Denver Children's Museum

We visited the Denver Children's Museum today and had a lot of fun.  I have a big list of things I'd like to do in the Colorado Springs/Denver area and I realized we've got to get cracking!  We've had nice weather and decided to head up to Denver and check out the Children's Museum there.  Here are Matthew and Anna checking out the cow, "Hopscotch," right outside the museum.

First stop: the fire engine room.  Matthew was super excited to dress up as a fire fighter and wasted no time climbing up into the driver's seat.

He wanted to push all the buttons and levers on the fire truck too.

 He got Anna to help him hold the hose and pretend to put out some fires.

Anna didn't want to dress up at first, but eventually wanted to try it.

Anna still has a few cuts on her face from a fall she took a few days ago.  She was running with her hands in her pockets when we went to pick up Matthew from school and tripped.  Poor Anna!!  But she's recovering nicely. 

Grant had a great time in the little one's area.  It was divided by age group.  Grant hung out in the "creepers and crawlers" section where he got to crawl over all kinds of fun things.  He even made a friend who was one day younger than him.  He had a great time!

 Matthew and Anna went to the bigger kid area of the small kids area.  Matthew had to wear a special apron (the same color as his shirt) since this area was for kids 4 and under.  He was too big by a couple weeks.  :)

Matthew made a rubbing of his name.

We went to the "Assembly Plant" where the kids could build things using different recyclable materials and special directions.  Matthew made a sailboat and Anna made a lunch box.

Anna had a lot of fun playing in the pretend market.  It was pretty cool except there was a big bottle neck at the checkout stand.  Anna spent a lot of time in there doing the grocery shopping.  :)

Here are Anna and Grant checking out the train room.

We had a lot of fun in another room all about animals that live underground or fly over head.  Anna dressed up as a worm.

Matthew dressed up as a duck (or some other bird) and had a fun time climbing through all the little tunnels.

 Anna dressed up as a duck too after Matthew made it look so fun.

 Be free wild ducks!

Grant was pretty good for our museum adventures.  He only got fussy a few times.

 He "helped" dad assemble a puzzle while the kids played.  Good job Grant.

Matthew loved the bubble room (I didn't get any pictures - bubble hands!) and he also loved the "3, 2, 1...Blast Off" room where he got to make paper rockets and launch them into space.  Anna had a fun time here too and her rockets flew super far, which she was very proud of.

 Here's Matthew getting ready to launch.

 Matthew also made a parachute and got to test it on different wind machines they had there.

 Anna and Matthew both had fun painting.

Here's Scott carrying all the kids creations!  They made so many things!  The museum was very hands on, which is good!

At the dress up and dance area.

Anna tried on the tap shoes but she was mad that none of the dress up clothes fit her (she is still pretty small).  She was getting very tired by this point in our trip.

Matthew dressed up as a tap dancing wizard.  Then he said, "I just want to dance."  So dance he did!  I know at some point he may feel like he's too cool to do something like that, and I'm glad he still feels gloriously uninhibited.  Hooray for being a kid!  Matthew is always ready to initiate a dance party at home!  :)

Our last stop was the Vet room where the kids could pretend to be veterinarians and take care of little stuffed dogs and cats.  It was a very cute set up.  My kids love playing doctor at home, so they thought this was great.  They gave shots, listened to heart beats, put on bandages and looked at X-rays.  Matthew assured me this cat was going to be ok.  When he gave the shot he said very seriously, "this is going to hurt a little bit."

Anna's maternal qualities and desire to be in charge lend itself well to being the doctor when we play pretend, so she was excited to be the vet too.  She likes to make Matthew be the nurse at home, sometimes.  Matthew, who likes to get along, agrees to this if he can be the doctor later.  :)  Anna had a great time examining her different patients.  Here she is giving another cat a shot.  Luckily all the animals made it!

After the museum we had a few snacks and played at a park right outside before starting the drive down to Colorado Springs.  We liked this fish head rock at the play area.

And here's Matthew bravely climbing on the rattlesnake rock.  You can see the rattle sticking up in the background.  Matthew scratched his leg on the rock and told me the big snake bit him. 

And here's Anna on turtle rock.  She got up there but couldn't get down.  She did agree to let me take a few pictures of her before I helped her down.  It was a fun day at the museum.  Matthew said his favorite thing was the bubble room (which, again I didn't get a picture of, but it was cool) and he also liked the rocket room.  Anna said she liked the painting room best.  It was a busy day and I think I was the most exhausted by the time we got home.  I'm glad we got to go.

Grant's Words

Grant is 11 1/2 months old now and he is starting to say a few words.  For a while he's said Dada and Mama, and recently he's added a few new ones to his repertoire: 

Hey or Hi
Hi Dada - Hi Daddy...he also says Hey Dada when he's feeling a bit more casual.  :)
Ni Ni - Night Night
This!  That's his favorite word these days.  He does it when he wants to draw your attention to things, or when he wants something.  "This this this!!"  He crawls around pointing at things saying, "This, THIS!!"
DOW - Down.  I've been trying to teach him "Down" and "More" for eating time to tell me if he's done or wants more.  He sort of says down and says "This" and points for more.  :)
He also can shake his head back and forth for no...usually while fussing.

That's about all he says that's comprehensible, although he loves to jabber and he understands a lot, including the words, "Matthew," "Anna," "Cup" and "No."  And, of course, his own name.  :)
He's a very happy little boy and its fun to see him start talking to us and interacting more.
I'm also happy to report he's sleeping more at night.  We've even had a few nights where he only woke up once in the night and went back to sleep relatively easily, although he usually wakes up twice or three times.  Still it's so much better than it was.  Hooray for sleeping!!

UPDATE:  The day after posting this he said "Baw" when Matthew handed him a ball (he was very excited about getting said "baw") and later on he said "bye bye" or something close to it.  Way to go Grant!

Here's Grant saying "Hey" to his "Dada!"
You can see he's feeling very casual.

The Zoo

 We went to the zoo today and the kids were really excited.  Our first stop was the giraffes.

We got to feed some crackers to the giraffes.  It was only a little bit scary for Anna.  The giraffes were very bold.

Anna didn't want to pose with me.  :)  As is her custom.  I think you can see less than a quarter of Anna's face in this picture, but you can still tell that she's mad.  :)

 The kids make bear faces while we check out the bears.

 A big peacock came up to visit us.

 The kids pretending they're spiders

 And hatching out of eggs!

They had lots of fun kid things to play with and on

Anna loved this tiny door and wanted to walk back (from another part of the zoo) so she could go through the door again and again.

Posing by the bear.  We actually got a real good view of some real grizzly bears...but I didn't get a picture of those.  It was cool though.

 Matthew and the Moose

 Trying out some 4 wheelers

 The kids had fun sitting on them

Later we saw more peacocks (or the same one?).  This one decided to give us a little show.  The kids loved it.  Afterward Anna said seeing the "pigeon" open his big tail was her favorite thing.  :)  She knew it started with a "P."

Matthew liked this statue of a Rocky Mountain goat.  He said this was one of the three billy goats gruff...probably the big one, he said.  He had to act out part of the story too.  He will act it out for you too if you ask him.  He also now does a peacock impression on command.  :)

 Matthew doing an impression of this gorilla.

He looked a little bit angry!

 Anna checking out the orangutans.

 And the komodo dragon

We had a fun day at the zoo.  Everyone liked seeing the peacocks and the giraffes and the hippo.  I didn't get a picture of the hippo, but we got to see one out of the water and being fed.  He was big!  Here the kids pose on some elk or deer statues or something.  Just ignore Scott there.  :)  We also got annual passes to the zoo, which were only a little more than a one day ticket for all of us, so we can go back a lot.  Hooray!  And hooray for a warm day to visit!!

Running in the Sprinklers

We had warm days all this week and spent a lot of time playing in the yard.  Here are some pictures of the kids running through the sprinklers.  Our grass is still so brown...and probably will be for a while.

Our back patio.  In the afternoon we have shade from the house, but in the morning we have no shade and it's kind of miserable.  We just got an umbrella to give us a little shade, so we'll see how that goes this summer.  Also I think I need some plants or something for the back porch.  It looks so sad out there.  Any ideas?

 And more pictures of the kids playing in the sprinklers...fun times.

We had a lot of fun and are looking forward to more warm days ahead.

Happy Birthday Scott!

Scott's birthday was this week and for the first time in a while, he didn't have to work on his birthday.

Last year he had to work a long day, conducting a base inspection, with a broken leg, the year before he had an exercise at work that he had to work (a loong day), the year before that he was in training getting ready to deploy in New Jersey, and the year before that he had to work an exercise on the night shift (working all night) in Okinawa.  So he has had some very busy and unpleasant birthdays.  Poor Scott.  But this year his birthday was on a Saturday and there were no big inspections or exercises (or deployments) going on with work.  So he got to enjoy it a little more.  We went to a play place for a friends birthday party, went to see a movie together and had dinner out.  At dinner Matthew immediately told the waitress that it was Scott's birthday.   Usually we just keep that stuff quiet.  But Matthew spilled the beans, so Scott got sung to and some free ice cream.

 

After dinner we came home and had cake.  I have been having a lot of bad luck making cakes lately.  So poor Scott had to have a very mediocre birthday cake.  The cake turned out very crumbly and the frosting I made was just weird.  I refrigerated it all to try and get it to firm up and that was a mistake.  The whole thing was a crumble mess when we tried to eat it.  The frosting was firm and the cake falling apart.  :(  I left it out of the fridge over night and it actually tasted a lot better the next day...so I don't know.  Back to the cake drawing board I guess.  The kids picked where to put the candles.

Grant helped Scott blow out the candles.  Grant was biding his time before his bath, so had no clothes on.  :)

 The kids helped Scott open his presents.

And Scott got a much needed new computer.  He has had his old computer for about six years.  I actually bought it for him for his birthday six years ago when we were newly married.  That was when I worked and could easily buy a computer without him knowing about it.  It wasn't as much of a surprise this time, but I think he was still happy.  Hooray!!  Happy Birthday Scott.

 

Bonus Picture!!

Here is Scott 6 years ago, in our apartment in Florida, with his then new computer.  We had been married about 4 1/2 months then.  That computer has been to Florida, California, Okinawa, Alabama, New Jersey, Afghanistan and to Colorado...not to mention all the many many work trips Scott has taken it on in between.  It was high time he got a new one! 

Baby News

Here's Anna bouncing her baby on the ball so she will go to sleep.

We had our 20 week ultrasound today.  We had the whole family there with us and I was really excited to find out what we were having.  I had to go to a different hospital to have the ultrasound and I was kind of nervous about finding it and finding a place to park.  Luckily we found it and got there on time.  Grant had to fuss during most of the ultrasound, so I wasn't as focused on looking at the pictures.  I can hardly tell what anything is anyway.  Anyway, our tech told us what we were having without making us wait too long.  And we're having...

 Another BOY!!

If you are keeping track, that makes the boy count 3 and the girl count 1.  The girls are now hopelessly outnumbered.  I think Scott was happy about having another boy.

Anna was excited when she found out and squealed, "ANOTHER BROTHER!"  So I guess she's not too disappointed.  She immediately wanted to start thinking of boy names, but couldn't think of any.  Matthew offered up Sue again.  He offered that for Grant too, but we didn't use it.  :)  I'm thinking this will be good since Grant and the new baby will be so close in age...they can be little buddies.  I hope.  So we're excited to finally know what we're having and to have another boy come into our family.

Warm Weather

Winter in Colorado Springs is not that bad.  The sun comes out nearly every day, when it snows it usually melts within a day or two and cold and snowy days are interspersed with milder days.  That said, I still wish it were spring already.  Or better yet, summer.

We had some warmish weather this week.  Some of it we were too sick to enjoy (we've had a stomach bug going around the family), but Monday we were able to go out and soak up some of our late winter sunshine and warmth.  It got up to 70.  It was so nice and made me even more eager for spring.  Here's Grant playing at the water table.  It was his first time playing with it and he thought it was very interesting.

 Anna helped him catch some little fish toys in the water table.  Then she pretended to grill and eat them.  

 

Grant really tried to eat them.

 Sometimes he'd pick something up that he thought was too wet and throw it back in.

 Anna and Matthew practiced riding bikes and scooters around the small patio in the back.

It's not a very easy place to ride, but they made it work.

Grant's big accomplishment was that he learned to crawl down a step.  I've been trying to show him for a while how to do it, and today he mastered it.  He can do one step.  Don't know about the stairs yet.

Matthew had to get out all the outdoor toys that haven't been seen in a while.  Notice the shorts and short sleeves.

And here's Grant coming back up the steps.  He had a lot of fun exploring the yard since it is all new to him.  I'm hoping we have many more warm days ahead!!

Anna's Baby Obsession

 

Anna has been semi-obsessed with her doll lately.  She wants to take her everywhere and wants to put her in the stroller and push her around at really inconvenient times and places.  Sometimes I let her and sometimes I want to hide the doll and the stroller.  She wants to push the doll in her stroller to school every day when we drop off or pick up Matthew in the cold and snow.   If she leaves the doll in the car and remembers about her at bedtime, she wants me to go out and get her and bring her up to bed.  She wants the doll to swing in Grant's swing and refuses to move her out when I want to put Grant in there.  She wants me to get real yogurt to feed her doll (just like Grant) and is very upset if I tell her to give her pretend food instead.  She's also decided her doll needs to have a real baby shower - not a pretend one.   Accommodating Anna's dolly demands, however sweet or well intentioned, can get laborious.

Once she left the doll in my care while she went to play and was very upset when she returned and found the doll laying on the floor.  I tried to convince her the dolly was having a nice nap, but she didn't buy it.  She knew I had shirked my doll sitting duties.  In my defense I had a real baby who badly needed a diaper change.  :)

I need to cut her some slack, because I do know that all of this started when she found out, a few months ago, that we were going to have another baby!!  She was very excited about having another little brother or sister, and is really very sweet about it.  I'm a little over 18 weeks now, due in August (near Anna's birthday) and Anna has been very excited and telling me often she wants to have a baby sister.  It kind of breaks my heart, since I know it might not be a girl, and she might be in for some disappointment on that score.  But maybe she'll be fine with another brother too.  We have an ultrasound to find out scheduled for next week.  I'd be equally happy with either.  A girl would give Anna a sister and even things out in our family and a boy would be great since Grant and the new baby will be so close in age (16 months apart) that they could be little buddies.  We'll see.

In any case, I've been very tired lately.  From the pregnancy, the sleepless nights (still) with Grant and the many demands of three children...not to mention the baby doll that is demanding more and more of my attention lately.  Maybe we can send the doll on a pretend vacation to Grandma's house for while.  :)  I'd be up for that.

Here's what Grant thinks of the baby doll.
  "That's what you get for sitting in my swing!"  :)