6/27/12: L's first official haircut

Tonight I gave Elodie her first official haircut (as opposed to bang trimmings and her hair hacking), although I would have never had to cut it if she hadn't done a hack job on it last September.  I did a pretty good job if I do say so myself :)  It was torture however and I'm sure part of that was my perfectionist and slow nature combined with bedtime crankiness.

Here's the final result (sorry no before shots):

Oh, and Elodie had another fabulous 3 hours at Sports Camp and she said she learned how to do a cartwheel today during the cheer time.

6/26/12: 5 yr old Dr visit; C words, construction

Yesterday, Elodie had her 5-year-old well visit.  She passed her vision and hearing tests with flying colors and was declared very healthy.  She was 43.9 inches tall (75th percentile) and weighed in at 42 pounds (50th percentile).  Her BMI was 15.3 (53rd percentile).  She was supposed to receive four shots but I thought that was a bit much in one visit so I postponed two of them for in a month, but she received the DTap in her left left and MMR in her left arm.  She was so brave but she cried because she said it really hurt.  I told her if she stopped crying that instant, I would take her to McDs because I couldn't handle both kids screaming/crying, since Callen had started crying before he even got his shots (DTap & HepA) and was still crying and continued to cry until after we were home!  So Elodie stopped that instant and she got her treat. :)

Waiting to do her vision test

Didn't stand still the entire vision test.

On to the hearing test.

I hear it!

Callen LOVES his trains!  Choo choo! (pre-haircut)

Callen got a haircut last night :)

Too cute!  I had to take a photo of the back of his shirt :)

"reading" a book (he likes to make you say what EVERYTHING is in the book)

Today, Elodie went to her second day of Sports Camp at Christchurch in Louisville.  She really enjoyed herself and earned a trophy for "Best Attitude."  We are very proud of her!  She said they did baseball and cheerleading, where she got to put on foot on each adult's hand and stand in the air!  She also did an art project of Shadrach, Meshach, and Obendigo and came home for the second day in a row soaking wet.  They said she was a little over zealous with running through the sprinklers.  Elodie, over zealous??  No! Never!! :)

Elodie & her little bowling pin and ball trophy

Doing warmups

We are on day 4 of the remodel project.  Ed mostly spent today with two helpers doing the second day of electrical so that we can have our rough electrical inspection tomorrow morning.  Then late this afternoon he tore out the front porch and cut the trex-like stuff for the new porch.

The new stuff just sitting on top so no one falls out the front door.

the old stuff in a pile off to the right

A fire started today in Boulder.  Here's a photo of all the smoke from our street:

Callen had his speech therapy today.  I feel like he's finally saying some more words.  He'll say "bye bye" spontaneously.  He'll repeat or tell if you if you ask what it is: ball (ba), up (uh), down (dah), more (mmm-oh), sister/sissy (sss-sss), go (ga!!!!).

6/23/12: Hiking, Ice Cream, Construction

This morning we went on a "Summer Hike at Mud Lake" put on by volunteer naturalists with the County.  The easy 2 mile hike explored the natural history of the area including bird life and behavior, wildflower identification, butterflies and other insects, and forest ecology.  They also talked a little bit about summer weather patterns and safety in the mountains.  The kids did pretty well, although next time we'll feed Elodie lunch first because she complained about being hungry the whole time, even after eating two granola bars.  Callen was covered in dust by the end and had fallen and re-opened his injured knee for the umpteenth time. One of the men commented that you could tell he was a boy because he had a scab on each knee. :)

On the way home, we stopped at C*ldstone's to use Elodie's birthday coupon.  Yum!  It definitely hit the spot on this 100F day.

What do you do when you are dairy-free and your parents take you to an ice cream shop?  Why, you clean the tables, of course! :)

belated birthday girl (I still can't believe she's FIVE!!!!)

The construction on our loft started yesterday.  Our contractor prepped the area and then took down the loft railing.  Today, he and his helper framed the loft.

Doesn't it look like we have a kill room? ;)  Anyhow, this is the view from the dining room of the sealed off living room.  That stripe is the zipper that we can walk through.

View from the living room.

View from the landing

The closet

Yesterday, we had a cute little bunny fall into our window well.  We tried to help the little guy out by putting 2x4s into the well to act as a ramp, but when that failed, we tried putting a tall upside-down laundry basket in there with food on it, thinking he'd hop to the food and then hop out.  Well, he did eat the grass that fell off the basket but he didn't hop out.  I felt so bad for the little guy when we went to bed last night and sure enough, the little guy was dead this morning. :(  So Dave fished him out immediately since it was already 95F at 9AM and we didn't want the whole house to stink by the time we got home.

the cute little guy BEFORE he died

6/21/12: "Bye Bye!" & Library Owls

On Tuesday, Callen starting saying "Ba Ba" for "Bye Bye" after I'd say "Bye Bye."  By today, he was saying "Ba Ba" spontaneously.  Yay Callen!

At his speech therapy on Tuesday, Mandy taught him how to blend two sounds.  She was really trying to get him to say "mmm-ooooo" as part of "more" and he did it for her so we've been working on that this week too.  He hasn't really said it on his own but he does repeat it after me. :)

After Elodie's make up swim lesson this morning and a couple quickie errands, we went to the County's presentation on owls at the library.  Elodie was really excited to learn about them since her room decor is owls.  I think the biggest thing we learned was that owls eat their prey whole and then regurgitate the indigestible parts, which are called owl pellets.  Yuck!

Can you find Elodie??  I can but only because I know which slice of hair is hers. :)

Then when we got home, I let the kids play outside for a little bit before nap time.  This is just some of what they were up to:

Deck sledding!

6/18/12: "go!"

Callen repeated "Go!" today for the first time. :)

Last week, he ate a fruit leather from Whole Paycheck for the first time (I'd never been able to get him to eat those) and he ate one again today so yay for free things from the Kids Club at Whole Paycheck because I might never have known that he'd those. :)

6/10/12: C is 21 mos. old!

He's starting to consistently repeat sounds when we ask him to say something before we give it to him, like "oh" for open or "sssss" for spoon or "ba ba ba" for blueberry and "mmmmm" for more or milk.  He doesn't initiate it on his own, but repeats it for us, which is progress!

He absolutely LOVES to be outside.  In fact, I can almost guarantee that he will throw a tantrum every single time he has to come back inside or we tell him no he can't go outside.  He loves the sand toys too and likes to sit in the dirt and shovel dirt into a bucket and then pour dirt out wherever you don't want it. :)  He likes to pull the little wagon around the backyard and daddy thinks it's just so cute.  He also seems to like playing with the water table, filling up a cup and  pouring out the water, and getting himself wet.  He enjoys trying to blow bubbles as well.

His other love is trains and helicopters.  He is constantly saying "true true" and signing "helicopter" (with sound effect) at the basement door as his way of asking to go downstairs so he can play with his train set with you and/or watch helicopter videos over and over on Y*uTube.  He just loves them.  It's really quite amusing, until it's not. :)

He's still sleeping through the night and still taking naps from 1-4pm each day.  We think that he might get low blood sugar after his naps and in the morning when he wakes up so we've started going into his room armed with his sippy cup of coconut milk so he can be drinking it as we're changing his diaper or while he's waiting for us to be ready for him to be awake. :)  Seems to cut down on the tantrums that had randomly been occurring after we brought him down to the kitchen to eat but he'd refuse the milk that he previously said he wanted and would tantrum for a long time.  His speech therapy is one hour per week and he usually does pretty well, but I think he's over it about half way through.  His therapist Mandy is really nice and helps daddy & mommy to remember to reinforce her work throughout the week.

Oh, and I feel like he's getting heavy.  Time to weigh him again.

Sometimes, he'll come up to you and pinch his nose to tell you that he's stinky. :)  Now if he could just tell you before he had to go...

This week he's supposed to have a consult to see if he'll qualify for food therapy in addition to his speech therapy.

All around, he's just a great kid and he's super cute and we love him tons and tons and we know he's pretty partial to us too. :)

6/8/12: Callen shortens my life...

Callen shortened my life a little today by falling over 6 feet off the playground. He crawled backwards off the structure and landed on his bottom, as I ran towards him screaming "Oh my God, no!" I made it to him right after he fell and I scooped him up as he cried. By the time I walked back to my friends, he stopped crying. I couldn't believe how incredibly blessed we were that he wasn't hurt at all and I put him down and he walked off.  Praise God!!!!

Here's a picture of Elodie standing under the ledge he backed himself off of:

He had tried to back himself off the ledge earlier, but I had gotten to him in time.

Other stuff from today:

He was so excited to sit in his chair (I just washed some new clothes for him that were still in the basement so he was just in his diaper because I still needed to get his clothes).

Onto sissy's chair :)  (This is a birthday present from Auntie Candy & Uncle Dale)

Elodie had her last day of VBS.  She absolutely loved it.  She said her favorite part was singing inside, especially the amusement park song.  Because the kids brought in enough food to donate, they had a big pie throwing event at the end.

Here's Callen tonight using the dust buster to vacuum the street :)

He couldn't get the dust buster off, so he'd just put his hands over his ears to tell us it was loud.  Cute boy.

6/8/12: Wow

Elodie's spending the night at Auntie Candy's tonight and here's the email Candy sent me tonight:

Wow. As many times as we have had her here........never knew she could talk this much.......she has talked non-stop from the minute you left......thru dinner and then sitting outside on the swing she went on for a good hour NON-STOP.........amazing!!! PS: She is sooooooo smart! Where does she get this stuff she says???? : )