A Little Hike at McKay Lake

David had to go to work yesterday, so Davey and I decided to go on a little hike.   We made a 1.5 mile circle around this beautiful lake.

It was getting a little hot, but it was a nice morning for a walk.  We tried to stay well hydrated.

Davey asked me to take several pictures of pretty flowers.

Davey wanted us to pack a “picnic”, and – this was new – he wanted us to have a book reading break while we stopped for our picnic.  So that was fun.

Davey always likes picking up rocks and throwing them.  He made up some Olympic Competition game with these rocks.  Something about having to carry them a certain distance, but he ended up throwing them (I don’t think he could resist at all).

One of the highlights of the walk was when we met Tasha the Black Lab.  She loved loved swimming out and retrieving.  She went out a long ways!

Davey watched her for awhile.  I’m always amazed how kids can squat like this.

Davey loved being able to throw the toy out for her to retrieve.

She waited.

Davey would try a mighty throw.

Fun hike and we want to take David next time!

Our Favorite Preschool Books

Davey loves to read with us.  I have always been a bookworm, and I converted David to “bookwormism” when we started dating about 25 years ago.  So Davey sees books around him all the time.  We started reading to him the day he was born I think.

Anyway, I used to go to the library and pick out a random bunch of books for him.  I’d look at them briefly, but I never knew for sure if we’d enjoy them, until I got them home and we tried them out. We found some great ones and some not so great ones (overall though – the quality of the children’s books is really pretty good.  I don’t think I’d have had the same success randomly picking adult books.  Of course- they are much different.  Anyway!)

Lately I decide to start looking for the “award-winning” books.  So I started going through the Caldecott winners.  Next I started looking  at the “Best Picture Books” lists on Amazon.  Each year (each month even  I think) they put out a list of “Best Picture Books”.  They put out best of lists for all types of books, but we are focusing on the best picture books for now.

I’ve been through 2011 pretty thoroughly and 2010.  This morning I jumped to 2007.  I got quite a good list going.  Our library has most of them, although several were checked out, so I’ve placed holds.  Davey LOVES to go to the hold shelf and pick up a book that is for HIM!

This researching books takes some time, so I thought I would keep an ongoing list of our very favorites here.  I’ll update this post when I find books that we really love.  These are the books that Davey insists on reading several times. This doesn’t happen all that often, so I feel like these are the really “good” ones, at least in our minds.

SO the list begins:

1.  Press Here  by Herve Tullet.  (This book is one of our favorite books of all time.  Davey gets to participate in the reading.  It is an incredible book.  I may buy it.)

2.  Let’s Do Nothing by Tony Fucile.  Davey found this book to be really funny.

3.  Don’t Let the Pigeon Drive the Bus by Mo Willems.  Mo Willems is great.  He is hilarious.  I recommend Mo Willems in general.  His Knuffle Bunny books are great too.  We read another book by him the other night called Naked Mole Rat Gets Dressed.  Davey loved it as well.  We are In a Book  is a lot of fun too.

4.  Of course the David books by David Shannon are hilarious.  We started Davey on the board book versions of them.  We still quote one of them.  At the end, the mommy says, “Oh David, I love you.”  We try to say it in the way we imagine she says it in the book.  (slightly exasperated, but she loves him so much anyway!)

5.  I have to mention Margaret Wise Brown and Goodnight Moon.  We practically have it memorized.  As a matter of fact, we got it back out last night for the first time in a long time.  Davey enjoyed it.  He also has always loved Big Red Barn.  I almost like it better. Goodnight Moon  has a knitter in it though so of course that’s a plus.

6.  We also recently discovered Baby Brains. There are several books written about the adventures of this brainy baby.  They are a lot of fun.

7.  Blackout - we just recently read this.  It’s a beautiful book.  It’s about a family.  There is a blackout and they realize how fun it is to slow down and spend time together.  We enjoyed it a lot as well.

8. Mary and the Mouse, the Mouse and Mary  This is a beautiful book by Beverly Donofrio.  The illustrations are so pretty, and it is just a nice book about a little girl and a mouse.  It’s a definite read again and again on the Davey scale.

9.  Stuck by Oliver Jeffers.  This is a hilarious book.  Talk about hyperbole and all the things that get stuck in a tree in the process of a little boy trying to rescue his kite.

Ok, I’m off to the library this morning with another list of books.  I’ll update if we find some more treasures out of this batch!

Sunday

It’s Sunday morning.  Davey is playing some Hero Up on the computer with David.  I’m writing my online class.  It’s about American southern literature in the 20th century.  It’s been a big challenge.  At first I was overwhelmed and I didn’t know where to begin.  I somehow overcame this, and I am now well into the writing of the course.  It’s actually been very good for me.  I realized that I don’t write formally much anymore, but I grade formal papers all the time, so it’s good for me to write as well.

As I write, I have the Pandora Country Christmas station playing on my computer.  I know it’s a little early, but I love the Christmas season.

Before we can get too carried away with Christmas though, we will concentrate on being thankful!  We will spend Thanksgiving with our friends.  Davey will be reunited with Olivia, his 4 year old friend.  He will be very thankful for this.

It’s chilly out this morning.

I need to go to the store soon and get ingredients to make the Pioneer Woman tortilla soup that we like so much.  I’ll try to get Davey to go along with me so that David can work a little on the online typography class that he is writing.

I worked on writing letters with Davey this morning.  He will deny to the extreme that he knows what they are.  He wrote an H for me without any prompting, but then he got kind of upset about it.  He likes being little and something about learning his letters means getting big to him, so right now he does not want to admit to knowing any letter beyond X and O.   That’s ok.  There’s no rush.

I guess it’s time to get back to work.

Gotta have one pic though.  I’ve been having too much fun with instagram on my phone.  Here’s Davey posing for me.

 

Winter Wonderland: Friendly Snowman Meets Blob Snowman

Today while we were out and about, it started snowing.   It snowed a lot more than was initially forecast.  Once we slipped and slid home though, we were able to enjoy watching it fall down.  It was really coming down for awhile.

Late this afternoon, we all decided to go take the dogs out.  Once outside, we realized that this was a wet snow unlike the dry unpackable snow we had experienced up to this point.  So David took the dogs in, he came back out, and we started snowman building.

I had to briefly return to the apartment to search for snowman facemaking supplies.  I came up with a carrot, vanilla wafers, and chocolate chips.  The Canada geese may attack his poor face tonight.

Davey and the Friendly Snowman.

Davey and I had also built a little blob monster snowman.  Here he faces off with friendly snowman.

The Davids and Friendly Snowman

Davey encounters Friendly Snowman and Blob Snowman

Once we finished with the snowmen, Davey had to go down the snowy slide.  He flies down that slide when it’s snowy.

And finally he wanted to swing.  It was a little slippery for him to stay on the swing, so he decided that he wanted to swing Lucy.  Being an imaginary dog, she was somehow able to hold on, and she had a great time.

It finally was getting pretty dark so we had to come in.  It was not so cold today, so we were able to really enjoy being outside.  Fun stuff.

 

 

Saturday Excursion: Snow Sculptures!

Yesterday we made a trek to Breckenridge.  We are all still battling these colds, but we thought it might be nice to get out.  An easy drive to Breckenridge, stroll around and look at the snow sculptures, and a nice scenic drive back.

It didn’t quite go that way.  It was a fun trip, but it was more demanding than we anticipated.

First of all, we quickly realized that there are a lot of skiers headed to the mountains on a Saturday morning.  It was bumper to bumper at times along I-70.  We learned not to drive to Breckenridge on Saturday during ski season.

Then it was bumper to bumper people once we reached Breckenridge.  We didn’t think we were going to find a parking space, but at the last moment, when we’d almost given up, we found a great spot not far from the sculptures.

The sculptures were really amazing.  These photos don’t do them justice.

Medusa!

This sculpture was cool, but I wish we’d gotten a good picture of the one directly behind it.  There were all these wraith looking things holding up torches.  Some of the detail was just amazing.

Davey enjoyed looking around.  There were a ton of people.  I think it’s overwhelming to be a little guy amongst so many people.  I am not crazy about it myself.

The sculptures started out as big blocks of “Stomped” down snow.  There was one that we could walk up and touch.  Davey liked that.

He liked a chance to play in the snow too.

During our drive, we saw people ice fishing on a couple of lakes.  That’s still just amazing to us, the idea that the frozen lake can support all those trucks and cars parked out on it.  Then on our way home, we saw people parasailing too, but they were on snowboards.  I’d never seen anything like it.  They really got moving.

If you look carefully,  you can see a tiny figure being propelled by a tiny sail.  (I took this from the car. Not a great shot.)

At the end of the day, apparently many of the skiers return to Denver.  So we had heavy traffic for a good portion of the drive home as well.  Davey remained cheerful though.  He drank his lemonade, ate M&Ms, and kept us entertained with knock knock jokes!

Do You Know the Muffin Kid?

I have always liked that song except I think that Drury is one of the harder words in the world to pronounce. “Do you know the muffin man? the muffin man, the muffin man…who lives on Drury Lane.”

Davey helped me make muffins this morning.   I have acknowledged him as a little stirring master, but today he wanted to put the mix into the muffin tin.  I was a little hesitant, but I let him have at it.  As expected, things got a little messy, but really he did great.

He filled them all up.

Guess how many he ate?  We even called them cupcakes and so he hesitated, but he still declined to try them.   I don’t really blame him.  They were poppyseed muffins, and I think the poppyseeds freaked him out a little bit.

Last night I started putting one side of my sweater together.  I just had to get started so that I could get an idea of how it will all fit together.

I have had my youtube videos up on my monitor to help me.  Those Berroco videos are great.  I really learn best by watching something like that.

I seamed the shoulder.  I still need to press it, but I think it went ok.

I am now working on setting and sewing in the sleeve.  That’s kind of like trying to fit a square peg into a round hole, but vice versa.  (I am sure that made a lot of sense, but that is what it is like!)

I am keeping my fingers crossed, but so far so good.  We will see.

 

Estes Park

Yesterday we drove up to Estes Park.  We wanted to explore a little on the way, so we drove up through Longmont, over to Lyons and then up to Estes Park.  We stopped and had lunch at Pizza Hut in Longmont.  Davey was very happy to go into a real Pizza Hut.  He’d missed it.

Estes Park was a fun town to “stroll”.  It was very crowded though.  We hadn’t encountered a town with so many tourists before.  I have heard people rave about Estes Park all of my life, and I finally can understand why.  It is beautiful!

We walked and window shopped.  One of our favorite things to do.  Dog watching is another favorite.  Davey will see a dog and say, “Oh my goodness.  Look at that precious pup!”  We saw the biggest dog on the planet in Estes Park.  We think he was a Russian Wolfhound.  Davey could have ridden him all the way back home.

There was a yarn shop!  I love googlemaps on my little phone.  Finding a yarn shop involves only a very quick search and then a map to lead me to the front door.

Great shop!  I bought yarn for 2 pairs of upcoming Joy of Sox socks.  Lime green and a pretty blue.  Oh I love that lime green!

We had an unfortunate incident in the yarn shop.  Davey was beside me and was as usual pulling out skeins of yarn to “show me” just as fast as he could.  “Mommy, I JUST wanted to show you this one.”  (Shop owners likely whimper when they see a 3 year old boy enter their shops.)  All of a sudden I hear a cry, and there’s Davey.  Except this time instead of having a skein of yarn in his hand to show me, there is a mousetrap hanging off his finger.  Poor thing.  Thank goodness it didn’t snap him too badly.  He told me later that “Mommy, it really didn’t hurt that much.”  I think it scared him and me more than anything.

Although it’s not a method I would have advocated to get him to stop touching all the yarn, it did slow him down abit.   He was also busy following Duncan the yarn shop dog around as well.

Have you had mountain cookies?  We learned our lesson in Breckenridge as to the sheer enormousness (nice word huh) of them, and so yesterday the three of us split one and still had plenty.

The other highlight were the elk.   They were all over the golf course.  Davey really enjoyed seeing them.

They were looking at this guy.

We definitely want to return to Estes Park.

 

 

Colorado Tags

We get pretty excited about the small things around here.  Davey has been really looking forward to getting our new car tags.  “Mommy, they have mountains on them!”  So yesterday, we took on the purchase and changing of the tags.

Since we are back in an urban area, we first had to go have an emissions test done on the car.  We found the emissions place.  There was a line of cars.  I didn’t bother reading the big information board when we drove in, because I’d looked into the process online before we’d left.  As we were waiting though, I had a nagging feeling that they might not accept my credit card.  Sure enough as we approached the front of the line, there was the sign “Sorry no credit/debit cards”.  I wiggled ourselves out of the line and off we went in search of money.  (I’d neglected to put my checkbook in my purse, and I barely know what cash looks like anymore.  I am very debit card dependent.)

We were not in the greatest part of town.  I knew we’d be getting back in line so we went into the Dollar General for a snack.  I also hoped I could get some cash back there.  No such luck.  We did stock up on animal crackers though.  The person in Dollar General told me that there was an atm in the liquor store next door.  So Davey had his first trip into the liquor store.  It wasn’t the fact that I took him into a liquor store that bothered me much, it was more the gauntlet of cigarette smoke that we had to run through to get into the liquor store.

So we got our money, drove back and got in line.  It moved pretty quickly and soon we were standing in a booth waiting for them to finish the car.  I started talking to a couple in there.  I was curious as to how often I had to have the emissions testing done.  They told me every other year.  Then they asked me if I had any idea how much tags were in Colorado.  “You are in for a shock!” the man told me.  Then I think he took my slightly southern accent as a sign of naivete and maybe dumbness because he started to warn me how I probably was not going to get out of the tag office without having paid oh $500-700!  Even on my 7 year old car! I really had my doubts about that, but I made all the exclamations of “oh no!  You are kidding!”, and he was happy.

Next I learned that not only did we need the $25.00 emissions test, but since we were registering for the first time in Colorado, we had to have a $15.00 VIN Verification.  Seriously.  She walked around the car, wrote down VIN numbers, verified.  However, there was no computer database verification check involved that I know of.   Anyway, a first for me, but no biggie.

Next we were off to the tag office.  Another very long line.  Davey and I were getting hungry by then, but he hung in there great.  We played “find objects in Mommy’s purse that can entertain us.”  We talked to a man next to us who had moved from Washington D.C.  Finally, it was our turn.  Davey was thrilled to see our mountain tags, and I was thrilled that our tags, while higher than in our previous states of residence, were “only” $158.

Davey is ready now to install them onto the car with Daddy.  More cause for great excitement!

Happy Saturday!  We are off on a Saturday exploration.