Easy Riders

For the last two summers, just as I did with swimming by herself, I declared that this would be the year Maggie would learn to ride a bike with no training wheels. Up until this summer, however, we didn't meet this goal. Our short driveway is gravel, which isn't very bike-fall-friendly, and it was entirely unfeasible to load up all the bikes by myself and then attempt to teach her to ride, while keeping Finn and Carolina safe and busy. This summer, however, Grant and I made it a priority to take the whole family bike riding so that Maggie would have a chance to learn. After two sessions she basically had it figured out. Starting and stopping were a little tricky but after about five sessions she had that down, too. I have so many fond memories of family biking as a child and I have always had a dream of being a biking family - you know, the ones who ride bikes out to dinner, take long bike rides on trails, and basically live on bikes in nice weather.

As a side note, for locals, did you know that Vanderbilt Children's Hospital has a safety store, selling safety devices (baby-proofing devices, portable cribs, car seats, bike helmets, etc.) at cost? And even better, they have trained employees who will fit the helmet to your child's head? We got these great helmets for $8 and they fit perfectly. I read somewhere that the majority of children's bike helmets aren't put on/fitted correctly.
The last four or five Sundays we've loaded up the bikes and gone to either a park or our church's parking lot (empty, and great for bike riding, and with a playground in case Carolina gets antsy), taken a picnic, and closed out our weekend with a couple of hours of family bike time. It has been so fabulous. Last night Uncle Blake met us at the church. 

 Another advantage of riding at the church is that Carolina can use the church's riding toys. We don't have a bike or scooter for her because she's really just barely too young (in my opinion). My plan is to pass Finn's balance bike down to her soon, when we think he's ready to try a big kid bike - no training wheels! We think the balance bike is the bee's knees around here.

 Here's Finn whizzing around on his balance bike. He can coast for a pretty good distance now.

 The newest addition to our bike inventory is a new bike seat we just bought (for about 75% off!). I've heard that this is safer than the ones that mount to the back, and the bike trailer is just so huge and bulky. We tried it out for the first time last night. Here's an action shot for you:

And in the ultimate gesture of selflessness, I'm posting a terribly, terribly unflattering photo of myself, because Carolina looks so darn adorable here.

If you're done laughing or gasping in horror, let me tell you what I was thinking. I thought "I don't think I'm in this photo. I don't want to be smiling for a photo I'm not in; I'll look like an idiot." Note to self: always smile, even if you're not sure you're in the photo.

Besides biking, we had an action-packed weekend, including a visit to Cheekwood Botanical Gardens (we LOVE our membership there, thanks to Blake & Jenny), my nephew Jack's fifth birthday at Chuck E. Cheese, and the Hispanic Festival. They had free bounce houses and pony rides, and all three kids had fun on the ponies.

Maggie went to a birthday party last weekend which had two ponies for the kids to ride (it probably isn't crazy expensive but for some reason it seems so decadent to hire ponies for a kid's birthday!). All of the other kids enjoyed their one or two rides on the ponies, but Maggie had so much fun she took 14 rides on the ponies at the party. Apparently she got to know the horse handler pretty well and we were surprised to see the same guy at the Hispanic Festival. After her ride at the festival I asked Maggie if she said hello to the horse guy and if she told him she remembered him from the birthday party. She replied, "Actually, he spoke of it first. He remembered that I liked riding Honey better than Justice." Two things: first, that's really sweet that he remembered her. Secondly, I love that she said, "he spoke of it first." That seems like a pretty grown-up way for a six-year-old to talk.

Finn and Carolina enjoyed the pony rides after seeing Maggie ride one last week at the party.

Grant had to walk around the whole time with Carolina to make sure she didn't fall off.

 Our weekends have been so fun lately and I'm finding myself dreading Monday morning in the same way I used to dread it when I had a job! These are happy days; I'm so grateful.

A Summer Wrap Up (Now that it's almost fall...)

I know it's mid-September and Maggie's been in school since August 1, but this is who I am...better late than never! I was really proud of myself for completing every activity on our Summer List. We had lots of fun crossing items off as we did them.

We went blueberry picking. Later we put up lots of blueberry jam!

At the blueberry farm there were lots of fun things to play on.

And swings for everyone!

Here's another one from a story time or puppet show at the downtown library. We went a lot, but only made it through an entire one two weeks ago. Finn and Carolina would get restless after about ten minutes so we'd go in the hallway until it was over and Maggie would join us. Sometimes the little ones would play on the children's computers, too.

Here's another one from one of our trips to ride the glass elevator in the skyscraper next to the downtown library. Cheap thrills, people! Can you see the Batman Building in the background?

Finn, Carolina and I went to Monkey's Treehouse (an indoor play place) with friends one day. Maggie was mad that we went without her but let us cross it off the list anyway.

Here's a photo of Maggie and Mimi (my mom) the day that mom told her she was taking us to the beach for a special part of Cousin Camp.

Here's a random Carolina photo I'm throwing in just for fun.

We did lots of swimming. This was at my dad's house and poor Finn is wearing Maggie's old swim vest. He doesn't mind that it's pink so I don't either!

Maggie finally learned to swim this summer! She's taken multiple lessons but we didn't go swimming too often because it's craziness for me to take all three with none of them being able to swim by themselves. One of my goals for the summer was for her to learn to swim, and thanks to me persistently taking her even though it was challenging and stressful, and Grandma and Grandpa putting her in a swim lesson while she was in Texas, she's finally turned into a fish! Here she is at my dad's pool with cousin Jack.

We got some good porch swing time in (not on the list, but essential to our summers).

We weren't crazily running around crossing things off our list, either. We had lots of time for sitting around reading and playing. Maggie's reading really took off this summer. She would disappear for a while and then I'd find her, quietly reading chapter books by herself. It is possibly my favorite development this summer.

We visited Cumberland Park, downtown, several times. That place is amazing.

The water sprayers would turn off and on sporadically, and I could tell when they were about to turn back on because the water would start gently burbling for a minute. Carolina started playing with a burbling one. A great mother would warn her that she was about to get blasted, but not I. I started recording with my phone, for your (and my) enjoyment. So, enjoy!

We got Krispy Kreme doughnuts one Saturday morning this summer. On this day the sweetness carried over into the car, where Finn and Carolina decided to hold hands. I put this on Facebook but I want to repeat it here so I don't forget it. They held hands and Finn said to Carolina, "Carolina, do you love me so much? I love YOU so much." They still like to hold hands while driving around town. They are such sweeties.

We also took a fun trip to TX to visit Grant's parents. Maggie flew out a few days ahead of us with Grandpa and then we drove up with the little kids. Everyone did great. I think I'm finally over my fear of road trips with the kids. Now that they're all able to communicate, look at books, play games, etc., things have really gotten so much easier.
Here are Carolina and Maggie lying in a dinosaur footprint from the Ft. Worth Science Museum (which is super fun, if you ever find yourself needing something to do in Ft. Worth).

We went out to dinner one night with Grant's parents and grandmother and for some reason that night the kids were just antsy. After they ate I took them outside to run around and get rid of some energy (and save the rest of the diners from their squeals and screams). After a while we noticed that there were some backhoes working on a construction project so they sat happily watching them for about ten minutes. It really doesn't take much to make kids happy - room to run and some big machinery!

While we're in Ft. Worth we always try to go to/eat at Central Market, a beautiful grocery store that's kind of similar to Whole Foods but bumped up a notch. They have live music outside on certain nights and their playground was very popular with my kids.

Wow. That was a super long post! We had so much fun this summer and I definitely plan on doing a summer list every year. It really helped give our summer some structure and we never had days where we couldn't figure out what to do. I never felt stressed about accomplishing everything but I'm so glad we did! I hope your summer was great, too. Did you do anything special? Can you think of anything to add to my summer list next year?

Photo Dump, Part II

I know, I know. It's been five weeks since my last blog post. It's been busy. Here are the last of an iPhone photo dump, continued from five weeks ago! I have to get in the last of the summer photos before summer is officially over (full disclosure: this is not the last of my summer photos!).

Here's Finn from his first dental visit with my regular dentist, before the summer (!), last spring. At that appointment they found 8 cavities and referred us to a pediatric dentist.  The story is so long and I don't really want to get into it, but because of Finn's high carbohydrate diet (because of his IVA), and because I gave him lots of low-protein, but sugary/sticky foods like raisins and fruit leathers, he ended up needing some extensive dental work done. Yes, we brushed his teeth regularly, yes, I feel like a terrible mom, but I'm glad to say that it's all been taken care of now. On the upside, if you ever need to know a fantastic pediatric dentist in the Nashville area, I've got your guy! We love him.

Now back to more summery photos. We checked off every item from our Summer Bucket List and here are a few more photos, including story time/puppet show at the downtown library, with a chocolate croissant at Provence bakery afterwards.

 We had so much fun at Nashville's new Cumberland Park, down by the Titans stadium, this summer. We mostly played at the splash pad but one evening the whole family went down and explored the misting field, the rock climbing wall, the trails, the huge slide (not very long, but wide enough for our entire family to slide down at one time), and the overlook of the Cumberland River. It was a hot day and we loved hanging out in the field full of misters.

 Some days it was so hot we just wore diaper covers and boots, obviously.

 As always, there was lots of singing at the top of our lungs.

 This photo makes me laugh. When Finn wants to be alone (or just get naked or be mischievous) he likes to go hide behind this curtain which covers a large shelving unit. The other day I couldn't find him (perhaps because the room was so messy?) until I noticed the pair of boots sticking out of the curtain.

And this one is from the spring, when Carolina realized she could turn the light switch on from her crib. Why anyone put a light switch in the middle of the wall is beyond me. Now we have to pull the crib out from the wall every night when we put her to bed.

 Okay! My goal is to do one more post covering all of our Summer Bucket List activities and to do it in the next three days, so let's see how good I am!

Photo dump!

Get ready for lots of random photos, with no attempt to put them in chronological order.
Here I am with Carolina, the same day she sang "Nothing But The Blood."

 Her curls become extra springy when they're damp. This was after the beach, on our first day in Florida.

 On the couch with Poppy in Florida, finding his nose.

 The same Florida trip.

 Trying on glasses at a shop. The glasses are funny enough, but his expression makes the photo. Unfortunately, this is basically what I looked like for, oh, third, fourth, and fifth grade. Allegedly giant glasses were stylish in the 80's, but it's not my best look. I'll be eternally thankful that my parents decided in fifth grade that I was mature enough to handle contact lenses. But anyway, it's a lot of look, and Finn just might be able to pull it off.

 With my dad after the ING Kids Marathon. I might have put this one in already.

 Swimming at my dad's pool. Why is it sideways? Who knows. PS-This was Maggie's old swimsuit.

 Wearing a cute headband made by my friend Christin. She looks cute and she knows it.

 I might have put this one on the blog already, too. Her hand cracks me up.

 At the beach in Seaside.

 A loooong time ago, with a bike helmet that actually still fits her. We're hoping to get some use out of it now that Finn's in school. I have a new bike seat for her that fits on my bicycle and I adore riding my bike. It makes me feel like I'm a kid again. I'm hoping we can go for lots of bike rides when the weather cools off. I'm guessing she was somewhere around 12 months here.

 Maggie and Grant at Doughnuts with Dads at the end of her kindergarten year. There was also a Muffins with Moms but I didn't get a photo.

 We were eating ice cream and Finn ate all of the scoop that was sitting on the top of his cone. He didn't really know what to do next (we don't eat much ice cream, unfortunately!) and we told him to take a bite of his cone. He held it up above his head and then bit the very bottom of the cone completely off. It wasn't exactly what we meant, and it made a huge mess, but we were dying laughing. Obviously he's a rookie ice cream eater.

 Wow, a really old one with Carolina and Grant. She is totally bald! I think maybe she was between 6-9 months here? This is such a cute one of Grant.

 At Maggie's school every kindergartener is assigned a 2nd grade buddy (kind of like a big sister or big brother). The older kids help the younger kids learn the ropes around school, and they work with them on academic things, like taking turns reading to each other. Maggie loved her buddy, who was also named Maggie! They're pictured here at the school Easter egg hunt.

 Maggie made a leprechaun trap for St. Patrick's Day. The outside had lots of shiny things and a rainbow, to attract the leprechaun. The top of the box was held up with a stick, and when the leprechaun went inside, the stick falls out of the way, trapping him inside. She very conscientiously made sure the inside was comfortable for the little guy, with lots of soft things to lay on.

 Swinging in our backyard after school. I love this one.

 Silly face, big blue eyes.

 I love this one, too. It captures her personality so well.

 This writing exercise from school says "If I had $100 I would buy an American Girl doll and accessories." I texted this photo to my friend Tiffany, who is a teacher's aid in a kindergarten classroom, to test her, because she told me she was fluent in Kindergarten writing. Sure enough, she knew exactly what Maggie wrote!

 She normally sucks her thumb, but this day she decided her toe tasted better.

 Maggie occasionally sneaks my phone away and types sweet notes for me.

Phew! That was a lot of photos! Thanks for looking at them all. I'll probably do another one of these in a few days; I'm trying to clean out/organize my photos on my computer.