Nora’s friend Sharan invited us to her 5th birthday party at the Main Street Theater’s production of Pinkalicious, the Musical (caution: pink). It was a blast! She got to play, eat, do crafts with Pinkalicious, and then watch her first ever live dramatic production. She loved it. The production was excellent. We are extremely grateful to Sharan and her family for letting us be part of her exciting day.
Mouse pancakes are an important source of protein for any young child and ours is no exception. Here we see her enjoying them with retro-styled banana eyes and delicious veggie sausage.
Jen got some time off from work, so the whole family went for a walk around downtown Denver. We saw the capitol, visited the so-so Colorado history museum, and ate delicious vegetarian food at City O’City, the filthiest hipster dive rathole of a restaurant any of us has ever been to. I thought the food was really amazing (Nora uncharacteristically refused to eat) but we’ve rarely had such terrible service. The most upsetting part was the way all the staff we interacted with seemed to treat Nora as an inferior being for being small (probably what put her off her lunch). It makes no sense at all. Hipsters should love kids who, after all, have only one gear, don’t have any brakes, think they’re indestructable, routinely make bad decisions, and wear tiny, tiny clothes ALL the time.
We took daily advantage of the wacky hotel pool in Denver. It had a tiny indoor part and then a long, narrow channel connecting it to a much larger, deeper outdoor part on a balcony up on the 7th floor of our hotel. Nora, of course, loved getting to go swimming every day. Here are a couple of pictures of her looking all grown up and tall.
Nora and I went for another very long walk; this time to the Denver Children’s Museum. It’s much smaller either than the one in Houston or the Hands-On Museum in Ann Arbor, but it makes up for its tiny size by being extraordinarily well staffed and well stocked with art/project supplies. We spent several hours there painting, playing dress up, designing rockets, playing dress up, dancing, being firefighters, etc. 4 enthusiastic thumbs up but, if you’re going, pack your own lunch. The food options available are … unappetizing.
A 2 mile hike followed by a day of playing proved to be too much for the little one. I ended up carrying her part of the way home (we stopped at a Starbuck’s *inside* an REI to share a cookie and some water); then she collapsed into maybe the longest, deepest nap of her young life.
Nora loves to volunteer, whenever possible, as an amateur zookeeper. The only thing she loves more than learning about the animals at the zoo is explaining those things to other people (while gesturing grandly with her arms). Honestly, if she were any more exactly like her old dad it would be scary.
Denver has a wonderful zoo! It was quite a trek from where the bus from the hotel dropped us off, but both Nora and I had a blast.
Jen’s friends at work threw her a fantastic baby shower to celebrate our impending new family member. Here’s Nora posing in his new, inflatable duck bathtub.
Probably everyone who reads this already knows, but we have never actually said here that Nora is getting a baby brother. For 36 weeks now, Jen’s been working hard prepping some new content for the blog. He should be ready to make his official debut in about a month. Here’s a candid shot of him from February taken by bouncing soundwaves off him (rather than our normal method of collecting reflected photons). Stay tuned!
We were invited to Nora’s room to view this little Southwestern-themed princess dress ensemble. This, she tells us, is what she plans to wear to her wedding. I worry that the dress might seem rather skimpy on the big day, though the hat should probably fit by then.
We decided to celebrate Nora’s half birthday with cupcakes because:
So we went to a place called ‘Crave Cupcakes’ not far from Nora’s school and picked up this handsome chocolate model with chocolate frosting and chocolate sprinkles (Nora’s choice — simple, elegant, and messy).
