Today Noah discovered the joy of painting your own face with super fun face paints!

I’ll let the image above describe how he felt about it.

A few days ago at school, we got a lovely little update from some events at Noah’s school that day.

Seems like we have a pretty sharp scientist in Noah

You’ll have to click on the small thumbnail preview images below to see the full sized image, which contains photos and notes from the day.

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A few days later, there was a small festival down by the Boulder Creek path for Labor Day Weekend.

At long last, Noah weighed enough to give the big bungee jumping ride a try. He’s been wanting to go on these things for a long time, but he’s been too small at past events. Well, no longer!

You’ll see in the video below that he had zero fear. The boy loves to jump and fly!

Lastly, yesterday, on Labor Day, we decided to head out on a family canoe adventure at the Boulder Reservoir. We all had a super pleasant, peaceful time out in the canoe, and we spent a good bit of time silently observing about 150 Canadian Geese on a quiet shore of the lake. We were about 15 feet from them in the boat, so we got to see them super close.

Here’s a pic from our canoe adventure:

And here’s another from a stroll on the Pearl St. Mall over the weekend. Noah is showing Mama bear the pretty flowers, because he knows that she loves flowers almost as much as she loves chocolate.

Over the weekend, Noah entered his first real bike race at the local indoor velodrome race track, and he had a super big fun time!

He was the youngest rider in the 3 to 4 year old category, and he ended up winning the race!

It was amazing to watch and so much fun to see him having that much fun. He tried really hard and did great, and he had so much fun that when he finished the second little obstacle course race, he went back out on the track by himself and said to me “I should run around one time and then ride my bike around as fast as I can.” It was like he was training for the next race, though he was only doing it again because it was so much fun.

I hope you enjoy the video, and I apologize in advance for the shaky recording during the race part of it. I was running around trying to film at the same time that I was trying to help him do the race. Next time Mama will do the video camera

Over the weekend, which was a 3 day Memorial Day Weekend, Noah and I decided to go on a secret, surprise adventure one morning.

I wasn’t telling him what it was until we got to the Boulder Reservoir…because I wanted to make sure that we could get in and rent a canoe first, so I made it a secret. He didn’t know what kind of adventure we were going on.

“Where we going, Papa?” he kept asking me. “It’s a surrrrpriiiiise!” I would reply.

“But Papa, aren’t you going to tell me what the surprise is?” he would say.

“No way man! Then it wouldn’t be a secret surprise!” I said.

“Oh…okay,” he replied.

Two minutes later….”Papa, where are we goooooing?”

We got to the Boulder Reservoir and we were the first canoe rental of the season. They had just opened up 20 minutes earlier and it was the first day boat rentals were available.

As soon as I told him what we were doing, the boy was levitating with excitement.

He pointed to the racks of life jackets and said to the rental guy “I need a canoe outfit and a paddle please. We’re going on a canoe adventure…me and my Papa.”

We got our life jackets and paddles, ran down to the beach, and loaded up a canoe with snacks and water.

We were ready for the big adventure.

Noah and I paddled for about 20 minutes to the middle of the reservoir (okay, well, his paddling consisted of sticking his paddle in the water and moving it back and forth) and then it was time to eat!

We had a great time paddling and eating and pointing at the 4 or 5 speed boats that were zooming around the reservoir with kids on inner tubes and wake boards in tow.

“PAPA!!! There’s a speeeeed boat! Can we go in it?”

“Well, not today, Noah. That’s someone else’s speed boat. We don’t have one today, and they cost a lot of money.”

“Can we go buy one now? I want to go in a speeeeed boat!”

“Maybe another time, Noah. Today we’re on a secret canoe adventure.”

“Oh Yeah! That’s right!”

A few photos from the day follow below:

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Last week Mimi came for a long and lovely visit. She came to see Noah, but it was also Papa’s birthday and Mother’s day during her visit (well, she was almost here on Mother’s day.)

This time Mimi brought a special gift for Noah: a full bug hunting safari kit, complete with bug net, binoculars, and a tool belt full of bug catching goodies.

Noah had a great time turning the binoculars around backwards, looking at everyone in the room and saying “You’re sooooo far away!”

We also went on a great family hike one day in Chataqua park. After hiking a couple miles, we stopped and had lunch on a rock, and a very friendly doggy came by and stuck his head right into the middle of us all. Noah was holding the last few bites of his peanut butter and jelly sandwich in his hand and the friendly, hungry doggy inhaled Noah’s sandwich in half a second.

Noah wasn’t very happy about this (he cried for a while) but eventually he forgot about it (but not before he told the story of the dog eating his sandwich 14 times.

Noah and Mimi had many, many days of great playing together. Lots of adventures and ball games inside the house.

You’ll see some pics from the visit below, as well as a short video of Noah when he and I went to the local airport last week to watch airplanes.

Each week that goes by it seems like we look at Noah and are shocked at how much bigger he looks than last week. He’s eating better and better now, and as a result, I think he’s going through a big growth spurt these days.

It’s amazing to watch him grow and develop through the different phases of life. What a gift this all is…

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For family day today, we drove down to the Colorado Train Museum in Golden, just about 25 minutes away.

This is the first time Noah has seen real live old trains like this, and, the first time he’s ever ridden on a train.

Part of the big draw for the event, for Noah, was that he was going to get to see the Easter Bunny and get a treat. However, when faced with the reality of a guy in a large bunny suit, he was a bit scared and wouldn’t get close enough to get the treat, so Mama got it for him. He said the Easter Bunny was too scary, and that he liked the little baby Easter bunny he had at home.

We had a great time getting on and off all the parked trains, exploring them and ringing the bells, and, we had a great time going for a ride on a train built in 1880, which is the steam engine you see in the movie.

Hope you enjoy the video and photos!

Last night was a historic night. Noah and I rode bikes together for the first time!

He’s been getting so fast on his run bike that I can no longer keep up with him on foot, so I grabbed my bike an rode with him in the park.

This opened up a whole bunch of new possibilities for where we could explore together, and we discovered a bigger hill on the side of the park that was much more fun than the old, gentler hill in the middle of the park.

As he got better on the hill, we kept going up a little further each time, staying safe but have a little more fun each time.

My heart was soaring as we rode bikes together for the first time. I’ll remember this moment for the rest of my life.

Pretty soon, we’re going to get his pedal bike out and see if he’s old enough to figure out how to pedal to make a bike go

Hope you enjoy the video!

The first family adventure of 2011 happened today, the first day of the year. There was just enough snow on the ground from our last snow storm a couple days ago to have some sledding fun and giggles and snowy smiles.

Noah is very good and holding on tight to the ropes inside the saucer and loves it when I spin him around as he goes down the hill. We all had a super fun time today in the snow, going up and down the hill 15 or 20 times.

Hope you enjoy the video. Sorry for the shakiness of the video. I was recording with my iphone as I ran backwards down the hill in front of Noah.

The time came and Noah’s legs were finally long enough to allow him to get his first run-bike…a bike that has no pedals or brakes.

Bubby Sue and Grampa Jeff helped us get this bike for the little monkey (thanks, guys!), and he’s been in love with it since the moment he got on it.

The first three days we had it, he wouldn’t let us leave it in the car…it had to be in the house, where he could ride it around and around the living room and kitchen. I know how he feels! (Papa loves his new bike just as much

It didn’t take him long to figure out how to ride the bike, and as soon as he got it, he stated looking for the biggest hill he could find to go down…picking up his feet and balancing on the bike and picking up speed. We are going to have our hands full with Noah for quite some time I think…

A few days ago, Noah and I were hanging out together in the morning and we both wanted to go to the Boulder Reservoir to go swimming while Mama got some more sleep.

I remembered that we had a little inflatable raft that he could sit in while being in the water and I opened the closet under our stairs to find it.

It’s a tight fit to get my body in this tiny closet, which I think was made for short Irish people back in 1899, when the house was built.

I reached to turn on the light, which is at the back of the closet and my shirt got hooked on one of the coat hooks on the back of the closet door, which rather efficiently closed the door behind me and turned off the light at the same time.

I fumbled around in the dark, hunched over in this tiny space in between the winter coats and the vacuum cleaner and tried to find the door handle to open the door.

It didn’t take long to realize that there wasn’t one. The latch was on the outside of the door only. Sigh…

Noah was in the living room watching Seasame Street, so I called out to him.

“Noah! Come over here,” I said.

I heard a giggle.

“Noah, come here. Papa’s in the closet. Come over here.”

“Papa!” he said. And I heard his little feet thumping their way over to the closet door.

“Hi Papa. Hi…,” more laughter. He thought I was playing a game.

“Papa! Papa!” he kept shouting.

“Hi Noah. Listen, Papa is stuck. Papa…stuck…in…the…closet.”

“Hi Papa!”

“Hi Noah. Papa is stuck. Can you open the door please? Noah open door please?”

Silence. Then, I hear his little hands reaching up and trying to turn the old knob on the latch holding the door shut. It was a good sign that he could reach it, but he could barely reach it, and he was probably standing on his tip toes.

“Help, Papa. Help,” he said, as he tried to turn the knob.

“Turn the handle, Noah. You can do it. Turn…handle.”

“Help…help, please,” he said, as he reached and did his best to turn the knob.

“Okay, Noah, that’s not going to work….Can you go up and get Mama? Tell Mama that Papa is stuck, okay? Go tell Mama that Papa is stuck.”

“Okay,” and off he went, little feet thumping their way up the stairs above my head.

“Mama! Mama!” he said as he made his way up the stairs.

And into our bedroom he went, waking up the sweet sleeping Mama.

I couldn’t hear him at this point, but later found out that he gently woke her up and said,

“Mama, Mama….Papa tsuck. Papa tsuck.”

Bari couldn’t understand what he was saying, because he was reversing the “s” and the “t” in “stuck.”

“Papa’s truck?” Mama asked.

“Papa tsuck!!” Noah replied.

While this was going on I realized that I had my cell phone in my pocket, so I called the home phone, told Mama bear what was going on and apologized for waking her up.

“Ooooooohhhhh. You’re saying ‘Papa stuck!’ Well, let’s go get him out!”

I was soon released from my dark prison under the stairs, rescued by Mama bear and Noah Nooey.

I grabbed the raft on the way out, and we had a grand time that morning at the reservoir.

Thanks for saving me guys!