Escaping the heat in Colorado-Part 2

Lance started asking last night when part 2 was coming...i've been a little busy with my nose buried in "the help" trying to finish it by wednesday. oops! and when you have hundreds of pics from vacation it can be a little overwhelming! so here ya go, babe! part 2!

since low key was the theme of this vacation we spent a lot of time outside enjoying God's creation! and i have to say this year was MUCH better than last year. last year was our first vacation with tanner and for some reason i expected it to be like vacations pre-kiddo. um, no. last year he didn't sleep through the night 1 single time in colorado-he was up early, we were up all night, and i was grouchy. i had planned on a vacation of sleeping, relaxing, reading books and slow mornings on the porch sipping coffee. well, this year i had totally different expectations-and it was GREAT! yes, tanner woke up at 5:15 every morning (CO time...it was 6:15 to him). and i didn't read but 3 or 4 pages of my book. and i usually drank my coffee while feeding tanner his 2nd or 3rd breakfast of the morning (when your first breakfast is at 5:30, there's plenty of time for round 2 and 3 before 10 am!). but it was just so nice to be away and enjoying this view every day!

 

Psalm 19:1 The heavens declare the glory of God; the skies proclaim the work of his hands.

we spent lots of time the next few days outside, enjoying the weather.

 

we out exploring one day and of course dad said we'd never climb to the top...so off me and mom went! altitude is a killer!

 

tanner and ipop checking out the ipad (probably watching chuggington or playing with the animal sound app)

 

and a quick guitar lesson from uncle grant

 watching some chuggington (and yes, i found this thomas shirt on sale right before we left...he wore it every day while in CO...he LOVES choo choos!)

 and the true boy came out for sure...rocks and sticks and dirt were a highlight of the trip for tanner! but it was so fun watching him explore!

 picking up handfuls of dirt to throw...thank goodness we had a washing machine!

 picking flowers and checking out leaves...

 more rocks (notice the dirt on his nose) and hiking through the grass...such adventures!

 apparently he was doing some serious hiking here!

taking a quick pic with his hiking buddy!

Escaping the heat in Colorado-Part 1

we just got back from a nice little vacation to Colorado. so nice to get a break from the brutal Texas heat. i think the highlight for Tanner was getting to play outside...he was outside A.LOT! and i had a new lens for my camera (fun!) so of course i took tons of pictures!

we loaded up everything but the kitchen sink and headed to the airport (thankfully Taylor was dropping us off curbside!). dang, you have to take a lot of stuff with a toddler...and we didn't even have to bring all of it since we recruited mom and dad to bring the pack n play and backpack and booster seat for tman. he definitely had fun watching the airplanes while we waited for our plane (and changed gates 4 times...gotta love AA). he had the most fun watching the planes as they took off while we waited on our rental car...grammy taught him that planes go "swoosh" (waving his arm) into the sky...and then of course it was "uh oh" once they were out of sight!

we had quite a travel day of flying into Denver and then driving to Grand Lake, but tanner was a trooper. happy the whole time and he didn't even fall asleep until 9 pm (still in the car!).

friday we just hung around the house, explored the neighborhood and had a pretty low key day.

 exploring the neighborhood...the maclaren did quite a bit of off roading and held up amazingly well!

 the view from our balcony

 he found a friend at the house...he loved mr. bear and picked up a new animal sound during our trip.

and he finally mastered the idea of going down the stairs on his stomach-thank goodness!

tanner is in love with choo choos. thankfully grammy brought the duplos train and tanner spent lots of time playing...he also loves the animals (esp. the neigh and baa) that go with the train set.

 we also had to get tman used to the backpack, but once it was his idea to ride in it, he loved it and was all smiles!

 after the impromptu hike in our flip flops, tanner was eager to help grammy clean her feet!

we headed into town later that afternoon and explored the park downtown and tman had fun chasing his shadow down the boardwalk.

 

 

playgroup at kindermusik

dallas moms blog hosted a kindermusik playgroup last week. we went and had a great time! tanner loves music!

playing with shakers!

the scarves were a hit...of course he somehow managed to grab 2 (they were supposed to each get one)...maybe he was just bringing it to me?!?!

love this smile...he was having FUN!

where's weston? it was great-he walked around with the scarf on his head the whole time! we love our friend!

lots of fun waving them all around

storytime-although he wasn't totally into it

and then came the beach balls!

playing with a new friend

and the best part-the teacher had a clean up song and it worked...tanner was actually pretty good at taking his goodies back to her. i was impressed!

we had a great time experiencing kindermusik with old friends and meeting some new ones too!