Colorado Part 2: Rocky Mountain High

We went up the Estes Park aerial tram with two objectives:  (1)  to check out the cool views of the town below, and (2) to hang out with the fat chipmunks who live up top and wait for tourists to feed them peanuts.  Mission accomplished.

Heading up the tram.  If you think Max looks less than thrilled to be in a red cage dangling from a cable being dragged up a mountainside, you should have seen his Grandma (who does not like heights but nevertheless sucked it up and braved the ride).

Once we arrived up top, we grabbed a bag of peanuts, and headed out in search of the chipmunks.

There they are!

Note Max clinging desperately to Chris.  Bless his heart, you would have thought they were zombie chipmunks the way he was acting (Max, not Chris, just to be clear).

Scarlett and BB.

More clinging.  Oh, the horror!

In addition to discovering that Max is terrified of chipmunks, we learned that Scarlett loves to rock climb.  All week long she scrambled up any rocks she could find, big or small.

More hungry chipmunks.

The gang watches Scarlett and the chipmunks from a safe distance (maybe Max was onto something after all ...).

Picnic lunch.

Cutie.

Dark clouds started to move in after lunch (it rained every afternoon while we were in Colorado, which conveniently coincided with nap time), and we had to dash back down for fear of getting stuck up on top of the mountain in a rainstorm.  There was quite a lightening show on the tram ride down, which made the ride down even dicier than the ride up.

"Maxwell Schwegmann"

Here's a video of 21-month-old Max eating like a big boy and saying his name (including Schwegmann, which plenty of adults can't pronounce, so he gets bonus points for that;  I also think it's really cute that even though we call him Max 95% of the time, he calls himself Maxwell).  Scarlett was in the ladies room around the corner while I was filming listening to me talk to Max.  In her typical nosey/bossy fashion, she chimes in at the end of the video to critique/correct his pronunciation.  At first I thought she was calling for me to help her, but when I realized what she was saying and asked her why she was hollering Schwegmann at the top of her lungs, she explained it was "because he's not saying it right!"

First Day of School

Yesterday was Scarlett's first day of Pre-K 3 and Max's first day of toddler "school."  They previously went to Parents' Day Out at the church down the street, but Scarlett aged out, and I wanted them to be at the same place, so we've moved on to a church school in Uptown (one-year-olds through Kindergarten), where they'll attend three days a week.  Max's day is pretty much all playtime, but Scarlett's class has Spanish, Kinderfit, Music, and Science, among more basic lessons like handwriting and math.  Her classroom has a guinea pig, a turtle, and two lizards!

Eating breakfast before the big day.  (Note that Max is eating by himself with a spoon and no bib and is sitting in a big chair; he started doing this several months ago because he wants to do whatever Scarlett does.  We had a messy start, but he's doing great now.)  

The Pre-K 3, 4, and Kindergarten classes wear uniforms, which I managed to get Scarlett pretty excited about over the summer (she explained to Max apologetically that babies don't get to wear uniforms, so he'll have to wait until he's big like her before he's lucky enough to get to wear one).

Silly goose.

"No more pictures, Mommy!"

This is the look I got when I asked him to smile.  At this point, he has no idea what's about to go down, so the forced smile really was a bit premature, Max ...

I went back inside to get my purse and this is what I saw when I came back out -- totally unstaged. Those are the kids' nap mats on the ground (they're like small sleeping bags with built-in pillows).

So sweet.

Scarlett did great at drop off (although in fairness, she attended camp at the new school this summer, so she was familiar with the building).  Max didn't know what hit him.   When we got to his classroom, the teachers were loading up the kids into a giant stroller to take all of them for a spin, and every single one of those kids was crying.  Once Max figured out what was happening, he joined the symphony of tears.  The director called later to say all was well and that Max was happily playing on the playground, and he was all smiles when we picked him up that afternoon.

So, despite a bit of a bumpy start, Max had a good day.  Scarlett had a great day, and proudly showed me her art when we got home, announced that she got to be the teacher's helper, and that all of her friends wore uniforms too (what a coincidence!).

Colorado Part 1: The Hills are Alive with the Sound of Screeching

We headed up to Estes Park, Colorado, for a week in August to escape the brutal Texas heat.  One of the best decisions we've made in a long time!  Check out the magnificent views from the back porch of our cabin.  Just sitting on the porch was a real treat.

Grandma, Paw, and BB came along, too.

"Helloooo Coloradoooo!"  (This would be the screeching I referred to in the title ... she went on for a good five minutes.  Screeching is also taking place in the photo above.)

Watching some critters playing below our deck.

Yep, you guessed it.  More screeching (or this may have been squealing; hard to tell).

Max was a bit more relaxed about the whole "welcome to Colorado" thing.  (At least until he encountered certain terrors of the wild otherwise known as chipmunks and butterflies.  To be continued ...)

Lake House v. Real House

The Joneses invited us to their fabulous lake house on Lake Cyprus Springs a few weeks ago.  As expected, we had a fantastic time.  In fact, Scarlett made the bold announcement that she likes the Jones's lake house better than their real house.  Because it has a lake.  And a boat.  And bunk beds.  Who can argue with that?

Scarlett and Harper getting ready to head out on the boat on our first day there.  So sweet!

Max rockin' the lobster swimsuit.

Getting geared up.

Chris and the ladies hanging on the tube.

And they're off!

Swimming off the dock.

Lunch at the marina.  (I wish I knew what Scarlett was whispering to Campbell.  Something quite important, I'm sure.)

Family shot.

Playing ball in the backyard.

Campbell and Chris relaxing in the hammock.

Harper helped Scarlett make a blanket tent in the bunk house.  This scored really, really high on the awesome scale in Scarlett's eyes.

Breakfast time!  Scarlett loved doing whatever the big girls did.  She even spent the night with them in the bunkhouse (we were certain she was going to sneak into our room at some point, but she slept through the night).

Max checking out the lake from the back porch.

More boat time!

Cruising on the paddle boat, with Chris doing the paddling, Scarlett doing the steering, and Max doing the riding.  

Max and Chris had their jobs down pat.  Scarlett, on the other hand, seemed intent on either going around in circles or heading off in the wrong direction (all the while refusing to allow Chris to intervene or give her any tips; sort of the toddler equivalent of refusing to ask for directions). 

Thanks for a fun weekend, Jones family!

Snip-its

Here are a few shots from Scarlett and Max's haircuts a few weeks ago.  We usually go to a kids salon in the back of a Stride Rite shoe store (so you can have the pleasure of mixing two totally unrelated activities at once -- haircuts and shoe shopping), but this time we thought we'd try Snip-its, a kids salon in Snider Plaza that has movies, games, bubbles, and a boatload of colorful distractions.  

Scarlett got a "trim."  (Even though we took several inches off, we had to be careful to call it a trim, because she was convinced that if she got a "haircut" like Max, they would cut all of her hair off.)

Blowing bubbles.

Turning around so the back of the chair doesn't get in the way.

When the stylist asked Scarlett to put her head down, she sort of scrunched up like this instead of just lowering her chin.

Pretty girl.

Next up -- Max and  his pouffy 'do!  He did great sitting in the chair all by himself.  (He's had several haircuts, but previously we had to do them in my lap.)  Give that kid a lollipop, and apparently he'll do just about anything.

Kicking back and relaxing while he takes in a movie.

Looking concerned, although it's hard to tell if it's because her hand is in his face or because he can't see the t.v. screen.

Yep, the lollipop's still there!

Looking good, Max!