When Vivian Goes On A Bike Ride...

She supervises the loading of the bikes. 

 She stops to exercise.

Tries to wake up the ducks.

 Watches the trolley go by.

Digs in the dirt.

Throws sticks into the river.

Rides way ahead of Mommy and Elisabeth.

Crosses the train tracks.

Skeptically looks at the swan.

Says hi to her statue friend.

Leads David.

Gets passed by Julia.

Gets so excited when Daddy rides next to her!

Palmer Park

In the middle of Colorado Springs is a huge park called Palmer Park. I had heard of its loveliness from friends who have hiked the trails, but we had just never made it there yet. Yesterday, since the weather was perfectly lovely, we decided to go explore.

Julia did an awesome job; better than she did even in the fall. She wanted to climb all the big rocks like Elisabeth and was determined not to be left behind.

When did Elisabeth get so big?


She refused to smile for pictures...
so I had to be sneaky about capturing just how much fun she was really having.




One of my favorite pictures ever:




We'll be going back to explore the other half of the park. It was beautiful and so much bigger than we'd thought!

The great outdoors.

Two nights ago we had an awful storm around midnight. Wind, hail, rain, lightening, etc. It woke up Elisabeth (which is really hard to do, but the way the wind was blowing, the hail was pounding on the girls' windows) and then after we got Ebeth back to bed, it woke up Julia. When we woke up, we found a nice little pile of hail in our yard...
Oh, Colorado weather. You are so weird.


Evan and I have been talking about buying a hiking baby carrier to put Julia in so we could go on more trails as a family since strollers aren't always possible in some of the parks. I found one on Craig's list and we rode out to the boondocks to get it and went to Garden of the Gods to do a little hiking. It was kind of raining off and on before we went out, so we weren't sure we'd get to actually go for a full hike, but it ended up clearing and turning beautiful.


The back pack can also serve as a seat when you need a break. Ha!

Too cool for us.



We also walked to the park. Julia is all about walking while holding your hand, which is super cute! She could totally do it on her own, but if she even thinks you're about to let go of her hand, she plops down on her padded bottom. So lazy.

Elisabeth ended up playing some sort of freeze tag with some older kids, so I only took this picture as not to embarrass her. She is easily embarrassed these days, being almost 7 and all.




And here's a video of Julia stock piling the wood chips we so meanly never let her munch on.

We heart parks.

To say we like parks is an understatement. And, the lovely thing is, we're surrounded by parks here! There's 3 within a 10 minute walking distance of us. We've checked out all three and liked them all. Poor Julia, though, doesn't have much to do when we go to parks since there's nothing for her to do except eat grass and woodchips (which she does with enthusiasm). But, she does love watching Ebeth climb all over everything, and if you give her crackers, she's good as gold.


Unlike Elisabeth at this age, Julia does not mind wearing hats and is so cute in them! This is her official summer hat!

I think this is for water, but I put Julia in it.



This girl needs an Oscar the Grouch shirt. Seriously.



I also wanted to let you in on how dinner time is going now that we're all together. Well, Julia is still the food tyrant. Except now, Evan gets to witness it instead of getting phone calls during dinner time of me complaining about Julia's eating habits.

So, Julia was SCREAMING because we all had slices of watermelon and she was being given mere chunks. So, we gave her her own slice. This was after she'd dumped her yogurt everywhere and smeared it in spite. Ah, the joy that is Julia.
Notice that she doesn't even lift her arms to the table when she's being fed. That's because she is a lazy, lazy baby.

Her favorite kitchen toy.
How I make any meal--with Ebeth helping and Julia pulling on my pant legs and whining.
Chillaxin' on Daddy after a wonderful meal.