Easter Eggs

This morning LT, Papa and I dyed Easter eggs. He was really good about putting the eggs in and not making too big of a mess, but the best part was putting stickers on the eggs!

Swetsville Zoo

I have very fond childhood memories of visiting the Swetsville Zoo in Fort Collins. It is a "zoo" made up of 160 animals made out of old car parts, machinary and old metal pieces, just off of I-25 in Fort Collins. Last weekend, my aunt, uncle and two cousins were in Fort Collins and so Papa, Grandma, Uncle Steve, Aunt Madeleine and our family headed up there for the day and night. I couldn't help but want to take LT to one of my fondest childhood memories. However, Papa read in the paper a few weeks ago that the Swetsville zoo is being torn down and redeveloped. Apparently the owner can't take care of it anymore and his son isn't willing, or can't either. Luckily, we were able to take LT for one last visit before the place is just history.
I thought LT would like it, but I had no idea how much he would love it!
When we walked in, LT immediately got on the bench with this character to have a little conversation.

Some of the animals were so big, he was a little unsure of them, but still quite excited and never frightened.
LT was so fast at trying to get to the next "amal" that we had a hard time keeping up!

He ran around pointing and saying, "mo amals, mo amals".
After the zoo, we headed to a little Tex-Mex restaurant with the extended family. Unfortunately, Brian spent about 2 hours chasing the little guy around and wasn't able to take any pictures. LT did manage to scarf down quite a bit of "beans, rice and CHICKEN (what he calls tofu or really anything that goes with beans and rice)"Brian and I were slightly nervous about how LT would sleep in a hotel room, but he did surprisingly well. We got back from dinner, put on his jammies and he pointed to the bed and said, "books, night nights", read his book, laid down and fell sound asleep. That was the last we heard of him until the morning (well, except for the yelling of "cookies" in his sleep!) It was a very successful trip.

First Tracks

Yesterday LT went sledding at Jefferson park with some of his little friends. Left to right above is LT, Sofia, Dylan, and Z.


LT's sled was a big hit with the boys and lots of exercise for the parents.

But then Dylan (who's mom is a former pro skier and dad works for one of the major ski rags) suggested that maybe we should take it up a notch and offered to let us borrow his ski gear.

LT thought, "hey, why not?"

So Kari strapped on the boots...

and she was nice enough to let me take LT on his first ever ski run.

He was laughing and smiling the whole way!


Kari took a video of us on run #2 but let's just say it wasn't her finest work - it bounced around so much that it nearly made me sick watching it. We switched for the third run and I managed to get some video that, while not great, is at least watchable. He still had fun but three runs seemed to be the limit and at the end of the video you can her LT say, "off, off" to announce that he was done with the skis for a while.

Z was next up on the skis and you can see that he enjoyed himself as well.
Apres ski activities included making a big snow man.

Admiring the snow man.

'Cooking' with snow.

And admiring the snow man some more.

At one point LT wondered over to the skis all by himself and tried to clip in wearing only his shoes.
So Ben (Dylan's dad) was kind enough to gear LT up for the second time.

And help him get in a little more vertical for the day.

Books

LT loves his books and "weed boooks" might be the second most common phrase in the house after, "up pees." Well, maybe it's the third after, "Damn it Bowen! NO!"

Every night before bed we read at least a few books in his the rocking chair.

And he's not shy about asking for more books from the bookshelf.

'helping'

LT likes to help out with certain chores around the house. Sweeping is one of his favorite as is filling up the dogs' water dish. Kari sometimes uses the coffee pot to fill the dogs water and apparently LT has been paying attention.

He's also very independent (wonder where he got that?) and he has a stool that he uses to get to things that are out of his reach. The other day I watched him take his stool into the kitchen and climb up and get the coffee pot off of the counter. By the time I'd gotten the camera he'd made his way into the the bathroom and was using the stool to try and reach the sink to fill the pot up. He is independent, like I said, but apparently he's also results oriented because when he realized he wasn't going to be able to fill it up himself, he looked to me for help (pictured above). And how can you say no to that face?

So I helped him fill it up and then let him carry it across the hall to the dog bowls where he made a good effort at pouring it into the dish.

A little water in the dog bowl, a little water on the floor, and a lot of water on the kid.

Elmo & Do Do

LT loves Sesame Street. Loves it. He calls it "Elmo & Do Do" for his two favorite characters, Elmo and Big Bird (somehow all birds have come to be known as "do do's"). Kari got him a little Sesame Street outfit the other day - a shirt with some of the characters on it and some matching shorts. That night I was getting him ready for bed when he saw the shirt and started saying, "on, on, on" over and over until I let him wear it to bed over the top of his full body PJ's. He was pretty styling in his outfit and, as you can see from the pictures, he was pretty happy about it. Unfortunately for him, he seems to have picked up my sense of fashion.

St. Paddy's Day Parade

Kari is working today which means LT and I were left to our own devices again. We decided to head downtown to see the St. Paddy's Parade. In an attempt to avoid the crowds, we parked over on Little Raven St. and walked the short ways into lower downtown. We crossed the pedestrian bridge next to a group of girls, probably in their mid or early 20's, who were discussing the merits of "day drinking" at the same time LT and I were talking about the different baaboses (dogs) we saw. I suddenly felt very old but not necessarily remiss that I wasn't going to be taking part in the day drinking myself. There seemed to be three distinct groups of people at the parade today - 1) people with their kids, 2) drunk people, and 3) people who were working towards being in group #2. Group #1 was probably the majority (it was still before noon) and I was quite content to be in that group myself.

First stop was Union Station but we didn't find anyone we knew so we kept moving.

A sign of the times?

Though the miracle of modern communication technology I managed to find Peter & Amelia as well as Eric & Joss among the sea of white people wearing green.

Joss had some beads and I asked her if her dad had had to do anything degrading to get the beads for her and she politely but earnestly responded, "yes."

We spent most of our time at the parade just outside the Celtic Tavern which is where, two and a half years ago over a scotch and a cigar, Eric and I first shared with one another the news of our impending fatherhood.

D NOTE

There's a bar called D Note in Olde Town Arvada that usually has live music for adults but on Sunday's they reserve the place for few hours for the little ones. They put out a bunch of toy instruments and play music and you can pretty much let your kid loose on the place. Oh, and they also have great pizza and serve beer too, which is nice.

I only work at the office a couple days a week and that limited schedule must give me the strength to tolerate these people on the weekends. Or maybe it's that it gives them the strength to tolerate me? Some questions are best left unanswered. Anyway, these are some guys I work with. On the left is Peter and his daughter Amelia. In the back is Craig and, from back to front, are #2, #1 and #3 as he and his wife affectionately refer to their three children.

Craig and his wife Altaira are constantly painting a picture of their kids as a triple-threat menace to society. Other than the fact that the little ones outnumber the adults in the house, they seem like pretty good kids whenever I see 'em. The cute little guy above goes by the nickname "Wrecking Ball."
Straight up menace.

Between this and the xylophone maybe I should have a little chat with LT about the kinds of instruments that might help him with the ladies later in life.

That's a little more like it.

LT wanted to push the buttons on the ATM machine and I thought it'd be cute to stick a dollar in it and let LT think he was getting the money out.

And it was cute but he liked it so much that he wouldn't leave the ATM and he kept wanting to get 'mooore, mooore' money out of the machine. We'll have to have a little talk about how that actually works that he gets older.