5 Months

What a difference a month makes!  This seems to be the biggest leap as of yet for Fiona, I feel like all of a sudden she grew up quickly.  She is now  13.2 lbs. (less then last month but maybe bc I'm using my bathroom scale) and  25.5 inches long.  There have been a few changes we have had to make since last month and she has taken to them all very well.  She was sleeping every night and nap being swaddled but she started to break out of it during the night and it would wake her up once her hands got anywhere near her mouth.  So we stopped swaddling and crossed our fingers it wouldn't be too much of a setback in the sleep department.  And of course she did better then expected, because she's Fiona and she's easy!  God bless her.  She only cries some of the time to fall asleep at nap time and her 2-3 hour nap has now turned into only an hour but that just means she takes more naps which is ok right now too.  Being the second child she has learned to nap wherever we are, it's not always easy but she usually just passes out.  The other change we made was starting her on solids.  Yes she is already that age, wow!  She started rice cereal and didn't really know what to think of it at first but once she got the hang of it, she got all excited when the spoon came out and she'd start kicking her feet in the high chair.  She has since tried peas (not a fan, it's ok, neither am I!) and sweet potatoes (ahhh that's much better!).  Logan likes to watch and pick out her bib and sometimes he likes to help feed her.  I keep telling him how Fiona is eating her veggies and he should try too...it hasn't worked yet haha.  Fiona has been enjoying sitting in Logan's old "car" walker and he loves pushing her around the kitchen in it.  She hasn't figured out how to move it yet, but it's a nice place she can hang out while I am busy in the kitchen.  Little girl has found her voice and has been talking and cooing and screeching a lot more now.  She also has this little moan she does for awhile to warn you that she's about to cry over being tired or hungry or needs a change of scenery.  Logan is good at making her giggle and Dom and I have succeeded a few times too but nothing compares to big brother!  It's always heart warming to watch them continue to interact and see how it evolves as she grows up.  She's become a wiggly worm and she kicks her feet and rolls side to side and somehow moves around a lot that way.  Mostly in her crib at night but she's started doing it while playing on her mat now too so Logan has been warned many a time about keeping his Lego's out of reach!  Before we know it she will be on the move!  She is working on sitting up too, she still needs assistance every time but she's getting more stable, so she should be there soon.  Can't believe how fast she is growing, time is flying by!

trying out her first tastes of rice cereal with big brother helping

 practicing her sitting up

 smiling for mommy

 celebrating our 8 year anniversary

 Love this one of them!

 Logan just loves to snuggle her!

Besides all those leaps for Fiona, we have been really busy the past month!  We got to go to the Renaissance Festival in Castle Rock, CO with Erick about an hour or so away from us and it was so nice to go when the weather is nice and you're in the mountains instead of a dustbowl!  I'd say it was smaller then Arizona's but much more enjoyable since you aren't sweating your butt off in an AZ February! 

 Auntie Dre was in Denver for a weekend visiting a friend so we got to see her one morning for breakfast in Boulder and a little play time at our house.  Lauren was also in Denver a different weekend so we got to meet her for breakfast in downtown Denver. We always love seeing the Roussel family no matter how short the trip!  

We celebrated Independence day a day early at our neighbors house.  They had a big party and Logan loves playing with their daughter so I practically didn't see him the entire night since he was having so much fun.  We had fun drinking with the Valania's, Erick, Jenny and our neighbors.  It was nice to be able to go home and put Fiona to sleep and then be able to go back to the party and not worry about her since the baby monitor worked still ;)  Logan got to stay up late and watch fireworks (that start after it gets dark so about 9:30pm here) then he went off to bed too and Erick and Dom kept the drinking up until I dragged them home about 12:30.  We had a fun time and it was nice to relax and drink and have fun neighbors around our age!  Although I'm not sure how fun it was the next morning for Dom and Erick!  I "forced" them to go out to breakfast the next morning too ;)    

happy 4th!

watching fireworks!

We joined Jenny and Bo at City Park in Denver for Jazz in the park one Sunday.  There were sooooo many people, wow!  We had a picnic and sat on the grass and enjoyed the music and company.  Fiona thought dancing with Logan was the best thing ever and she was giggling like crazy, so cute!  It was fun and anytime we can do something outside in the middle of July it's a great reminder of why we love Colorado!

I got to go to Jenny's bridal shower last weekend at a delicious crepe restaurant in Cherry Creek.  It was nice to go out sans kids and do something with adults!  We played a game where the winner had the craziest stuff in their purse and I had grabbed my purse that I used with Logan before Fiona came along and had never cleaned it out, so I won a bottle of wine for having a pair of underwear in my bag...it was Logan's ;)  After the shower I headed back home and found a wonderful surprise in the driveway.  Waiting for me was a new 4runner and a kayak on top!  I've wanted a 4runner for awhile and ended up with the CX9 instead in Tucson but now that we live in a place with snow and mountains and things to be explored, we were wanting something with 4 wheel drive :)  and I've always told Dom that I wanted a kayak when we moved to Colorado, back when Colorado was just a dream we had, and now believe it or not it's all here (which is the inspiration for naming the kayak Ripley)!  I was very excited and surprised that Dom managed all that with two kids!  Luckily Erick was there to help out with Logan (he even came armed with chocolate donuts and a toy haha he knows what works!) and Fiona was a sleeping little angel so everything went smoothly.  After checking out my new toys I was told we were going off roading with Mike in Nederland.  So off we went!  Logan thought it was the best thing ever taking the car off road (he wants me to just drive off in the grass all the time now) and watching Mike splash his car through some massive puddles.  We got to see some great mountain views and spotted some good camping spots too.  The next day we went to Brainard Lake with the kayak and had fun testing it out.  The lake was beautiful and not very crowded, we had great weather and the kids did great.  But by the end of this busy weekend of adventures they wanted to be out of the car!  Dom has went into more detail about the fun we had on his own blog that will be all about our off roading and kayaking and mountainous adventures, www.maesadventurecolorado.blogspot.com.  So I will leave it at that!

the beautiful bride to be

surprise!

view from off roading in Nederland

taking the little guy out on the kayak for the first time

Brainard Lake

taking a ride together while Fiona napped and Mike watched her

We had a lot of fun this past month and we are looking forward to another busy and fun month ahead including a trip we didn't think we were going to be able to take, to Arizona for a wedding and to see our friends and family!  We are super excited...even though it will be August.  In Arizona.  Please send rain to cool it down so we can survive!

Summer Camp

We officially have a preschooler on our hands!  I know technically Logan has been a "preschooler" since he turned 3 but this summer he went to preschool for 2 weeks for a summer camp so now I consider him a real life preschooler ;)  Right after we came back from our Texas vacation Logan got to start summer camp at the Wee School in downtown Erie.  It's small and cute and the teachers are too sweet.  I was skeptical that Logan would part with me so easily but we had been talking about what a big boy he was and how much fun he was going to have at school.  Since he has so many older friends that are already in school I think that helped seal the deal that school was cool.  And so he had a successful time leaving mom and dad, every time actually and that made me happy!
The first week of summer camp was a western theme.  Logan came home everyday with some super cute project he made and a story of what snack they ate that day.  The school provided them with a themed out snack too.  Hopefully that will get Logan to try more foods...although from what he told me he didn't eat anything new, oh well!  I asked him to learn the friends names that he likes to play with and in the beginning he kept saying he didn't know but eventually came home to tell me he likes to play with Emily.  Of course we were not surprised to learn that she was a girl and almost 5, that seems to be who Logan is drawn to...probably because they are the ones that talk just as much as he does haha.   Since these weeks of summer camp were everyday from 9-12:30 Logan was not so crazy about being home over the weekend, he wanted to go to school!  The second week of summer camp was a pond life theme.  Again he came home with the cutest projects and stories about what they had for snack. He had so much fun he wanted to do school at home.  So he chose a week of Dinosaurs, ocean life and a week of food so that has been fun too.  He likes to learn everything he can about the things he is interested in (lately he's been obsessed with Tornadoes!) and it's crazy how much information he retains!  He turned the corner in the last few months of being a 3 year old and turning into an almost 4 year old.  It blows my mind he will be 4 soon!  He is so grown up!
He starts preschool again in August but is only signed up for the Tues/Thurs afternoon class, so only a few hours twice a week.  I'm hoping space opens up in the Mon/Wed/Fri morning class but I'm sure he will have fun either way.  Until then he is doing swim lessons with daddy at the pool this summer and a gymnastics class every Thursday for an hour, it's a gym class in an old bus with a trampoline attached to the side, how cool is that haha.  He's been having fun playing with our neighbor, 6 year old Paige and whatever kids end up at the park when the weather is nice, oh wait it's Colorado, that's almost all the time ;)  We go to the splash pad at the Orchard shops too and he's getting better and better at being ok with splashing water in his face, baby steps for Logan, baby steps.  We spend one day a week at the library too picking up books for whatever his new thing is that week.  Last week he chose books on kayaking, scuba diving and jeeps ;)  He keeps us on our toes and always makes us laugh.  He's so inquisitive and talkative and smart he's going to be schooling us soon!

First day of summer camp!

 Our little cowboy after western week