Busy Weekend

What happened to the days of weekends passing filled with sleeping till noon, watching movies, and basically doing nothing? An almost 2 year old that is very active has transformed our lives from being lazy to finding any activity that he might consider fun for more than 10 minutes.

Our weekend started on Sunday, we headed to church for a (hopefully) inspirational message. Ethan started fussing as soon as we turned the corner to the street the church is on. He likes Sunday school but hates the part where we leave him there. After a tearful goodbye, he did great. Then, when we got home we went down for a 2 hour nap (yeah for Sunday school, it makes him exhausted!) After nap and some lunch, we headed down to a scarecrow festival in Old Colorado City with Grandma, Papa and Auntie. The scarecrows were ok...

...but the old train cars were better.

...and Auntie is the best

trees are cool too

After the scarecrow exhibit, it was just a walk around Old Colorado City basically, we went to Grandma and Papa's for dinner. I had to leave to get Michael from work, which is something Ethan usually enjoys but he was torn between going with me and playing with Papa in the sandbox, Papa won. He's so crazy at Grandma's when everyone's there, this is him using my belly as a surf board
With the fall starting and winter being just around the corner, I have been gathering ideas for fun indoor toddler activities, one of my friends suggested Focus on the Family. They have a play place for kids that is completely free. On Monday we went to check it out. It's awesome!!! We spent almost 2 hours there! I don' think these pictures do it justice (not just cause they're blurry) and I can't really describe it, but there are all different rooms with different activities.

Before heading downstairs there's a kid sized theater showing the cartoon movie that the whole thing is based on

This room was Ethan's favorite it's for kids aged birth-5 and there's a door so they can't scurry away

This is another movie theater, shaped like a cave, the murals had stars glowing and so did the ceiling

This is a room with dress up clothes so you can put on a play, when you're on stage you can watch yourself on tv. There's a train running along the ceiling, hand puppets and a library.

And last but not least, entering Narnia!

Fall, Take 2

The weather has warmed up significantly and although we took him out to run (which he did, in circles) during the brief cold spell, he is very happy to get back into a normal outdoor play routine.

So he eats dead bushes, come on who doesn't?

There's that cheese that always seems to elude my camera

Not eating, this time, fetching rocks out of the bushes

This very vegetated area we are playing in is actually the landscaped sign at our park, Ethan amused himself for at least 20 minutes in this little area yesterday. It's kind of like how kids like the boxes and wrapping paper more than the presents; we've got the whole park and he wants to play with bushes.

Happy First Day of... Wait, What Happened to Fall?

Today we should be celebrating the first day of Fall/Autumn, whatever you like to call it, but after a wonderful summer, a week that I like to call "Fall Preview" we have now entered Winter. It snowed yesterday!!! Nothing stuck to the ground but the rain was white, no matter how many times Ethan disagreed with me and called it rain, it was snow.

We are definitely not ready for cold weather here in this house. First, there's the thing about not being able to run outside and go to the park whenever we (Ethan) feels like it. Second, hats, who likes them anyways? Third, never mind just hats (although they are the worst) putting on all these stinking clothes is a pain in the butt, plus, then you have to take them all off again when you go inside, silly.
Now that we are officially in Fall, I have been given the unspoken "OK" from my husband to start thinking about Halloween. I had a great idea involving one of Ethan's favorite things, on what to dress him as, but, when I presented the idea he promptly said "No". I gave his almost two year old, creative mind a chance to work and asked him what he would like to be. No here's the thing, he did tell me what he wanted and I am going to attempt to make it myself, I have never done something like this and am not that creative so I am not going to tell you what it is (I hesitated even telling you I was making it) in case it turns into a disaster and he ends up wearing a pair of skeleton pajamas (he'd still be cute). So stay tuned and hopefully you, nor Ethan, will be disappointed.

Par-K

I am way behind, these are from last Monday, we made the trek downtown to visit America the Beautiful Park. It's a great playground with a bonus of train tracks across the street.






We had a great time, it was hotter than I expected and Ethan wouldn't let me change his shirt (it had Lightning McQueen on it) hence his red cheeks. We finally got him into the shirt Auntie got for him (it says Barf Vader) and he seemed more comfortable. He has really enjoyed going to playgrounds lately and likes to test out his climbing and sliding skills. We are at the one down the street at least twice a day, he'll come up to me and say "par-K" and we'll run over. It's a little more difficult when there's a lot of big kids playing tag. He loves to follow them around or try to do what they're doing and that can make me a little nervous.
These pics are from the park right down the street from us (I can't tell you how grateful I am that we bought a house mere seconds walking distance from a park)

Gotta throw in some Milo love

Reaching for a ro-CK ( he really likes to emphasize his k sounds at the end of words)

Action shot! The only way he'll go down the twisty slide is with Mommy or Daddy

I promise its really not that late out, just the flash off the camera made it look pitch black outside

Marshlands

We're definitely starting to feel the beginning of fall here in Colorado. Most days are in the 60's or 70's then we get the afternoon showers and then the temp drops in the evening. Last night after dinner we decided to head over to the park, it had rained earlier but it was still nice enough to go out, plus the park was empty. Ethan could've cared less about the playground, he was all about the swamp like condition of the fields.

And if that's not bad enough...
Yes, he's trying to drink from the puddles, like my dad says, he'd probably survive if we left him out in the wilderness
Even Milo joined in the fun

Maybe not one of the best ideas but boy did he have fun!!

Cheyenne Mountain Zoo

Last weekend, before this Colorado fall weather moved in, we took Grandma L up to the Cheyenne Mountain Zoo. Ethan has gone quite a few times with his other grandparents but we haven't gone as a family since...? I was a bit nervous, Ethan was very drippy from either a cold or teething the day before, but it turned out to be a great trip! He started loosing patients at the very end but we went the opposite way that we normally do so we saw all the good stuff.

Ethan just happened to take his thumb out of his mouth when his grandma was snapping this pick, "thumbs up dude!"

Big horned sheep

A gigantic toad

One of the hippos made her way outside while we were observing

I really can't remember which monkey he weighs as much as, but this scale put him at just over 25 lbs, then Daddy got on and boy did that needle move!

Organutan mommy with her climbing baby, I know the feelingOrangutan looking down at us

The view with the big horned sheep and giraffes

Hummingbird

I took Ethan on the carousel for the first time, he really liked it at first until a few minutes before the end, then he was done. I don't think he understood why we kept passing Daddy and Grandma

Entering My Big Backyard

A giant garden hose

This was his favorite! A big spider web

You can be a big pig too!

Daddy's favorite, the tigers. They were playing the water when we got there

We were getting ready to walk past after the got out when Michael noticed this one right at the fence!! He was so close I think we could've touched him!

I think this is the first time I've actually seen one of the wolves at the zoo, you could see it better from outside the viewing area

This part kind of freaked me out, these are the wallabies and they are not fenced in. I could just imagine Ethan going for its tail like Oscar or Milo and it turning around and kicking him

The zoo keeper had a baby that we got to pet and the one by her feet thinks she's his girlfriend and doesn't leave her alone (he also tries to get frisky when there's no one else there)