Wild Thing

He wore a crown of leaves on his head and spoke in foreign tongues, except when he said "Call me Rainforest Man."

Our G loves being outside, often pretending he's on an adventure to save an endangered specie. Though he's often distracted by cool spiders and other creepy crawlies that he sees in the backyard. He's been known to come into the house with the biggest worm you've ever seen dangling from his muddy fingers: " Mom, LOOK!" 

He's fascinated by interesting leaves, sticks, dead bugs and rocks, which he now collects and stores in an overflowing box in his room. 

And his biggest temper tantrum to date was when we wouldn't let him bring home the skeleton of a small animal that he found on a local trail "But Dad, it's my first discovery!" he wailed. "It's a fossil, I need it!" 

We love our G and his love of the natural world, his curiosity about creatures big and small, and his fearless and adventurous spirit. 

First Week of School

The boys are back at their Montessori school this year. Grant is in the 5-7 class again, while Miles is in the 3-6 class again with his beloved teachers.

Grant's first day stats:

Grade: 5-7 classroom

What he wants to be when he grows up: A scientist or teacher

Favorite summer memory: Telluride

Most looking forward to this school year: Learning about trees and science

You would think that going back to the same classroom would make the transition easier. But as soon as G saw his classroom door, he was in tears. Multiple hugs and dried tears later, I waved good-bye. There were more tears the next day, but drop-off got easier as the week went on.

Meanwhile, Miles was home sick on the first day of school. 

He spiked a fever on Sunday evening and started throwing up in the middle of the night. When his fever was down again the next day, we attempted school. The first day he seemed fine in the morning, but his teachers said he wasn't himself. So we kept him home another day to recover. Finally on Thursday morning when he bounced into our room fully of Miles energy, I figured he was finally ready.

Miles' first day stats:

Grade: Preschool (3-6 classroom)

What he wants to be when he grows up: A mountain climber

Favorite part of summer: Riding the ski lift (at the state fair)

Most looking forward to this year: Music and working with (his friend) Jax

It was a rocky start, to be sure, but everyone seems to be settling into their routines now. They both have positive things to say about school at the end of the day and lots of school work to share. 

32 Weeks

Observations on this pregnancy:

• It wasn't easy to get pregnant, but it's been a very easy pregnancy so far.
• Most days I'm too busy to think about being pregnant. When people ask how I'm feeling, I think I often give them a blank stare until I remember why they're asking. 
• This pregnancy feels a lot like the previous ones, but I started showing much sooner.
• When we told the boys at around 14 weeks, Grant's reaction was: "There's a baby in your tummy? How did it get in there?" And Miles was immediately nurturing, wondering if he could  hold the baby and push him or her on the swing.
• We (hopefully) won't find out the gender until birth. 
• The boys say they want a sister because "Mommy is all alone." But I wouldn't mind another boy. My boys are so loving and sweet to me—I don't mind being the only girl.
• The baby appeared to be sucking its fingers in one of the ultrasounds. I wonder if we'll have another thumb sucker, like G. 
• Hopefully this one sleeps better than G.
• I haven't had any particular food cravings. 
• Baby is currently breech. This has been a trend in all of my pregnancies.
• The boys love to kiss and hug my belly. Sometimes Miles will pat my belly in a not very gentle way. "I'm burping the baby," he tells me. 
• I haven't had time or wanted to run as much this pregnancy, but weekly yoga classes have been amazing.
• We have no names yet. The boys want to name it George or Thomas if it's a boy (after Curious George and Thomas the Tank Engine) and Ley if it's a girl (not sure where that one came from).

Jester Park

This has been the summer of too much rain and even more mosquitoes. We were reminded of this recently when we decided to go for a hike around Jester Park with no bug spray. The first few minutes of the hike were spent exclaiming over the cool bugs on the forest floor, but we were soon swatting wildly at our heads, necks and arms, and practically running out of the woods with a trail of mosquitoes behind us.

Discovering a centipede on the trail. G came prepared with binoculars and a backpack to collect stuff.

Pretending to be the Wild Kratt brothers. Creature power!

Away from the woods and hungry mosquitoes, we had a good time exploring Jester Park's natural playscape. The icy pond felt good on a hot day.

We avoided the dense woods on the walk back to the car, opting to walk along the road instead. Luckily G found a good walking stick.

Happy Birthday Miles!

Happy 4th birthday to a boy who is incredibly sweet and silly, charming and challenging. He makes life interesting and never takes no for an answer. 

Telluride 2015

It was our fourth year visiting beautiful Telluride, Colorado, over July 4. In some ways, it feels like the kids have grown up here. Each summer we remember the things that they've done the years before and marvel at the new things they can do. This year Miles (who often asks us to carry him on walks around the neighborhood) surprised us with his love of hiking, especially when it involved climbing over big rocks. While Grant cruised around on his big-boy bike, Miles was now zipping down hills on his strider bike. We remember just a couple of summers ago when Miles was being carried in the baby backpack and G was zooming around Telluride on his strider bike.

One thing is the same: We are forever impressed by the beauty of the mountains.

It rained a lot this year, probably more than any other year, but we've learned to be prepared, always carrying rain coats with us. Even a downpour is over pretty fast in the mountains.

We've also learned that you have to get to the 4th of July parade route super early if you want to get a good seat. Kent arrived at 6:30 a.m., and was only able to score a spot in the second row. But luckily the friendly people in front of us (who set up their chairs at 4:30 a.m.!) were kind enough to let the boys crouch in front of them.

The parade didn't disappoint. The boys collected lots of candy and traded water gun fights with the people on the floats. We were pretty soaked by the end of the parade. Miles was especially thrilled about a float that appeared to have fire spouting from the roof. He was not crazy, however, about anything that had a loud noise, especially the fighter jets that kicked off the parade and appeared to nearly touch the rooftops as they whipped by overhead.

The rest of the week was spent hiking, biking, riding the gondola and meandering around town. 

We spent one day at Box Canyon in Ouray, about an hour away. The boys, who didn't remember visiting a couple of years ago, were fascinated by the giant waterfall and the "bear cave" at the top of the trail.

We spent a lot of time chasing Miles around town on his bike. His favorite thing to do was speed off without us, whizzing down hills and shouting "Wheeeeee!"