Eating Out

Today was another free day at Rocky Mountain National Park.  Last time we went we had fun but it was so crowded, so we decided to head up for dinner this time when most people would be headed out of the park instead of in.  We brought up burgers to grill and Emmaline gave AJ a big hug and declared them to be the best burgers she's ever had.  Lilana kept calling her S'more a "squash". Fun fact - in our house, we make S'mores with Hershey's chocolate syrup because it is safe for Emmaline's allergies.  We can't do regular chocolate bars!
 Idgie just wanted to sit in the stroller the whole time and I was pleased that both Idgie and Lil demonstrated a healthy fear of the fire - which made me breathe easier. 
The picnic area had vault toilets so I was very grateful that we brought along a portable little potty seat - every single girl looked down that hole and wanted me to hold onto them while they peed, so it was nice to have something with a smaller hole to attach over the top.  It was actually our first big outing with Idgie potty trained.  She did end up peeing her pants, but that was because I was busy taking a group picture for another family that was there.
There is something mesmerizing about a campfire, which all the kids discovered, and the ambiance was added to, by a group on the other side of the picnic area, sitting around their campfire and softly beating their drums and sometimes chanting.  It was SO ..... Boulder. 

Here's a couple pictures of the fun:

We saw several Elk on the way up.  This one was close to the road and had a very impressive rack.  The road was crowded with people stopping to take pictures so I just leaned out the window to snap one as we drove by.  Can you spot me?

Kids enjoying the fire

Liliana being silly - that's a hamburger in her mouth:

Rating:  4 S'mores

Hey Willy, See the Pyramids?

Yesterday I was picking up a book I had on reserve at the library (Hunger Games - Finally!!).  It was on the way to pick Emmaline up from school so I let Lil and Idgie go to the children's section quickly and each grab a book to look at in the car.  Neither girl is very picky and they just grab whatever book strikes their fancy.  Liliana selected this:

This book was so odd.  I spent the whole time reading it with her thinking just how weird it was.  The problem was when it was done - I couldn't stop thinking about it!  It was just so strangely GOOD too - even though the book made no sense at all!  Obviously it stuck with me enough to write a blog post about it.  I just had to share this great part.  I can't even explain why I like it - but I did!

"What is nothing?" I ask.

"Nothing is when you are given

a very small portion of ice cream

by an adult,

and you look at the plate

and at the adult

and you ask for more

and the adult says

you have a huge portion

and you say

'That's it?  That's nothing.'

"And that is nothing," says Lulu.

Gifts and Chins

Emmaline came home from school today with 2 new bracelets and 1 rock.  Compliments of three different boys apparently.  I asked her why they gave these tokens to her and she replied that she didn't know, and she guessed it was because they liked her.  I asked her what that meant - and she said that she didn't know.  So I'm hoping these little gifts don't mean anything at all!  We can't be beating off the boys already at 6 years old!

She also managed to trip on the playground today and scrape her chin.  Two days before school picture day.  Naturally.

Rating:  1 Fireball

Tidbits

I've taken a few pictures lately but haven't had a good chance to deal with them.  When I pulled them off my camera today, I realized they all had a common theme - playtime!  So I decided to include them in this post and do a little blurb about all the kids since I haven't done that in awhile.  Mostly this will be full of tidbits of stuff.


So you may or may not recall that last year we converted our dining room into a school room.  AJ built a fence across the big opening so that the littler hands in the family didn't have free access to all the fun stuff.  Well the girls recently discovered that if you toss a blanket over the fence, that it makes an excellent puppet theater and have thoroughly enjoyed rediscovering their puppets.  Most of which are still blind..  Emmaline and Lil make up stories, and Idgie periodically pops up from behind and says:  "The End!"

Emmaline and Lil are also fun to watch on the elliptical!  They have discovered that if each one stands on a side, that together they can make it go.  It's good to see the teamwork.

Idgie of course has completed the potty training process.  I can not even believe how easy that was.  It required no treats or extra motivation - she just wanted to do it - and it's done!  Such an amazing kid!  She is so talkative too.  A lot of times I can understand her better than Liliana.   A few days ago she grabbed me from behind and said, "I got your back mommy!"  Thanks kid.

The other night we had zucchini for dinner.  Lil stacked all the zucchinis up on her fork and declared they were marshmallows and then pretended to roast them and eat them!

Lincoln is in the blowing raspberries stage.  He can make some pretty good spit spray too.  He adores getting smothered by his sisters and has a high tolerance for just about anything - as long as he is involved in the action.  This is how I found him yesterday:

When Emmaline first started the school year, Idgie and Lil seemed to be bored a lot.  They are getting better and better at playing with each other and Lil is moving happily into the role of "Idea Master" for all their games.  Today this is how they were playing - note the room full of toys in the background - yet they play with tupperware:

Lil had a referral with an Occupational Therapist yesterday.  The OT decided that likely the reason why Lil is uncoordinated and trips and falls a lot is because she has "tight hamstrings".  She said that is more of a Physical Therapy realm and so will be making a referral to a PT.

Emmaline is improving on the nebulizer.  We have a couple more weeks of that and then hopefully we can be rid of it.  Doing treatments 4 times a day is very annoying!  I especially hate getting up even earlier than we already do so we can fit it in before school.

So pretty much that is what the crew has been up to!

Rating:  4 Lollipops

Potty Training - Day 2

Idgie is amazing.  Seriously.  The girl is awesome.  I barely had to do anything today!  She doesn't even ask for candy!  She just wants to go!  She only had two accidents today and considering I did nothing special - just counted on her to take herself - that really isn't bad at all.  She was obviously totally ready to potty train. 

I don't even know what to say.  It is just so AWESOME!

Rating:  5 Lollipops

Potty Training

It seems like I was potty training Liliana just over a year ago.  Oh wait - I was!

Idgie has been ready for awhile I think but Emmaline had the day off from school today, so I decided to hunker down and do some potty training on the long weekend.  For day one it was a success!  We only had a few accidents this morning, and then the last half of the day, Idgie was both pooping and peeing in the potty!  Amazing!  And after getting the portable DVD player hooked up to play Caillou right in the bathroom for her, I could barely pry Idgie off the toilet. 

So I declare day one to be a success.  But we all know of course that it is day TWO that you have to look out for!

Rating:  Lots of juice.  Lots and lots of juice.

One Step Forward, Two Steps Back

That's how I feel about the allergist sometimes.

Emmaline got a cold about a month ago and we had to cancel her last allergy challenge.  So today we went in again with the plan to challenge milk.  However, she has had a hacking cough for the last month.  We weren't even going to go but they told us to come in anyway.  So the allergist listened to her chest and did a few tests and decided to scrap the milk challenge, and do some breathing treatments instead.  He said it was likely just "viral induced asthma" and that we'd do treatments for about a month or so and hopefully that should resolve the issue.  And THEN we can go back to doing food challenges.  Sigh.

Rating:  3 Fireballs

Happy Birthday Emmaline!

Emmaline is officially 6 years old!  Her birthday was on Labor Day, just like the day she was born.  We spent pretty much the whole weekend celebrating!  Emmaline claimed she celebrated her birthday for four days.

On Saturday we went swimming.  That is specifically what she asked to do.  We hired two teenage sisters to be Mother's Helpers at the pool.  It was nice to be 4 on 4 with the kids.  We had a lot more fun that way without having to constantly stress about who had which kid and where since none of our kids are swimmers yet.

Sadly the fun got cut short when a swimmer got their foot cut by something sharp in the pool.  They cleared out the pool - promising it would be open again soon.  Which ended up not being soon at all.  But the girls spent some time with their noses stuck to the glass waiting.  We ended up just getting dressed and heading off to our next adventure.

We headed to a park and had a picnic and then rode a little train a couple of times.  The girls loved that!

Then in Sunday, Emmaline was so excited to have the other kids sing Happy Birthday to her and the Bishop gave her some candy (Starburst - one of her favorites!) 
On Monday, the actual day of her birthday, we started the morning by opening presents - first thing of course!

I think her favorite thing was a book of paper dolls.  Lately she has taken to cutting out pictures out of coloring books to make paper dolls so we got her some real ones.  Other highlights were hair ribbons, books, and a new lunch box.   Later that afternoon we went apple picking which at this age, Emmaline still thought was a huge treat!  Then that evening we finished of the day with her birthday dinner (she picked porcupine meatballs) and cake.  This year she picked a Strawberry Cheesecake which I successfully executed using soy cream cheese. 

On Tuesday - the fourth day of her celebration, she got to bring treats to school to share with the class.  She opted for Fruit Snacks and her teacher gave her a Happy Birthday certificate that smelled like scratch and sniff birthday cake!

So I think she had a great birthday!

Happy Birthday Emmaline-pie!

Rating:  1 cheesecake

Artist

Liliana has been very into coloring lately.  I love to see her scribbles on the page and hear her tell me about them.  Some days she draws a picture, and some days she writes letters and tells me it says things like names of people in the family or "no more monkeys jumping on the bed!"

Here is one of her recent drawings.  I was impressed with the detail.  There is eyes, hair, ears, etc.

Rating:  4 Lollipops