One of Madeline’s favorite places to visit is the Cheyenne Mtn Zoo in downtown Colorado Springs. I took Madeline out of school early so that she could go to the zoo with Mike and Andrew. Madeline’s favorite part of the zoo is hands down feeding the giraffes. It has taken a few years for her to not be scared to feed them by herself. She just loves this exhibit so much. Her next favorite place in the zoo is the reptile house. For some reason snakes fascinate Madeline. She loves the big pythons. Of course, after getting through most of the zoo, the day is never complete without riding the carousel at least once. Going to the zoo with Madeline is probably one of the best things ever!
Madeline participated in her very first cello festival and did so well. She played from memory with her bow Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star and Lightly Row. We were the most worried about Lightly Row as that song had been more difficult for her to memorize. By some miracle she remembered the entire song and played beautifully. She received a superior rating for her performance from both judges. They had such nice things to say about her performance. We are so proud of Madeline for trying something new this year and learning how to play the cello! I let Madeline ditch school today so that we could head up to the mountains to ski together! My legs were a little tired from working out hard this week, so I was happy to go Madeline’s pace for the day (which isn’t all that slow it turns out). We parked at the south gondola garage so that we could charge the Tesla while we skied. It ended up only costing $7 to charge for 5 hours which was awesome. We had a great time skiing all of our favorite runs while trying to avoid the crowds. I took Madeline on 4 of the 5 peaks today. We started on Peak 7 and made our way to Peak 6 to ski Bliss a few times. Then we headed back to Peak 7 to eat lunch before making our way to Peak 8 and Peak 9. We skipped skiing the blacks off Peak 10 since the weather was starting to turn colder. We hit all of the fun little kid zones in the tree sections. Madeline could’ve skied those all day and been happy!
It was a super fun day skiing with Mike and Madeline. We took Madeline on all 5 peaks at Breckenridge. She tried the blacks off of Peak 10 for the first time and loved them. Her favorite runs of the day were Double Jack off Peak 10 and Bliss off Peak 6. We made our way through all 3 kid fun zones on Peak 9 with Madeline and had lots of fun. She loved skiing under the spider and through the various tunnels. Some of the lift lines were more crowded than the last time we were at Breckenridge, but we never waited more than 8 min for any lift. We did a total of 15 runs, 18,530 vertical ft and 20.24 miles. It was a lot of skiing in one day, especially for Madeline who is only 6 years old. However, we celebrated our victorious ski day by eating dinner at an amazing Mexican restaurant with some old friends who were visiting Colorado during the long weekend.
Every time it snows outside the first thing Madeline asks is if she can go outside to play in the snow and build a snowman. Up until this recent snowstorm it had always been so cold that going out to play in the snow was not a possibility. So, she convinced Andrew to go out with her to play. Then I joined them for a little while. We tried to build a snowman on the first day, but the snow was so light and airy that we could not pack it very well. So, we just made snow angels, pulled Madeline in the sled, and threw snowballs at each other. One time when Andrew was pulling Madeline in the sled, he whipped it around so fast that she flew right out and landed face first in the snow. We picked her up and brushed her off and just laughed it off. She is such a good sport! The next day the snow was still around so Abby went out with Madeline and built a snowman and pulled her in the sled. Sometimes it just takes having a little one in the house to get the rest of us to go out and enjoy the snow!
Madeline was so excited to invite Easton to her church primary easter egg hunt. Those two were so cute together as they waited patiently for the easter egg hunt to begin. Their little eyes had already spotted a golden egg before the hunt even started and were a little dismayed when another little kid stood right on top of it so no one else could get it when the hunt began. Little did they know that there would be plenty of golden eggs in the park. As soon as they let the kids go, Kylee and I immediately found some golden eggs and stood near them so that our kids could happily pick them up. It was all happy smiles from then on. They ran together and found so many plastic eggs, gigging along the way. It was fun to be able to participate in this activity with our good friends. We are so grateful that Easton’s family moved into the neighborhood last year. They have been one of the greatest blessings in our life this past year!
Madeline and Easton have been best friends most of the school year. We try to get those two together every Friday for a fun playdate and we rotate houses every week. I love how well they play together and how gentle Easton is with her. They usually like playing the same kinds of things which is awesome. Their favorite things to play with are Magna Tiles and Duplos. They also love playing chase and usually rope either Mike or myself into chasing them around the house. This month Easton's grandma took both of them to McDonalds to eat dinner as a special treat. Now they ask all of the time if they can go to McDonalds. What silly kids!
Madeline was so excited to participate in her class valentines party at school. Madeline looked so cute in her little red dress. She and I had fun putting together her paper donut valentines with fun pencils for each of her classmates. I stopped in the classroom just in time for the exchange of valentines. Her teacher was super organized and had each table take turns passing out their valentines. I loved watching her excitement as she passed her valentines out to her friends.
Madeline was so excited to wear her pajamas to school for her class holiday party. I stopped in right before lunch so that I could help and take photos of the kids doing their holiday craft. The first craft they did was coloring their wooden ornaments at the group tables. They loved the coloring part but trying to put on the little bell and thread it through the twine was difficult for even the adults. After they finished with that craft they moved back over to their individual desks and made pipe cleaner snowmen. That was a much easier craft and super fun for the kids to do. When all the crafts were done, I helped to pass out the cookies they had decorated earlier that morning. I loved watching the kids gobble down their cookies and get ready for their movie time where they were going to watch the original Grinch movie. I love watching Madeline interact with her classmates. She is so sweet with the other kids in her class.
This month was full of school happenings both with Emma at Pine Creek HS and Madeline at Mountain View ES. At the beginning of the month Emma was inducted into the National English Honors Society. Her English teacher for the second year in a row, Mrs. Gefreh, encouraged her to apply. It was so fun watching her become part of a fun group of kids. After a year of no indoor concerts, it was really fun to be able to watch Emma play with the orchestra for their mid-fall concert. Since both Andrew and Peter were visiting during their fall break they came and watched her perform and had so much fun seeing Mrs. Margrave after the concert. At the end of the month Madeline's class had a Halloween party and I went in to take photos and help with the cookie decorating. It was cute seeing all of the kids dressed up in their costumes. Madeline was dressed up as Little Red Riding Hood this year. Madeline's favorite part of the day was eating her decorated sugar cookie and recording the song, "Five Little Pumpkins" on her iPad. EMMA'S HONOR SOCIETY INDUCTION |
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