The 4th and Buena Vista

Happy 4th of July!





We left early Friday morning and spent the night in Buena Vista (about an hour and 45 minutes from our house) with our friends Steve and Yarelys and their little boy, Caden. Caden is a year older than Olivia and she loves following him around!



Friday morning the boys took the Rhino (like an ATV, but bigger) and dirt bikes to some trails and Yarelys and I took the babies to a local park. Olivia was in a fantastic mood and loved riding in the wagon.



Blowing raspberries on the slide:



Posing in front of a tree:



She wants to walk so bad! She's not quite steady enough, so we have to "help" her. My back is so sore!





Olivia had a little snack before we left (she loves her veggies!):



How do you know your child had a good time at the park? Their feet look like this:



Saturday morning Olivia spent some time climbing on the car:





And then we left for 4 Mile National Park. Buena Vista (like most of Colorado) is beautiful. Michael watched Olivia while I took some pictures of the mountains:





She had fun playing in the dirt (and eating it!).





I love these next 3 pictures. We wanted to get a few of the 2 babies together, which is nearly impossible if you want both of them looking at the camera. The first picture turned out pretty well- notice Olivia has a rock clutched in her hand:



The next picture is of said rock going straight in her mouth:



And finally, Michael's arm reaching to get the rock out:



We headed home after that and made it back in time to take Olivia to the 4th festivities close to our house. She's a little small for the bouncy houses and face painting, so we spent an extraordinary amount of time waiting in line for this balloon animal. She likes it, though, and held onto it the rest of the time we were there.



This picture reminds me- she was never crazy about a pacifier. She had a really hard time keeping them in her mouth. Around 6-7 months, she stopped taking one altogether. She would spit it out every time. I was happy and sad about that. Happy, because we wouldn't have to go through breaking her of the habit, sad because she didn't have something to comfort her (and help her fall asleep). When we were on our trip to Glenwood Springs in June, she had a little meltdown in the car. I tried everything to calm her down and found a paci in the bottom of the diaper bag. Out of desperation, I stuck it in her (wide open, screaming) mouth. To my surprise, she took to it immediately and it's been downhill ever since. She LOVES her paci now and even though it may be hard to break her of it in a few months, it's so nice to have something to help calm her down, especially in the car.



With the Airforce Academy in Colorado Springs and Buckley Air Force Base in Aurora, we see lots of aircraft flying over our house. However, today we heard planes circling over and over. Michael caught it on video:



Our neighbor was outside and told him they will often circle around the city, while waiting to do a flyover for an event (in this case, a 4th celebration). Pretty cool! Hope everyone had a great 4th!