Mother's Day Weekend

I love Mother's Day! It's like a birthday, but better. My very convenient self-imposed rule is that I get to pick something fun to do that Saturday in celebration of said holiday, so unlike a birthday when your spouse may or may not be working, we all get to go have fun plus we have the perfect excuse for an outing!

First stop was Kneader's for ((free)) Mother's Day french toast. I happen to love freebies, and this is a pretty darn good one. Brekkie at its finest! 

Even though the forecast once again called for rain (sigh), as Tom Tom would say, "You can't wait on the weather." So we headed down to Colorado Springs (which is seeming more and more like our new playground) to visit the Cheyenne Mountain Zoo. Ever since we went last November for Leah's birthday we've been dying to go back! First on the checklist was feeding the giraffes. ((Please note the fantastic photo bomb of the giraffe's tongue in the background))

Then a wondrous carousel ride to Leah's delight! The weather was indeed overcast and chilly, but we were making the most of our outing.

This is seriously the most amazing zoo! We were checking out the grizzly bears when all of a sudden one of them decided to go for a swim. He lumbered into the water right in front of us and provided us hours of entertainment watching him swim and play.

Ever seen a grizzly bear swim? We have!

And since the zoo is literally right up in the mountains, you spend half the time wondering if you're here for the animals, or for the incredible VIEWS!!! I mean, really?? So beautiful!

We'd packed a picnic lunch and set to devouring that while Elizabeth recharged. 

We saved the best for last-- which was the monkey house. Once again, they were so cute and funny and friendly and my kids got such a kick out of interacting with the orangoutangs and gorillas. The kids were tired and ready to head back home by that point, so we bid the zoo farewell and not a moment too soon! A huge thunderstorm blew in and it started raining right when we got to the car-- perfect timing!

That evening Lucy had her final piano recital. Her teacher Mrs. Wright is moving to Pennsylvania with her family next month and we are so sad to be losing her! She's been fantastic and Lucy has loved taking lessons from her.

She played "Sleeping Beauty's Waltz" as a solo and "Nimbus 2000" from Harry Potter as a duet. She was awesome! 

Here she is receiving her "Honorable Mention" ribbon from Festival as well as a "Performance Award." Hopefully we can find somebody else great for her to continue lessons with next year so she can keep working on this blossoming talent! After the recital I got to pick Mellow Mushroom for dinner and it capped off a pretty awesome day.

Sunday was Mother's Day and I woke up to a lovely breakfast prepared by Jon and the kids. French toast, bacon, and fresh fruit were on the menu and it was delicious! It sure is nice being appreciated!

Then outside for a quick impromptu photo shoot before church. Am I a lucky mom, or what? Taking care of these kids day in and day out has easily been the hardest thing I've ever done. You don't think about all the crying and diaper changing and dish washing and meal planning and laundry folding and listening to cranky kids and sleepless nights when you're 21 and newly married and "ready to be a mom," that's for sure! But I'm so glad it's a journey I've gotten to take. I wouldn't trade them for any job or dream vacation. I know I'm better for it and learning how to be more Christ-like along the way, and seeing them grow into good, kind little people makes it more than worth it.   

Right after church we headed to Littleton to visit Auntie Kylene and baby Jameson-- our newest Cardon cousin. What a perfect way to celebrate what Mother's Day is all about!

I spy 7 little monkeys jumping on the hospital bed, ha ha. Congrats to Jeremy and Kylene on their handsome little fellow!

HAPPY MOTHER'S DAY 2016

Now Is the Month of Maying...

"Now is the month of Maying, when merry lads are playing!" Or in our case, merry children, and lots of 'em. Here's a quick recap of what we've been up to so far in May:

Little Elizabeth is growing, growing, growing, and starting to sit up in her Bumbo. We set her right smack in the middle of the kitchen table during dinner time and she loves it. And Leah loves this polkadot dress Grandma Cardon made her because it reminds her of Dorothy Gale from the Wizard of Oz, and so it has become her "Dorothy dress."

This baby! Three and a half months old and just getting to be the cutest, most loved-on, spoiled baby ever! She is so fun to have around as she becomes more socially aware. Jon had to take her out of Sunday School last week because she was SO loud-- not because she was crying, but because she was singing and talking and squawking and enjoying the sound of her own voice. 

Miss Lucy won a most prestigious award at school at their end of the year award's assembly (hard to believe there's only 3 more weeks of school!!), called the Outstanding Buffalo Award. One boy and one girl from each class are selected to win it, for displaying exemplary behavior all year long, and for being all-around awesome. Here's Lucy's teacher reading all the nice things about Lucy and why she won!

After being recognized at the whole school assembly, the "buffaloes" are then fed lunch the next day and waited on by the principal and their teachers. Lucy was thrilled! It doesn't surprise me one bit when her teacher says she loves Lucy. How can you not?? 

Some funny pictures of Elizabeth trying to talk to us in the car. She watches our lips and then tries so hard to copy the shapes we make. I have a feeling she may be a little chatter box like her older sisters...

We have to run lots of grocery store errands to keep this family of 6 up and running and well fed! I swear, I feel like I'm constantly buying food and it scares me to think what it will be like when they're teenagers! My two little grocery cart buddies on a recent Target run. 

Jon and I snuck out of the house one Saturday evening for a much-needed date night and alone time. We discovered a cute little Beehive in our ward who likes to babysit and we use her quite a bit. I haven't left her with Elizabeth yet-- I feel like Leah and Zach are enough to make her earn that babysitting money, so Elizabeth gets to come along. It was a rainy/snowy, FREEZING Saturday so we headed to Wahoos for fish tacos, hoping it would remind us of our long-lost days in the Caribbean...

This cracked me up. Oh! The perils of dates taken with a 3 month old! Elizabeth had a MAJOR blow-out, complete with poop covering her from head to toe. Gross! Lucky Daddy got the honors of de-pooping her.

Ahhh, fresh as a daisy and not wanting to participate in this car selfie! Nursing in the car on the date, because that's what happens when the little poopster won't cooperate and just sleep through date night. Oh well. There's always next time!

So far, spring has not been very kind to us. We get a couple of gorgeous blue-skied, sunny days, and then either rain, or snow, or hail comes and we have to start all over again. Having officially experienced all four so far, spring is definitely my least favorite season here in Colorado. I thought these tulips were kind of pretty all covered in snow, but I'm ready for some summer heat!

We've been working on our backyard. Here is a BEFORE picture. I'll post more as we go along, but as I'm sure you're well aware, we are NOT yard people, unfortunately. This side was a muddy mess after all the snow this winter, and all the perennial plants were growing crazily, and so feeling adventurous one day we decided to take it on and try and tame it. We had a few landscapers come out and give us estimates on everything we had in mind, and --no joke-- one of them wanted $12,000!!! ((cough, cough, sputter, sputter)) to do it, so that sealed the deal for us. We are able-bodied and can certainly provide our own free labor, and can pretty much look up any how-to YouTube video we need!!! We'll see how our many projects progress through the summer... 

Lucy and Zach's school recently held a Fun Run to earn money for their school. After having been rescheduled once due to snow, you can see the new date was a gorgeous 75 degree day with lots of sun. I went right before school was ending to cheer them on and they were doing their last few laps. (You can see we still have very few buds on the trees. Not sure if that's normal, but like I said, loooong, yucky spring).

Here's Lucy with her class, running like a champ! Lucy ran over 5 miles! Impressive!

I finally caught up with Zach who was running with all of his first grade buddies, and they also ran about 5 miles. Great job Zach-O! They both slept so good that night, I should make them run laps before bed every night or something.

May 5th was Cinco de Mayo, Jon was working the late shift so it was just the kids and I, and I decided we needed a little Cafe Rio to celebrate Mexican independence. Ole'! 

Garden of the Gods

Finally! We had our first weekend with no work/travel/church obligations, NO SNOW, nice weather, and a long list of things to do and places to see. We headed about 40 minutes south down to Colorado Springs to check out the Garden of the Gods. In the 1800's this unique land was privately owned and operated by a local rancher. In the early 1900's upon his death he donated it to the city of Colorado Springs under the stipulation that it must always remain free to the public. My kind of guy!  

And what a gorgeous place it is! With a snow-capped Pike's Peak in the background, amazing red-rock formations galore, and plenty of easy scenic hikes, we were in for Mother Nature's treat. 

My little hikers eager to get started. I think the fact that this Colorado wonderland is free, combined with a sunny and 75 degree Saturday, made every red-blooded nature-loving Coloradan turn out in force. It was PACKED. Every parking lot was full, with about 10+ cars ready to pounce on the next available spot. We ended up parking here at the Visitor's Center and then walking about a mile in.  

Baby Elizabeth was a champ and napped in the front pack most of the afternoon. There were signs posted along the way to stay on the trail and watch out for rattle snakes! Every little movement in the grass had Leah and Zach totally freaked out-- and then we saw a couple completely off the trail taking engagement pictures and Zach was so worried for them! He kept asking, "Shouldn't we tell them about the signs we saw?" I think I feel a future FHE lesson coming together... 

Leah was sporting her black glitter high tops and kept calling them her "hiker girl" shoes. They must have been, because she pretty much walked the entire thing by herself!

The White Wall. With the sun full on, it just glowed amidst all the other red rock formations.

The "Kissing Camels." Can you see them? 

Lots of hikers and walkers and rock climbers to share the trail with. I hate how pictures never seem to do justice to the scenery! The colors were so vivid!

If you look closely you can see someone rock climbing about halfway up-- right on the middle of the rock. Jon was fascinated. I think we may have a new hobby to deal with living here in Colorado! 

Zach and Leah were inspired by all the rock climbers and decided to get in on the action. They had a blast checking out all these crazy rock formations.

The main trail is about 1.5 miles roundtrip and loops around the backside of the rock formations. It's totally flat and was just perfect for my kids to do. I'm sure we'll be back many more times!

On the opposite end of the park is Balanced Rock. Literally, this huge rock is sitting on top of a little tiny rock underneath-- maybe the size of a tennis ball. This picture doesn't do it justice-- but it looks like it could topple over at any second but has probably been like that for thousands of years!

On our hike back to the Visitor's Center we ran into a herd of about 8 deer. You can't even see them hiding in the brush in this picture they are so well camouflaged! We decided Heavenly Father was pretty amazing. 

After all that hiking we'd worked up a pretty good appetite. Jon had heard about this little hamburger joint from a patient who lives in Colorado Springs. Apparently it's a new hamburger franchise opened by the chef of In 'N Out burgers. 

YUM!! The burgers were amazing with the Chef's special sauce, and we'd been told we HAD to try the boysenberry milkshake, which was also very good. Such a fun way to spend a Saturday and much better than shoveling snow, ha ha!