The Color Run and a Trip to the Zoo

This morning I ran The Color Run 5k with several friends from my Moms Run This Town running club.  We met up this morning in our clean white shirts and got ready to run.  This is such a fun run when you are with a group of good friends.

 After a fairly muggy 3 miles we finished as a hot and colorful mess!

 Like I said, a MESS!  But how often do grown-ups get to play around like this?

 The best part...I promised the kids that since we would already be downtown I would take them to the zoo.  I brought a clean t-shirt, but that didn't help much.  I went through about 10 baby wipes scrubbing my face before I went into the zoo bathroom where I scrubbed my face and arms for a while longer, but still, I was a blue mess!  I got a lot of interesting looks from people.

 That's okay, the kids had fun.  Lily had to see her beloved jelly fish.

Gideon tolerated it all very well.

I was glad to get to go home and since Gideon was asleep I jumped right in the shower (after putting my clothes in the wash) and still, some of my skin is very much dyed.  Hopefully my neck and ear are no longer blue tomorrow for church...that could be interesting.

Just Smile and Coo

Gideon can be quite a chatterbox, but as soon as he sees a camera he stops smiling and talking and stares down the camera.  It has taken a while, but I got a little video of his smiling and chatting with me...then the camera battery died.

He really loves to be face to face with people.  When is fussy the best thing to do is turn him so that he is facing you and smile and talk to him because it usually will cheer him right up, not always, but often.  He's such a flirt too when he talks.  He smiles, cocks his head to one side and coos so sweetly.  I just can't resist this little man, he is so lovable and I'm so unbelievably lucky to get to be his momma!

Three Months

Our little man is 3 months old today and I think that he is trying to get me to stop calling him little man because he is getting big!  Yesterday at church a met a new woman and she looked at Gideon for a moment and said, he's what 5 months?  The week before I was also asked if he was 5 or 6 months old now.  Nope folks, barely 3, but yes, he's a big one.  Thankfully his growth has slowed down a bit.  This last month he only gained a pound and a half so he is just over 16 pounds now.  He is sleeping very well at night, not so well during the day and he tackles tummy time well and can push himself up a bit.

He is a very social guy.  Gideon likes to be face to face with people and when he is he will coo and smile sweetly, that is until someone gets out a camera.  Occasionally though I manage to get a hint of a smile.

 Usually though it is this face as he eyes the camera warily.

 Sometimes I get something in between, like this, 

 and sometimes I this sweet smile.  Honestly, this kid is a flirt, and I love it!

 His sisters still love him.  They are pretty sure that he is anxious to join them in their games.

 He will usually sit happily near them while they play.  He's improved in his ability to keep his head up so he regularly gets to sit in the Bumbo now for short periods of time.  He likes being upright.

 Lily asked if she could be in a picture with Gideon, so here it is.

Time is flying, as it always does.  We love our little boy, even if he doesn't like to nap very much.

Tie-Dying

While we were visiting I mentioned to my sister-in-law that all summer I'd been thinking that it would be fun to tie-dye with the girls, but I just hadn't gotten to it yet.  We decided to do it while we were there so one evening on her way home from work Brittany picked up some shirts and a dye kit and we got the work.  Charlotte was excited!

 Lily was still working on her ice cream.

 Brittany found some while cotton skirts as well for the girls so they got to help us dye those.

Tyson and I even got to do a shirt and I did a onesie for Gideon.  We got a picture of us all together, which incidentally, is the first picture of all 5 of us.

 Lily calls it her rainbow shirt and wore it for 3 day straight.

 Charlotte loves that hers is "pink and lellow"

 Not sure what little man here thinks yet, but I think he's cute as a button.

Utah's Hogle Zoo

While in Utah we made sure to visit Hogle Zoo.  The last time that we went was two years ago and a large part was under construction at the time and we wanted to see how it turned out.  We started out visiting some monkeys.

 We then made our way to the elephants.  I love these big creatures and our zoo doesn't have any so this is one of my favorite animals to see when we are at Hogle Zoo.

 Charlotte was just a little baby last time so this was her first experience seeing an elephant in person.

 Lily was excited to see them again.

 We moved on t see the rhinos, who were off in a corner resting in the morning sun.

At the enrty area to the new park of the zoo there is a little playground.  It is so nice for the zoos to set up areas like this so that everyone can take a break and get the wiggles out.

 There was a pirate ship, so you know that my girls climbed all over that thing.

 And peeked out of the portholes.

 The bald eagle was missing from the exhibit, but they still climbed into the eagle's nest next to it.

 Next were the otters, which are so much fun.  They swam around all through the water and the girls just loved to watch them.

Otters are easily as fun to watch as penguins, maybe more so because these guys were so active and playful.

We found some more water animals starting with the seals and sea lions and then finally...

 we found the polar bear!  He was so fun to watch, I think that the adults were as enthralled as the children, and we were there for quite a while.

  Eventually we moved above ground were he would swim up to the glass, 

 rise up on his hind legs, and just backwards into the water.  He repeated the cycle over and over and still it was great to watch.  I really thought that being this close to the bear might frighten Charlotte, but she was fascinated and loved it when he came up close.

 We found some more bears, grizzlies and blacks.  One was even taking a naps right in front of the glass.

 But as soon as food was put out he was up and gone with the rest of them.

 My camera battery died shortly after we left the bears, so no more pictures of the animals.  Hoever we found the great apes, giraffes, everyone besides Gideon and I went through the reptile house and by that point it was time to call it a day.  Poor Gideon was strapped to me all morning and it was a warm morning.

Thanksgiving Point Farm

After our little camping adventure we headed directly down to Utah to visit the Hansens.  Tuesday morning we all took the kids to the farm at Thanksgiving Point.

 They got to feed the goats,

 ride a pony,

 even if it is a little scary,

 and then finish up with a hayride.

All the while Gideon chilled with me while we waited for the locksmith to come and get us back into our car.

Camping at Alturus Lake

We spent a few days last week up at Alturus Lake with our friends the Jenkins family.  We arrived Friday evening and got to work setting up camp while the kids scampered about.  The kids ran about, climbed over logs, created their own games, and helped gather and cut firewood.

We ate so well on this camping trip!  Candice and I are both planners so we had our menu planned so that almost everything was prepared before we left so that while there we just cooked.  I'm not sure that we washed more than 5 dishes in the 3 days that we were there.  Camping burritos, dutch oven chicken and cobbler, fruit pies, roasted hot dogs, it was great!  And of course pancakes, pancakes are best when camping.

The lake water was COLD!  I haven't been to Alturus in nearly 20 years, but I remembered very clearly just how cold the water was.  That's okay, the kids enjoyed fishing and playing the sand.  Karina helped Lily finally figure out casting and she ended up doing really well, getting 20 foot casts which is pretty good for a 4-year-old.

Charlotte got her first fishing pole for this trip and can't quite cast yet, but sure does like reeling it in.

See that blue plastic fish on the end of her pole?  That acts as a weight for them to practice casting.  Well, one time when Candice cast for her it went flying into the water...off of the line.  So Candice and I went into the freezing water, chest deep, to retrieve the blue plastic fish.

Back at the cam sites the kids climbed all over the logs.  I'm amazed at just how much time they spent doing this without getting bored.  Charlotte wasn't overly confident walking on the logs, so she crawled along.

Lily likes to follow Karina around.

I'm pretty impressed with her balance.

King of the stump!

Bruce and Lily playing with a lighter...maybe not our best parenting moment.

 No camping trip is complete without s'mores (and a nice poke to the eye while playing with sticks)

 Good stuff!

We had a few visitors to our camp site.  This deer spent a while running around the camp ground.

There was also this skinny little black fox that roamed around one morning.

We had a lot of squirrels popping in and out of holes all around our site.

Gideon did very well.  Camping with a 2 month old is pretty easy because he mostly ate and slept.  We made sure to bring our bouncy chair so that we had a place for him to rest so that he didn't have to be held all day long and it was great to have.  Even with a hat and keeping him in the shade he still managed to get a little sun burnt on his face.

Charlotte still loves her brother!