Labor Day in Winter Park

Mid-October has brought beautiful fall weather to Colorado; however, the weather was still warm in these pictures at Winter Park from Labor Day (Monday, September 5th). We brought light jackets for our morning hike along the top of the mountain, but quickly shed them as the sun came out.

The girls were very excited to ride a chair lift up the mountain! I was happy to give them some experience with the chair lift before we begin ski lessons this winter.

Even Kati enjoyed the view from the chair lift (although it was difficult to take a picture while sitting right next to her).

Gabi and Bella tried out the zip line, which they enjoyed enough to repeat several times.

Perhaps the highlight of the trip was the Alpine Slide! Katarina wasn't big enough to ride this year, so Michael and I took turns staying at the base with her and riding with the bigger girls.

We also tried the bungee jump trampoline. Michael and I did flips, and we were very glad we jumped before lunch.

Another favorite activity was the human maze, where we searched for the letters M, A, Z, and E and raced the clock back to the finish. The kids got to select a small prize based on how quickly they completed the maze. On our second or third trip through the maze, we helped another little girl whose father was attempting to guide her from the watch tower -- but she was too short for him to see behind the walls (and, really, you couldn't see the entire maze from the watch tower, anyway).

Bella took this picture of our family (minus her, of course) by the little creek:

Kati-Lily spent most of the day playing on a little playground at the bottom of the main slope, as she wasn't old enough for the more structured activities. She did attempt putting for one hole of minigolf, and she enjoyed watching her big sisters jump in the bouncy castle. She found some musical bells to play, too. Mostly, she loved individual attention from each parent in turn.

Just before we left, we stopped at this playground near the entrance to Winter Park resort.

We arrived at Winter Park about half an hour after the resort opened and stayed all day. Once the grounds closed, we drove into the village of Winter Park to eat dinner before heading home. The girls loved this exhausting day trip and have been asking to return. I wonder if they'd recognize it if I took them now to see all the snow in the mountains?

Bella's birthday parties

We originally scheduled Bella's birthday party the weekend of her actual birthday, but it so happened that all her friends were spending that weekend in the mountains with their families. We rescheduled her tea party with her friends, but we still held a family party the weekend of Bella's birthday. Here I will share pictures from both parties.

Tea Party with Friends
Bella's rescheduled birthday party was a month late, but the kids had a great time at the Denver Tea Room!

The girls enjoyed Strawberry Fruit Tea served in mini-tea pots, scones with jam, turkey floret sandwiches, strawberries and cream cheese on toast rounds, cookies, and ice cream sundaes.

Katarina especially loved her scone!

Bella's guests included her sisters, plus Gabriela, her friend from preschool, Sofia, a friend we met at the playground, and Ella, our next-door neighbor who is Gabi's age.

Sisters at the Tea Party

Ella

Sofia

Gabriela

Birthday girl

Prince Daddy

Mommy and Daddy even dressed up for Bella's fancy party, as Giselle and Prince Edward from the movie Enchanted. The girls gave me this princess Giselle dress for my birthday early, specifically so I could wear it to the tea party.

Family Swim Party
The weekend of Bella's birthday, we had a family swim party at one of the neighborhood swimming pools with Lolo, Lola, Tita Chrissie, Bella's godparents Ashley and Patrick, and cousins Joseph and Katelyn.

During adult swim, the kids played in the fountain and at the water table play area.

Tita and the Denver Botanic Gardens

Tita Chrissie came to visit us in Denver at the end of August. While Gabi and Bella were at school, Kati and I took her to the Denver Botanic Gardens.

Kati has a cute Mountain Princess sunhat, but she prefers not to wear it.

We explored the children's garden, which had plenty of plants to look at, and even touch or smell.

Kati climbed inside a hollow log, where it was cooler.

Here, Kati found some eggplants in the vegetable garden.

Lolo and Lola also visited that weekend. They arrived the previous Thursday, on Bella's birthday.

We took Lolo and Lola to the Greenway, where Gabi and Bella rode bikes and Kati rode her toy car.

We enjoyed beautiful Denver summer weather as we walked through our neighborhood.

We ate ice cream at the neighborhood town center, where the kids could play on a water fountain shaped like a mountain.

After dinner, Bella danced around in her new petticoat skirt. Thank you for coming to visit, Lolo, Lola, and Tita!

Confluence Park

Katarina is 19 months old today! In the past month, her expressive vocabulary has exploded so quickly that I lost track of all the words that she says spontaneously now. She names several animals (bird, owl, bumble [bee], duck, dino[saur], fish) and imitates animal sounds ("woof-woof", "meow-meow", "baa-baa", "quack-quack", "roar", "moo"). She names food items (apple, cracker, milk) and makes requests (no, up, down, more, out, outside, touch). She has names for people in our family (Mama, Dada, sister, Bella, Gabi) and identifies things (baby, ball, book, bubble, car, diaper, door, shoes, eye, nose). She expresses what is happening with words like "boom," "ouch," "uh-oh," "hello" and "bye-bye."

Kati has begun to use two-word sentences. She likes to bring me her shoes and request "Shoes on" as she tries to put them on her feet. One day at Target, Kati noticed a giant concrete red ball along the sidewalk and, reaching towards it, said "Ball touch" to tell me that she wanted to touch it. Then she noticed more along the sidewalk, pointed, and said "More ball." She loves to explore her world and ask "What's that?"

It is now October, and I still have several pictures to share from August! In this post, I have included a few shoots I took while exploring Confluence Park in downtown Denver with Bella and Kati-Lily.

We love being able to walk (or bike) the girls to school! Kati wakes up extremely cranky, but going outside calms her down. These "rocks" along the path to Gabi's school are recycled from the old airport runway that used to be where our neighborhood is located.

Kati found this flower on our walk back from Gabi's school and brought it home.

Whenever Kati-Lily hears music, she smiles and begins to dance. She loves to move her arms and hips to the beat.