Elitches

The boys and I met some friends at Elitches today.  They are in a reading program through the library in Denver and one of the prizes (for 5 and over kids) is a one day pass to Elitch Gardens.  Each summer we choose one day to go.  After our trip to Disneyland and Adler's hesitations to ride on many of the rides, I was a bit unsure.  However, he was a new kid today.  He went on everything in kiddie land, including the roller coaster.  The only ride he refused to go on was the ferris wheel.  

They started off on the little swings.

 Then the enormous ball room, not my favorite.

 Adler went on the bumper mice, Landon skipped it.

 Boats.

 Motorcycles, which they would have ridden on for hours and probably ended up riding 6 or 7 times.

 Frog hopper (not sure what its called, but it takes you up high and the bounces you down).

 The weather in Denver has been chilly the past 5 days, but today was hot.  We ended up going under a huge log ride that makes a big splash to cool off.  Adler and I got drenched!

Teacups.  Such a fun day.

few more camping photos

A few more photos from our camping trip over the 4th. LT and his buddy Kaden (who's dad took the photo of Adler below) walking back to the car after an unsuccessful but fun fishing adventure.

Swimming progress

Kari sent me this video of Landon at his swim lesson today. He's made a ton of progress this summer.



And this one of Alder is from earlier in the summer. He's come a long way since then but just going under was a big deal at the time so I wanted to capture it.

Home Depot Birthday Party

LT had a lot of ideas about what he wanted to do for his 6th birthday party that might have been somewhat less than ideal (to put it mildly) for party goers and parents alike. So when somehow negations settled on a party at Home Depot where the kids got to build and paint trucks, we were very relieved.

As Kari said in a prior post, my camera did run out of batteries and I left my spare at home (very amateurish, I know). But I did take a few shots of Landon and his friends before my juice ran out. Not to mention the bear piñata that was built at home over several days by the whole family (though most of the credit goes to Kari). It was built like a tank everywhere but the head, which is where LT hit it with his first swing and broke it apart. The early break was a blessing in disguise though as while the Home Depot is great for just about all aspects of a kid's party, it was not at all well suited for a piñata. We are already talking the Depot up as an option for Adler's party but we might skip the piñata part.

Grandma Camp

This week my mom and many of her neighbors hosted "Grandma Camp" up in their neighborhood in the mountains. This is LT's third year attending and it seemed like he really came into his own this year - he was very sociable (for him anyway) and really got into most of the activities.

It was great to see him have so much fun at 'camp' but the part of the week that most stands out for me is one night when Landon read a couple of his books to his grandparents. It was the first time they'd gotten to seen him read (he just finished kindergarden so he's not exactly reading Dickens yet but he did make a lot of progress this year) and it was just one of those special moments in parenthood and family that makes your heart swell.

First lost tooth!

 Landon had a big milestone yesterday, his first lost tooth!  He has been asking me for weeks, "what if I lose it in the sandbox?  What if I swallow it?"  I blew off the questions with, "don't worry, it will just fall out when we are at home."  Well, was I wrong.  It fell out while he was swimming across the pool, in the middle of the pool.  He not only caught it, but then proceeded to carry it AND swim the entire length of the pool with it in his hand.

Unfortunately Brian is out of town this week and Landon was worried that the tooth fairy might take the tooth.  I told him to just write the tooth fairy a note and this is what he came back with.

Camping

 Unfortunately I didn't take very many pictures on our most recent camping trip, but here are a few of the boys enjoying being outside!