January 2013

Here’s our supermodel playing with Playdoh!  She loves rolling it out with her new rolling pin and cutting it with scissors.  So much fun!

I know I mentioned before that Eliz is very sensitive.  She saw some movies recently that have stuck in her head and have possibly been giving her nightmares.  Usually there are certain scenes that she’ll talk about over and over.  Dumbo’s tail was pulled.  The monkey holds the baby (Lion King).  "Sharks! Go home fishies” (Little Mermaid).  She saw Bambi, and although she doesn’t talk about specific scenes, I know it scared her.  She loved the whale at the end of Ice Age Continental Drift because he saves everyone.  “That’s ok Mommy, the whale will help.” and so on and so on.  Unfortunately she loves movies and TV in general, and it does become a good babysitter, and when we’re all sick it is nice for us to just sit down for awhile, too.  I’m just disappointed that so many Disney movies end up being scarier when seeing it through the eyes of a 2-year old than we remembered watching it before she was born!

Elizabeth and I finally got over to Standley Lake for a walk.  Just a few short blocks away so it is amazing that this was the first time her and I walked over from the new house.  It can get pretty windy here at the big lake, so we were all bundled up.

I’m loving my crabapple tree in the back yard.  It has been attracting lots of squirrels and birds of all kinds.  But I was really excited to put another checkmark in my book for this Cedar Waxwing.  (Then in February I had a tree full of these beautiful birds!)  We see lots of sparrows, chickadees, robins, blue jays, doves, northern flickers and just one woodpecker so far.  I’m actually surprised there are any crabapples left at all…but hopefully they’ll have enough to keep them full thru the rest of the winter.

Elizabeth has been gifted so many items that we have found in our Florida boxes.  Mostly stuffed animals from my childhood or little chotchkies that we collected, but she loves “Daddy’s Car”.  That’s the Orange Element matchbox we got years ago that, well, looks just like Daddy’s car.  So at Christmas time when I walked into a store and saw an endcap filled with matchboxes (or Hot Wheels, whatever they’re called) and saw right away this Motorhome I just had to buy it for her.  Her Motorhome has cool flames down the side and inside there are seats and a bed.  So, I’d tell her stories about Daddy and I traveling in Spirit, our motorhome, with Ele towing behind. 

Then one day as she is in the changing table holding onto her Motorhome and Daddy’s Car she started to tell me a story, and a beautiful story it was.  It starts out with Elizabeth driving and we are all going to the farm to see animals.  Daddy is sitting next to her and Mommy is in the back (sounded good to me!).  Then after that we started talking about all of the different places we were going to travel to and what types of animals we would see when we got there…the ocean, the mountains, the desert, the lake, and so forth.  Oh, it was so fun to see how excited she was, even if she didn’t quite know what the desert was, she still enjoyed our story and our game.  I enjoyed the dream of this story one day becoming a reality and taking our little girl all around this beautiful country to see the things we were talking about…in a motorhome, with our car towing behind.

We went back to the zoo again this month.  One of Elizabeth’s favorite animals is the Hippo.  Last time with Daddy, the hippo was in the water.  Slowly rising and sinking and disappearing, then minutes later to slowly rise again.  This time the hippo was napping on land so she got to see his (or her?) whole body.  She could’ve stayed there at that fence all day just watching that sleeping behemoth.

So, when we went to the carousel, she of course had to ride the…rhinoceros?  Close enough, I don’t think they had a hippo that I saw.

Something every Denverite has to do at least once…go to the Western Stock Show.  So that’s what we’ve been told.  It is an annual three-week long event where they do actually show and sell livestock.  We thought Elizabeth would like to see the animals and in the kid area there is a petting zoo.

Our first attempt to go was aborted due to the backup of traffic that sat on the interstate to get to the show.  That’s how we ended up at the zoo the day before.  Hey, when you promise a 2-year old that she’s going to see animals, you better show them animals!  We thought the petting zoo was very nice – the animals seemed happy and non-stressed.  Elizabeth wasn’t so excited anymore to see the animals.  She was quite scared.  But when even the “little” ones are bigger than you, how can you blame her?

Good thing Andy is taking allergy shots, though.  This place would’ve definitely have hurt him otherwise.  But he fell in love with this little goat who had fallen in love with his shirt.

Elizabeth got to ride on the Choo Choo, too.  It was her first time doing a ride without one of us with her.  Nice to see she enjoyed the train, and I think she even flirted with the other passenger a little bit!  This girl really does like playing with the boys.

She is good at sharing, and had no problems when a little girl wanted to join her on a tire swing at the playground.

Elizabeth is still our lounge queen.  Feet up on her stroller tray, showing off her cowgirl books and reclined back in her stroller.  She enjoyed the long walks from area to area in style.

As expected, she enjoyed the equestrian section.  We watched horses jump in the arena and then she got to sit in a few saddles herself.

The super-large rocking horse wasn’t something she was too excited about, though.

But I thought she looked good on her ribbon-winning jumper.

The stock show was interesting.  We saw cows getting groomed before being showed, we saw sheep being sheared, and so on.  We missed some of the fun kids stuff liked Mutton racing and Stick Horse rodeo, though.  Maybe we’ll go back in a couple of years and do it again.

Elizabeth and I went on another Girls’ Hike.  This time we went to Flat Irons Vista.  It’s close to home, relatively flat with pretty views.  There’s a nice 2-mile loop hike that I thought Elizabeth would enjoy walking.

Funny how whenever I think she wants to “hike” or “walk” I end up carrying her.  One-third of the time she walked, one-third of the time she was in the backpack carrier, and one-third of the time carried in my arms.  Needless to say I was tired and sore the next day…and she still had energy to burn.

On a semi-embarrassing side-note: After our hike Elizabeth started to squat to “pretend pee” (yes, while we were in public) and Andy asked what was going on…I had to admit that she learned that from me after we had to take a potty-stop on the trail during our hike!  Did I tell you that she is mimicking everything we do??

In December Andy and I signed up for the Napa Valley 1/2 Marathon.  We’re joining several friends from Florida (some racing, some not) and then my sister will meet us and watch Eliz as we race.  Perhaps some other California friends will come play, too?  We were pumped up about running and getting fit again…but then Christmas paused our running schedule and then most of this month was a blow-out as we were all sick almost the entire month.  Andy got the flu, Eliz had a cold, I was on Tamiflu, then succumbed to Elizabeth’s, then Eliz started up a cough, and the cycle continued through each of us.  We are sick of being sick…it is now late February and we’re still sharing various colds and illnesses.  I’ve gotten a handful of runs in over the last two months.  My 1/2 marathon training is not going the way I had hoped.

Sometime in early January I started an art project with Elizabeth to make Valentine’s Day cards for Mom Mom and Nana.  We cut out hearts and she painted on them with brushes and finger-painting.  Here’s a video of the artist at work (notice how serious she is?! Ha!)

Anyway, when I mentioned to my sister the day we started she was surprised how early I was doing it.  I gently reminded her that things never went as I scheduled and I knew it would be a project done over a couple of sit-downs.  Eliz doesn’t always want to do crafts when I do…needless to say, I barely got the cards mailed before Valentine’s Day!!  So I’m glad that I started four or five weeks early!

I’m going to try to do the blog a little differently.  I am going to try to write more frequently, in smaller posts.  I had been writing some throughout February.  I’m hoping that if I do it this way I won’t fall so far behind.  We’ll see…  But for now you’ll probably find some February posts intermixed with the bigger Nov, Dec, and this January post.  So you may want to scroll down and see if there’s new ones you want to read.

More pictures on January WebAlbums