Mist

We went to Steve and Madeleine's block party on Saturday. It was really hot and there was a little baby pool as well as a mister to cool everyone off. Adler instantly said, "stip down!" as he proceeded to take off his clothes. LT followed in his little brother's footsteps.
I love seeing them play together so happily!

Making Pizza

Both boys love baking and cooking. I can only blame (or thank) my dad's side of the family for this. I remember my grandma baking yummy treats for our visits. My dad was often baking pies, cinnamon rolls or cookies when I was young. To this day, there is occasionally an applesauce cake or other treats on his counter. Although not as skilled of a baker, I have become addicted as well. While I like baking, its even more enjoyable with my kids and to see the joy (and flour) in their eyes as they partake in the fun. I let them make the pizza dough the other night. A kitchen disaster would be an understatement, but the kids were happy and we had a few edible bites of pizza for dinner. Its especially fun this time of year when they can go out to the garden and pick their toppings for the pizza :)LT decided that the pizza should be Christmas tree shaped.
Probably the highlight of the night was when LT wrapped and wrapped and wrapped the dough around the rolling pin and then ran around the kitchen with it. This might have also been the point where most of our dinner was lost.

Tuck

The boys and I went to the children's consignment store the other day to sell all our old winter clothes. Sitting right in the kids path was a huge fire truck. We had some money in our account from things we've sold and so I told the boys they could get something (Adler wanted a 200$ ride on golf cart, which I have to admit was adorable). They agreed on this fire truck. It desperately needed to be cleaned. Given how much the boys love taking showers and cleaning things, I put both boys with the truck in the shower to get it cleaned before I let them play with it.
Its not technically a ride on toy, but its big and strong enough to hold one of them at a time.

Adler is obsessed with recycling bins and trucks, so it was no surprise that the ladder bucked was immediately a "cycle" for Adler.


LTs numbers are really funny right now, he especially loves 20, 11.
Adler has become a little parrot, repeating everything anyone says, but mostly what his brother says, even the obnoxious sounds LT makes.



And I had to take this video of Adler. For years, I told LT that the ice cream truck was a music truck. My dad bought the boys ice cream from a truck and spilled the beans. Adler's perfect little ears can hear the truck a mile away and he yells, "ICE, ICE!" After the truck passed and I had said no, he said, "book, ice, open" (Bookery Nook is a bookstore that serves ice cream 2 blocks from our house). If I say no to that, he moves on to, "Man, ice, park" (Little Man is another ice cream store not far away and across the street from a park. I should also say that Adler can finish off his ice cream faster than anyone else in our family and then is sad when no one will share with him.

Back to Mud

LT was sad to have missed the Mud exhibit at the Art Museum when he saw pictures of Adler there. I promised him we would go back, and we did. On Tuesday we spent the morning playing with clay at the art museum. LT loved it as much as I thought he would.
The day before I had a lot of work to finish up for a project I have been working on for work. The boys were so sweet and played amazingly well together. They created a restaurant where they cooked pancakes for 2 hours. They served them over and over to each other. LTs pancake making carried over to the art museum. He decided to make a pancake out of his clay. The way he did this was pressing his hands down on the clay, placing his chin on top and hanging out for 20 or more minutes.
Eventually, I'm not sure how he knew, his pancake was finished and he was ready to move on to making a dog on a skateboard.
Civic Center is directly across the street and so we went after the museum to have lunch at the food trucks. I got a 12 inch pizza for the 3 of us to share, or so I thought, I didn't get any. Not a bite. I let them split a cupcake for dessert (Adler ate none). LT ate the bottom part of his half and took the frosting off to make it into a clay ball like he was given at the museum. It was 95 degrees, not the best time to make frosting into a ball, but luckily mom always brings lots of wipes.

Mud

Last week we met my friend Roxanne and her kids Isis and Ambrose at the new Mud exhibit at the Denver Art Museum. LT was up in the mountains so he wasn't able to join us, although I think he would love it.We got there a few minutes early and I let Adler play in the fountains outside the museum. He was soaking wet by the time our friends arrived, so we went shirtless the rest of the morning.
The Mud exhibit has potters wheels and clay with all kinds of tools for the kids to mold and play with. Ambrose spent most of his time putting tools inside each other, it reminded me of something LT might have done at that age.
Adler poked every tool into his clay ball until it was a big spiky ball of tools.
Isis, being almost 6, was able to manipulate the clay into amazing things. Adler and I went across the street afterward to Civic Center Park where they have the food trucks from various Denver restaurants.

Medinas and Campbells

With schools starting soon, we decided to squeeze in a few last playdates with old friends. Adler and I met the Medina girls at the Farmers Market last weekend (LT was in the mountains). I had to take pictures of these three silly kids. Her hair was priceless.
His face was in rare form.
And Sofi, precious in her little glasses and flower bows.
Renee had to go back to work this week (Ofelia goes with her to daycare at her school). Sofi didn't start school until later in the week, which left them needing help with Sofi one day. Happily, we took her in for the day. LT and Sofi get along so well. They literally played all day together, no arguing.
While I put Adler down for his nap, I gave them some books to read to each other. When I came back down, I offered to read Sofi a book, she said, "LT read me that one already". Adorable is the only word to describe them sitting on the couch reading together.
After nap time we went to the basement to play. LT and Sofi created some "emergency" game in which all our emergency cars and trucks were out in a fort helping the emergency. They played this at least 2 hours.

Bike Crashes and fun

We got to watch my friends kids, Phoenix and Tino yesterday while their mom worked. Tino and LT are just weeks apart in age and Phoenix loves taking care of little kids. As Tino and LT dug in dirt and biked around, Phoenix took care of Adler. Tino and Phoenix showed up that morning with their bikes. Within minutes of arriving, they all had their helmets on ready to ride to the park. Its only a few blocks.
Phoenix took Adler over to the side of the park to watch all the construction happening on Tennyson St. LT and Tino continued driving trucks in the sand. After an hour or so at the park, they all started breaking down and saying they were hungry. We began packing up, putting on helmets and getting ready to leave. As I was trying to get LT on his bike, Tino crashed and split his lip and scraped his knee. He's such a tough kid, he cried for a minute, then stood up ready to ride his two wheeler (no training wheels) home. We were on our way. LT can be pretty stubborn and earlier in the day I had showed him Tinos bike, saying that if he learned how to ride a bike with pedals he could go super fast. LT took that as a challenge that he was going to beat everyone on his running bike. He took off as fast as he could from the park and down the block. A few minutes later, crash! He was down, crying and screaming. I pushed Adler as fast as I could to get to LT and as I got close, I let go of the handle on Adlers bike and he crashed too. My two were crying, Phoenix was the only one left not bloody. Eventually we made it home, ate a good snack and decided to move on to toys in the basement.
After lunch, they wanted to go outside, so we went out back. The day before we had a playdate at our house. I had the water table open with dishes to be washed. These four found all the scrubbies and decided they needed to "clean" the whole backyard.
The table was washed really well, but only in places 4 and 6 year olds could reach.
Adler was as happy as can be with all these big kids to follow around.
Despite all the bike crashes earlier, they were determined to convince me to let them bike again. On went the helmets for the rest of the playdate.
Phoenix really wanted me to take a picture of Adler hugging her, this was the best I could do.
Happy crew, helmets on.

Days of summer

Just a couple of pics from my phone this summer.

Adler loves swings of all kinds.

LT has mostly given up his afternoon nap but some long fun summer days wear him out.

high school

I'm not sure where Adler picked up this word and he only said it for a few days. But during those few days he was all about "high school" and luckily I caught it on video.

A night at Papa and Grandmas

The boys have been begging to spend the night at my parents house and somehow the summer has slipped away without that happening until this week. The timing worked out nicely because I had a training call on Tuesday and a lot of work to complete. My parents helped out and watched the boys over there and then we all went out to dinner.
LT had been cranky that day and so I insisted he take a nap. They each have a pull out couch with a sleeping bag over there. I think they are so cute sleeping on their little couches.
LT loves being read to and Papa is one of the better story tellers.
Adler said, "no books, hungy, cheeeios", so he ate cheerios during story time.

Mountains

We went to the mountains last weekend. Bri wanted to play golf at least once this season up there, I had a triathlon in Silverthorne and we wanted to spread Hailie's ashes in a place she loved so dearly.
On Saturday, Brian played golf with his parents and the boys and I met up with my college (and post college) friend. We took the boys to breakfast and then to shop at the outlet mall. Adler was so happy walking across this bridge. The only problem is that the water is exceptionally high this year and moving very rapidly. As usual, he never wants to do the safe thing and this particular day he was trying to scale the railings and wanted to "jump" into the water. We had a little altercation when I insisted that this wasn't a good idea.
LT strolled across watching the fishermen and rapids.
I'm not sure what Adler was doing here, but he reminds me of Frankenstein.
Carissa and I right before the race.
On Saturday night, Brian and I left the boys with his parents and decided to hike a little ways to a clearing to spread Hailie's ashes. As we were leaving, LT ran up the stairs yelling, "there's a HUGE mess downstairs!" I blew it off as just a normal mess the boys can make and we left anyway. When we returned, Barbara was laughing and told us about the mess. She had 3 urns on her mantel downstairs, one for each of her previous dogs. The urns have been in the same place for years and the boys have never touched them. However, the "big mess" that day was one of the boys releasing the Hannah's ashes out of the urn and all over Barbara's carpet in the basement. There was no choice but to vacuum up the mess. I am glad we (Barbara especially) are able to laugh about it...

Lots of Boys, all wanting money

Last Thursday was Isaac's 4th birthday. They invited us to go to the train museum with them that morning. The train museum has several push cars that kids always love climbing onto. This particular day, one of the 4 boys came up with the idea that you needed a penny to make it work and insisted on asking MC over and over and over again for pennies to make it "run". They found a little hole in the back of the car that they would put the penny into and then I would give the car a little push. It would move about a foot before becoming locked and then they would need another penny. It was really funny to watch, especially the little brothers asking for "penny?". Adler was an avid beggar that day.
Adler showing off the hole that makes the car run.
LT, a proud penny holder, for the moment.

Its difficult to get four active boys in one picture, but we captured a few that morning.