Garden of the Gods

After Pikes Peak, we went back to the Hotel and let E sleep.  When she woke up we went swimming, ate dinner, and went to visit Garden of the Gods.  It was so pretty there. We didn't bring bikes with us, so we opted for the hiking trail that was stroller friendly.

E seemed to be a little bored.  I guess she got tired of Mom always running off to the bathroom. :)

D thought it would be funny to catch me coming out of the bathroom.  I am 23 weeks pregnant here.

All over the park we saw many rock climbers and their fancy gear.  It was crazy, but D said he wanted to do it.  I can barely make it up a rock wall that you pay for let alone a natural wall with no added foot and hand ledges.

Just meandering through the pretty rocks and trees

Our cute little family 

D loved climbing all the rocks and E, of course had to go with him. 

Showing off his height

E is contemplating climbing the rock by herself. She really loved it out there. 

Trying to not fall  

There she goes, she couldn't resist 

Following Dad into a crevice 

Getting more help to get on a rock 

Swinging to the the next rock, she was giggling like crazy, wish I had the video camera

A small college of all the rocks we saw

 

Pikes Peak

To celebrate our 5 year anniversary, David brought E and I up to Colorado Springs.  We did many things, and I will split them up into seperate blogs.  First, we went to Pikes Peak.  We were going to drive, but realized after paying admission on the toll road up and gas, not to mention the wear on my tires and brakes...we decided it was not much more money to take the Cog Train.  Besides E loves trains.
It took an hour and half to get up.  We were squashed in a tiny row and had two large people sitting across from us.  E kept getting out of our laps and wanting to walk around.  I felt bad for the couple across from us, but couldn't do anything about it.  The worst part was being 5 months pregnant.  We were supposed to drink a lot of water, but then there were no bathrooms on the train.  You try drinking a lot, while having a baby on your bladder, and not being able to pee for 1.5 hours....  It wasn't too bad I guess.  The view was amazing. But we couldn't take pictures going up because we were trying to juggle E and keep her from running in the aisle.

Finally we made it to the top.  But imagine if you can, E only wanted to run around and not be held.  So she is really squirmy in these pictures. It was also really smoggy from recent fires in CO.  Kinda ruined our view but it was still really cool.  I think the peak was 14,110 feet high.

When I brought E over to the edge to look out across the view, she simply said "Oh wow, Mountains"

 
She loved commenting on all the mountains and trees...guess what, in Amarillo, it is flat and almost treeless too.  It was a novelty to her.

We grabbed a few donuts and a hot chocolate up there.  E ate most of the donuts. And we let her to keep her quiet.  I know say what you must, but sometimes it is better to have a happy kid than a whiney one.

 

 

E loved being near the train and on it. She just expected more freedom on it, I think

 

 

And finally, today was the day of the annual race up the mountain. 13 miles. 14,000 or so runners. 1st prize went to a guy who has won it for 8 years now.  His time this year was just over 2 hours....all I can say is wow!  I couldn't run 13 miles on flat or even down hill in 2 hours.  D says next year we are going to hike it.  So I guess training will commence soon. Because I am so not in shape for that now.

It was an awesome trip up and down.  Very beautiful!

Reading

E loves to read.  We go to the library at least once a week and come home with a stack of books.  She will just sit there and look at them over and over for a long time.  But she also loves to be read to.

This week I reorganized her room so her reading chair was right next to a box of books that we own.  Not only did she go in her room willingly...(she is scared of "monkeys" in her room and refuses to be in there unless in bed or being held)... But she sat in there and read.


In fact, I was getting ready for the day and realized, "it is quiet, what is she doing?"  So I went to her room and found this scene.  Naturally, I was so surprised I ran to get my camera to capture the moment she wanted to play in her room again!! Or rather, read in her room again.

 

 

I just love how she loves books so much and spent so much time reading books in her room this morning.

a little about E

Well here it is the end of July.  I am about to to go on vacation to Vegas and UT with my family, but D has to stay behind and work.

This would be all grand and great, but here are a few of my foreseeable problems:

• The first thing E asks every morning "wanna see Dadda" sorry baby Dadda is at work
• Anytime we get in the car, "going to see dadda?" No, we are going to _____
• Randomly throughout the day "momma, dadda, momma, dadda
• We even each have our own song just saying our names over and over to some random tune

We have a few friends that we made in the area.  Here are some things she says about them constantly

• AinsleyPeyson?  See AinsleyPeyson.  Yes their names are merged into one almost all the time

Thank goodness we can bring her other favorites with us

• Hercules
• Nemo
• Elmo
• Dinosaur Train
• Uncle Newt
• Uncle Josh
• Cake (Kate)
• Jeremy

She talks about all these things (people) and to them on the phone, or anything that looks like a phone
My favorite was the other morning
"hello name lizbeth... Watch dinosaur train... Momma dadda."

Computer Savvy

E loves to be playing apps.  I generally let her use it if we are in the car, at at church, or at an appointment.  But occasionally I come into a room and find this:
Yes she knows how to turn on and off and navagate (mostly) around the Kindle and Ipod

In fact she now thinks that the blue Ipod is Daddy's and the orange Ipod is hers.  When did my Ipod become hers???

She loves snuggling with daddy in the evenings 

She also likes to play or pretend to play on the laptop.  She really only can use that with help.

My sassy pants girl with her computer, snacks, and drink...

 And don't forget, she loves watching Finding Nemo, Dinosaur Train, and Hercules :) I love her expressions

The after effects.

Last night we kept E up to watch the firework show that not far from our house.  We left the house at 8:30 and set up our lawn chairs to wait.  E kept herself busy in the bushes and her stroller until the show finally started at 10.  (Some people were parking and finding a spot around 6....crazy) anyway, I was a little nervous because she has only been around fireworks twice, 2 months old--they scared her completely we had to leave-- and 1 year old, last 4th of July--she was scared in the beginning, but enjoyed them at the end.

Well the show started and I picked her up in my lap and she just stared and said "wow" "beautiful" "look" "look" over and over. She also liked to try to tell me the colors she was seeing.  She knows the names of colors but rarely gets them right. ;)

 Anytime the show paused she said "all done", but then it would start again and she was just amazed.  She loved it so much.  It really was a good show and lasted about 20 minutes.  The whole way home she kept talking about it too, it was really cute.

Then because it was so late, we changed her diaper and put her to bed.  I thought she would sleep really late....but was woken up to her screaming at 5.  I went to check on her and her diaper was half off and her bed was soaked.  Poor thing.  I am glad I went in to check on her and not just let her cry back to sleep.  So I changed her, her bed, and her diaper.  I told her that when she wakes up she just needs to tell me what she needs and not scream. So she said "Milk cup please" How could I refuse that?  I let her get a small drink and laid her back in bed.

Now it is almost 10 and she is still asleep, and I have homemade Kolaches to eat.  I think today will be a good day.

4th of July

Our ward held  4th of July breakfast celebration this morning.
We had to drag E out of bed at 8:50 

 

This outfit was from last year...it still fit :)

Doesn't that remind you of a teenager face?

Trying to get one more photo of the whole outfit before the headband came off

She is showing off her dog 

E loves climbing on everything, here she was climbing into her stroller just to say she could

Then she had to climb into the basket.
She got stuck and Daddy rescued her.

She loves playing with her friend Ainsley.  They wandered off together while we
were talking and hijacked a scooter and stroller.

pretending to drink water....although she never drinks it willingly 

Riding on stolen scooter

E crying over stolen goods

Loved the huluhoops

 Happy 4th of July!