cinco de mayo 2010

we have never been very good about getting downtown for all the festivals and such that go on in denver. it's easier to just stay in our little world in south denver. when i saw an ad for the cinco de mayo festival i decided we needed to make a trip and let our kids see another part of their city. of course there is no connection to guatemala in this holiday but i had hoped there would be some good mexican food. :) we decided to ask our friends, the ellis', to join us. and we thought it would be fun and more convenient to ride the light rail. the kids were thrilled! we put ellory and marin in their cute little guatemalan dresses that daddy bought them.
on the train!

we're almost there!
the festival started at 10am and we got there right about then. there were lots of food vendors-i was a bit disappointed to see the turkey legs and gyros and such. come on! but there were also some great taco stands and we tried the tacos at 3 of them. yum!
the kids got balloons. and kettle corn. we watched some little dancers doing traditional dance in their beautiful dresses. unfortunately, i didn't take any pictures of them.
then we saw all the kid rides. as we went up to each ride we found out that our kids were too little to ride them. this was actually a good thing seeing as the rides cost three and four dollars!! but we finally saw the jumpy house thing and it was "only" two dollars and the kids were tall enough. so away they went. it ended up being a long house and you just went through it and your turn was over. not like the regular houses where the kids just jump and jump. this is paige. she and marin are in preschool together this summer.
see that red wall behind marin? well, the kids were supposed to climb up that wall and then slide down to end the ride. townsend and taylor were the only ones who were actually able to climb it. we ended up having to get the workers to take the girls out via the side of the house.
townsend and his friend, taylor, at the end of the slide.
townsend ran around to the beginning and went through the whole thing again. don't know if he was supposed to but....
it was a fun morning. and good to get out and about in our city for once.

family camping trip #3

well, it's that time of the year again! camping time! time to see if marin can sleep through the night in a tent. in a sleeping bag. i can't say that she slept through the night but she did sleep in her bag and didn't put up too much of a fuss when we made her go to bed. once again, we had the boys tent and the girls tent.the girl's tent is pictured above. the venue was golden gate canyon state park. it was pretty chilly-got down to the teens during the night. probably a bit too cold for fun camping with kids but we did alright.
glad we brought the hats and mittens!
daddy putting up the boy's tent.
as soon as the tents were up daddy made a fire. it was quite chilly!
eating dinner.
and of course, smores!
i found the little camping chairs on craig's list. love them.
big pile of snow at our campsite. with all the snow we received in denver this year, the kids weren't even tempted to go play on the big hill.
time for night-night. here's ellory. she kept wiggling down inside the bag which is an adult one and would wake up crying, "i can't see!" mommy would have to pull her up and get her head out of the top.
here's marin. she also wiggled but instead of down inside the bag i would find her completely out of the bag. not so good when it is below 20 degrees outside!

all in all it was a pretty successful trip. the next morning daddy got up early and got the fire going again. we are so thankful for him!!! we had some oatmeal and then pretty much packed up to head home.

townsend and ellory's first big show

T. and E.'s preschool does a little songfest at the end of the year. both kids knew all the songs. we sing them all the time at home, in the car, etc. we talked about "smiling" and singing loudly. they both assured us that they were excited and ready for the big stage. so the above picture is ellory walking in the sanctuary. yes. i can see the excitement.
and this is what she looked like for the rest of the time. she will wear pants next time. don't worry.
unfortunately, their classes were on opposite sides of the stage so norton and i were running back and forth a bit. norton said he saw townsend open his mouth once or twice.
i guess if you look around, it's not like ellory looked that much different than any other kid. :)
since they attend on two days of the week, they had another songfest. so again we talked and practiced the songs. "oh yes, mommy. we are so excited to sing this time!"
maybe they don't actually know what the word "excited" means. that could have been the problem.
all in all, i am really proud of them. i know that i was absolutely terrified of getting up in front of people as a kid. in my 9 years of piano lessons i managed to only be in 2 recitals. so the fact that they didn't start crying or running off the stage to mommy and daddy says alot. and if i could learn how to put video on this blog, you could see all the singing, dancing and acting that they do all the time for us at home. :)

ellory and bedtime

i guess i should have known it would happen at some point. our little angel, ellory, whom we could just lay down in bed and she would go right to sleep has finally decided that sleep isn't quite as wonderful as it once was. she hasn't tried the old, "i need a glass of water" trick. but that's because we cut her and townsend off of any beverage a couple of hours before bedtime. (it's worked really well to pretty much cut out nighttime accidents.)
no. ellory just wants me to sing extra songs. or give her a million kisses. or hug her again and again. and she clings to me saying, "gotcha!" then she wants an animal that i haven't seen in weeks and have no idea where it would be. she tries crying too. i guess i should be thankful for the hundreds of nights where she went down so easily.
also, she and marin now like to chat after i have closed the door. it used to just be marin doing the talking but now we hear ellory in there too. part of me thinks it's cute. two girls in a room together? of course there will be talking. but then again, i do want them to get their appropriate amount of sleep. we usually let them talk for awhile but if it gets too loud or too long norton stands outside their door and says, "shhhh!" then we hear marin go, "daddy say shhh!" no matter who does the shhshing she always thinks it's daddy. :)

coco? and other marin funnys

for some reason marin has gotten into the habit of calling people "coco." it's kinda funny. she'll see daddy in the morning and say, "hi, coco!" sometimes she calls herself "coco." or me or the other kids. and she seems to have a sense of humor about it all. i think she understands what "teasing" is now.
3 days ago, while daddy was in north carolina with townsend, marin found one of norton's ear plugs. they are the squishy kind. kinda like a nerfball. she started putting it in her mouth and i told her to stop. i turned around and the next thing i knew, marin was standing in front of me with her mouth wide open. smiling. i asked where the earplug was and she pointed to her mouth. of course it wasn't there. i called norton's dad-a doctor and my sister-a nurse. they both said that it wasn't a big deal. it would pass through. but if she didn't have a bowel movement for several days then we might need to call the doctor. well, today was day 3 with no poop. and marin goes every day! i called my sister and we were talking about the situation. i was going to give it until the morning and then call the doctor if nothing appeared. i don't know if marin subliminally understood our converation or what. but when i got off the phone i went to change her diaper and lo and behold, there was the ear plug. :) i thought about taking a picture for the blog and all but decided that even 20 years from now, the kids probably won't want to see that.

townsend funny

townsend uses the regular potty now. he goes all by himself, in fact. for number 1 that's no big deal. however, for number 2 he was regularly going through half a roll of toilet paper per visit. after several cloggings of the toilet i told him to please call for me to wipe him because we couldn't afford the paper or the clogging. he usually does his business during his "quiet time." while the girls are taking their nap. all of the sudden i would hear, "MOMMY! MOMMY! I NEED YOU! I NEED YOU!" and he would continue yelling until i got there. i told him not to yell so loud because i didn't want him to wake up his sisters. he finally settled on the latest tactic. he doesn't cry out over and over anymore. now i just hear, "MOMMY! WIPE-------MY-------BOTTOM!" love him.