Kindergartener No. 1

I often find us discussing with other parents how fast our children's childhoods will whip by.  In some cases it's with parents of similarly-aged children who are making this same observation, and in other cases it's with parents whose children have long since grown up and are simply confirming said observation.  However, as much as we try to ignore it, there are those milestones in our children's lives that sneak up and prove that they are growing up.  First smile.  First word.  First step.  First day of school. 

Ellie started Kindergarten earlier this month (AKA last month).  She's been excited about it all summer, and it really showed on that first morning.  In a lot of cases, Marielle is a little apprehensive when trying something new (it took here three weeks to warm up to soccer), but, apparently, school is the exception.  She smiled all the way to the bus stop, and while climbing on board, she kept looking at us with this "hey guys! look at me! do you see this? look at me getting on this bus! I'm going to school" grin on her face.  It was great, and it was a much better school bus experience than I first had when I was a kid... wait for it... yes, I cried all the way there and all the way back.

She's been digging the bus, and loving school.  We're not quite sure what they work on all day because when you ask Marielle, she just says that they did recess.  I know that's not true because each evening we catch her singing newly-learned nursery rhymes or talking about new friends.  On the other hand, we seriously don't have any idea what they are working on.  There are red folders, green folders, flashcards, newsletters, and announcements on goldenrod paper.  It's a bit overwhelming at first.  But we've got to get with the program because I really believe that parental involvement is just as important to success in school as great curricula and awesome teachers.

Also, for anyone wondering what that cone shaped thing is that Marielle's holding, it's called a "Schultüte."  It's German.  Look it up.

Harper at Three

After a lengthy hiatus, we return to the blog by announcing that Harper turned three at the beginning of the month.  In addition to the facts that Harper has two intact feet and one ruined pair of Crocs, here are some other facts about our not-so-little-one.

Sleeps with an army of stuffed animals/toys.  Currently, the following toys go to bed with Harper: George (a giraffe blankie), Chum Chum (a tiny baby doll), Anna (a bigger baby doll), Samantha Penelope Sebasta (an American Girl baby doll and 3rd birthday present), and pink bunny.  In case you are wondering, Harper came up with all the names herself, except George.

Loves to play Rock Band.  Harper, just like her sister, can put on a pretty awesome performance of Shania Twain’s Any Man of Mine.

Loves to rock out in the car.  Harper either makes up her own songs to sing or will sing some of the songs Mom and Dad have her listen to.  Her favorite car song of late is Green Day’s Twenty One Guns.  Harper not only likes to sing, but she likes to sing loudly.  If you try to talk over Harper’s singing, she’ll just sing louder to drown you out.  Marc and I have had several yelling conversations in the car because Harper was in the back seat trying to drown out our conversation with her vocal performance.

Loves to do karate.  Harper has all kinds of awesome karate moves that she shows mom and dad on a constant basis.  Her best karate move is wax on wax off from the Karate Kid.  The move is quite intimidating and comes with an awesome serious face.

Thinks she’s 16 years old.  Harper has no problem playing or talking to bigger kids and when I say bigger kids I mean anyone who is older than three.  There really is no limit to the age of a person that Harper will feel comfortable talking to.  A few weeks ago my brother had a birthday party with some high schoolers.  We were at the party and mostly tried to stay out of the teenagers way.  Harper on the other hand, went right downstairs to hangout with everyone.  At some point I saw her standing by a group of girls and talking like she was just another 16 year old.  I’m sure she was thrilling them with talk of her stuffed animals, knowledge of music, and playing pretend, but we love it.  At one point she had a group of kids watching her play PlayStation.  I don’t know how she convinced them that that would be a fun activity, but when we tried to convince the kids that they didn’t have to oblige her, they were insistent that they were having fun.

Is quite the little dancer.  Harper HAS MOVES.  The girl dances better than her mom, which isn’t necessarily saying much.  Granted some of Harper’s dancing makes her look like she’s had one to many cocktails, but it’s quite entertaining to watch.  My favorite dance moves are performed to Beyonce’s All the Single Ladies.  If you catch Harper in the right mood she’ll do some of the moves from the music video.  I assume that Beyonce’s dance moves were learned courtesy of Auntie Sarah who always has dance parties with the ladies.  Either way, the hip shaking, finger waving, head bobbing, squatting dance combo is quite the sight to see.

Has no quiet voice.  Much like her singing, Harper does not know how to talk quietly.  When we are in a movie theater with Harper and she has to go to the bathroom, everyone will hear not only that she has to go, but will know what she plans on doing when she gets there.  When we remind Harper to talk quietly, she’ll do so for only a sentence or two and then go right back to loud talking.  I think she get’s this from her dad.


Wants to be a clown.  Harper is still insistent that she wants to be a clown when she grows up.  I don’t know what clowns Harper has seen that have inspired her to be a carnie or what carnivals she’s been to that make her think, yes, this is the life for me, but we think she may not yet be aware of the numerous other career choices available to her.

Loves playing pretend.  Harper will play pretend till the cows come home.  She makes up names for all her toys and even gives them their own voices.  The other day she was playing with two dinosaurs.  One dinosaur says to the other, “I’m so upset with you, I’m going to jump out this window and leave.”  The other dinosaur says “I don’t care, jump.”  The dinosaur then proceeds to jump out of the pretend window.  The second dinosaur then responded with a nonchalant, “I’m unimpressed.”  I don’t know what she’s doing or where her make believe scenarios come from, I just know she has quite the imagination.

Thinks “sister” is the coolest person ever.  Harper adores her sister.  She wants to do everything Marielle does and say everything Marielle says.


Is hilarious.  Harper says the funniest things (see "loves playing pretend" above).

Eats almost anything Mom puts on the table, but is not all that into sweets, with the exception of frosting.  The girl loves to lick frosting off of cupcakes, cakes, brownies, really anything that has frosting on it.

Is a bit of a dare devil.  Harper can be very fearless.  I think she’d ride roller coasters if the girl was tall enough.   She loves to jump, dive, run, “swim” etc.  Really any activity that has a little bit of a thrill component she’s into.  Although ice skating is not her thing.  Harper informed me that if we never went back to an ice skating rink that would make her happy.

Is feisty.  Our little lady has spunk.  Harper is such a sweetheart, but when the girl gets mad she gets mad.  Her angry face actually makes me want to giggle because it’s really cute.  When Harper gets upset her lower lip sticks out a little, she pushes her eyebrows together, crosses her arms, and makes a “hum” sound.  However, I try not to laugh when Harper is upset because I expect that would make the situation worse.  Harper does see reason, but needs a little bit more rationalizing and firm talking than her sister.

Still loves to cuddle.  Harper is always up for a hug or kiss or to be held.

Hungry Escalator

So yeah, all those stories about escalators eating Crocs... they're true.  This is what's left of one of Harper's Crocs after our harrowing little run in with such a people mover this weekend.  I've always reserved the right to have very little sympathy for escalator incidents as I always assumed that they happened to people that were messing around on them.  Apparently, I owe at least some of the folks an apology because, apparently, escalators eat the shoes off of rule-abiding children as well.  We were on our way down one of the escalators at the Denver Pavilions after seeing Toy Story 3 (BTW, best Toy Story yet) with the Pierz clan when this happened.  Harper was just standing on the step, next to Viv, when she made a sound about her shoe.  Colette looked down and realized that the toe seemed caught on the stair.  This was still several feet from the bottom where the stairs flatten out before the platform.  Viv picked her up right away and pulled her foot out of the shoe, and then the escalator went on to try and eat said shoe.

At the time, it scared the hell out of us, but everything is fine.  Harper's got all of her little piggies and she'll finally get a pair of new Crocs instead of hand-me-downs.  Yes, I said Crocs.  The Crocs are kind of essential as far as comfy, easy shoes go.  Escalators, on the other hand, are not, so we'll probably avoid them for awhile.

Anyway, we thought we should kick out the warning for the rest of you.

Puddle Jumpers

Colorado's having a pretty wet and dreary weekend, but we haven't let that stop the fun.  In between the rain showers, I took the girls outside to go puddle jumping.  They had a blast, and, to my surprise, there was no drama when the girls, inevitably, got soaked.

Disclaimer: This post is several months overdue, as are several others. Hopefully, over the next several days, maybe weeks, we can get the Barrios presence on these here interwebs updated.

We took a page out of the Pierz's playbook and took the girls ice skating last weekend.  It's not that we don't come up with fun things to do with the girls on the weekend, but I have to hand it to Geoff and Colette.  They always come up with the most fun activities.  Ice skating had never really crossed my mind at this age, but if you set you expectations accordingly, you can have a lot of fun.

The girls had been excited about it for days.  We opted to take them to their ballet classes and then headed over to the rink.  In hindsight, this was a tactical error.  You see, normally we skip breakfast before ballet in favor of a small snack, and then, afterward, we usually do breakfast.  Because of the hours for open skating, however, we had to delay the late breakfast until after ice skating.  Needless to say, the girls were a bit cranky.

After getting past the extra drama, we had a lot of fun.  Next time we go, we'll have to investigate whether there's a session were they have the garbage cans for the little kids to skate with (the basically work like little walkers).  Without the walkers, Viv and I just took each of the girls and held them out in front of us while we skated along.  It worked really well, but it was a little hard on our backs.  Yes, we're getting old.  The first lap went really well.  The girls really liked getting scooted around the ice.  By the second lap, we started to try to get the girls to try to shift their weight over their feet rather than leaning back into us.  This was less for teaching them and more for helping our old backs.  As soon as we did that, the slipperyness of the ice became apparent to both of them.  The fear set in next, but then they calmed down and all was good again.

Ultimately, the hunger started setting in and we called it a success after five, or six, laps.  The girls then sat outside the rink, up against the glass, while Viv and I took turns doing a few more laps.  They got a kick out of us passing them as they looked on from the other side of the glass.

While we were getting their skates off, I asked Marielle whether not not she had fun.

To which she replied, "Dad, I never want to go ice skating again."

Turning 5

20 Things About Our Birthday Girl:

1. Pink is still her favorite color.
2. The girl loves art.  She could draw, paint, color, sculpt, etc. until the cows come home.
3. She loves her sister and puts her arm around her shoulders and talks in a sweet quiet voice to her when she is sad.
4. Quesadillas, chicken tenders, pizza and oxtail soup rank among the world’s best food as far as Ellie is concerned.
5. She made up a secret spy girl cheer for all secret spy girls.  The cheer, which is not as secret as the spy girls themselves, must be yelled at the top of your lungs and goes like this, “Go Go Secret Spy Girls!”
6. Her new favorite game is Rock Band II.  Marielle can rock out to Mud on the Tires, Any Man of Mine, and Don’t Stop Believing like it’s going out of style.
7. Still loves dress up.  Marc and I come home to find Marielle in princess attire almost more often than we find her in her normal clothes.
8. Is still barely on the weight chart for her age.
9. Her favorite toy, hands down, is still Nona.  Nona spends much of her day getting into all kinds of mischief with Marielle.
10. Is quite the little ballerina and looks adorable, if I don’t say so myself, in her little pink leotard and tights.
11. Is convinced she loves soccer even though she spent half of last season crying on the sidelines.
12. Wants to grow her hair out to be long and beautiful like her Auntie Sarah.
13. Her favorite song is Crush from the Glee soundtrack.  She belts it at the top of her lungs in the car, including all a cappella parts.
14. Has actually eaten several pieces, yes pieces, of fruits and vegetables this year.  Grapes and lettuce can now be counted among the foods that Marielle will eat.
15. Has become quite helpful around the house.  She is getting pretty good at putting her shoes and jacket away when she comes home and responds nicely, most of the time, when Mom and Dad ask her to help do something for them.
16. Her favorite television show is Phineas and Ferb.
17. Tells a great knock knock joke.
18. Loves being sung to when her teeth get brushed.  Lately her song of choice when she gets her teeth brushed is Hallelujah from Shrek.
19. Is super excited about Kindergarten and riding a school bus.
20. Is a very sweet, funny, smart, and beautiful little girl.  Her Mommy and Daddy could not be more proud.

Happy Birthday Marielle!!! We Love you!!!

Soccer Tryout

Disclaimer: This post is several months overdue, as are several  others.  Hopefully, over the next several days, maybe weeks, we can get  the Barrios presence on these here interwebs updated.

Marielle played soccer this last fall and is now looking forward to spring soccer which starts in a few weeks.  If you had asked me back in the fall if she was going to be excited about this spring, I'd tell you, "no."  The first few weeks went less than well.  She was very uncomfortable with trying a new sport, I think.  We kind of expected this since Field Day in her pre-school class went the same way.

After 15 minutes of coaxing, we finally got her out on the field, but participating was a different story.  At this point, I have to thank her assistant coach.  He was a big help.  He got her to join the rest of the team in doing warm-up exercises, and for the next three weeks he worked to get her out during the warm-ups and to participate in the games.  At first she would run the drills, but only if I ran them too.  So just picture me running alongside all of these little girls while all the parents of girls who liked soccer looked on with laughter.  By the second week, she did much better, and, for the second half of the season, she actually looked forward to the games.

Watching Ellie play was hilarious.  Early on, it became apparent that she hadn't yet developed that competitive spirit.  She spent many of her games out on the field picking up fallen leaves which she would then attempt to show her coach.  Or she would volunteer to get subbed out so that she could sit on the team blanket and sip her water from her new Camel Bak water bottle.  In between sips, she would ask us if she could have her end-of-game snack yet.  Then, by the time the game ended, Ellie typically wouldn't be interested in the snack because it was typically something healthy like an apple, carrots, or a granola bar.  But, I'm going to side with Marielle on this one.  I mean, what kind of a coach does that?  I sucked at intramural sports as a kid, but both us sucky kids and the athletic kids alike all looked forward to swiss cake rolls, twinkies, or oatmeal cream pies at the end of every game.  One week, Marielle walked up after the game with a bag of M&M's, or something like that.  Apparently, she had gotten them from the other team.  Yes, she begged the other team's coach to hook her up with a good snack.  I think her Oma put her up to it.

All in all, she ended up enjoying the season, and gained her biggest fan.  At the beginning of the season, Harper was sad that she was still too young to play, but by the end of it, she would cheer loudly for Marielle.

Modest Marielle

We are currently watching the Princess Once Upon a Dream sing along DVD. 

During the "I Can Show You the World" song from Aladdin, Marielle informed me that she "doesn't like Jasmine's clothes because she looks kinda naked."

Sugar and Spice, and Everything...

Vivian was tickling Harper this evening and nibbling on her belly making her laugh hysterically. 

Vivian said, "Mmmm, you taste like sugar and spice!" 
To which Harper replied, "no I don't!"
"Oh yeah," Viv said, "then what do you taste like?"
"Mom, I taste like soup!"

Alkaline or Lithium?

Disclaimer: This post is several months overdue, as are several others. Hopefully, over the next several days, maybe weeks, we can get the Barrios presence on these here interwebs updated.

We had been watching Ben's fish several months ago when he moved into his new place.  We were happy to do it, and the kids really enjoyed having the fish to watch despite the fact that they are nowhere near as exciting to watch as Sarah's hamsters - er, hamster.  We had tried our best to care and feed for the fish, but they weren't any good at coming up to us in the house and sitting in front of us with sad looks on their faces like our dog does.  Inevitably, one or two of them didn't make it through their stay at the house.

One day, when Ben was over, he took Harper over to the tank so that she could help feed them.  When they got to the tank, there was one unfortunate fish chilling at the top of the tank near the filter inlet (need I say more?), and Harper turns to Ben and says,

"That one is out of batteries."

Summer Gymnastics

Disclaimer: This post is several months overdue, as are several others. Hopefully, over the next several days, maybe weeks, we can get the Barrios presence on these here interwebs updated.

Over the course of the summer, the girls also took a gymnastics class.  Our local rec center offers up classes that are taught by the rec center's gymnastics team members.  I think the girls really like this.  I get a sense that they look up to the older girls like they are gymnastics superstars.

I think that both of the girls love the balance beam the best.  Harper loves the four-inch beam that just sits on the mat, and Ellie loves the one that's just slightly taller.  None of them seem to like the uneven bars even though all that they do is take turns hanging from the lower of the two bars.

At one point in each session, each kid takes turns jumping down the length of this looooong trampoline that they have.  It took Ellie almost half of the 8 week session to get her rhythm right on the trampoline so that she was actually jumping, and Harper wasn't able to get it in this session.  She basically just ends up stumbling down the length of the trampoline like a drunk.  It is cute all the same.  Lastly, is the foam pit.  The kids seem to like it despite the fact that they always get stuck and need help escaping.  They also always manage to get me to hop in, and I have even more trouble getting out than they do, but I haven't lost my wallet yet.

A Girl and Her Dog

So, a little while after my Mom laid Ellie down for her nap yesterday, she peeked into the room to check on her, and found this little scene:

Yes, Sophie has found that Oma's house rules are a little less strict about dogs on the furniture.  I'm OK with it as long as Sophie realizes that the same is not true at our house.  Thus far, our couch and beds seem to have remained fur free.  

My Mom said that before she grabbed the camera, Marielle had been snuggling with Sophie and had her arm draped over her.  Too cute.  I found it reminiscent of this photo taken shortly after we brought Sophie home:

Harper is 2+

Disclaimer: This post is several months overdue, as are several others. Hopefully, over the next several days, maybe weeks, we can get the Barrios presence on these here interwebs updated.

In fact, she's pushing two and a half. Back in August Harper turned two. The week leading up to her birthday was an absolute whirlwind. We had a lot of preparation to do for Harp's birthday; on top of that, I was heading out of town for a business trip, and we needed to get our patio finished so that we could host the party. The patio had been long overdue, and in typical Marc fashion, I had procrastinated on getting it finished. We worked on it right up through the weekend of Harper's birthday. I had a lot of help on it. My family, friends, and neighbors (who are also friends) all pitched in and I couldn't have done it without them. I owe my Dad a special thanks for his many days of help, and the whole effort deserves its own post.

We baked a Curious George cake for our monkey and rounded out the party activities with a new playhouse for the yard and a ball pit for her guests. The ball pit, which consisted of an inflatable pool and around 300 plastic balls, was a huge hit. We hadn't anticipated that all the kids would want to stand on the lip of the inflatable pool and jump in like wrestlers coming off the top ropes, and, despite one or two little ones landing on each other, we escaped any serious injury.

All in all, it was a great time with great friends and great family!!!

Harper's Bob

So this doesn't mark Harper's first haircut (it's her second), but we think it's the first one that actually makes a difference. She's hair was getting more mullet-like by the day, so we thought it was time to start evening it out.

Ballerina Overload

Here's a few more photos of the girls practicing dance steps together...

Another Ballerina in Training

A few weeks ago we commented about Marielle’s new ballet class, and I’m glad to inform that it’s been going well (no more teacher’s notes). She’s been learning a lot, and it has been fun watching her through the studio windows as she improves on each of the fundamental dance steps they learn. Equally exciting is that her little sister is following in her dance steps by attending the same pre-dance class that Ellie did.

Little, petite Ellie always looked like such a cute skinny-mini in her leotard, but Harper is absolutely adorable with her paunchy little belly. After some initial shyness, Harper’s really gotten excited about her class. When we started the fall session a few weeks ago, it was a little difficult getting her to participate. Much like her big sister, she was a little apprehensive about going it alone in class. However, her unease manifested itself differently. Too put it bluntly, Marielle got hysterical about being in the dance studio without us. Harper, on the other hand, would go in to the class but would be completely belligerent with the instructor. She would flatly refuse to do anything. No stretches, no twirls, no skipping across the room. She would just stand. Most of the time, standing in everyone else’s way. This went on for probably the entire first half of the first four classes, and, in fact, on one week, when Viv took her, the momma’s girl did get hysterical (a la Marielle). This was made even more awesome by the fact that one of the other parents was videotaping their child that weekend, and they will forever be able to share Harper’s screaming soundtrack with family and friends as they watch the home movie on holidays and get-togethers to come. By the second half of each class, she’d come around just in time to play with scarves or stand at the practice bar. After this initial transition, the rest of session went really well.

We signed her up for the winter session, and we are now looking forward to a winter recital in December.

Thank You on Veteran's Day

The Barrios Family wants to extend a thank you to all of the brave servicemen and women who have given their lives to uphold the freedoms and ideals of our great nation and equal thanks to all of our friends and family who have served or are currently serving in our armed forces; keeping us safe each day.

Snow Day

Once again Colorado's weather has come through and delivered cold and/or snow just in time for halloween. Yes, Mother Nature didn't let us down.

She delivered quite a good storm on Wednesday and Thursday. The Denver Metro Area got close to a foot and a half of snow although today only about two or three inches remain.

On Wednesday my Mom trekked down here to watch the kiddos, God bless her (thanks Dad for bringing her), but on Thursday I opted to work from home and watch the girls rather than waste prime working hours on a longer-than-normal commute that would have involved dropping them off up north before heading in to work. Working from home while watching the kids typically doesn't work so well... shocker, but I woke up Thursday morning, determined to make it work. Overall, the day was a success! I got a ton of work done and keeping the kids entertained required a lot less TV than I was afraid it would. They did a lot of crafts; mainly drawing and stickers.

Just before lunch, I got the girls bundled up for some time in the snow. Honestly, I probably spent more time getting them dressed for the snow than they spent playing in it. They had a great time and I was super excited that they could play out in our finished-this-summer side yard where they have a playhouse and could wander around without worrying about dog bombs lurking under the snow (Sophie's only allowed in the other yard). I cleared a little path across the patio so that they could easily get to the playhouse, and then they took care of the rest. They spent most of the time digging with shovels and passing snow through the playhouse window so that they could "cook" it for dinner. I also convinced them to follow me on a trek around the yard during which I led them through all the deepest snow drifts. All the while I snapped photos of them toiling through with their short little legs ;) They were real troopers.

After thoroughly exhausting them, we went in for chicken soup, mmmmmmm, and then they went down hard for some serious nap action. Then, it was back to work for me.