Casey turns 2

We have had a crazy 2 weeks.

Casey turned 2 on May 1st. Her 2 year appointment was 2 Friday's ago. She weighed 25.8 lbs and is 2' 8.75" tall. She is in the 25-30% in both. So kind of a shorty. She got one shot and was very brave during it. She gets really excited about the bandaid and stickers, so if she does cry during the shot...it doesn't last long.

We had a joint party with her BFF, Rowan, at Arapahoe Basin Ski resort. It snowed and it was cold, but the girls had a blast. Casey rode the magic carpet ride up the bunny slope and skied down. They played in the snow, ate cupcakes, and had fun being pulled around in sleds. Casey got lots of fun gifts from family and friends, including a sandbox from her parents. We finally set it up this weekend. The snow put a damper on our plans to set it up earlier.

Stan stayed in town this week. Tuesday, Grandma Gail and Grandpa Tom came into town for Kel's graduation from CU with her MBA. Wednesday, we all skied at ABasin all day. The snow was great and Grandma and Grandpa made it to the top and the back bowl of ABasin. So brave. Thursday morning, Daddy, Grandma Gail and Grandpa Tom all got to see Casey at tumbling, then we were off to Boulder to meet up with Kel and Aunt Marcy, Uncle Stuart, Lily and Jack who flew in on Wed. We had a delicious dinner at The Rio, then the sisters hit the town to celebrate. Friday was graduation day and Grandma Gail's Birthday. We spent the morning swimming at the hotel, then met Kel for lunch in Boulder. Kel made a delicious orange juice bundt birthday cake. The afternoon was spent at Kel's graduation. Congratulations Kel!!

Grandma Gail and Grandpa Tom left us Friday to head home, while Marcy, Stuart, Lily and Jack headed up the mountain for the weekend. We went to the playground, soaked in the hot tub, and celebrated Marcy's birthday. Casey had a blast with her cousins. She loved giving Lily big, long lasting hugs. Our guest all left us Sunday morning. Tonight while giving Casey a bath...
Casey: "Where's Marcy?"
Mom: "I don't know where is she?"
Casey: "Maryland too."
She proceeded to do this with Stuart, Lily and Jack. She says Maryland too, because she did this last week and I answered Maryland for the first person, then "he/she's in Maryland too."

Casey is becoming more and more articulate. She also is becoming a bit of a copycat. Her new phrase...taken from Mommy..."Okay?"
Casey: "I'm gonna wash hands...okay?" (usually with tilt of the head)
Speaking of washing hands...it's her favorite thing to do right now. She will say she needs to go potty, then run in the bathroom and climb the stool to wash her hands. She has finally figured out how to get the soap out of the dispenser. She'll rinse the soap off, then cup her hands together and drink the water.

Sunday was Mother's Day. Stan and Casey came downstairs bearing gifts. I was in the kitchen. I hear Casey running into the living room yelling, "Happy Birthday Mommy!" She then proceeded to trip and break the stem of the rose she was carrying, but didn't miss a beat...got right back up and ran over to me with the rose and the card, "here mommy."

That's all for this week.
Happy Belated Birthday's to Grandma Gail and Aunt Marcy. And, Happy Graduation to Aunt Kel.

The Birthday Girls

Skiing Abasin

Birthday girl opening presents

The grad with her nieces and nephew

Casey with her cousin Lily

cousins hugging

the grad

enjoing the pool

cousins at Lake Dillon

weeeeee...

Casey is a very neat eater

having fun in her new sandbox

Keystone is closed, Breckenridge and Copper closed last weekend. Abasin is still open.  Last weekend all 3 of us went to Breckenridge for closing day.  We took turns riding, while Casey played in the snow and watched all the skiers and snowboarders.  That afternoon, we headed to Copper Mountain for their end of the season free concerts.

We started a new session of tumbling on Thursday.  Casey is definitely becoming more independent.  She can hang from the bar and lift her feet all the way to the bar by herself.  In the last tumbling session, Casey was not a big fan of the parachute.  This time, she was the first one to run onto the parachute and had a blast dancing under it. Looking forward to her learning to do a somersault all by herself.

Friday, Sarah and I took the girls to Abasin to go skiing.  It was a little snowy, but warm enough.  They lasted a good 20 minutes and seemed to enjoy themselves.  This was our trial for the girls' birthday party coming up this weekend at Abasin.  Hoping for a beautiful day.

Saturday, Aunt Kel came up for a quick visit. We got tons of snow so me and Kel went to Abasin to snowboard in the Pow. Good Times. That night, Stan took me out to an early birthday dinner, while Casey got to play over at Rowan's. Other than that, it was a pretty quiet weekend.

Enjoy the pix.
 

riding the bus from the parking lot to Peak 9 Breckenridge

posing with Frisco

Casey is much better with Frisco nowadays...she always asks Frisco if she wants to watch Dora with her, she lets her in the rooms now, instead of slamming the door on her, she feeds her most mornings after saying, "mornin frisco."

Oh, and she's very into being naked lately.  She gets so excited when we go upstairs after her bath, she wiggles out of my arms and out of her towel when we get into her room and starts running around crazy.  When she does have clothes on, she tries to pull them off.  Thanks goodness she can't really do it just yet.

skiing at Abasin

Rowan and Casey at Abasin

Strep 2

Casey just wasn't herself this weekend, so we took her to the Doc on Monday and found out that she has strep again.  She had it 3 weeks ago for the first time.  They put her on a relative of Amoxicilan (not as good), so hopefully she'll be back to herself in no time.  At the moment, it's 8:15 p.m. on Tuesday and she has been talking and singing in her bed for the last 45 minutes.  Not sure what that's all about!

She hasn't been eating that great lately.  Especially dinners.  So she wakes up in the morning starving. 

Every week she has something new for Daddy when he gets home.  Mostly new words or phrases.  Her latest is "Look at me!"  Usually said when she is doing something funny...or at least funny in her eyes.  She has started to say "bye bye" to everything when we leave a room, or leave the house..."bye bye song, bye bye diapers, bye bye books." 

We got out Casey's sand and water table this week and she has had so much fun playing with the sand...too cold for water right now.  She runs over to the sliding door and points to it, "i want play with sand." 

Saturday night we went to Keystone to celebrate their closing weekend (yes we are sad snowboard season is coming to an end).  Casey and her friend Isaac had a blast dancing to the band, Seven Mary Three. 

Casey would like to wish her Grandpa a very Happy Birthday on Wednesday!!  We're hoping a bird will be living in the birdhouse we got you by the time we come visit the Lake in July!

Playing in the Sand

"Too Cool"

Giving Isaac foosball tips

In the beginning...

was this body paint??

Easter

The Easter Bunny was good to Casey. She spent the morning at Keystone. Her first gondola ride up to the top of the mountain. She loved it! Aunt Kel arrived later to enjoy Easter dinner and to help Casey hunt for eggs. Casey had a great time and was very good at searching for eggs around the house. She was into all of her Easter treats and wanted to eat every piece of chocolate she could get her hands on...she was a little wired when it was time for bed.

The rest of the week...
As we left daycare on Wednesday, I told Casey to say bye bye to everyone...Casey, "bye bye everyone, bye bye Hunter, bye bye Jack, bye bye Deliah." First time she said her friend's names.  Every week she is amazing us with new words and sentences.  We have to be careful what we say now...she is a parrot! In the car, she will hear a song and repeat the words.  She also told me, "no sing mommy," today in the car...how rude!

Thursday, Rowan, Sarah, Casey and I went to Kidtopia at Keystone.  Sounds more exciting than it was. But the girls got to play on the playground, which mainly consisted of going down the slide, over and over and over, etc.  They also made bunny visors.  We then headed to Denver for my monthly book club meeting.  Casey got to play with Kaelin and Graham, our friends Geoff and Sarah's kids.  Geoff, Sarah, Kaelin and Graham came up to the mountains Friday, so Casey got to share her toys with them.  She is definitely still learning to share, and she's not so sure about a 1 year old wandering around.  She would cry or say "mine" whenever he got close. 

Hope you enjoy the pix.

Rowan and Casey at Keystone

Kaelin and Casey dressed up having a tea party

riding up the gondola at keystone

at the top of keystone

showing off her easter dress

showing off her egg

Crazy Hair Day

Today was Crazy Hair Day at Casey's Daycare. I wanted to do a mohawk, but her hair is actually too long!!  She was a HIT when she walked in.  Everyone loved it!  Yay!  I don't think Casey knows what her hair looks like.  When she saw her shadow, she just kept looking at it and laughing.  Last night we had our first parent/teacher conference.  Casey is doing very well in her one day a week daycare.  The only things they brought up was that she enjoys playing by herself, while others in her class are starting to play with each other (they are also in daycare all week, so they're not very worried about this) and she's not a big fan of the big inside playarea.  She loves playing outside, washing her hands, eating lunch and singing.

Casey is much better after her bout of strep throat.  Unfortunately, Mommy ended up getting a stomach bug on Saturday that lasted about 24 hours.  Weird.  The rest of the weekend consisted of us installing a new refrigerator, microwave and dryer.  Very exciting.

We did get out on the mountain this weekend, seperately.  The snow is okay, we got snow Friday and Saturday, however, it has been so nice out here, that the 6 inches we woke up to on Sat melted from our yard immediately. 

We are definitely enjoying the Spring weather.  It's been in the upper 50's, which feels like 70's.  Casey has had lots of wagon rides and bike rides up to the playgrounds.  At the playground, she mostly people watches, but she did climb up onto the rope climber for the first time.  She is anti-slide lately (except at the pool, where she can't get enough of the slide).  She loves the swings.

Thursday we made it to the pool with Rowan.  Casey was still getting over her strep and after about 30 minutes of her running around the pool and sliding down the whale slide, she walked over to our towels and said, "all done."  She definitely knows her limits.

That's all for now...

here are 2 videos from our trip to Miami...

South Beach Baby

Sorry for no blog post last week, but we were busy in sunny Florida.  Stan flew to Denver Friday night, we stayed in a hotel by the airport, then we all flew to Miami on Sat morning to visit Stan's sister and her fam.  The weather was beautiful the whole time we were there, except the last day, when it was rainy and chilly...obviously Florida was sad to see us go.

Sunday, we went to the Miami Sea Aquarium and watched a sea lion show, killer whale and dolphin show and another flipper the dolphin show.  We got to see manatees, eels & sharks.  It was fun.  The highlight was sitting in the front row for the killer whale show.  We made it through the whole show without getting wet...until the very end of the show, the whale jumped right in front of us and soaked us all (well except me, since Casey was sitting on my lap).  It freaked Max and Casey out, so we had to make a quick exit to get as far away as possible from that gigantic black and white monster.

Monday, the girls went to school, while we headed to the zoo with Max and Casey.  Casey and Stan got to ride a camel, Max and Casey both petted the pig, Max went crazy in the fountains...Casey felt more comfortable watching. Afterwards, we met up with Uncle Dave, Ashlynne and Morganne at the Marina on Miami Beach for dinner and boat watching.  We walked down to South Point and watched all the cruise ships head out to sea.

Tuesday, we went to the beach.  Casey was great in the sand, but wasn't too sure about the water.  But neither were we...it was a bit chilly!! We walked to the girls school to pick them up on the way back home.  That night we had BBQ in South Beach, then Gelato at the Lincoln Street Mall. 

Aunt Lisa and Uncle Dave live right in South Beach.  Definitely lots to do!  Casey slept in the kids room all week, while we got to head to a hotel...thanks Lisa and Dave!!  She did pretty well, however, we learned the first night, that she had to go to bed 30 minutes after the other 3.  She likes to talk...a lot. For the most part, Casey got along great with her cousins.  She LOVED all their toys.  She definitely has a bit of brat in her though...she really liked to egg Max on.  They were in the car one day and Max had his foot near her carseat, so she moved her foot there then kept saying, "mine, mine, mine."  She was doing it also with her hand, since their carseats were right next to each other.  They were kind of egging each other on, but she was definitely pushing it more than her cousin.

She had a really fun time playing with her cousins all week.  We flew back home Wednesday, including Stan.  He had the whole week off, so we went snowboarding at Vail on Thursday.  Snow is not so good right now.  We're having beautiful, sunny Spring days and no snow. 

Friday Casey started feeling sick.  She had a fever all day Saturday.  Was better Sunday, but still not her self.  Monday morning she woke up again not herself, so we took her to the Doctor...she has strep throat.  She's on antibiotics, so we're hoping she'll improve as the week goes on.  Aunt Kel came up from Boulder on Sunday night for a couple nights, since it's Spring Break for the grad student. Hopefully she won't be leaving here with strep...

Enjoy all the pix!

they not only showed each other their bellies...but, right after I took this picture, they bumped bellies

Cousin Ashlynne reading to Casey and blankey

having a whale of a good time at the sea aquarium...

riding on the camel at the zoo, a first for both father and daughter

petting the pig.  max could've stayed there all day petting it...casey was finished after a quick touch

Tracy and Stan people watching

Casey, Max, Ashlynne and Morganne down at South Point watching the boats

enjoying her huge sandbox

sharing her sandbox with Max

having a ball with Max

mmmmm...cheese...pizza

Me Do It

This weekend we celebrated Stan's birthday. We had a bunch of people in town from Denver and Harriett was in town from Chicago. We got to snowboard a few hours on Saturday, then we chowed down on steak and shrimp, then dove into chocolate birthday cake. Good times! Casey had fun singing "Happy Birthday to Daddy" all week, except when it was actually time to sing to Daddy on the phone.

Casey's big thing nowadays is, "Me Do It!" Sometimes she'll try to do it herself, and then she'll say, "Help you," meaning she needs help. She also thinks everything is hers, "Sasey's book, Sasey's milk water (this is what she calls her drinks), Sasey's bankey..." She is getting to be more comfortable with people. She now walks into daycare on her own, puts her lunch bag in the fridge, then runs over to Delhia, her teacher. She still acknowledges that I'm leaving, which is nice, but now she'll just wave and say "Bye." She does the same in the gym daycare, except instead of running to a teacher, she walks over to the play kitchen immediately. She is also starting to recognize people. When people came up this weekend, she recognized a bunch of them. And last night at Mark's house, Stacia walked in the house and Casey pointed at her, got excited and said, "Stacia." She had just seen her this weekend. She knows who goes together too. When I say Mark, she'll say Amy, his wife. She'll ask about Marcy, then Stuart, then Lily, then Jack. She'll then move onto the next group. When I say Ashlynne, she'll say Morganne. It's pretty funny. She is starting to count too, "one, two, seven."

Mostly she is a pretty good kid. She definitely has her whiney moments, and definitely some bratty moments, and she has definitely had more and more "timeouts." She is very into testing us. We'll tell her not to do something, and she'll look at us and do it again waiting for a reaction. When we say, "Do you want a timeout?" She'll usually say, "No" and move onto the next activity, but every now and then, she'll say "No" but continue to do it anyway. Other than those times...she's pretty much a cutie!!

We're off to Miami to visit Lisa, Dave, Ashlynne, Morganne and Max, so probably no blog next week, but I'll make sure to do it the following Monday!

Enjoy Pix!

"what?"

hi belly

taking a walk at the lake, with the famous buffalo mountain in the background

bubble bath

brushing teeth

Aunts, Uncle and Cousins

Sorry for no post last week. We were very busy skiing with Aunt Kel, Aunt Marcy, Uncle Stuart and cousins Lily and Jack. They arrived Thursday. Friday & Monday, Lily went to Keystone Ski School, Jack and Casey went to Casey's daycare, and the rest of us went skiing, all day long. Saturday, Stan, Kel and I went to Keystone to hike the Erickson Bowl. After an hour hike, we were able to find a fresh powder run. It was a great ride. Stuart, Marcy and Kel took Lily to Arapahoe Basin for a couple runs in the afternoon. Sunday we went to Breckenridge . Monday, we got Stuart and Marcy to hike at Keystone...a black diamond. Tuesday we went to tubing at Copper. Lily LOVED the middle lane with the jump, so funny. Beforehand, Jack and Casey got to ski. Jack was really good...especially for his first time. After naps, we headed to The Motherloaded, Stuart's request. Wednesday we had to say farewell!!

Casey had so much fun playing with her cousins. It was a fun week!

This past weekend was pretty uneventful.

Casey wishes her Aunt Lisa a Happy Birthday this Wednesday and her Daddy a Happy Birthday on Thursday.

cousins sitting on the counter.  casey LOVED lily's leapster.

hour hike at keystone

which bowl should we ride?

ready to shrow

lily reading to jack and casey

lily, kelly and stuart at abay

chosing down at keystone

hiking the outback at keystone

about to ride down a black diamond

playing in the snow at copper, while we're all tubing.

jack and casey tubing

enjoying lunch after tubing