Colorado 2013

We're now back in Yuma and all we have to remember the lovely CO weather are these pictures. Lots and lots of pictures.

I was kind of bummed that we didn't make it in time to visit A/U, but maybe next time.  

Papa, Gran, and Uncle Chris, with Molly's new friends, Miles and Nancy (Aunt Stephanie's parents).  Today when we were looking at pictures, Molly said "I remember now. They're Miles and Nancy.  Aunt Stephanie's Mom and Dad." 

This isn't the same fish as above.  I decided you didn't need to see 4 pictures of seemingly identical trout and just picked one.  The first time we visited Cottonwood lake.  Jonny cast Molly's princess fishing pole for her and turned it over to her.  not even a minute later she's claiming to have caught a fish.  We of course think she's full of it or has caught some plants.  We were of course wrong and she caught the first fish of vacation. We kept some of them for dinner.  They were pretty good!

The second day we spent at Cottonwood lake in addition to fishing, we rented a paddle board.  Molly was really into it and tried to hitch a ride with anyone who'd let her on.

This is for Cassie:  Chris is doing an upward facing Dog paddle.

Doing some more fishing with the lucky princess pole.

Maggie's favorite part of vacation was throwing rocks into whatever body of water was available. By the time we left she was demanding "I go walk!" "I throw rocks!"

Why don't we live here?

Poor little chapped up ragamuffin.

Of course at some point, clothes are coming off.

Our place was in walking distance from the river, so we also spent a fair amount of time there.  One day Chris, my dad and Jonny went boogie boarding in a hole.  I ended up being too chicken to do it.

No vacation is complete for Jonny without a conference call.  Here he is trying to put on his wetsuit while talking on the phone.  He almost forgot to put on his life jacket.  Thankfully, Molly wondered out loud why Daddy wasn't wearing the "jacket that makes it so he won't die".

Basically they kicked as hard as they could until the little hole sucked them up and kept them there.  Jonny did take one little trip down river, but he made it out eventually.

I have no idea who this is.  We'll say it's Jonny.

We spent several mornings at the Buena Vista Roastery.  

Molly and Go Go.

The trip was really long (30 hours round trip!) but considering, the girls did pretty good.  Molly could go a couple hours just pretending with her dolls or coloring. I was impressed.  Maggie wasn't always as agreeable, but you can't really blame her.

One last picture:  We're home now, and today we made Gran a birthday cake.  Molly was of course a fantastic helper.

 

Happy Birthday Gran!

Vacation

In honor of Yuma's 118-122 degree weather (depending on who you ask) I thought I should post some pictures from Colorado. I only have what's on my phone right now, so I'll post more later. Right now it's slightly chilly and rainy, so-happy birthday to me!

Because it Colorado, instead of a boring regular park, they have a super cool ropes course and bouldering rocks.  Molly and Maggie showed off their skills

She narrated herself the whole time she walked across.  Offering herself up words of encouragement and clever anecdotes.  "I'm such a great tightrope walker!" 

Maggie at the coffee shop.  It's vacation, no need to take off your PJs

Trying on daddy's shoes.

I went downstairs and she went over and reached for aunt Stephanie. She even let her carry her all the way to the river a couple blocks away.

What you need to take away from all this is sweatshirts.  We're wearing sweatshirts!

Fun summer!

It's no longer warm, it's hot!  We've been trying to stay as cool as possible when we're outside.  They love running around like crazies in the water.

You wouldn't like her when she's angry.

This is my new favorite picture of Maggie.

Yesterday was Molly's 2nd ever dance recital.  She had a lot of fun. She was a mini Madonna and did a little dance to Vogue/Lucky Star.  The vogue poses are pretty funny.

She did really well.  They had 2 performances at 2 and then 7, so it was a really long day for a 4 year old, but she kept it together the whole time.

Grayson and Colbie came too!  Grayson is such a gentleman and even gave her flowers and a card.

Here she is getting her quick dinner (her favorite: b&c from Mr. g's)in before her 7 performance.  Notice how classy she is with her two bows and the flower in the vase(baby food jar).

Speaking of classy:  Maggie loves Perrier. She has started demanding it.  In a sippy of course.

This was one of "those" days.  A joint effort on Maggie and Molly's part. The shitstorm trifecta was completed when Dink tore up all of our bread/snacks from a basket off the kitchen counter. The rug probably needed to be vacuumed anyhow.

This is kind of a milestone.  Maggie (and Molly) went with Granny to get some ice cream.  Maggie would usually be too clingy to go somewhere without Jonny or me but  she was up for it today.  It may have helped that there was ice cream.

Knock Knock

 It's been a couple months and so I'm feeling kind of intimidated about trying to catch up.  I think it's clear that a toddler and a preschooler are just too much for me to handle in addition to documenting their childhoods for them.
I'm just going to start with the most important thing:  Knock Knock Jokes.  Molly has been into them for awhile (she has about 3-4 that she rotates) and now Maggie has mastered one too (sort of).
Anyone familiar with Yo Gabba Gabba (or knock knock jokes) has probably heard this one before, but it's by far the favorite in our house.
 

Knock Knock

Whose there?

Interrupting Cow.

Interup...MOOO!

If you watched the video, I think it's pretty clear what Maggie's favorite part of that joke is.
One thing that has happened in the past couple months is that I have moved into the future and actually own an iPhone now.  Now I'm taking semi blurry pictures on my phone because it's handy, when my camera is not.  Oh-well...most of my childhood pictures are blurry Polaroids.
So here's some cell phone pics
Uncle Ben retired from the Marines after 20 years of service!  Here's Maggie celebrating appropriately at his party with watermelon.

She's just screaming "country club" in this outfit. It's really too much.

Molly did some shopping with Daddy.  In case you were wondering, there is NO lengua in my refrigerator.  Just this lovely picture to remember it by.

We had peaches!  They were pretty good and Maggie was really into picking them.  Even if they weren't ready.  What was really funny though was that Maggie also wanted to do the same thing at our nectarine tree a few weeks later, but since Jonny put up netting to keep the birds out, she just ran around it yelling "peash!, peash!"  Worked well for birds and babies.

I'm pretty sure that they love each other for at least 20 minutes a day.

Maggie has become a decent sleeper.  I won't say "good" because she still gets up at 5, but she's better than she used to be.  You can judge, but crying it out has been part of the reason she's been better.  It wasn't part of my plan, but she was 18 months and still wanted to nurse 3 times a night so I ended up doing it.  I would have stayed with her, but she would hit and scream even if I was there, so I eventually gave up and left.  Anyhow, fast forward to now, she still nurses before bed, but then I put her down by herself to go to sleep.  Lately, after I leave, she has been getting up and going to the white noise maker I have by her crib and instead, playing the cheesy music that it has.  I personally don't think the music is particularly calming, but she's been happily going to sleep with it.  I do have to go and turn it off before I go to bed so that we don't have to listen to it in the monitor all night.

Today my mom called Maggie a "ragamuffin".  She has been known to do a rag DOLL walk as seen in this video, but ragamuffin seems harsh.  She did want to make it clear that she didn't blame Maggie...she blamed me.  I can only assume that she means that Maggie has inherited a disheveled gene from me.

I think these pictures show a different side to her.  She loves dressing up in Molly's princess garb and dancing

Magic!

We have tomatoes!  Maggie is really into Moes.  Every time we get out of the car, she yells "I pick moes!" and trys to run away to the tomatoes.

Maggie Moe.

I have to say I'm kind of loving how idyllic their childhood is looking in this post.  Fresh produce and running around on a huge lawn.  make no mistake, it's punctuated with lots of yelling and too much screen time.

She's SOOO pleased with herself when she gets in Maggie's chair.  Notice she also has her favorite tool: scissors.  She used those recently to give herself a trim.  I had to laugh when she got her "report card" from preschool and they showed that she had not yet mastered scissors.  I guess they didn't notice her new layers, which truthfully, are not that terrible when you consider she's a four year old with safety scissors.

Big news from today:  Molly got a medal!  She participated in the Olympiad for her gymnastics's school today.  She did awesome.

She of course wore it for the rest of the day.  Even though she pretty much only wore her panties for most of the day.

 

I make no promises, but my parents are heading back to Joplin tomorrow, so maybe I'll be better about updating. 

Fair!

Molly went to the fair this past week with her friends Grayson, Colbie and Kate.  This year the kids all had their own agendas so we all found ourselves being dragged in different directions by 4 year olds.  We did have a lot of fun though and she even came home with a couple souvenirs (a new word she pulled out of nowhere, special for the fair)

I can't get over how cute this is.  It should be noted that this was not staged by us.  They just wanted to hold hands.  So freaking cute.

She was adamant that she would be riding the bunny.  I guess while she was riding she was telling Jonny "My bunny is galloping!". Later that night, Jonny and I were cracking up because we watched The Hobbit, and what do you know? There were actually galloping bunnies.

 

I'm leaving out the picture of Jonny in the fun house.  Just like last year, Molly was unable to make it through without him.  Grayson also had some issues and Kate lost her shoes...so it was good he went in.

 

Too much fun!  She was totally passed out before we got home.  Yay for 6:00 bedtime!

One of Maggie's favorite things is trying on clothes.  The size is usually irrelevant.

Here she is with Jonny's shorts

"I lost 65 lbs on Nutri-System!"

Everyday, Maggie runs into the kitchen where I keep the paint brushes and water cup and screams "PAIN! PAIN! PAIN!" I usually let her, but it's usually a huge mess.  It doesn't help when your sister tags you. I suppose writing "Molly" on her back is relatively kind.  I sure in the future she'll become much more creative.