Haloween 2008 - Dora and Diego

Friends

There will be several postings today to catch up with what happened in October. Daniel and Rachel are going out as "Dora the Explorer" and "Diego" today. When Daniel first heard that Haloween was coming around, he was excited to be a pirate again. However, when it was explained to him that he didn't have to be the same thing every year, he wanted to be Diego.

Rachel didn't voice an opinion this time, so she became Dora. We don't actually have the Nick Jr. channel at home, so their only exposure to Dora and Diego comes from library books and videos. Still, they're excited. They'll be at Eric's office this afternoon, and then go around to the neighbors this evening.

More updates below.

Love, A.D.R.E

October Update

Friends

With October all but over, it's time to look back at a fun month where we did a lot, but blogged about very little of it.

We briefly mentioned the medieval-themed town fall festival in a previous posting, and here are our brave knights who just completed their training. The swords have been very popular toys ever since and they're nice because you really can't hurt anyone with them.

Then it was Beer Festival time, and the house was a zoo for 4 days. We had 14 people staying here, and both Daniel and Rachel had a blast playing with Zoe and Sean for the weekend. The kids played in the leaves, and ran around the house. Daniel was impressed that Zoe knows how to take pictures herself, and they had fun making pancakes together.

With 10 adults and 4 kids, the little ones got a lot of attention, and really enjoyed that - and the adults had a great time too -> probably the most successful and fun GABF weekend yet.

Immediately following the GABF festivities, we were all going to go on a trip with the Pastas up and around Wyoming, but Eric had to travel for work. So he didn't go, but everyone else did. Rather than try to tell the story again, I'll just cross-link you to the Pasta blog.

Pastas in Colorado Part 1

Beerfest and Friends in Colorado

Kids take a serious bubble bath

Wyoming Trip Part 1

Wyoming Trip Part 2

Wrapping up the trip

The family was back in Colorado by the following Friday, and then Miss Monica came back through Denver. So everyone was busy as bees for the first week that Eric was gone. The second week was a little calmer, and everyone was happy when he got back.

Last week, we drove up north to Miller family farm with the Backers. We'd never been up there before, but they have a lot of different activities for everyone. There were dirt-bike tractor races, a corn maze, the entire cast from the "cars" movie made out of old cars and more. As part of admission, you get to go on a hayride through the fields, stopping to pick vegetables that you can bring home. Rachel was entranced with this carrot, and we ended up with 20-30 lbs of carrots, beets, potatos, Onions, squash and leeks. Soup-time!

And that's skimming over a lot of details - October was a busy and fun month.

Love,

A.D.R.E

Why are you putting me in the trunk?

Friends

Daniel took his first field trip with the playschool group. To get there, one of the other parents helped out by driving there in her oversized SUV with three rows of seats. Daniel ended up in the back row, and so upon being placed there, he proceeded to ask "why are you putting me in the trunk?" and "if I'm here, where do the groceries go?"

ADRE

More fall Fun

Friends

Daniel has a new love, his bicycle.

Now, the original plan was that he was going to get a bike for his 4th birthday in April - eg: after this winter. But then Eric found a guy on craigslist who had two 12" bikes for $25. So he called the guy and agreed to pick up the bikes that evening up in Thornton (about 20 miles north).

To shorten a longish story, Daniel was ecstatic about the deal, so he came along for the ride, and then Hank the jerk didn't show because he sold the bikes to someone else.
Daniel was confused, but not whiny. But still, it's not fair to ask a a 3-year-old to go on a 60 minute drive to get a bike and then it doesn't work out. Luckily it was still possible to get a new one that evening. Daniel jumped right on, and mastered pedalling and braking like he'd been doing it for ever. For the next several days, it was hard to get him off the bike as he zoomed around the cul-de-sac. As part of the deal, the tricycle is now Rachel's - Daniel has no interest in it anymore.

Speaking of Rachel, on the same evening that Daniel got he bicycle, Rachel decided to walk backwards for the first time. She was *very* excited about this, proclaiming "backads! backads!" as she shuffled along backwards. This has been repeated many times since then.

Let's see - what else? Oh yes, in the last post, I promised pictures and video from the day out with Thomas, and while the video isn't all that exciting, if you pay close attention around 35 seconds in, you'll see the gang sitting in the first car. And the inflated guy in the hat is "Sir Topham Hat" for you non-Thomas-literate. I'm sure that meeting him was a great honor.

This posting was almost labeled "the internet sucks" for the combination of the bike fiasco and sumsy-gate. You may remember that Daniel was within a sticker of earning Sumsy the forklift at last post. And when he reached that goal, we discovered that Bob-the-Builder legos are pretty much only available online, and have delivery times of a week or more. So Daniel got to place the order on eBay, but then he wanted to go down to the UPS store immediately to pick up his present - because the "UPS guy" brings everything from the internet. We had to print off a map of the USA and plot Sumsy's progress from New Jersey to Colorado over 4-5 days to resolve this, but ultimately, he was happy when she arrived.



















What else? Well, we went to a high school football game, which was a little too intense for everybody, and the annual fall festival for our local town which was very nice. Rachel decorated a pumpkin, and Daniel had a dragon painted on his arm. There may be pictures of that in future posts.

Starting tomorrow, the house fills with visitors in town for the GABF. Should be fun.

Love, ADRE

Fun in the Fall

Friends

It's been a good couple of weeks since last posting, and there aren't a whole lot of updates, but we do have some.

Yesterday was just gorgeous here, and with that, Daniel and Rachel first helped with yardwork, and then stripped down and played in the water from the sprinklers.

Daniel picked weeds and twigs out of the grass, and Rachel filled her little wagon with these inedible apple-like things that the previous owner must have planted. All in all, a very successful cleanup effort. Rachel was trying to push her wagon through the grass, and having some trouble with that when Daniel went over and said "Rachel, it's hard to push it in the grass, let me help you move it to the sidewalk" (no exaggeration, this is how he speaks these days) and then did so.














He was equally helpful in getting Rachel to try the sprinklers in the series above, but she didn't enjoy it as much....


That quickly passed, and everyone had a great time running, chasing and splashing in the water.

We also went to see Thomas the Train as he came to visit the Denver area, and that was a big hit, like it was last year. Rachel got into the action, calling Thomas a "tain!" and Sir Topham Hat a "guy" - which is the name she has for all of the Little People figures. There may be pictures and video of that later.

Language-wise, Rachel has had a significant burst of energy in the last 2-3 weeks, focused on tying two and three words together to make her point. We get a lot of "Papa Book Cheh!" (Dad, sit in this chair and read a book to me) and she's started to realize that "pease!" (please) gets her better results. When climbing up on a ladder in the first picture of this blog she said "hold on tight". Hard consonants tend to get skipped, but it's getting easier to understand.

Daniel's enjoying school, and has started drawing parallels between going there and Eric going to work. The other day he asked Eric "Do you get to do a drawing before lunch at work?"

Daniel has just about earned his second toy for completing a set of tasks. There's a grid full of stickers on the fridge, and once it's all full, he gets "Sumsy" the forklift from Bob the Builder. He's very excited about this.

Rachel took a trip into the pediatrician because she kept saying "Ear Hurt", but there was nothing wrong. For her trouble she got a flu shot though, and spent the next couple of days a little under the weather. Other than that, we've all been healthy since the last report.

And that's about it for this time around. There may be pictures from Thomas, stay tuned. Otherwise, the next major event around here is the annual "Great American Beer Festival" when we host about 15 friends (many of you who read this regularly) for a long weekend. Should be fun.

Until next time.

A.D.R.E.

August Update for Rachel

Anything YOU can do, I can do better....

Yes, it's true that Rachel is tall for her age, but a careful observer will note that the taller pirate has 3 knees...

In the last month, Rachel has been on all of the same trips as Daniel has, and she's been a great traveller. She had fun playing with Sean, Grandma Babe and the cousins, and has warmed up significantly to Grandpa and Farmor during their visit.

Her vocabulary has just exploded since last time - particularly her ability to string together multiple words - "eat cereal" for example. If you're forced to guess what she wants, she'll shake her head "no" when you get it wrong, and respond with a violent "yes" nod when you figure out what it was she wanted. Most of the time, though - it's clear as day - this is a girl who knows what she wants.

Favorite new words are "Wa-wa" (Water) and "Da-pa" (Diaper). Rachel will now tell us when she has a dirty diaper, and shows interest in sitting on the potty, which offers some hope that we'll be a diaper-free household sooner rather than later.

Rachel has ALWAYS loved the swing more than Daniel did, and there's no adult that can keep up with her demands for "Mo!" (more) pushing. She's also started to demand that she get to "Wok" (walk) rather than ride in the stroller.

All insects are "bee!", all farm animals start off as "cow!" until proven otherwise. She'll now recognize horses/ponies/donkeys as "ho-see!". When reading her favorite books, she will now complete out the sentences or correct you if you read it wrong. Books about Maisy the mouse are particularly popular.

Up in Vail, Rachel got to ride the Pony on a few occasions and thought that was just the best fun, once she got used to it. Lot's of "Mo!" and "Mo Ho-see!" to be had. Daniel also got to ride, even though we didn't include photos of that on his blog.













The pictures above show us at Piney River Ranch (looks fake, doesn't it? It's not), Rachel riding on Pebbles the Pony at Piney, the gang outside the condo in Vail and well - farmor doing what she does best.

Rachel carried this book over to Grandpa, snuggled in, pulled his right arm over her like a seatbelt and demanded "Book-ee". Grandpa thought that was OK....

There's been some teething pains, runny noses and the likes, but other than small things, August was a great month for Rachel.

Hopefully before October....

A.D.R.E

August Update for Daniel

Friends!

What happened to August? It just kind of flew by without any updates at all. And while we have lots to tell, we just never got around to posting it. Hopefully we haven't lost the whole audience over this. There is an RSS feed off this page which would get you alerted when there are updates - might be easier than checking here on a daily basis.

Anyway - we're not a technology blog, we're a diary. So the highlights of August for Daniel first, then Rachel in a separate posting, because frankly after a month of silence, there's just so much to say that it's overwhelming.

Here at the end of August, Daniel started back at playschool. Here he is on the first day, ready to go back. He gets to keep one teacher (Ms. Pam) while also getting a new one (Ms. Julie). By the end of the first week, he'd earned stickers for memorization, so he's on the right track.

Speaking of stickers, in August Daniel earned his way to a new firetruck that he'd really wanted. To do so, he had to earn 5 stickers each in the categories of "Getting himself dressed", "Cleaning up the toys", "being nice to his sister" and "Following instructions". It took him about a week to do so, but he got there, and was pretty proud of his achievement, so we'll be bringing this activity back.

Ah yes - Houston. Easily the most exciting thing that happened this month. Around the middle of the month, Anida and the kids went down to Houston to visit Grandma Babe, the Aunts, the Cousins and the Pastas for 5 days while Eric stayed back home. The trip there was uneventful, and Daniel was very helpful in the airport and on the plane. Visiting the Pastas was nice, with a trip to a waterpark. Daniel got to attend a car race that his cousin Brayden raced in and played with his cousins Kayla and Chloe.


About 45 minutes into the flight back from Houston, Daniel had a fever spike, and with it another seizure. With the medication we've been carrying since the last time, Anida was able to get things under control, but his fever was high enough that the nurse onboard and the medical ground staff recommended that the plane land in Oklahoma City. And so they did - for just long enough to take Daniel (by then aware enough that he noted the firefighters there to help him off the plane) Anida and Rachel off the plane and over to the OU medical center. (which is not nearly as nice as the Denver one -> choose Denver for your emergency room visits if you're offered a chance).

They spent the night and most of the next day there, before getting on a flight home about 24 hours later. The employees of Frontier airlines couldn't have been friendlier, more concerned or accommodating - it was really quite amazing. Kudos to Frontier. Lesson learned from this is to also carry Tylenol suppositories to control fever during a seizure. Had we had those, the landing could have been averted.




























Once back in Denver, Grandpa and Farmor came over for a visit. Everyone was well enough that we continued with the original plan of going up to the mountains. We rented a cabin at Piney River Ranch outside of Vail (also where we got married) and spent 4 days relaxing with a little bit of rowing, pony-riding, hiking, moosewatching and general outdoorsiness going on. Was a great time.

Daniel is still amazingly quick with language, picking up little snippets of conversation and using them himself. (this is good AND bad). He's just a bright kid all around. His appetite almost always seems smaller than it ought to be, but he's still active and no kid ever starved themselves, so everyone tells us to relax.

We've seen some whining/sniveling/"No" behavior in the last month or so. Nothing unusual, just atypical for Daniel. It hasn't really lasted long, and as long as he gets a nap in the afternoon, he's a charmer most of the time. He doesn't always get along with his sister (inevitably he wants to play with the toy she has, or doesn't want to share the one he has), but he truly loves her - if she's crying for some reason, he'll go over to her, give her a hug and try to make her feel better.

And so, while August came and went without a posting, it's not like we're giving up on the blog. Hope you haven't either. Best wishes.

A.D.R.E.