Christmas

Logan was very into Santa this year. I think he got all his facts from the Tim Allen Santa Claus movie he watched with Auntie Kenny.  After that, he stared intently at all the houses as we drove to and from school each day, looking for their chimneys to make sure Santa would be able to get in. For those houses that did not have chimneys, he decided Santa would squeeze down their ventilation pipes. We went to see Santa at a local church, and the room we were in did not have a fireplace. He was pretty concerned about where Santa would park and how he would get in. 

We were lucky to get to see both sides of our family at Christmas this year. With families on opposite coasts, that doesn't happen very often. My mom, Andrew, & Maddie were here the first week, and then Karen & Marshall the second week.  We got in some good Grandmas/Grandpa time, ice skating, skiing, sledding, and even a home improvement project. Mark & Marshall installed recessed lights in the living room ceiling (thank you to Mark for crawling through attic insulation and to Marshall for bearing the brunt of the home improvement project induced anger!), and now its hard to see how we lived without them.  With the new lights, its a little easier to find the million tiny lego pieces that are scattered all over the room.  I think I only step on them 5 times each day instead of 10.

Here are some pictures from the weeks around Christmas. 

Meeting Santa.  Logan was out of there in 30 seconds or less, after getting in his request for a Batman remote control car and Paw Patrol guys.  Amelie just cried.  My kids have never much liked seeing Santa.

Decorating the tree

Amelie helping me make the eggplant for Italian Christmas Eve dinner

Reading with Grandma Z

Ice skating at Evergreen Lake.  This was one of the few days of Christmas break that wasn't freezing cold.

Auntie Kenny and Amelie at Evergreen Lake

Andrew & Maddie at Evergreen Lake

LoLo and Maddie.  LoLo proclaimed Maddie his favorite Aunt, much to Auntie Kenny's dismay.

Sledding on the golf course next to Evergreen Lake. We got going really fast! 

We carried on the Colorado version of Aunt Susie & Uncle Al's traditional Italian Christmas Eve dinner.  Maddie gets credit for all of these pictures. Thank you Maddie!

Zimmerman side of the family

LoLo, Lucian, and Quin doing some construction work

Amelie with her Auntie Kenny & Nate

Dance party

Grandpa Z reading the Night Before Christmas

And then Christmas morning...

Uncle Andrew took LoLo sledding at Meyer's Ranch

It didn't go so well.  Logan got a face full of snow on the first run and was done.

Christmas Day we headed down to Colorado Springs for dinner with the Andersons and Jakulewiczs. Despite how nice the weather looks in these pictures, snow moved in that evening and we drove back to Denver in a snowstorm.  There were tons of cars stranded along the road, especially on 285, but Mark got us home safe and sound with his mad skillz.

Christmas Day at Garden of the Gods in Colorado Springs

Garden of the Gods walk

A eating snow

Daddy & A exploring caves

 The week after Christmas we spent skating, sledding, and skiing with Grandma & Grandpa A. Since Maddie was not here I do not have nearly as many pictures!

A sledding with Daddy.  She was not impressed.

Amelie playing with Grandpa and her new baby doll.  She is inseparable from this baby now!

Tea with grandma

New Year's Eve fireworks at Skate the Lake

Skiing at Copper.  It was freezing in the morning, but warmed up enough by afternoon to make it a pretty fun day for our once every 5 years ski trip. (But not enough to convince us to go more than once every 5 years:)).

Merry Christmas everyone! 

November

November in pictures:

Auntie Kenny & Amelie reading.  Amelie loves reading books, and will happy go collect book after book from her room and bring it to you to read to her.

Amelie and Levi plotting from the toy chest

A at the climbing gym, going for the bottle. 

Cold day fun... knight in shining collander

Teddy & Logan planning their mountain bike route at Three Sisters

A & Levi playing in the dirt on Three Sisters hike

Sliding in the backyard

Elk Meadow bike hike with Mackenzie and Eli

Three Sisters hike with Auntie Kenny

A serious conversation between Auntie Kenny and LoLo

I got to go on a girls weekend to Moab!  This is a picture from canyoneering in Hidden Splendor Canyon.  I can't remember the last time I went canyoneering.  We've contemplated it with the kids, but I can't quite get past the image of Amelie wiggling out of her backpack halfway down a rappel.

Another view of the arch in Hidden Splendor Canyon

Hiking out of the canyon

Girls on the way into Fiery Furnace

Hiking through the Fiery Furnace in Arches

More Fiery Furnace

Amelie- 17 months

At 17 months, Amelie loves walking backward, sticking out her tongue, reading books, and taking baths. She moves fast these days and is hard to catch in a photo.  She's learned "How big is Amelie? So big!" and very proudly shows how big she is... except she only does it standing up in her highchair where I'm always afraid she'll topple out at any moment.  She knows she's scaring me and I think that's why she likes it. She loves going outside for wagon rides and bike rides, and will stand at the door begging to go out no matter the weather.  She loves being pulled in the wagon to reach our cars at the top of the driveway during snowstorms.  The fact that she's enjoying it so much almost makes it fun, despite the fact that a wagon loaded down with 2 kids and all their stuff is very heavy going up a steep hill.  Her newest words are wagon, cookie, and glove. 

Happy Halloween

Logan has watched the Lego Movie about 50 times since we downloaded it to the iPad for the trip to Germany, so it was no surprise when he wanted to be a Lego Movie character for Halloween. At first he was going to be Wild Style, but then he changed his mind and went with Emmett. I was Wild Style, Mark was Batman, and Amelie was supposed to be Princess UniKitty. In the end she wanted nothing to do with the kitty ear headband or the unicorn horn with elastic chinstrap, so we went with plan B which was Logan's old tiger costume. She looked pretty cute all the same. We had our biggest and best Halloween party yet. Mark turned the lawnmower into a batmobile and gave rides around the yard, hooked up a ghost on a zipline to scare our guests, and filled the barn with Halloween  balloons.  The kids were finally old enough for party games like eating doughnuts off a string with no hands.  Its a classic!  Even the Dad's took a turn.

It was lucky we celebrated Halloween the weekend before, because by the time actual Halloween came around, Logan was coming down with pneumonia.   We dragged him out of bed to trick-or-treat at Kenny's, and then went to the trunk or treat at the church down the road where we managed to gather a little candy before Logan puked on Mark's head and we decided it was time to head home.  There's always next year.  We went to the doctor's the next morning and left with a cocktail of 5 prescriptions.  Logan is now on the road to recovery.

Emmett and Tiger

Emmett and Batman

Tiger on her slide... she's so proud she can go up and down all by herself

Dinosaur Levi & Tiger Amelie.

Batmobile wagon rides

Logan, Axel, Jac, Lucas & Alayna

Jesse & Levi feeding the horses

Doughnut eating contest- kid version

And the Dad version.  Batman won!

Glowstick tag around the yard

Trick or treat!

We scored a whole neighborhood's worth of loot at Kenny & Nate's-- all the leftover cookies from Kenny's school party, plus most of their 5 bags of candy

Happy Halloween!

Amelie- 16 months

At 16 months, Amelie is happy and busy.  She is all over the place and into everything.  She unrolls toilet paper, skews q-tips around the bathroom, pulls all her books of the shelf, empties all the cards from the Memory game box.  She's learning animal sounds and likes to moo and baa.  She likes to ride on little toy cars or in the wagon around the yard, and loves the "Ride Like the City Folks" game where she bounces on Daddy's knees.  She can do the baby slide by herself. She loves reading books on my lap.  She gets very jealous when Logan is on my lap and tries to push him off and reclaim her rightful seat. She loves being outside... even when its cold and rainy, she points toward the door and demands to go out. Her favorite food is macaroni and cheese. She understands most words now, and we understand her a lot of the time (but not always).  Her words are yah, no, ba for bath and ball, da for dog, dad, and a million other things, ma for milk, and ga for again and yogurt.

Logan mountain biking

Fall Fun

Here are some pictures from birthdays, visitors, and fall festivities over the past couple months.

We celebrated Ginny's 96th birthday on September 11th.  Here's Amelie sharing a drink with Auntie Kenny and Ginny.

Happy birthday Ginny! 

Uncle Kent & Paula came to visit on their year long trip around the country.  We went to breakfast in Evergreen and ended up eating 3 courses at 3 different places while we waited for our seat at the last one.  This is course #2, hot chocolate.

Amelie and her favorite, stairs

Walk back from breakfast along Evergreen Lake

Hike to Brothers' Lookout at Three Sisters

Buddy & A resting at Brother's lookout

Logan & Paula having a balloon fight. Logan LOVED Paula.  Except he couldn't quite remember her name-- he kept calling her Jamal.

I was afraid we'd miss Colorado fall while we were in Germany, but its been a warm year and fall stuck around a couple extra weeks.  We found some pretty leaves on the Morrison bike path.

Amelie playing in the leaves

Amelie found the perfect pumpkin at a patch in Littleton, which was really just someone's backyard, but it was close by and they had lots of fun games for the kids.

This is our own personal apple tree. Its on the side of the road in Deer Creek Canyon.   Mark spotted it on the way to work one day, and its now our annual apple picking spot.

Logan found the perfect apple. Amelie got bonked in the head by a falling apples when Mark shook them out of the tree.

Yellow aspens at Flying J open space

Teddy & LoLo biking at Flying J

Hike from Guanella Pass up to a mountain lake

Happy birthday Kenny!  Logan decorated the cake himself.  There were MANY sprinkles.

A random daycare picture from a day that Logan had off of school. He loves going back to Tammy's.  The only problem is he doesn't like going back to school after he's been there.