Butterfly Pavilion

We went to the Butterfly Pavilion in Broomfield this morning. I took Carson last year 

when he was still too little to really know what he was looking at so I thought we'd try again. He ran around and had a ton of fun. He still wasn't too interested in the butterflies, but liked it. The thing he liked the most was the dumb fish tank. I almost went to the aquarium instead and now I think I should have. He went back to this spot over and over again. It made for cute photos though!!

He got really excited to find the butterflies that had landed on the ground. Unfortunately he actually tried to stomp this one. In front of a group of people. And I was mortified. 

I didn't get to take many pictures of the actual butterflies because any time I stop and take my eye off Carson he is GONE. They are everywhere in this place though!

 

I don't remember seeing any turtles last time, but Carson was in love with this guy. He was yelling at him and wanted to pet him.

And this was my favorite flower. I just thought it was so neat to have purple stems and green tips.

 

Swimming! Well, sort of.

For starters, you'll notice I am going to start adding a watermark to my photos here. It's not something I want to do, but I get paranoid. I have heard so many stories lately of people's photos of their kids getting stolen and used in not-so-nice ways. I wouldn't think I'd be at risk, but lately I've had some bizarre hits from all around the world. It isn't fail-proof, but I don't want to set it as private so I'll do it just as a starting barrier. For any of our family or friends, if you want a copy of any of the pics, just let me know and I'll send them to you without the watermark.

Anyways......

Carson loves being outside, but he gets into trouble without anything out there to play with. We will hopefully be getting a small sandbox soon, but yesterday he said he wanted to swim. After his nap we filled up his blow up pool with warm water, got suited up and went out. Apparently he has a very different opinion of what it means to "swim" though. I got him to put both feet in and then he jumped back out and was done. 

He did like scooping the water in his tractor. He really likes his shovels right now which is why I want to get him a sandbox.

He just ran around and around. Eventually he threw his hat in the pool and put his sunglasses on upside down. He's been doing "blue steel" face for a week now. It's our favorite. (I just noticed that you can see me in these ones....weird!)

Then the glasses went in the pool too and this is as close as he'd get.

Poor Sophie wanted to come out with us so bad. We hung a bird feeder on the awning this weekend so all the cats have been hanging out at the screen door.

At some point she found her opening and made a run for it. Any time in her life she has ran outside she just rolls around like a crazy cat all over the concrete. She'll never ever run away or go more than a few feet, but she loves rolling in the dirt. She was covered in dust and birdseed after this. Carson thought it was hilarious.

Our neighborhood pool is opening again this year! Since all the houses are going up around us they had to open it back up. Apparently the will be doing swim lessons and yoga etc. there through the YMCA so maybe we'll finally get some use out of that HOA money!!!

Zoo Friday

The weather has been so nice and warm lately, except for some days of crazy wind. On Friday I didn't have much going on and I knew Carson wanted to get out of the house. I asked him to decide where to go and he told me he wanted to find animals. I figured we could just get to the zoo when they opened and stay as long as we could. He had so much fun. It got really really really busy after a while, but we had most of the morning to run around and see it all.

The highlight for him by far was the train. When I told him we were going on a train he started yelling about Thomas. When we got on the train he just sat there really silent. He wouldn't let me hold on to him or sit on my lap. He just sat and watched it all. Then as soon as it was done he started yelling to get back on. It's no where as cool as the Hogle Zoo or Lagoon trains, but it was better than nothing. Every time it looped around while we were there he stopped to wave and yell at "Thomas Train". 

I took a quick video when we first started going. He has watched this over and over again on my phone and has to make a face every. single. time. he hears the train whistle. 

 

I didn't bother to bring my camera since it is not easy to go places like that with him alone. We got a few cell pictures. haha  This is the train and the carousel. He demanded to be in the peacock chair for some reason. I figured he'd want the cheetah or horse, but no go.

 

When we left he lasted about 2.4 blocks and crashed. He's asked me to go back and ride the train so many times now. I really wish there was a train we could go to without the whole zoo maze!

Drive to Granby

We got up early on Saturday and headed up to Granby for a day drive. Granby is about 40 miles north of Winter Park. They have Lake Granby and Grand Lake right there which were supposed to be beautiful. I seriously LOVE mountain lakes so I was hoping for some good scenery. It was only in the 50's down here so we all figured it would be colder and bundled up. When we actually started getting toward our destination it became winter. It ended up snowing/raining pretty much the entire time we were up there. It stopped for a few minutes while my mom and I were in some shops so the boys were able to play at the lake and at a playground. It was all so pretty though. I was just bummed because this meant I got almost no pictures. It was coming down hard enough that I just wasn't comfortable taking the camera out in it. I got a couple from the car though. 

I call this "boob mountain".

 

This is looking out to Grand Lake. It was literally this gray and foggy. You couldn't see anything through the fog and rain or snow.

 

We were hoping for somewhere good to have lunch and found Fat Cat Cafe. It was one of those cool little spots that the owners are married and right there to greet you. She had a thick (I think) English accent and called everyone "daaaaling". They had an awesome breakfast/dessert buffet and there were other kids there so we were at home. I am always trying to find places like that and get so sick of chain restaurants.

 

Other than that, I didn't really get pics of anything else. I got a few of Carson under an awning that turned out cute.

 

He napped in the car each way which was nice. I love his tired face. We call it "puffy face".

Then........he saw that we had candy up front. He has been getting such a big attitude and started the whole 'mine!' thing. He flat out demands that you give him what he wants and will yell, "Give it to me!". This time we weren't giving in and he threw a totally fit. He cried and cried and wouldn't stop so I decided I'd take pictures since he was just being a brat.

Big helper?

Gee, thanks Son. I didn't really need that entire bottle of seasoning. Sigh.

Mother's Day - 2010

Happy belated Mother's Day to everyone!

We were originally going to go for our annual Mother's Day drive up in the mountains on Saturday, but plans changed. We will be heading up next weekend instead. We got word from Carl's Grandma, Ginger, that she was finally going to be coming out to Denver to see everyone. Then Carl was asked to work on Saturday so it we figured we'd just wait until next weekend. 

But, on Sunday Ginger and Gary decided they'd like to go for a drive so we just took off with no plans. We were hoping Carson would nap all the way there, but he barely slept 30 minutes for the entire day. He was so excited that we were out and he had so much fun. He's still talking about "Great Grandma and Uncle Gary". 

He fell asleep like this in the car though:

We ended up in Georgetown and found a cool lake that was still frozen. Ginger couldn't really walk down to check it all out so we just took it in from up top and headed back. We will definitely be going back there this summer. It was gorgeous since the water was right up against the mountain and there were tables, trees and "beaches" all along it.

Ginger was beyond excited to get a photo of "four generations". :)

We found a really neat playground there in Georgetown. He played for a long time in the sandbox and we couldn't get him to leave it! I got a very quick Mother's Day picture with him though.

Carl wanted to mow for the first time this year when we got home. Carson ran around like a mad man outside until bedtime after being in the car for so long. 

He had a blast "helping" Daddy and then running away when it surprised him.

I even got him to stop for a huge CHEESE!

For my random photo of the day...this is from the tree along our driveway. I never know what it will end up looking like. The first year it was all white blossoms, the second year it did nothing at all and this year it looks like mini pink roses. Today it looks like half the tree has all opened up so I'll have to go back out for another stage. This is the same tree you can see with the bee from a few posts ago.

And I have to share my Mother's Day card from Carson. Carl took him to the store without me knowing so they could get Mom and the Grandmas their cards. Carl said he set him down in front of the right section, but he only wanted to run off and get different ones. Apparently he was sticking with the ones he picked. He picked my mom a graduation card with cows and Ginger got a birthday card with kittens. 

This was mine:

Carl couldn't stop laughing about them. He said Carson was so excited to "give Mommy bunnies". They brought my card to me in bed and Carson was pumped to get a sticker (that's the big blank circle). It was perfect! haha

Carson's 2-year Check Up

We finally got to take Carson to his 2-year doctor's appointment this week. There was some weird situation with insurance requiring our appointments to be a certain amount of time apart so we had to wait way too long. 

Anyways, everything was good. Doc said he is growing like a weed and seems right where he should be. He is still 75% for height at 35 1/4 inches tall, but he reached 50% on weight at 27lb 6oz! He has been 25% for weight at every appointment in his little life so at least now I know he is getting some food in that belly.

I also asked the doctor how I will know when his 2-year molars are coming in. Carson doesn't let me look in his mouth at all so I just assumed they aren't here. He laid him down, looked right in and there are both of his bottom molars! I was so surprised. They are both half-way out and I had no idea.

And for a photos......on Friday I brought up two sets of blocks and letters to play with. I like to keep them in the basement because he makes such a huge mess by dumping everything out everywhere. If I bring them up randomly it seems to keep them fresh and he can't just terrorize the house with them. 

While he was playing he dumped them out, but then started to put them all back in the bag. As he was doing it he started singing, "clean up, clean up, everybody". I couldn't believe he was singing the clean up song! I have sang it to him, but he's never sang back. This time he just started saying it all on his own. I am thinking they may sing it at daycare...

Here are his cute loooooong legs in his jail jammies. He's super flexible, unlike his father.

And the "before" hair-do. (He got a haircut over the weekend.) :)

Carson goes bowling

Carl and I went on a "date" Saturday so when we got home that afternoon we wanted to take Carson out. We went to play at a park and then decided he might think it would be fun to go bowling for real since he loves it on the phone and on Wii. 

But.......he didn't do so well. He threw a fit the entire time. He wanted to run around in front of other bowlers and he wanted to bowl every. single. frame. That would have been fine, but he also wanted to grab every ball from the return and wouldn't go with the flow of the game. Luckily we also were paired next to a couple who were really bowling and they seemed so annoyed with us. We weren't there more than 45 minutes and pretty much just ran out of the building when we were done. 

He did better once we got the good ramp, but wow. He is banished. We banish him.

Peeky-Boo!

Carson has been in such a good mood this week. I know that's probably weird to say, but it seems like all of a sudden he is kind of starting to mellow out emotionally and doesn't fly off the handle all the time. He has been calling everything a "big boy ____" even though I don't think he really knows why he's saying it. Somehow in the last couple weeks he also totally decided he loves to sleep. That is a lot to say for this child who fought me for over a year straight on it! He doesn't want me to rock him at all after we read and just points to the crib saying "nappy-do". He lays right down, tells me night-night or love you and goes right to sleep. 

He started giving me kisses on my cheeks out of nowhere now. He makes a big kissy noise before and during the actual kiss, but doesn't do that with a kiss on the lips.

He's getting so good at putting new sentences together. He loves saying "my name is Tarson!" (he pronounces it like that). When I ask him what my name is he says, "your name is Rachael!". For my mom he says, "your name is Grandma Rachael!" Today when I picked him up from daycare he told me he 'drew a green monster mommy daddy'....not sure about that one.

 He is growing up so dang fast. 

Last week I was doing some work and he was running around. I heard him getting keys out of Carl's ("baby-proofed") drawer, but I didn't think much of it. A minute later I go in and find him sitting in front of the cupboard that has an actual lock on it, it's wide open and the keys are on the floor with him. This one key is part of a group of keys and I figured it was a fluke. I locked it all back up and went to get the camera. I gave them back and after he fiddled with it for a minute, not only did he find the right key all on his own, but he opened it right back up. You can hear him say, "see, open!".

He's also been playing in the set of cupboards we don't have locked a lot lately. We don't keep anything in them so he can play with them, but he has been trying to climb in. He's too big so I took the shelf out of one and this has been a ton of fun for him for a few days. And it's just a fun excuse for me to take adorable photos of my little boy. :)  He gets in, swings open the door and yells "peeky-boo!".

 Although, we are "baby-proofed", I will use that term loosely. He can get his little arms down in the drawers even though they are locked because he's tall enough now. This means he is always grabbing spoons and running. The other day he grabbed some and the next thing I know I hear the strangest sound. I realize he has dropped them down inside an air return vent in the living room. I have no idea how or why he figured out that this was an option, but he did. I wasn't just going to unscrew it and pop it off because it doesn't actually come off anymore. It's been caulked and painted to the wall. Well, he did a few more times so Carl decided to tackle it last night. 

He started to take it off and the paint was all choppy so he had to use a razor blade for the rest.

 

Carson was a BIG help. haha

But then.......not only did we pull a PILE of spoons out, but we also found my pick in there! This is a big deal to me because I have had that pick since I was in junior high and last year it just totally went missing. I knew one day I had it downstairs and I have literally been looking for it ever since. That means he's been doing this for a really long time. What a stinkin' brat!!! Hopefully he doesn't continue this trend in the near future.

Other than those silly things, he has been playing with his basketball and hoop that Daddy came home with last week. He has a few balls that are too big so those are of course the ones he puts in the basket so he can hit them out from underneath. Carl has been telling him all about what they will do this summer in the mountains so Carson talks about mountains and the Jeeps a lot too. 

Oh, and I got a call to have Carson participate at the University of Denver in a research study on 2 year-olds. They needed kids within two weeks of their second birthday for a study about relative memory. I have always been so fascinated with this sort of thing so I jumped on the chance to be the "subject", especially now that I work in the research field. It was a little challenging because for part of it they needed him to sit still and watch a picture for 45 seconds at a time without moving (literally, they had infrared beams to monitor his eyes), but he did surprisingly really well. He was so excited that they gave him a bouncy ball at the end. It has Scooby Doo all over it so he loves with his 'Scooby Ball' now.