Family Pictures

On Tuesday we had our family pictures taken.  Here is a sample of the family pictures we got:

  A                                                      B

   C                                       D

    E                                                  F

Melissa Elmblad took these pictures for us.  I know her from MOPS and toddler storytime at the library.  I found out tonight that she and her family are moving to Cortez.  If any of you are in the Cortez area and need family pictures contact Melissa, she does an excellent job!

Hey, let us know, which picture is your favorite.

Learning to Ride

Dustin is demonstrating how to pedal.  Priceless!!!

Down by the banks

...well down by the river anyway.

We remembered to put David in his swim trunks this time. He had a great time getting all muddy.

Pretty Colors

David has watched me paint my toenails and today he painted his own.  I was sitting on the couch and he comes up to me and says, "look pretty colors".  I looked at his toes and the cranberry in his fingers and knew immediately what had happened.  It was so funny!  Here's a picture of David painting his toes.

Just look at that concentration!  David worked so hard on his toenails and is so proud of what he did.  Dustin and I are happy for him.

Playing So Nicely

David and I went to go play at a friend's house yesterday.  Larissa and I had a great time talking and folding laundry.  When we tried to get Nicole to play with David this is what we heard:

Larissa:  Nicole, you can play with David.

Nicole:  I told you yesterday, I don't want to play with David!

That was that.  After a little while they were playing together and having a pretty good time.  They colored together, played cars and played house.  House was so funny because they would line the cars and the babies on the couch to sleep and then Nicole would say to David, "Come on honey lets got to sleep".  It was so cute.

Fun at the Canal

I'm such a slacker.

Last week we had a little fieldtrip down to the canal at a friend's house. The DeFaye's invited us over to play in the canal and have a picnic lunch. David didn't care so much about the lunch but really enjoyed the water. He just ran back and forth, back and forth, threw rocks and had a pretty good time. David was able to play with his friends Zak, Ava and Shelby.

Now you may be wondering were all the other kids are. Well, Zak is in one picture. Here's the answer, the other kids wanted to eat their lunches, David wanted to play and didn't care about eating.

I was able to visit with a good friend on mine Valerie Holman. A funny thing happened while we were finding our place at the canal. Valerie and I drove down to the canal in the Trooper with the kids loose in the back. We drove along the canal a ways and then decided to turn around. We turned to the right and the weeds were higher than Valerie thought so we were tilted very heavily to one side (the right side) and had a hard time getting the car to move. First Shelby started to cry and then David joined in. Finally the bright idea came to put it in 4-wheel drive. We got out just fine. After getting to our spot on the canal David kept saying that the Trooper tipped over. It's funny now but David was scared at the time.

We really enjoyed our time in the water and with our friends.

I'm a Proud Mama!

This morning David was being a little more than a handful during some very busy activities that involved both Dustin and me.  I asked David to please play in the living room and when he continually kept returning to our busy-ness, he was sent to his room.  He went crying and very sad to be there.  When our project was all said and done I went back into his room to talk about what had happened.  This is how our conversation went:

Me:  David, when Mommy and Daddy ask you to do something we need you to do it.  We want you to be safe.

David:  Okay, Mommy.  Sorry.  I try.

I just about melted.  He said sorry and that he would try all on his own with no prompting from me.  I was so proud of him in that moment and I realized just how fast he is growing up and all the things that he is learning.

Zapata Falls Completed

This is David thoughts at the beginning of the morning when we left for our super fun family adventure! PRICELESS!

Luckily his disposition changed as the adventure went on.

And so begins the story....

At 9000 feet we begin our adventure and this is how the Sand Dunes look from where we were.

This is David as begin our 400 foot ascent up to Zapata Falls. He was such a trooper. This hike was perfect for him and his abilities. We only had to hike a whopping 1/4 mile to the falls and the most beautiful thing we have seen here since moving to the San Luis Valley. For a little while David really enjoyed stopping to sit on anything he could.

Isn't this little stream just wonderful? It's running low right now so we didn't have to wade in a super deep stream. This water was COLD! Thankfully it was also only as deep as my ankle. We had to walk through this to get up into the cave to see the falls. David was very eager to go through the stream on his own. By the end of wading he wanted to get out and would periodically shiver until we got back on land.

This is the site we found after wading through the water and keeping David from falling in. The falls really were very beautiful and it was so fun for us to go together as a family.

Dragon Hunting

Dragon fly hunting that is.

We went down to the Rio Grande River (it's about 5-10 minutes away walking distance), David wanted to see the water. We found a red dragon fly and the hunt began to catch a red dragon fly. We saw so many amazing colors! I had know idea that dragon flies came in so many different colors. We also learned that we can crop pictures on our camera. Enjoy the before and after pictures.

Our first gold dragon fly.

Can you find the blue dragon fly?

This was the first red dragon fly we were able to catch.

This is really cool because in the original picture the tops are all in the shot. The close-up is really neat because we got in focus.

I saved the best for last....

This is my favorite dragon fly that we found. The gold wings are so pretty with the sun reflecting on them.

When we weren't hunting David was playing in the river. Dustin found some raccoon tracks and made a comment that the prints looked like hands, so David decided to imitate the tracks. David really enjoyed running around in the water. Next time I will put him in his swim trunks before we head over there.

Anyone who knows me....

knows how much this disgusts me:

My son loves to eat cold cereal for breakfast with milk in it and he lets it sit for a while before he eats it.  It gets all soupy and soggy before he finishes with it.  Can you believe it?  Today he wanted sliced strawberries in his crispy rice.  He loves crispy rice.