Zoo Day

     The weather continues to be nice and we are taking full advantage of it around here!  I know how short lived it will probably be.  The rest of this week is supposed to be just beautiful.  Today, we went to the zoo with Brooke and Emma.  I  watch Ella on Tuesdays, so I was a little apprehensive about taking 3 kids to the zoo.  It went surprisingly well.  Ella and Dawson really got into watching and looking at animals this time.  We haven't used our zoo membership in months because it has been too cold.  It was a great day to get outside and soak up the sun.  We even got to have a nice little picnic lunch at the zoo.  What a perfect day it was!

      Every night we have been going on long walks around the neighborhood so Ashlyn can ride her bike.  She just loves riding her bike.  She has gotten so good at it!  She brakes like a pro.  She can even ride up hills.  She has such a great time.  I enjoy getting to watch her.  I can't believe how big she is getting!

    This Saturday is the big St. Patrick's day race.  I am very excited for it because it is my favorite 5k to run in Colorado Springs.  There is a parade afterwards so there is always a lot of people watching.  I have been training really hard and hope to do really well this year.  Ashlyn is going to do the kids run.  This will be the first kids run she will do where she gets a shirt.  We went on a run last night for practice.  She did so good.   What really impressed me was when she started to get tired, she would walk for a minute, then she would automatically start running again.  I didn't even say a word to her.  I think she has running in her genes!

       In addition to her preschool, I also work with Ashlyn a lot at home on her school skills.  I went and bought her a kindergarten workbook because the preschool one was not challenging enough for her.  She is such a smart little cookie.  She is a very lucky little girl.  Things come extremely easy to her.  As a teacher, I often see how hard some kids have to work to barely understand concepts.  I don't see Ashlyn being that way.  I think most things will come easy for her.  I just worry about her being challenged enough. 

        Dawson said some new words this week.  He started saying, "Alli" and "bye".  I love making out new words.  That's about all for this week.  On Friday, Joey and I are going to Ashlyn's parent/teacher conferences at school.  We look forward to hearing what her teacher has to say about her.  I will have lots to update next week.  



We love pizza at our house, but I find delivery pizza to be expensive and not the healthiest.  I decided that we are going to start making our own pizza once a week.  Ashlyn is thrilled with the idea.  I tried a new recipe for whole wheat pizza dough and it turned out really well.  Ashlyn had a blast making a pizza for her and Dawson.

Sampling some of the cheese.

Getting the pepperoni on just right.

I forgot to take a picture of the finished product, but I did get this picture of Ashlyn's pizza.  She said is was delicious!

Joey and the kids were their matching Nuggets shirts for the Nuggets game

Checking out the animals at the zoo

Ashlyn got to ride an ant

As usual, Dawson headed right for the slide.

He's getting so good at going up.

Great action shot of Dawson having a great time.

Ashlyn and Emma

We were so excited to see a peacock.  Ashlyn later said that the peacock was her favorite animal we saw after the hippos of course. 

Checking out the monkeys.

We tried to get a group shot, but it is very hard to get 4 kids to look at the camera at the same time.  This was the best we could do.

I thought this was adorable.  Think they are related???