Zoo

We took advantage of the gorgeous weather today (70 degrees!) and met some friends at the zoo. Isn't baby Briggs cute?

Love a sleeping baby.

Mama and son.

Ok all you Colorado natives, how many of you remember going to the zoo as kids and riding the elephants? Am I dreaming that? I swear there is a picture of me riding an elephant with my sister and brother and I was like 3. Man, I would love copy of that picture.

Mr. Miles is at the stage where he does not want to sit still at all. He wants to be walking, but crawling will do. Today was his first time playing in the sand at the playground. He's a big fan.

Up!

On Tuesday, Miles climbed up the stairs and said "up!" He has been saying "mama" for a while now, but this a word he put together with a concept and the first time without my prompting. Amazing! Here's a video right after he said it for the first time, you need to listen carefully to hear "up."

I heart my library!

This is my library. It is exactly 3 blocks from my house. The library sits right next to Berkeley Park with a lake that is almost 1 mile around. I can run over to pickup or drop off a book while going for my run with Miles in the stroller.

The name of the library: Smiley. Is that not the best name for a small neighborhood library?

Thursdays our library has story time including singing. We went yesterday for the first time and Miles loved it. The reader was so animated and great with all the kids. And it was FREE! When everything now cost something this was so worth our time. Afterward they open the toy shelves and closet for the kids to play for an hour. All the toys are available to be checked out just like a book from our Smiley Library.

We picked a wooden walker (pictured below) because I have been wanting to buy one for a week now, but I know Miles won't use it for long. How great that I can check one out for 3 weeks and then return it without spending any money. This walker is so cute and a creative design with 3 crocodiles that open and close their mouth as the walker moves. Fish on each of the wheels, water borders and bugs under the handle. Much sturdier than the cheap plastic ones.
Right now I'm reading Little Bee by Chris Cleave and Dress Your Family in Corduroy and Denim by David Sedaris. I also have two sewing project books all from the library.

Support your local library!

Melts my heart

Miles is now saying "Mama" which is probably the best word I have ever heard. And on top of that he has been kissing me back with his mouth open and has tongue out. A little messy, but so sweet.

Might need to get him a rawhide soon...

art around the house

This last one is Trouble with a capital T. He's using the couch only for balance. And check out all those teeth!

'97 Prank

Thirteen years ago I was a sophomore in college (how sad to think it has been that long). I studied electrical engineering in Boulder. On campus, there was a ministry I was involved with that allowed me to meet some lifelong friends. A bunch of us decided to all live in the dorms so that we could hang out and meet new people. My dorm name was Baker Hall and I lived in a quad with 3 other girls. On the other end of the hall was a guys quad with 4 guys we knew well. We went to meals together and watched Football together and studied together. There was a lot of studying done by those guys. They were engineers and took their classes very serious. Often they stayed up until 2 or 3 AM finishing an assignment and what fueled their late night study sessions? Caffeine in the form of soda. These guys drank a lot of soda and produced a lot of empty soda cans.

Now it was 1997 and we were living in Boulder CO, capitol to granolaville and yumpies so all natural already existed in this town, but the whole Green thing had not caught fire in the rest of the country. CU was advanced for having all their recycling set up for every floor in every dorm to recycle newspapers and pop cans. It was a breeze to recycle because there were 2 trash cans in your dorm room, a brown one for regular trash and a blue one for recycleables.

Back to the engineer guys and their soda cans, well those pop cans went into the trash can every single time. I would remind them, "please put the cans in the blue can which is sitting 2" from the trash can," but they continue to put them in the trash. One civil engineer's excuse was that all the "recycled" stuff just ends up in the landfill after it gives us a warm and fuzzy feeling. Lazy! And I don't believe even back then Waste Management was only pretending to do something with the recycled cans.

So we started taking the cans out of their trash and collecting them in a huge trash bag in our room that we vowed to recycle on our own. My roommates and I were so dedicated that we began collecting cans from others in the residential hall. By December we had 2 huge garbage bags of cans.

December is finals time on college campuses. So now as students are studying hard I remember our wonderful prank. I believe David opened his door first to find all the soda cans stacked neatly in front of their door with a sign that read, "Please recycle." As the door was opened more the cans came tumbling down on the tile floor at 6 in the morning. Other guys down the hall heard the ruckus and came running. We were told that the cans just kept falling, the sound did not stop. So 2 months of collecting the cans and a whole night of taping string across the door and stacking the cans so they would fall into the room was so worth it. Such planning, so beautifully crafted. It was awesome!

Vail, Kentucky and many miles in between

Here's a quick update of what we have been up to this month: I've been crafty. I sewed the cutest booties from this book. They look great on, you'll have to trust me on this one since I can't get a picture where Miles isn't kicking his feet around. And I made a new skater hat since the other one was getting too small.
Peter went to the awful Bronco game where they got stomped by the Raiders. You remember the one, the complete embarrassment of a game (quick tangent: I have hated, yes hated McDaniels from the very beginning and I continue to hate him. I know hate is a strong word, but my love for the Broncos is equally strong). Above is a picture of dad and son in matching jerseys. I started Miles on avocados and he's not a fan of avocados like his mother (you can tell by his face). He loves bananas, but I will still get him to like the best fruit God made. We might have the next baby Mozart since he does fall asleep each night to Mozart and his dad likes to play Mozart on the piano. Miles has discovered splashing in the tub which is fun to see his face light up and since he can sit pretty much on his own now, he's not so scared of drowning.
Early October, the Summers clan went up to Vail to celebrate my parents' 40th anniversary. Can you believe there is a house that can fit our whole family? Yep and Miles was able to take naps while the 3 little girls ran around blowing their toy trumpets. We were so blessed to be able to use this amazing house that had a huge built in hot tub, game room, sauna, library, 10 bedrooms with attached bathes, etc.
And mid-October we flew to Kentucky for Peter's parents' 40th anniversary (I know wacky, both our parents got married in the same year). My parents went along and fun was had by all. We went to the Maker's Mark distillery and saw the whole family as this was the first time most of his family got to meet Miles.

Miles had his 6 month appointment a few days ago and he is in the 90% for height and 40% for weight, a little string bean. He keeps growing and changing everyday, I love him more and more.