Stider doesn’t want to do anything for Father’s Day. At least that what he says. Mox an so twisted his arm a bit and got lunch. Oh and also Dairy Queen. Behold the road side picnic where we celebrate Moxie’s fabulous dad and watch her enjoy her first ice cream cone. 

This is just after she has her first tiny taste. Huge smile. But then she gets serious. 

No more time for smiles. Only eating. No mentions of trucks, buses, or bikes as they pass. Only slurping that Dairy Queen goodness. 

Jobs well done. For Strider being amazing and for Mox for destroying a cone of vanilla soft serve. 
Also: happy happy Father’s Day to Moxie’s two grandpas. Both taught us so much about being parents. Both of then included a healthy amount of ice cream in our diets. Really this is all about tradition. 

Bibi and Babu came to town a couple weeks ago and helped us host an epic egg hunt for friends.  Our wonderful neighbors with a fabulous backyard offered to let us use their space.  So we “hid” over 100 eggs and drank mimosas and ate delicious food while the kids hunted.  The kinds of prizes included in the eggs were: dinosaurs, animals, raisins, chalk, race cars, dollar coins (!), and other toddler friendly stuff.  Each kid got a bank too.

It was an absolutely wonderful day and we appreciated everyone coming out to play.

This week we had a visitor: Aunt Bear (or as Mox says, “Beh”)!  She stayed with Mox and Jess while Strider went to a conference in Colorado.  It was wonderful.  We went to the zoo, a graveyard, on walks, to music class, and even survived because Bear was here.  Seriously.  It would have been a mess without her.

Mox and Bear check out a snake.

Watching the orangutan cross by.

She loved the goats so much she wanted  to join them.

We wrapped up the day in a mess.  

After a wardrobe change we walked around Oak Hills Cemetery 

Today we are cleaning out cabinets and organizing stuff in the kitchen. All chores that are not toddler friendly. Well, we tried our first stab at sensory bins. 

We made it from left over pasta I was going to throw away and a few wine corks (don’t judge) and plastic animals. 

I saved an egg carton a few months ago and that’s where she organized what she found. Oh: and the towel. That was my way of trying to contain the crazy. I think it mostly worked. 

She was entertained long enough to get a few shelves reorganized so that’s a win. I saved all the noodles in a ziplock. Maybe we will do this again sometime. 
Back to cleaning. Blech. 

Today, Rita did Moxie’s hair in a pretty cool way. I wanted to get a couple pictures of it for fun. So I decided to take Moxie outside. (Cool photography trick: take pictures outside where there is light.) 

However, Moxie had some conditions.

The first three were easily satisfied.  She needed a stick (to be obtained outside), a bottle of milk (of course), and absolutely no shoes.

The no shoes was definitely not negotiable, as she indicated by putting her finger to my mouth and saying “nooooooo.”  Not only was she not going to where shoes, I wasn’t even allowed to talk about it.  All said, though, this is was not an issue, though it was a little dicey when, later, we found this:
and this:

But that was all ok.  The real problem was her last demand.  This is best explained with a picture:
In fact, the hat requirement extended to the photographer too:

(The leaves are a whole other story.  One she has to tell, because I’m really not sure why she made us do that.)
Once, there was a dog.  The dog was very friendly, but wary of dinosaurs.  The triceratops really wanted to meet this dog, so she allowed herself to be turned into a little girl for a few minutes.  And that is how we caught a brief glimpse of her beautiful hair:
But not for long!  (These are taken not a minute after the last picture.)

For those curious about the hair, here’s a couple bad pictures, but they are the best I got showing the style:

After dinner, we went on another walk.  While the accoutroments varied in the specific, the spirit was the same.  A truck had just passed for the first picture.  She really likes trucks, especially the ones that wave at her.

Strider has bad feet. It seems the only shoes he can wear semi-comfortably for a whole day are crocs. He has been wearing them since we moved to Colorado in 2004. Our tradition of croc wearing has now passed to Mox. She likes them because she can (almost) put them on herself. Also: compared to her friends she has giant feet. We are so proud.