A Popsicle Progression

2009

Natalie 1.5 yrs

 2010

2.5 years

 2011

3.5 yrs

Sisters:

Natalie 18 months

Maggie 22 months

June pics

Who says something as simple as a box can't be hours of fun?  The toilet box was our best moving box and was thoroughly enjoyed by the girls when it was emptied.

Summer= popsicles!

Sunday morning heading to church:

Family pic on the steps to our new house.

More fun with boxes.

More house pics to come later, but yes, our kitchen is painted "Tiger eye" orange. : )

At the flower gardens of CSU.

My little mountain goats.  They will climb anything and thankfully are pretty good at it.

This one especially loves to challenge tree heights and feel "big" lately.

A picture of Natalie accessorizing with a bracelet to go with her outfit. : )

 We are a 10 minute walk from Whole Foods now which I love.  Natalie loves to ride her pedal-free bike while I push Maggie in the stroller.  We load up the back and the extra seat with groceries, leaving Maggie just enough room.  The store is so close to home that I hate to drive and I'm thankful for the walk.  We try to leave as early as possible in the mornings but sometimes the walk home has still been a little warm this summer.  Maggie sometimes can't help but fall asleep.

May pics

Admiring her fancy shoes : )

A "carnival" ride--so fun to getting big enough to do new things!

Unfortunately Maggie had to watch the fun from the sidelines.

Mother's Day.  We met George and Julie at the sculpture park in Loveland for a picnic.

Are these sheep real?

We had a great, spontaneous plan toward the end of May--Let's go to the zoo!  It was one of the cooler days in the week and the day before Denver schools got out so we thought it would be perfect because all the kids would still be in school gearing up for the last day celebrations.  Boy were we wrong!  We pulled up to the zoo to see a sea of school buses.  I couldn't even count them all but I'm sure there was well over 50.  They came from all over Denver, Boulder, and even Wyoming!  We considered finding something else to do for the day but knew the girls would be heartbroken so we decided to try it out.  Thankfully all the school tours go through a different door and they break the kids up into smaller groups and so we never felt like it was too crowded and were able to see all the animals just fine.  We had a great time and the highlight of the whole tour was the sculptured hippo that the girls got to climb on.  Who knew? : )

Natalie doing a little happy dance before entering the zoo.

One of Natalie's said favs:

It's fun to be able to take your kiddos to the zoo and show them real, exotic animals but I couldn't help being almost anti-zoo too because it's so sad to see these wild animals cooped up in small spaces.

This is the Okapi.  Best looking animal butt by far. : )

We had the rare experience of seeing the male peacocks open their plumage.  

And not just one, but multiple ones, at least 5 at the same time.  There was a female near by and so they must have been trying to impress her or intimidate each other.  Natalie is trying to keep Maggie back from going too close.

Then she had to run after her to stop her from chasing the geese.  So funny to watch.

Ah, the beloved fake hippo that we could hardly pry them away from at the end of our day.