying to feed her baby food, we've revised our strategy and are just giving her normal food to gum on, which she much prefers. Apparently this has a fancy name called Baby Led Weaning.

 Her nicknames are Miss A, Little, and Pea.

San Diego

We headed out to San Diego President's Day weekend for the wedding of my best friend growing up, Kara. Seeing her get married made me so sentimental, in a way other weddings haven't really. I think its because I knew her when she was little, and experienced with her all those steps along the way that some day lead to marriage-- the 6th grade crushes and high school dances and later boyfriends.  And I now project all my experiences on my own kids, so I immediately fast forwarded through Amelie's life, to the day Mark walks her down the aisle. I'm such a sap these days.  I remember laughing at my mom for crying at movies-- especially Beaches.  Now I'm that mother-- maybe worse.  Even seeing nature videos of little baby birds squawking for their mothers to feed them makes me teary. Oh well. 

The wedding was sailing-themed since Kara & Justin spend a lot of time out on their boat.  We got to cook s'mores on the beach, take a sailing trip around Shelter Island, and then the wedding was at the San Diego Yacht Club.  Kendall came out for the weekend too to visit her friends and babysat during the wedding.  Logan LOVED her friend Kerin & family, and says he wants to go back and ride motorcycles again with them soon.  I don't know what that's about, but if they took my 3 year old on a motorcycle, maybe I don't want to know.  We also got to see Rob, Julie, Sam, and meet new baby Grady.  Grady's about 6 months younger than Amelie-- I already forgot she was that tiny!  We got in 2 days at the beach with them, much to Logan's delight, and Sam had all sorts of great toys for Logan to play with/ fight over. On our last day, in addition to taking our rambunctious toddler to the yacht club for breakfast (much to the delight of the yachting people, I'm sure-- but we escaped without breaking anything!) we also squeezed in one last visit with my college friend Kamla and her 2 girls.    It was a full weekend, but we always enjoy San Diego, especially when it means escaping Denver for a few days in the winter. 

The wedding weekend events included a sail boat trip around Shelter Island.  Amelie was a nice, calm sailor. Logan raced around the boat, making all the older ladies gasp in fear every time he got near the railing.  He had a life jacket on just in case.  We got to see sea lions sunning on a dock and a submarine pulled up out of the water in a maintenance bay. 

We got in lots of beach time much to Logan's delight.  He is always asking to go to the beach, but only gets to go once or twice a year.  This was Amelie's first trip to the beach.

Kara & Justin just married