elsie's birthday celebration.

elsie has had about a week of birthday celebrations.  connor had a baseball game on her birthday so we did her birthday dinner of tortellinis and rushed off to the game.  after the game we celebrated a bit with some orange leaf ice cream & friends.  then the next day we celebrated with her birthday cake after dinner.  she was pretty cute about having her own cake but was a little unsure about blowing out the candles.  

so that brings us to last night when we had a family party for her.  we started off the night by swimming, one of elsie's favorite activities.  then we came home and had an ice cream bar for dessert and opened presents.  thank you to all who came and helped make her birthday special! 

elsie and her sweet new cousin, baby brynlee.

all the cousins, minus brynlee, bennett, & ry guy (we missed you two boys!)

she liked blowing these ones much better.  

maybe she was just all practiced up to perform for a crowd.

lots of sugar made for a fun night!

a visit to the aviary.

we went to the tracy aviary with some friends last week.  the kids haven't been there and i haven't been in years.  we all had fun seeing all the birds.  i think the favorites the kids reported to cory were the toucans and the flamingos.  afterwards we sat in the shade and had a picnic lunch.  we spotted a ferris wheel and carousel.  there wasn't time that day, so we'll need to make another trip soon!

the flamingos with some awesome green water.  poor birds.

they were wishing to ride so bad.

checking out the pelicans and ducks.

the chalk festival.

we went down to the gateway for the annual chalk festival.  we love going down on friday night to watch the artists as they work.  follow it up with a caramel apple from rocky mountain chocolate factory and its one of our favorite summer activities.  this year there wasn't much of a crowd, thanks to the beautiful city creek center.  we had tons of fun and even had anna join us, another favorite for sure. 

elsie is looking to be a lefty.

one of connor's masterpieces.

 mabel has been perfecting her blending techniques for a few weeks now.

we love ourselves some snoopy.

at the zoo.

we ventured to the zoo a few weeks ago to see the new polar bear and arctic exhibit.  it's pretty impressive.  the kids loved the otters and the polar bear.  it was pretty awesome, all the animals in the new area were very active and swam a ton.  definitely a highlight!

watching the river otters swim.

 there was no way under the sun that elsie was going to get on one of those tigers!

on the train. 

checking out the new polar bear.

a happy birthday.

our sweet elsie turned 2 today.  i say this every birthday day, but where has the time gone?!?  she is our sweet, quiet, content child.  

she couldn't be happier if everyone {mostly connor and mabel} would just leave her alone.  she often gets lost in the house because she's so quiet.  but one of the that i love about her, is that she's not about to be walked over just cause she's quiet.  

she's got a boomin voice and she's not afraid to show it when she needs to.  she still lives up to the nickname "boomer."  

she's graduated to her big girl bed most nights and still loves to sleep with her bum in the air.  one of the highlights of cory's and my nights is to see how she's fallen asleep.  

she's also going through a phase, hopefully it's just a phase, that she takes her diaper off at the first feeling of wetness!  we've gone in on multiple nights to find her naked from the waist down!!  luckily for us, the bed was still dry.  many times we've resorted to putting her diaper on backwards.  seems to work so far.

happy birthday sweet girl!  we love you.

good morning sunshine.

 butterfly french toast made by dad.

she was wiped out on the way to her birthday lunch.

though she loved going to Mcd's for lunch, she was not happy about going down the slide with Connor.

her new wheels.

swim lessons.

connor and mabel absolutely l.o.v.e.d. their swim lessons this year.  they both love the water and are our little fish!  here are some highlights.  definitely one of the favorite things during the week was granna packer, and k, a & c coming and then on the last day, cory came to see their skills!

elsie loved the lessons too! mostly because she got the kiddie pool to herself to do what she pleased!