marin starts preschool!

well, marin finally started preschool. the other two have been going since before they were even one year old. but for some reason we just never put marin in too. the preschool where townsend and ellory attend has a summer preschool for six weeks. once a week. so we decided to put marin in along with the other two. so for six weeks, every tuesday. from 9:30-1:30. mommy gets four whole hours to herself!!!! but i digress. this post is about marin! she was very very excited to go and be with her brother and sister. we bought her a rolling princess backpack. gran sent her a cute bear lunchkit. and she was ready to go!

this is her classroom. one of her teachers, ms. brandi, was townsend's teacher this past year. i think that made it a nice transition for marin since she was used to seeing brandi all year when we dropped off and picked up townsend.
she's in the puppy class.
i have looked in a little on her during the past three weeks. once she was sitting and doing a craft with ms. brandi and the other times she was just playing. today i asked brandi if marin is ever hyper. like at home. brandi said that they do lots of movement-dancing, singing, playing outside. so marin excels in those areas of course. brandi did say that after lunch the kids are supposed to go sit on the rug and read a book while the teachers clean up. apparently marin doesn't approve of this activity and makes her displeasure known. so brandi told her she could read or go lay on one of the pillows. marin went for the pillow. she has a mind of her own. that's for sure.

our trip to the sonnenfelds

don't get the wrong idea. marin was very excited about going to the mountains to stay with toni and bruce. i think mommy had just told her to quit biting on her big toe. you'll see what i mean in a second.
townsend and ellory just chilled in the back seat while watching some barney during the ride to lake george.
marin has decided that her teeth are good for clipping her toenails. argh!
it was time to take down the flags when we got to the house.
the kids had to help, of course.
don't let the flag touch the ground!!!
the sonnenfelds wonderful house.
lots of fishing poles and nets.
toni and the girls at the lake.
mommy and her girls.
daddy teaching townsend how to fish.
my favorite boys.
toni helped ellory with her pole.
the patient fisherpeople.
bruce and marin. toni and bruce were so awesome with the kids. it made the weekend that much better for norton and me.
i tried to help ellory with the pole but she kept wanting to "do it myself."
toni taught the kids to play, "red light, green light" everytime we went walking.
we took a little hike around the property. it was beautiful. from one side of the house there is an unobstructed view of pikes peak.


climbing the big rock!


relaxing on the porch.
our second try at fishing. this time on a little river. the kids just played with sticks in the mud.
daddy caught a.......stick!

another good marin face. she is so expressive. it cracks us up.

we had such a fun time with bruce and toni. the kids played with the kitchen timers. good thing there were three of them! we kinda tuned out the beeping sounds after awhile. there were also puzzles and some building block type things. and stairs. up and down. up and down. after the kids went to bed each night we played triominoes. bruce won the first night and norton won the second night. and we ate lots of yummy food. just a fun getaway. thank you sonnenfelds!!

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.