Dad and Daniel visit...

So, Dad and Daniel are in town. It's been great having them here.

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I came home after a day of work to find the three boys like this:

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They had unloaded 135 2x4's. they were shirtless and tired. It was great.

And here is Oliver, cleaning up: (again)

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Today we drove the Alpine Loop. If you have never done it....please do.

NOW.

It is amazing.

We stopped along the way for a picnic.

Here is Daniel, being a sweet uncle.

Here is Oliver, doing his version of the sign language sign for "more". For those of you who know what it should look like, you'll find this charming:



Oliver, playing with a snail shell that Bryce found.

We found this monster in the woods......we ran. :)

Here is a good shot of all of us....please note how it looks like Daniel is about to push Bryce off this cliff. :) IN reality he was kind of tickling him.

The tunnel...

I think that you should all meet Bryce's son:

This is Oliver.

He insists on wiping down his tray when he is done eating. It concerns me. :)

Incidentally, he also REALLY enjoys throwing things in the trash and putting things away.

What should I do?

We bought Oliver this funny tube thing from Ikea. He loves it.

More tunnel fun:

And here is Oliver sporting his new hair-do.

First haircut...

Well, here are some of the cutest pictures you will see in your whole lives.

This is Oliver and our beloved nephew, Beckett:

. Please note how diligently Oliver his holding on to Beckett in this wild (not wild) wagon ride in Robyn and Ryan's back yard:

More diligence:

As you will note in the above photos: Oliver's hair has gotten to the length in which it disrupts his vision. This was a very hard fact for me to swallow. I don't know WHY it was so hard for me to stomach his first hair cut. But it was.....for both of us:

Below you will see a pictorial of my first attempt at cutting his hair:

It began innocent enough....he did not know exactly what I was doing....so he began to get his hands involved:

Then he started wiggling his head:

His concern grew to anxiety:

Ultimately, he was not having it.

I ended up cutting his hair in his sleep. It went really well. I wish my hair cuts could be done the same way. It was fine. I hardly cut anything off...but...like a good, ridiculous Mom, I saved every hair.

Few goings on...

So, I have good news and bad news.

Good news first: We started swimming lessons with Oliver.

Here is Oliver and Bryce. Note: Oliver is wearing his "fake" smile

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Me and Oliver....and the fake smile...again.

He was a little more nervous about the swimming lessons than he wanted to let on.

Here he is, doing his best "kick, kick, kick..."

But all in all, this facial expression captures how he really felt:

Now the bad news: We decided to renovate our *only* bathroom and have all of the pluming in the house re-done. We had all of the galvanized steel piping replaced with pex piping.

Here is our bathroom before:

Here is our bathroom after the gutting:

We moved the location of the tub and toilet and are adding two sinks instead of one.

Now the bad news: 10 days later and it still looks like this. Yep. No shower or bath (the faucet, etc is not hooked up). We DO have a toilet.

It is just turning out to be WAY more of a pain than we expected. I have had way more "showers" via the kitchen sink than I have ever dreamed of having. We are going to Boulder for the weekend, so I don't think we'll make too much progress for some time now.

Wish us luck. And sanity. :)

Food and Wine Festival and Cascade Springs...

We've been having some fun lately. We are trying to enjoy every last day of summer. On Saturday we went to Sundance's annual Food and Wine festival. It was decadent.

HEre is Oliver with the beautiful and amazingly talented Bonnie (she's the one that takes all those great pictures):

We then went on a great (but short) hike to/around Cascade Springs. This was a good hike for us because you can take the stroller on the whole hike.

It was so beautiful.

Oliver, in the river.
This is Oliver's latest trick: He blows kisses. Sweetest thing ever (to date).
I love Oliver's little expression here. It is sweet and mischievous, at the same time.