The first half of July

July has been a busy month.  We have settled in to a routine that gets us out of the house a bit, and yet still gives us time at home to clean and just relax.  Mondays there are outings with friends and t-ball practice.  Tuesday mornings there have been some great programs at the library and then we stay after and spend a bit of time checking out books and videos.  Kai has discovered Bill Nye the Science Guy this month and he loves them!  They are geared for 4th grade and up, but he still eats it all up and takes it all in.  Even Finn has enjoyed watching them.  Anyway, Wednesday afternoons the boys have gymnastics and we normally use that morning to do our weekly grocery shopping.  Thursday morning is playgroup.  And finally Friday, we have been doing a bit of our own trips and exploration.  It's been a great routine for us for the last couple of weeks.  At the end of this week I was physically exhausted.  When I looked through the pictures I realized why.  It's been a busy few weeks and this past week was especially busy.  I sat down and wrote out our schedule for the next 4 1/2 weeks and it is just as busy.....right up until school starts.  Hope I can keep up!  (Oh and be prepared for picture overload!)

Ok, technically this was June 30th.  But close enough.

The kids spent a couple of hours playing at Monkey Bizness.  It was not what I expected and definitely overpriced.  I much preferred House of Bounce that we visited earlier in June.  

Bree's first time in pigtails on July 1st

The first library program we attended.  This is Dr. Dee Struction and her assistant.  Really they were uninhibited librarians who put on a comedy routine and taught the kids about science at the same time.  My boys enjoyed it.

The kids' parade before the big 4th of July parade

It was just me and these two for the parade.  We had a good time riding the bus into town and finding a place to squeeze ourselves in along the parade route. 

The cannons that started the parade

Don't be fooled--it was definitely in the 90 degree zone!

Monument knows how to throw a parade!  We look forward to this every year.

Sunday afternoon (July 6th) sugar cookie making

The first couple of Mondays our adventures with friends kept falling through.  So on the 7th we decided to go Geocaching instead.  It was our first time and I decided the boys would enjoy finding the treasure right behind their elementary school.  Turns out we are going to have to do this again because I had two little boys who complained about weeds the whole time.  In fact they stopped at one point and told me to go on myself, find the treasure, and take a picture of it, and then come back and show them.  No, I did not do that.  That is the treasure in Finn's hand.

Finn is a climber!  On the 10th we went to the park in the afternoon since we had Kai's physical in the morning and could not make it to playgroup.  Finn scaled right up this 10 foot wall, over it, and then down the other side.  Talk about causing my heart to skip a few beats.  He wants to go to a real rock-climbing gym.  I found a Groupon for a gym that will teach kids to climb, so sometime soon he will go give that a try with his dad.

Friday the 11th we took an adventure to the Colorado Railroad Museum.  It was different than I had expected.  I guess now we can say we've been and we have no need to go back.  The drive was quite long so we played at the kids' area for a while just to unwind first and there was these two older ladies who came in after us and got quite grumpy with me.  Honestly, I've never had anyone be that rude about my children before.  It kind of shook me up for the rest of our visit.

Here's Kai with some of the model trains.

A Galloping Goose

A really neat model train village outside.  It wasn't running unfortunately.

Posing outside one of the cars you could explore

It was impossible to get the boys to pose for a picture.  Either Kai didn't look at the camera or Finn had his shirt in his mouth.  Ahhhhh!

Playing inside the model train in the museum.  This was the beginning of the end.  Finn was tired and grumpy and threw a massive fit.  It was embarrassing.  We eventually left and stopped at Sonic for treats on the way home.  It took us nearly two hours to make the drive back to our house.  

Ice Skating for the first time on July 14th--Kai's first few tentative steps

Finn took off with a new found friend, Reese.  She is Kai's age but was so sweet with Finn.

getting more confident

The library program on the 8th was a professional magician.  He was a lot of fun and the boys enjoyed his 45 minute show.  Bree wouldn't sit still for it and so I have no pictures.  The program on the 15th was called Cathy's Critters.  Here Kai is sitting with his t-ball friend Sawyer and watching a hedgehog run around with a toilet paper roll on his head.

Friday the 18th we went up to the Denver Zoo.  Here is Kai and Sawyer with a polar bear!

Finn posing

Bree checking out a turtle.  This is before she got horribly sick and threw up EVERYTHING she had eaten all over herself and her stroller.  She ended up getting a super expensive onesie from the gift shop as a souvenir.

Kai and Sawyer with the biggest turtle I have ever seen

Sawyer (who is about 15 months younger than Kai and 14 months older than Finn), Finn, Jude (just turned three), and Kai in front of the flamingos.

14 Months

**Originally written July 8, 2014**

I can't believe how much Bree's little personality is finally starting to come out.  She's very patient most of the time and often quiet, but once she warms up she is a little charmer and a chatter box.  She has lots of "words", but I'm not sure what they are.  There are very specific non-words/series of sounds for some of the most common things she wants--her milk, her blanket, etc.  When she says them, I know what she is wanting, but she isn't really saying anything.  I don't even know if that makes sense, but that's what is going.

At 13 months she was nursing about 4 times a day.  And then the day Aunt Wendy arrived at our house she stopped cold turkey.  I spent the next few days trying to convince her to resume nursing but she would have nothing to do with it.  She just cried and pushed me away.  So, that was it.  I was admittedly very surprised and definitely not prepared.  But in the long run, this was probably the best way.  I had no idea how I was going to wean her as I had stopped cold turkey with the boys for different reasons, so her stopping herself was definitely helpful.  Of course, then I had to worry about getting more into her throughout the day.  The first couple of weeks there were nights she was waking up hungry but wouldn't take anything and so that got a bit tricky, but of course, everything is a stage and then it sorts itself out.

She sleeps through the night about half of the time now and the other half of the time she is up once or so.  She has also been fantastic about putting herself to sleep.  We have a normal sleep-time routine and sometimes it puts her to sleep and sometimes it doesn't, but if it doesn't just putting her in the crib works well.  I've been very grateful for this--and very spoiled.

She walks and runs everywhere she goes now.  She also nods her head yes (it's totally adorable) and will sometimes repeat something I said.  She loves to be outside and often asks for her shoes to be put on so that she can then head to the door and go out.  She always wants to do what the big kids do and will follow the boys around the house.  She loves to be pushed around the house in her wagon or the ride-on car.  She also loves to do puzzles, put things away where they belong, and just help me with chores in general.  If I'm sorting a basket of clothes she is right there helping me.  She also likes to take the silverware out of the dishwasher and put them in drawer (she actually can't reach it but she will stand under it and stretch and wait for me to come help her).

At the beginning of the month she was just starting to transition to one nap from two and by the end of the month she was successfully taking one good long nap every day (at least two hours, sometimes three or more hours!)  She also cut another tooth this month (upper right lateral incisor) for a total of 6 teeth now.  She still isn't a great eater and isn't a big fan of textures.  She likes just about anything mixed in with yogurt and she will eat bread.  She also tried and liked a chicken nugget for the first time.  Her favorite food is still watermelon (oh, and chocolate).  She isn't a great chewer, though, and she will shove a lot of food in her mouth and then stuff it in her checks like a chipmunk.  Eventually I have to take my finger and clean out her cheeks which makes her sad.  She is getting better at eating, she has just taken her time to do it.  In the meantime, I've been giving her half and half to drink (or whole milk when I run out) to try to keep some weight on her.  She weighs just a bit over 16 pounds.  I'm hoping to get her to 17 pounds by 15 months.  We will see!

Hoping for a ride in her wagon wearing one of Kai's new shirts

Grammy and Papa

Aunt Wendy left Saturday morning, which gave us the weekend to get the house cleaned and ready for our next round of visitors.  Grammy and Papa (Reid's parents) arrived early on Tuesday morning.  They flew into the Denver airport and so the kids and I left early (before Reid even left for work) to pick them up.  It took us a while to figure out the new parking system at the airport (it's been 2 years since we've been up there!) which turned out perfect on the timing as we walked up to baggage claim right as Grammy and Papa retrieved their final bag.  On the way back to our house we stopped in Castle Rock for gas and lunch at Freddy's.  By the time we got home it was after noon.  Wow--what a morning!  We spent the rest of the day recouperating and getting dinner ready, etc.

Wednesday a package from Grammy and Papa arrived at our house.  It containted belated Christmas presents for the boys.  The boys LOVED their firefighter costumes and played in them most of the day (despite the fact that they are little small on them now).  I also got to go grocery shopping with Grammy and without the kids which was a nice break!

Poor Kai had a huge wedgie until we got the straps adjusted on his costume.  It was worse than this picture reflects!

Thursday was just a fun day at home playing and visiting.  In the evening we took a walk over to the water company next door to show off the garden that we love over there and we also pulled out Reid's RC race car and played with it on the driveway.  After that we came in to a treat of "Dirt and Worms".  It has been a long time since I've had that, and it didn't disappoint.  I think we'll be doing that again soon (mainly to use up the gummy worms that I bought).

Kai spent hours sitting on the couch and talking to his Papa.  They both loved it.

Don't mind the ice pack stuck in Kai's hat.  He hit his head that morning and found an easy way to hold it on.

Friday we managed to get everyone in the van and head to CostCo for a bit.  The rest of the day was more visiting and playing at home, which seemed to work best for everyone.  And Saturday and Sunday were just more of the same.

The boys turned boxes into firefighting airplanes.  Reid helped Finn design this one.  They have been loved!  They insisted on doing treatments in them as firefighters one morning.

Monday morning we decided to head to the outlets for a little shopping and lunch before Grammy and Papa took off.  We spent quite a bit of time at the Loft Outlet and I got some fantastic deals on some new summer clothing.  I've been happy with the purchases and am glad that I got to go with Grammy.  We had lunch at Black Eyed Pea (which was a bit of chaos, honestly) and then we finally headed up to the airport to drop them off.  It was a fun visit and we are so glad that they were able to come out to see us and meet Bree for the first time.  The boys love playing with their grandparents and we look forward to hopefully seeing them again soon!

Saying goodbye at the airport

At the last second I realized that we didn't have a picture of Bree and her grandparents.  She is so attached to me right now that she cries when anyone holds her.  Thankfully Papa was a good sport!