Bounce Bounce Bounce

We are so busy during the week that we don't get to do as much Chloe focused activities as we would like. So on the weekend we have been trying to make a special effort to plan fun activities especially for her.

Here we are out to breakfast. In this picture I am asking Chloe to show me her big smile! The food took forever to get to our table, so there were a lot of distraction games while we waited for breakfast. I don't think Chloe minded too much!

Next we headed off to Bouncin' Bears. A new favorite, and GIANT hit! This place is basically a huge padded room filled with gigantic inflatable bounce houses, slides and mazes. Chloe LOVED it. Andrew and I got a bit queazy by the end because it was basically like being on a rocking boat for an hour, but Chloe could have stayed there all day if we let her.

She went down the big slide by herself! (over and over and over and over)
Jumped on a huge inflatable floor with Dad, and basically had an awesome day.
She ran all over the place! It was great for her to have a huge safe area to run wild in! The only down side was having to leave. She DID NOT like that part :) Nobody ever likes to leave when they are having fun! But her falling asleep on the five minute car ride home reassured us that we called it correctly.

We will definitely be going back but next time with dramamine for the grownups!!

Whoa Baby!

So it is official!!! We are expecting a new addition to our family of three! Chloe's little brother or sister will be here in the beginning of August :)
We may be crazy busy now, but I suppose it is going to get about 3 times more crazy. We are only expecting one, but I hear having two kids is three times as hard. Heres hoping it is three times as fun!

ABC's

Can you believe this??? I picked up Chloe yesterday from daycare and she was babbling on and on for the entire drive home. As usual she was the only one who understood what she was talking about....but wait....did she really just say what I think she said? What? Oh yes this song debuted yesterday! It is crazy what kids pick up! I sing to her all the time, but she never once sang along, so I was taken aback that when she busted out the alphabet on her own! She can make it to about K. Wow!

What a little genius!!

day in the life

I wish I could say we have been traveling the country and that is why there are so few posts this month, but really I have just been exhausted! There is so much going on with work lately that by the end of the day all I want to do is hang out with Andrew and Chloe, make (or preferably just eat) a yummy dinner and go to bed. I also need to get back into the habit of taking pictures of the everyday stuff again! So here it goes!

Chloe is still as happy as ever, growing hair like crazy and learning words at a rapid speed.

One of our new favorite "snacks" is snow cones. Well really just snow scooped up from outside, but she will spend half an hour "cooking" it in her kitchen.
she likes eating it too :)
And here is something new: Chloe learned to take her shirt off. Sort of!
You can tell she is delighted by this new skill! When she is happy or excited she will run at top speed around the house squealing and jumping around.
Devouring her old favorite-- Peas. The new favorite thing for vegetables is to put them in her cup and "drink" them. Lucky this time nothing was in her cup. A few nights ago she asked for more broccoli juice (aka more orange juice in which to dip her broccoli). She loved it! I guess it can only be a good thing to combine her fruits and veggies!

Chloe is not always the perfect angel though...aside from being super cute and sweet she is also a crazy toddler. I mean super energized crazy! She likes to do anything that involves moving at fast rates of speed combined with making as much noise as possible. Below you can see her racing around the kitchen with a steamer pot. VERY noisy, on par with banging pot lids together. If it scares the dogs, even better!
And here is her cute fake smile. I get her to do this when we brush our teeth, and it stuck with her. It seems to be coming out a lot lately. Even though she is doing it on purpose I still think it is cute! It is usually followed by a hug and kiss for mommy!
I hope to be more diligent in the future capturing those little moments! Unfortunately lately I have been too busy cleaning up after those "moments". Milk all over the floor- no problem..... color crayon on the wall- be right there....... oh you can stand on top of the table- lets play with your new blocks over here on the floor instead.....the list goes on and on and on.

A Girdwood New Year's

After the busy (and super fun) Christmas week we decided to get out of town and relax for NewYear's. Our friends were nice enough to lend us their cabin for the weekend, and we jumped on the opportunity. Just a 45 min drive away and we were in a totally different place. Girdwood is a snowy laid back ski town at the base of Alyeska. We all had the time of our life (especially Chloe). She learned to throw snowballs, and really loved throwing them at her Daddy!

Such a happy little girl!

There were some pretty deep snow banks, and Andrew discovered they were perfect to stick Chloe into.

And of course she loved it!

Even though the weather was a little rainy and slushy, we still had a great relaxing weekend in the mountains!

We had so much fun actually it was tough to go home! Thanks again Chuck and Farah for sharing your Girdwood escape with us!!!!

Aloha

You may have noticed a distinct lack of posts the last few weeks! Well there was a very good reason for this, we were on vacation in sunny Maui! Oh my gosh it was amazing!! The best way to show what a great time we had is to show you the pictures. We stayed with my friend Amber and her husband (BJ) and daughter (Tuesday or "Tu Tu" to Chloe) in a huge pimped out condo on the beach. It was pretty close to the size of our house but definitely nicer. Chloe had several favorites this trip:

1. the elevator. she couldn't get enough, we would ride it up and down just for her. Sometimes this ended in tears as we had to pry her out of it to go back to our room :)

2. the ocean. this was her first experience with big waves and warm ocean water you can get in. She would dive in head first if we didn't sprint after her mad attempts to run out to sea.

3. the sand. especially knocking down sandcastles- ours not other peoples

4. the hot tub pool combo. she would bounce between the two so often. I would estimate she switched about every minute or less. I guess we had to work off those Mai Tais somehow!

5. the flowers. she loved pointing out, touching and smelling the tropical flowers.

6. the birds. I can't beleive I didn't get a picture of her chasing the birds by the pool. There were tons of tiny birds that offered endless chasing opportunities for Chloe. She loved it.

7. TuTu her sidekick for the trip!

8. our undivided attention for two weeks!!!

It was an amazing trip and I can not wait to go back! It was so wonderful, I don't think I will ever go back to any other island!! AMAZING!!

more snapshots from paradise

footprints in the sandfun with Dad
playing in the waves
running down the beach
playing in the sand
running from the waves
look what I can do!
up north overlooking gorgeous mountains and cliffs. it was so windy up here!
wet from the ocean
family photo courtesy of another nice tourist.

Ah so wonderful!