Chicken Dance

This is another post for Uncle Ben, he is a very demanding Uncle! He requested that we post Sophie's chicken dance so here it is. Also, CONGRATS Ben and Kinsey! We are so excited that they will be getting married at the end of November. She is so wonderful, we are still wondering how he snagged her but we are sure glad he did!

So talented

I have posted pictures that my little brother Blake has done before, here is his latest little spoof on our nephew Parker. The above picture is of Parker taken by my older brother Peter. http://www.looslitaken.com/

http://www.blakeloosli.com/

Just for Ben

Sophie's Uncle Ben requested a video of her walking. Here she is.

1st day of Preschool

Kennedy's alarm was suppose to go off at 7:00 a.m. so she could get up and get ready for school. Kennedy woke up at 5:00 a.m. and crawled into bed with me while Mike got ready for work and continued to talk for the next TWO HOURS! Here are a few of her comments that had me absolutely crackin' up.

"Mom I can't sleep, should I bring in my first day outfit so we can look at it?"

"Who do you think is going to be in my class mom?"

"Dad what are you wearing to work, I will lay down as soon as I see what you are wearing."

"Should I try on the whole ensemble now with the boots and all?"

Here is my gal walking to school, so excited!
Kennedy came up with the above pose by herself, don't really know where it came from but apparently it's going to be a banner year for Kennedy, a banner year.
I laughed all morning, she was just beside herself with excitement.

She wanted to do a picture to show how excited she was- I think this displays it quite well.

She is getting so old it just kills me! Once we arrived at the school and she saw all the kids she turned to me and said, "okay mom I am really freakin' out here." She got over it pretty quickly and headed into class almost forgetting to give Mom and Sophie a kiss goodbye.

Always there beside me

This weekend we were invited to a Lip Sync night with some friends and although I tried to get out of it all week long...Mike finally convinced me to do it and it ended up being a lot of fun!

We dressed up as Ryan and Sharpay Evans from High School Musical and sang "Always There Beside Me." Another couple did the exact same thing but they switched roles and the husband dressed up as Sharpay. It was pretty funny!

Mike wore one of my shirts, which was skin tight and had chest hair popping out of the top. Needless to say, he was lookin' good!

This was post-performance, I was so happy to have that over with (can you tell).

I made that awful dress yesterday, Kennedy can't wait for me to cut it down and make her and her bud Audra matching Sharpay dresses.

"So lonely before I finally found, what I've been lookin' for..doo doo doo doo, doo doo doo doo, doo doo doo doo doo doo wha wha wha oooh"
The funniest part of this whole thing was that Mike and I spent several night practicing the song and dance in front of Sophie and Kennedy. Ken thought it was the COOLEST thing ever and I think we won major points with her. Sophie just had a shocked look on her face and was frozen on the couch watching us.

What did you do this weekend?

Mike ran into a pole.
He is fine, the car and the pole have seen better days.

Botanical Gardens of Chatefield

This morning the girls and I went to the Botanical Gardens in Chatefield. It was nice to walk around the paths in the beautiful trees. The gardens had several water features, a behive exhibit and some animals and old farm buildings to look through. The highlight was the treehouse. The girls had a great time climbing and playing all in the treehouse.

Summer reading, movies and fun

I just started reading this book and I am about halfway but thought I would give it a plug because so far I think it is so interesting. The lead character works in the admission office for Princeton University and it is all about getting into the school and her life. I have really enjoyed it so far.

See post below about this hilarious movie. Interesting fact: the lead girl in this movie is sisters with the lead girl in the television series Bones.

This week was pretty hot in Denver so we tried to stay cool by playing in the kiddie pool a lot and eating massive amounts of popsicles or frozen gogurt's (Sophie's new favorite treat). We also went to the fountains at a nearby mall to play. Kennedy played in the water for all of 10 minutes and then sat and ate grapes while Sophie followed around children with food and joined many a family picnic. As you can tell my girls have gotten a nice golden tan this summer ;-)

Sophie has started to play much more with Kennedy and it is so cute to watch them interact. Tonight Sophie picked up a doll, pat it on the back several times while hugging it and then sucked on it's face- or kissed it. It was so cute. She loves to pretend that she is talking on the phone and she will follow and/or copy pretty much anything her big sister does. She loves Kennedy and Ken can easily make Sophie laugh. Sophie is walking all over and is finally getting her teeth, she has six now.
Mike and I got to go on a date this weekend and see the movie 500 Days of Summer. We laughed so hard. If you didn't like Juno you are not going to like this movie and will probably be offended but we are bad people and thought it was absolutely hilarious. It also helps that the lead in the movies' name is Summer... a right good name if you ask me.
I got released from YW today and was put on the Enrichment Committee. I am sad to be out of YW, I really liked the girls and had fun with the leaders but it will be nice to meet more women in the ward and have a new experience. Now if Sophie could just go into nursery, life on Sunday will be FABULOUS!

Cheyenne Mountain Zoo and "fishing"

On Saturday we headed to the Cheyenne Mountain Zoo in Colorado Springs. It was such a unique Zoo, literally smack up against the side of the mountain. Here are the kids in the Big Backyard play area.

The giraffe exhibit was worth the cost of admission. It is set up so that the giraffes come right up to you and you can feed and pet them. It was really cool.

After coming back from the Zoo we had dinner and then went to the lake to let the kids fish, it was beautiful. Mike did some biking around the lake and on our way back he attempted to jump his bike and fell off of the walkway and into the marshland. I have to admit it was the highlight of my trip- it was so funny!

Kennedy and Milo headed out to fish- you can almost hear the theme song of the Andy Griffiths show.

Camping in Woodland Park

Our family went with Erin and Spencer's family to camp this weekend. We camped in Woodland Park, which was just outside of Colorado Springs and near the Garden of the Gods. It was a beautiful campground and had a nice lake just a five minute walk from our campsite. Here is Milo, Kennedy, Mike and Erin making/eating s'mores. We had so much fun talking around the campfire at night.
Sophie thought she was so cool that she had her own camping chair, she sat in it for all of 10 minutes total because she would get down and then would put anything and everything she found on the ground in her mouth.

Above is our campsite and below is the girls and I, this is me after getting about 30 minutes of sleep the night before. I was freezing and so uncomfortable all night long and so by about 3:30 I ended up in our car and turned the heat on about every hour so I could warm up. The kids slept well and Mike survived. Prior to falling asleep I got the giggles because it was a serious nightmare trying to get the kids all to bed. We could hear Keeler crying in the tent next to us and Kennedy was creating some sort of bomb shelter with her blankets next to me and kept smacking into me and to add to it just as we would all get quiet and situated Sophie would pop her out of the top of the crib and wave to us and I lost it. Sometimes you just have to laugh in situations that are somewhat miserable.

Here is Kennedy "reading" a book to Milo and Isabel in the morning.

The only way we survived camping with Sophie was to stick in her the porta-a-crib.

Spencer and Isabel.

Mike and Kennedy.

Hidden Mesa

On Friday morning Mike took me mountain biking at Hidden Mesa near our home. He has been wanting to take me for a long time and he had a fun time instructing me to go off rock jumps, hop up onto rock obstacles and ride down the rock path. I didn't know how I would like real mountain biking but I have to admit that I really loved it and was surprised at how much I dared to do... I am not daring at all. We had a great time and my legs are covered in bruises from the time I fell off my bike going down a huge rocky hill and when I almost flew over the front of my handlebars trying to hop up onto a large rock.