Snow Day!!

What else are you supposed to do with an unscheduled day at home but bake cookies? 

Getting Lila truly involved in the cooking process is fairly new, but I'm beyond pleased to report that she's a natural. 

Check out that concentration!

The girls took turns measuring, pouring, mixing....

 

 

And tasting...

 

And then it was time to wear Daddy's shoes.  As one does.

 

 

Perfection...

 

 

For the record, Lila wants nothing to do with chocolate chip cookies once they've been cooked.  Who knew.

Camping, Warrior-Style

(I still have a lot of catching up to do.  This post is yet another attempt at that..)

As you may recall, we had a bit of a camping dry-run in the backyard.  Although nobody actually slept outside (what are we, animals??)  we were pretty sure everybody was ready for the real thing.  And if not, we were only going 10 not-so-brave minutes from the house, so bailing was always an option.

Ava was really excited.  I'm pretty sure it was the promise of s'mores that hooked her, but in any case she couldn't wait to get to the campground.  We packed up TajmaTent (yup, it's that big) and a fairly significant portion of our belongings, and off we went. 

First, up went the tent.  Everybody helped.

Well, sort of...

 

 

The first night was perfect.  We ate, took a walk to the local park, watched a little movie in the tent (don't judge) and fell asleep happy on our air mattresses (again, don't judge).

 

 



Woke up pretty pleased too.

We had some stuff to do during the day, but then it was back to the campground, and the park, where we re-enacted some American Ninja Warrior. (If you haven't seen it, please locate some old episodes.  You get to see a Barbie-sized girl out-Ninja a bunch of dudes.  Totally worth a viewing.)

The second night found Lila and I comfortably at home in our beds, but Ava and Andy stuck it out.  I think overall it speaks well for our future camping prospects.

More to come..

Summer in a Nutshell

Sometimes blogging just seems hard.  I feel like I don't have anything terribly clever to say, or that my pictures aren't quite perfect.  But the bottom line is, it doesn't have to be perfect.  It's the story of my girls, written down for them to someday enjoy.  Sounds pretty perfect to me.

So let's back up a bit, and cover a few things I missed...

Irish Festival in the Park
Our girls love to be outside.  The reason doesn't matter, as long as there's fresh air and room to run.  Add in a little music they can dance to, and it's their idea of heaven.  So the annual Irish Festival is always a must. 

A little break from dancing.

Listening to some tunes, loving on Daddy.

Lunch Fit for a Princess (or two...)
Here's another event we won't be missing anytime soon: Fondue Fairytale at the Melting Pot.  It's a chance dress up, eat great food (well, maybe just the chocolate), and hang out with Disney's finest.

Princess Anna made Ava shy.

"Abra Cadabra - turn this water into chocolate milk!"

 

Cinderella is enchanted.

And a Little Staycation
We are lucky enough to live in a place where the rest of the world likes to vacation, and we're smart enough to take advantage.  At least once a year we book a hotel in Colorado Springs for a bit of R&R.  This year, more than once.  We always hit the Cheyenne Mountain Zoo.

 

Oh, and did I mention that Andy tossed in 26.2 miles straight up and down a mountain during one of our little trips?  Sir, you are my hero.

Watching our Garden Grow
As you probably know, food isn't exactly popular with Big Sister.  So we decided a little gardening was in order.  Food's much more interesting when you grow it yourself, right? 

Andy put together a little garden box, we filled it with dirt, tossed in a few seeds, and hoped for the best.  To be honest we didn't expect much. 

Believe it or not, that silly little box yielded about a million tomatoes.  I'm still kicking myself for not taking any pictures.  I'll do better next year.

*****************************
There was, of course much more, and I'll do my best to get to it.  It feels good to be back.

A little denial, and a big haircut.

It started with the backyard camping photos.  Despite my affection for my baby girl's wispy blonde curls, I could no longer deny one simple fact: Little Sister's hair was a mess.  She was sporting a serious mullet, and it was time to do something about it.  So we hopped in the car and headed for the Jack and Jill hair salon. 

Ava went first, just to show Lila how it's done. 

Then it was Lila's turn.  For the first 2 minutes, she made this face...

 

Then Ava brought her some toys, the sugar from the lollipop kicked in, and we settled into this...

We even got a pretty good smile at one point.

She was very pleased with the final result. 

 



 And they even gave us a sweet little memento to commemorate the occasion.

I'll miss the mullet, but I think I can learn to live with this...



"Seriously, how cute am I??"

Camping, Kid-Style

Camping's awesome.  Campfires, sleeping under the stars, s'mores - what's not to love?  I see plenty of campouts in our family's future.  But despite what some questionable wardrobe choices in my 20's might suggest, I'm no fool; when you've got little kids, a dry-run is in order.  So we tossed out a tent and a couple of camping chairs in the yard, and took the first step in introducing our girls to a night in the great outdoors.

What better way to say, "Hey, this camping thing?  You totally want to try it." than by introducing chocolate and marshmallows into the equation.  And since there was no way I was setting any fires in my backyard, a can of Sterno was the next best thing.

Andy takes his marshmallow-roasting very seriously.

That part was a hit.  Next up, a little bedtime routine.  Story time...

And getting to know our tent.

An offer to actually sleep in the tent was politely refused, but I think we're on the right track.  Next up, a weekend in Chatfield State Park. Wish us luck and stay tuned.

Back in the swing of things.

With everything that's happened this summer this blog has fallen off the radar a bit.  But rest assured, we've been as busy as ever.  Case in point...

Last Saturday we joined a few friends for a day at Heritage Square.  In case you may have forgotten, it's a fabulous miniature amusement part tucked right into the foothills.  Plenty of rides fit for both our girls, along with some halfway decent food made for a pretty nice afternoon.

This next picture is of what is about to be the fastest amusement park attraction Ava's ever been on.  I'm not sure who was more nervous - her or me - but Ollie and Brady were ready to ride, and Ava was not about to be left out. 

I shouldn't have worried.

This thing spun in both directions at what looked to me like a nauseating speed; the kids thought it was awesome.

Lila wasn't thrilled with the spinning rides, but was pretty happy on the whirly-bus.  I only have a picture from the inside so you'll just have to use your imagination about what it actually looked like.

And then we had what I consider a monumental first: Baby's First Pony Ride. Kids and animals can be a pretty unpredictable pairing, so I had no idea what the result of a Lila/Pony combo would be.  Again, all my fears were unfounded.  Little Sister was a natural.

Big Sister, of course, thought it was pretty cool too.

I have lots more to catch up on, but I think this was a pretty good start.  More to come...