Bear Creek Walk

We got out to enjoy a beautiful, fall day.
And, later, Olivia had her first egg (yolks).

Happy Hump Day

We didn't do anything special today, so I thought we'd better document it.

Mr. Boots

As in Bossy Boots. Our little Zach barks orders right and left. I guess maybe we need to work on the delivery of our requests…

A minute ago, I was told, "Don't put dat [pen] in yoh mowf. On-LY FOOD."

Sorry Olivia!

I can't figure out how to change the picture on our profile, so poor little Livia isn't in the family portrait. Any tips, readers?

Lil Punkins

Zach and Olivia both love playing with trucks. The hobby horse is another favorite for both of them!

Zach and Ella
This year's "My Little Pumpkin" (Remember the first one?)

Halloween's Approaching

Zach is obsessed with frogs, so we're okay with letting him wear the same costume again! It just barely fits.
Olivia's going to start the tradition of being a cat every year...maybe! Her suit is a little big, so maybe Little Lesinski could borrow it next year too!

What a Help-ler!

For the MN Fans

I like the little nose squinch!

"Take Me Out to the Ball Game"

Zach's a performer!

And if you haven't had enough, click HERE .

Olivia's First Tooth

Olivia's first tooth came in the day after the PA at our pediatrician's office told us we could probably expect her teeth to come in near when Zach's did (9.5 mos.). I tried to get a few shots of the new tooth, and got a few sad and cute faces too.

MN 8/22

The forecast was for only "partly cloudy" so we made plans to do a belated birthday celebration for Laura at the lake. Before we left, Zach got a little front-loader time in.

He negotiated in the car, saying he was going to nap so he could have his "pah-sih-uh." He still held his book, though upside down, and eventually gave up the pah-sih-uh when there was too much temptation to look around.

We met Marie and Carlton and Lois for birthday BBQ and cake, frosted (and taste-tested) by Zach. Yum! The weather held, and even cleared up, so we swam, fished, dug, and frolicked.

Zach missed his nap, had a pillow fight with Carlton, and spent some QT in the nude. Olivia charmed with her smiles and even took her first dip in Sugar Lake without any tears.

SO glad we got a day in! Needless to say, both kids zonked on the ride home.

MN 8/21

After Olivia's morning nap we packed up for a trip to the Mall of America's theme park. Lunch was on the agenda, but a little java was all we got until after the rides.

Olivia took it all in from the stroller. Zach did his best to take it all in on foot. The joint is SO BIG, he barely skimmed the surface.

We did manage to ride the "big rigs," a mini roller coaster, and the Red Baron ride. No amusement park visit is complete without a funnel cake, so we partook in one. It was perfect to share with Auntie Laura and Zach.

On our way out, we bought a few postcards and Minnesot-ah items and thought we dropped Olivia's toy (pictured below, probably in her mouth). I left Laura with the kids and hustled back from the car to retrace our steps. My hustle and some wet floors led to a bit of embarassment when I did a full-on slide into the elevator. Yes, a family of 6 was waiting to board the elevator as I ran and fell in front of them. I was too embarassed to call myself "safe!"

Of course the toy was in Olivia's carseat.

Lucky Laura and Chris's kid will have a wonderful time at the park up the street. Zach loved it!

MN - 8/21 Zach at Mall of America

With all the rain we got during our visit, we spent a good deal of time indoors. On Tuesday, we went to the Mall of America to ride some rides. Zach was thrilled with all the activity. Click on the title to see a YouTube clip.

(And please forgive the loud lady next to us while Zach rode the airplane. Her Zach wasn't operating the craft accurately, and she had a runnning commentary the entire ride.)

MN 8/19

Sunday morning, we hosted an impromptu brunch for the Smith relatives. Uncle David and Aunt Wendy were in town to pick up Uncle Jonathan who blew in from CA on Saturday. I don't remember the last time I saw him, so that was fun - especially after a frappacino brought him up to speed. Emily had returned from a work trip to Reno Saturday night too, and Margaret had just moved in with Em and Ellison, so it was a big weekend. Susie was also able to come over for the brunch. And later in the afternoon Jody, Orie and Barb joined us as well. Zach busily entertained the group and Olivia smiled and snuck a nap in when she was able to wriggle free of all the hugs. We enjoyed an evening stroll by the "act-uh-vay-tuh."

MN 8/18

Auntie Laura's BIRTHDAY! It was a rainy one, so we cancelled our scheduled trip to the lake. Instead, we played with Uncle Chris' Hot Wheels set and rolled around under the play gym. Some of us, anyway.

Uncle Chris braved the detours to the 35W detours to pick up Laura's birthday cake, which was a smaller version of their wedding cake. Yum!

We made a trip to Target to get fondue makings for birthday dinner and Skyped Nana and Pop. Yay! Zach fed Nana some crackers, and she yummed them right up.

It was a little too much indoor time for Zach, so we worked off some energy with a walk in the rain. Much to our (one of us, anyway) delight, we found an "act-ih-vay-tuh" up the road. What a thrill! After a little driveway fishing, the kids went to bed, and the adults enjoyed birthday fondue and cake!

MN 8/17

We made it! I flew the kids to MN all by myself. :) Olivia was on my lap, and Zach had his own window seat. He was very good. And Olivia screamed only for the first 20 minutes. It was her naptime, so it wasn't her fault; she slept and woke all smiley. We touched down at about Zach's naptime, having not had lunch, so we did a McDonald's run. It was just like the old days of Nana bringing Auntie Laura and me home for home leave and meeting all the relatives at McDonalds - though we didn't meet anyone for our impromptu-stuff-some-calories-in lunch. We had toyed with the idea of napping then heading out to the lake, but with the late naps, we decided not to try to scramble to get out the door. Good thing because it turned out to be a wet, cold weekend. Instead we had dinner with Uncle Chris and Zach got introduced to the Hot Wheels set.

Olivia's 6 Months Old!

Olivia had her 6 month weight check today, and weighed in at 14 pounds 6 ounces. That was one ounce less than two weeks ago, so the nurse suggested a new meal plan to get her some more calories. Today she got carrots! They went down pretty well, both at lunch and dinner. We took a few 6th month pictures, and by the end, the model wasn't too happy. But we got a few cute ones. Of course Zach needed to get in on the action too. Little Pies.

Click on the title to see more.

Steamboat Shots

A few photos from Steamboat.

Everything goes in the mouth.

Grandpa's pretty funny!

Nap in the grass.

"Zach-a-doo" Cute cousins, reading
Family Portrait
The fish

Can you see the little horns?

Wallaces in Steamboat Springs

Oh boy! There are more than a few pictures of our adventure at Dry Creek Ranch in Steamboat August 4th to the 11th. (It's kind of like a game of Where's Waldo...see if you can find Kjirsten...I promise I was there, just usually behind the camera.)

We decided to enjoy Colorado's summer weather with the Wallaces instead of doing our every-other-year-Christmas at Christmas time. Grandma and Grandpa Wallace drove down from Montana, the Ives drove up from the Springs, and we came from Lakewood. Our 2.5-3 hour drive took longer because we had to stop to feed Little LaLa and run Little Zach. One malt and a trip to the quick stop later, we were back on the road from Kremmling and drove in 2 hours after Tom and Marty arrived, at 4:15pm. The Ives were busy exploring all the County Road 14s: 14a, 14f, .... We all convened for dinner, though, and set up our rooms.

Unfortunately, once the kids were settled into the loft beds, they found evidence of the cabin's permanent dwellers, furry creatures with long tails and sniffy noses and big black eyes...the MICE. So, we did a bed shuffle, and a major cleaning session the next day and got on with the vacation.

Swimming and fishing and poker and walks and wildlife viewing and s'mores and couch time and baseball and rocket launching and a few photo sessions accounted for some of our time. We also snoozed, played, danced, read, cooked, and ate and ate and ate, and some worked off the calories with more strenuous walks and bikerides. And some more photos.

Click the title for lots-o-pics. (OOPS! I just realized the photo link was missing originally. If you care to peruse hundreds of photos, click on the title now. And, forever after, if the title is underlined, there are more photos to view!)

8/2/07 Our Morning

Our morning:
- Olivia woke and ate at 7:30 and went back to sleep. Yay!
- Zach woke at about 8:30 and started yelling, Mama. Oh, Mama. So I got him, and we came down for pancakes and to check the news on the Mpls bridge.
- I woke Olivia at 9:42…what was I thinking?? I fed her and brought her down to sit in the Bumbo while I checked email. She’s learned to arch her back sideways so that I’m worried she’ll arch out of the chair soon. We’ll have to watch her closely. Now she’s safely wiggling on the floor with a rattle, squeaking. Hopefully the squeaking phase will end before our flight to MSP.
- We’ll go to the park to meet a friend who has a baby girl one week younger than Olivia. Aliza will bring lunch. Yum. But I need to make Zach’s lunch. Oops, better get on it.

"Trwain" Museum

For months, Zach has been telling anyone who asked what he did that day, "I goh at dah trwain museem." So, we figured it was probably time to make a teller-of-the-truth out of him. Click on the title for many more shots.




Olivia was more impressed with the flowers in the dirt pile that used to be our garden.

Baby in the Mirror

Look who Olivia met today?

Breckenridge 100 Weekend

Scott competed in the Breckenridge 100 http://www.warriorscycling.com/home/news.php. Above, he's returning from Loop 1. This was Scott's 4th 100-mile mountain bike ride (why do people say, "thank you, sir. May I have another?" to that type of torture?), and unfortunately this time the mountain won. But Scott completed 2 of the 3 laps and climbed over 6,000 vertical feet and saw some amazing riding, and only had one serious fall of his own. He'll be back, don't you worry.

The girls at the picnic.
Zach's first fishing outing, the Blue River. He caught a fish with every cast! But we had ice cream, not fish, for dessert.

Click on the title for all 150 pics...

A Mug

One of my favorite mugs.

Here's La Livia after her second meal of rice cereal. For even more shots of this and other mugs, click on the title.

Eat, Play, Love

Playing on the (potential book club book selection?) title Eat, Pray, Love, the kids and I went up to Ella's house for an Eat (watermelon, cherries, and popsicles), Play (colorful, new wading pool and Ella's toys!), Love (what are friends for?) afternoon.

Theresa got it right, saying our afternoon's activities are pretty much what being a kid in summer is all about.

Stay Tuned

We're way behind on this darn blog, so I'm going to make an effort to do some catch-up. Because there are random posts on here from the last few months, those of you who care may want to check back into the history (like to January) to see the "new" stuff, as it will be filed chronologically (late).

I don't remember how I got there, but I ended up on a cool blog today with a fun quote that I hope will inspire me to be a better chronicler of our story:

"This packrat has learned that what the next generation will value most is not what we owned, but the evidence of who we were and the tales of how we loved. In the end, it's the family stories that are worth the storage."
-Ellen Goodman, The Boston Globe

Whipper-Snappers

Ella and Theresa came over for whipped cream, I mean dinner, one night when the Dads had other work-ful commitments.

Our neighbors commented, first, that it was so cute how fast Zach left their porch when he saw Ella bound out onto our lawn. And, second, that Theresa and I could have been sisters. That's the second time I've heard that. (A couple of other times we've confused people around the neighborhood who think we've just seen them, but it was the other redhead with a toddler...)

Olivia hung out for a while with us, then hung out of her crib. Zzzzzz....

Touch-A-Truck

Click the title for more pictures of Zach in heaven at Touch-A-Truck on Saturday!

Vrooom, vroom! WEEEEEE-oooooo-WEEEE-ooooo! Beep, beep, beep, beep!

Again...I never would have thought I'd have learned so much about trucks.

"It's amost officially SUMMER!!!!!"

Dinner on the Porch

Forgive the self portrait. It's just that somtimes you might wonder if I'm still around, since I take all the pictures.

Click on the title for the videos.

Livia's swinging

Click on the title to watch a video. :)

Shameless Self-Promotion

Some of you know I had been working on a children's activity book (huh, what is that exactly?*) with my friend and neighbor, Theresa. She's an editor for a company out of Flagstaff, AZ, and had approached me about helping them out. Long story short, a year later, The Great Colorado Activity Book (click posting title for info) is now in stores in Colorado, and available online at various sites, B&N.com, Amazon.com, etc.

*This activity book is geared toward kids ages 6-10ish, and offers Colorado-themed mazes, crossword puzzles, word searches, etc. Great for that Colorado road trip. If anyone comes to visit us, I'll give you a copy of the book! And , CO-dwellers, check out your bookstore's children's section for local books; if it's not there, ask them to get it! (No, I won't profit from any sales, but it's fun to see the book in stores!)