Reasons to Celebrate....

Over the past few weeks we've had some reasons to celebrate.

First, we went to Erik's kindergarten orientation at Emerald Elementary. He was able to tour the kindergarten classrooms and he and Lily played kitchen with another little girl that will be entering kindergarten next year as well. He was so excited and didn't want to leave! He always asks if it's time for school to start. I keep telling him that it won't start until after summer is over. His kindergarten will be 2 1/2 days per week. I've requested he be in a Tuesday/Thursday/Friday afternoon class. We won't know which day or teacher he gets until a couple weeks before school starts. We are all excited for school to start! I can't believe my first baby is starting school already! Time goes so fast.

Next, Lily is finally potty trained! We had tried this two times before, just for a day to see how she did, but we never had any success. She just did not have any desire to get out of diapers. I don't know what changed, but waiting just over a month made all the difference! Monday, May 4 I decided to try again. All weekend Daniel and I talked to Lily about not wearing diapers anymore and being a big kid like Erik. She was very excited to wear "big girl underwear." In the two weeks since she's been out of diapers she has done very well! We've had a few accidents and a few times when I've almost given up and put her back in diapers, but we've endured. Overall, she has done really well, and everyone is less stressed and happy. We are both so proud of her, and she is very proud of herself. She really loves not wearing diapers anymore. She even does well when we go to the store, to the park, etc. Way to go, Lily! I love you so much, Princess!

Finally, the weather has been gorgeous and we've started doing more outdoor activities as a family. As Daniel said on his blog, today we drove up Boulder Canyon to see Boulder Falls. Unfortunately, the trail to the waterfall was closed due to falling rocks. I felt bad because the kids were so excited to see the waterfall. Erik has been talking about seeing it for two days. Luckily, they got over their disappointment quickly. We'll go back another time when we can actually hike up to the falls. At least the mountains were gorgeous! The swimming pool at our apartments opened today, and Erik has been waiting for this day for two weeks. Everyday for the past four days he would count down the days until the pool opened. Since our mountain trip was cut short Erik, Lily and I were able to go swim for about an hour before Daniel went to work. The sun was shining, at first, and the water was warm. We bought a life jacket for Erik and a little blow-up ring for Lily. Erik had a great time swimming all over the pool. He even jumped in without making me catch him! He practiced the things he's been learning in swim lessons. Lily had fun floating around the pool in the tube. She tried jumping in a few times, but she isn't a fan of going underwater. A friend of ours gave us another life jacket, so I put it on Lily. However, she hasn't mastered staying upright while wearing a life jacket, so she kept rolling over onto her back, then getting upset when she couldn't get back upright. We'll keep working on getting her comfortable wearing the life jacket. It will be very nice to have access to the pool all summer. Both Erik and Lily were already asking to go swimming again a few hours after we came home. Hopefully we'll have some nice weather over the next few days so we can enjoy the pool again soon.

Bouler Falls is somewhere up in the trees.

Two cute, happy children!

Doesn't Drew look excited?


Looking back down towards Boulder.

This is the pool at our apartments. Erik can touch in the shallow end, which is great!

We are really looking forward to exploring the activities Denver and the surrounding areas have to offer. We've already found a few places we want to visit now that the weather is nice: dinosaur ridge, Tiny Town, hot springs, Glenwood Caverns/Fairy Caves, and all the parks and mountain areas that are close by.