Mark & Mandy

MESSY! But oh so delicious.

Thank goodness for Shout!

Today we headed to the Children’s Museum in Denver … Even though Elsie was little under the weather she had lots of fun…

We started in the soft play area where there were lots of fun things to do, first we walked a bit (of course)

Took in the surroundings

and then we played with some spinny things

and had some tea (in a measuring cup … which I promptly put in the “this was in my kids mouth” bin)

Then we headed to the apothecary room  where we found Elsie writing her name on the board – good skilz little teachers pet!

We also practiced standing on our own… here is mom helping her balance

and here she is proud of her abilities

After the soft room we headed to the firetruck. Dad showed Elsie some gears and knobs

We then worked through an emergency evacuation scenario

Elsie dressed up like a fire-girl in honor of Lil Kev

We looked at a display of balls

and played with some trains

it was just about then that Elsie decided it was time for some lunch and a nap so we headed home. To finish the day off we took Lola for a walk to Struttin pup, where we got a new collar and leash (Brown with green dots … hmm, I feel my old life color coming back…) here she is showing off her new stuff proudly sitting in Elsie’s chair!

What a day!

Lisa and Dirk are engaged!!

Congratulations Dirk – you couldn’t of picked a better fiance!

Elsie has clearly decided that crawling is a waste of time. Instead she has taken to demanding that she be escorted around by holding onto our fingers. So to save our backs and give Elsie her own ride, we bought a stride-to-ride lion for her to push around. As you can see, she is already a great walker, although the lion can sometimes get away from her.

Elsie had her last night of swimming lessons … there was no official graduation but if there was she would have graduated with HONORS!!

Here is some final night photos:

We have a new (and improved!) nanny*. This past Monday Andrea started as Elsie’s full time care taker – Elsie is already in heaven. Andrea spends the day playing, reading and holding elsie’s fingers as she endlessly walks around the house.

Here she is with the bean! (I love that each day she dresses her up in all of her fun clothes – so cute!)

* long story short we had to let Bernie (the last nanny) go

well yesterday… We had a low key day (final swim lessons) but we did open a Valentine from Grammie and Grampa which included some fun books and this very cute pink (of course) hoodie!

Sadly dad was under the weather these past few days … so we are looking forward to celebrating this weekend up in the mountains.

Hope everyone had a great valentines day!!

After a few scorching summers on our South facing back patio, we came to the conclusion that we needed a shade structure. We were lucky enough that Kevin had a contact that he worked with in Montana who supplied reclaimed lumber. Reclaimed lumber is wood that has been salvaged from old warehouses and may have been floating or sunk under water for decades. We liked this wood for its character and its eco-friendliness. Along with Kevin’s architect James, who came up with the great design, we had the whole structure milled and the steel plates fabricated up in Montana.

After sitting around in the shop in Billings for a while, the weather cleared and Kevin did us the huge favor of renting a trailer and dragging it down to Colorado and we got it set up.

The shade structure consists of a lot of big wood. the support columns were 8×10, and some of the extensions were over 20 feet long. That’s some heavy wood! The first step was to stand up the posts (9 feet tall) that sit on some steel footings we had mounted on the patio.

Then we had to get the main long beams installed. We had Tom and Mike (who recently helped us with our landscaping) come by for a few hours in the morning to add some muscle.

It took all of Josh, Kevin, Mike, Tom and I to get those long beams up to sit on top of the posts.

After the long posts were up (with no injuries), we put on the large cross beams. Once that was done, the heavy lifting was done and we had a beer!

Kevin and I then mounted the 4×6 cross beams and the 4×4 extended beams on top of that and we were done with the main construction.

Next step is to electrify this structure with some sconces and a ceiling fan for hot summer days. Mandy might also put up some shade curtains to soften this up a bit. But the hard work is done and the structure looks just amazing! More pictures to come when we have the space a little more finalized.

I am sure many of you know about my addiction to Etsy … so when a blog pointed to these cute little hats from PDX Beanies I had to get them for Nicholas and Elsie for our trip to California (sadly I didn’t get any photo of the chillin’s together … but here is how cute they look)

and here are some photos of Elsie Lane (also wearing her new Puma’s in honor of Sarah Herman)

Movie Star!

This cute little dress was a hand-me-down from Saffron to Elsie (saffie’s head can’t fit through the top, but elsie’s pin head can) – its a super cute baby nay outfit.