Nevi's Commensement from Kiddie Kopia

Nevi's Commensement ceremony from Kiddie Kopia was on May 22nd.  I caught some small clips of each song during the performance.  The plot of this play was not thick but it was sure sweet.  The boys were all sailors and the girls were mermaids.  One boy was a shark, too.  I think that the sailors were trying to save the mermaids from the shark but you're guess is as good as mine.  There is just something about children's voices in song.  It's the purest noise on earth. There is one song they did in sign language.  And I had to add a photo of Nevi's face after a celebratory chocolate cupcake!

Nevi Quotes

"Will they have tissues for my buggers where we're going?" (spoken by Nev as she was picking her nose in the car on our way to some friends for dinner)
"Mustard is for grown-ups.  Mayonaise is for kids."
"Mom, I'm freaking inside." (Nev said in response to Mom saying, 'Don't freak out.')

Coda T

Coda is often sleeping in our carrier while we're out and about.  So we don't have many pictures of him directly on our adventures, though he is there.  Coda sleeps for about 11 hours at night and then takes 3, sometimes even 4 naps a day.  Naps can be anywhere from 20 minutes to 2 hours long.  We never really had to do any 'sleep training' with Coda because when we lay him down to bed, he most always falls right to sleep.  No cry-it-out methods for him.  In fact, he really doens't cry much.  He fusses when he's hungry and tired but now that we know what he needs and when, he's pretty much always happy.  He plays with toys by batting at them with his hands and tracks objects beautifully with his eyes.  He LOVES peek a boo and patty cake and MUSIC in general.  When he is awake, he almost always wide eyed and happy! He giggles something fierce and loves to watch Nevi play!  He is a great eater, though he seems to prefer the bottle most times.  He is easy going and loves to travel, be on the move.  Robb and Coda are pretty tight now - Robb even thanked me recently for having such a cool son with him.  Coda really is an absolute delight and he has added such a great balance to our life.  Yes, it has been an adjustment and yes, there is more to do in a day, but somehow, it doesn't seem any harder (most days that is).  I am having so much fun with Coda and Nevi right now that everything else in life seems low on the priority spectrum.  

Nev Video

Some updates on Nev:  She is getting pretty good at writing her name and we are working on reading a little but every day.  She has really come a long way with the help of her preschool, Kiddie Kopia.  They focus a lot on art and proper social play.  They create a safe environment for her to learn and grow, not only academically but also create program that enhance rich character development.  Nev LOVES her teachers and classmates and I could not be more proud of her.  Now that Nev is 3 y/o, she lets me know when she's happy, frustrated and upset using effective communication and words.  She loves to explore and play and is an amazing big sister.  WIthout even being asked, after each meal now she asks if she can be excused, brings her dishes to the counter by the sink and puts her milk (if still full) back into the fridge for later.  She is becoming really good at independent play so I can occasionally do things like blog or clean. She loves to cut paper with her scissors (making confetti), use the grue stick, put puzzles together, play doctor and pretend, and she still loves to put stuff in stuff.  Many times we will find small marbles or even her shoes INSIDE our shoes.  It is very endearing when we find her stuff in special places.  And as you can see in this video, Nev is really starting to appreciate and love bugs. We have bug cards that she separates into piles. She always makes a 'like' pile and a 'don't like' pile. The don't like pile is of course bugs that bite or sting. Today we just opened a beautiful organic coconut, drained the cocmut water and are digging for the coconut meat.  We are having a blast!

Wild Animal Sanctuary

Nev, Coda and I all went to the Wild Animal Sanctuary early in May with our church group. www.wildanimalsanctuary.org/ - my first visit here.  It is located in the eastern plains of Colorado about 1 hour 20 minutes from Lafayette.  It is a rescue sanctuary that houses large wild animals, many of whom were once abused, neglected, etc, from circuses and domestic homes, believe it or not.  The neat thing about this sanctuary is how you observe the animals.  They believe that people are less threatening to aniamls if they are ABOVE them as opposed to on their level.  So they built a 3/4 mile bridge that is several hundred feet above the land in which the aniamls roam for us spectators to watch the animals.  And they truly seemed unaffected by us.  By far the coolest part of this trip was the very end - where there is a semi-enclosed section to house the mountain lion (I suppose to create a cave-like home for them).  There were 6-7 lions in this airy greenhouse like  enclosure.   As soon as we entered, the lions started roaring.  Before we knew it, all half dozen or so lions were making thier scarles, intense enough to make the hair on your body stand up and force goose bumps all over.  It was a very cool day and we had a blast picnicing there with our friends from Community United CHurch of Christ.  We are not official members of this church but they sure do accept us as if we were.  Probably some of the open and loving people I've engaged with. www.cuccboulder.org/.   They even had a welcome cake for Coda this month during fellowship and acknowledged him and and our family in the Joys and Concerns section of service. It was pretty special.                                                                                                                              

Family Dance Planet

One of our acquaintances is a music education teacher. She gave us a CD entitled  Mgical Musc w/ Kristin.  We absolutely LOVE this CD so when she invited us to   a new musical program called Family Dance Planet, we were pumped!  For anyone interested, there's more info at www.familydanceplanet.com.  It was at the Avalon Ballroom in Boulder and is an ongoing program the third Saturday of every month (4th Saturday in June).  There is an organized 30 minute dance program and the rest is free dancing and movement.  There is some live music and some DJ music, too.  It's a total hippy fest.  They were well equipped with a Verde Burrito Van in the parking lot that made awesome quasadillas and burritos.  They thought of everything.  The third pircture down needs some explaination.  We attended this program only 2 days after Robb had his vasectomy.  Nev was a little nervous and shy when we first arrived here (there were over 100 folks in attendance) so she kept hiding in his legs, not his prefered place of hiding at the time. Anyway, Nev really nailed him a couple of times.   Poor guy.  Luckily, no permanent damage was done. 

Kite Festival & Nev's Race

These top two photos are of the Arvada Kite Festival. Last year was our first year at this festival and we had such a good time that decided to go again. We met a few friends this year and had an all new experience.  This year, it was deceivingly cold and there were a lot less kites flying in the sky.  The sun was out at first and it was warm so we claimed a spot on the grass and left to explore the festival grounds.  Unfortunately, we left our jackets at our 'site' and the clouds came out.   It became bitter cold so we were all shivering for most of our adventure.  But to make up for the weather, there was a drum circle lead by a local drum school - that added a lot of excitement and sensory enjoyment.  The remaining pictures are of Nev's annual Kids4Health Run.  Every year, Bumble Bee leads the race.  Nev has always done the Diaper Dash in the past but this year, she was in the 500 yard dash.  It was indoor at the new Citibank Arena, and luckily so because there were dangerously high winds outside.  It all worked out great.  Nev even found a 5 year old friend to run the race with.  They held hands at the start line and never let go of each other.  They both pretended to be afraid of the Bumble Bee and giggled lots together.  It was relaly precious.  As usual, the finish line has lots of run goodies for NOW and then some for LATER, which she carried proudly home in her finishing bag.  

Rockies 2012

Wow, it has been such a long time since I blogged that the entire program has changed.  A new way of uploading and narrating now.  Oh well.  We've been very active lately so will attempt to catch this blog up with all of our latest adventures.  This blog will mainly be our first Rockies game of the season, Coda's first ROckies game ever.  He spent most of the game in my carrier sleeping but woke up periodically just to scope the scene. He got super hungry (as the above pictures indicates). Unfortunately,  nursing at  a Rockies Game is not easy, at least not conspicuous nursing.  But we managed OK and had a nice time.  We all stood in line for a autograph from Dinger the Dinosaur and Nev just loved giving him 'knuckles'.  The weather was awesome.  The sun was out periodically and it even sprinkled a bit, too.  Pretty nice day.

Kid Videos