Daniel's First Race

Our town has a .8 mile race for the kids every Thursday night during the summer. Daniel completed the race tonight and I'm so proud of him (he ran/walked). It took 19 minutes. Believe it or not, we were not last...we were second to last, but I can tell you he was the only runner in diapers (he was definitely the youngest runner). At some points in the race I had to help him pretend he was a rocket or an airplane to get going and then I just plain ol' chased him with the stroller. Chasing him really got him moving.

It was really cute. Daniel was very excited at the beginning because he saw the older kids start their race. At the end, they gave all the finishers a ribbon and all the finisher's names will be published in the local paper tomorrow. I think he might hold the town record for the two year olds. We'll try to break the record next week.

Sizing up the competition

The starting line

And he's off

The following series of pictures was my attempt to get a picture of of Daniel holding up his ribbon.

PS: I did cut his curly locks and I'm a little sad. I miss the ringlets.

We Need To Work On The Reverence Part

Shakespeare at Boston Commons

Updates

James

I love it when they fall asleep with their arms over their heads!

• Sleeping through the night most nights (thank you James!)

• He's usually so happy and bubbly that he is flapping his arms and legs up and down in excitement.
• Quite the belly laugher

Daniel

• "Reads" books out loud. It is so cute to hear him make up the stories to the pictures as he flips through in a book. He even remembers most of the story lines and will repeat them.
• Needs a haircut, but I can't bring myself to snip away at any of those curly blond locks!

Tara

• I added two more items to my list of "things to do before I die" after talking to my brother on the phone last night. I want to participate in RAGBRAI (Registers Annual Great Bicycle Ride Across Iowa). It is a week long bike ride across Iowa with about 15,000 cyclists where you start with you back tire in the Missouri River and end with your front tire in the Mississippi River. How fun is that?!?!? The other thing on my list is to participate in the LeClaire, Iowa tug fest. Basically it is LeClaire, IA vs. Port Byron, IL in a tug-of-war across the Mississippi. How fun is that?!?!?!? I might just have to spectate the tug-of-war since I will probably never be a resident of IL or IA.
• I'm also loving our family's new schedule I posted about earlier...it is working great and I'm a happy mama.

Christian

• Working and travelling lots
• Excited about the Adobe video editing software he gets to buy for a great discount from a friend!
• Not so excited about RAGBRAI
  

Revere Beach

Thanks to an invited from a friend, we discovered a beach pretty close to our house. They have an annual sand sculpting contest that ended two weeks ago. Next year I want to go see the artists sculpting the sand, but this year we got to see the remnants of their work. I was quite amazed. I was especially impressed with the detail left considering we had two days of waterfall-like rain since they finished.

Maybe we should enter the competition.

Hahn Headlines

The Piano Is In The House


The movers had a hard time fitting the piano through the door, but it is finally in the house after sitting in our mud room for 3 weeks. This piano has lived in:

Germany (that is where it was made)
Argentina
Florida
Mexico
Texas
Virginia (it had some reconstructive surgery performed)
Massachusetts


Our Car Broke Down

On the way home from our city's family night, our car broke down. Christian and Daniel got to ride in a tow truck while James and I rode in the back of the police car.

Tree Accidents

Daniel's first tree climbing fall.
His tummy and chin got pretty scratched up.

Boy's Best Friend

This little gorilla was so entertaining. He played with the clothes just like a little kid would do. The only thing that separated he and Daniel was the glass wall. I've never seen such a social zoo animal.

I Love Clean Kiddos

Our New Schedule

An email from my sister-in-law the other day really inspired me to get back to theme based learning with Daniel. Along with the learning, I re-organized my own life to make sure I was getting the essentials in daily (run, personal study/meditation, talk time with Christian, etc.). Well, wala, things are coming together quite nicely.

For the next little while we are going to be learning about space, rockets, and astronauts. Daniel's obsession with rockets all started with a simple bedtime story (well, Christian's bedtime stories are not simple, he makes it seem like you are really there). The bedtime story led to showing Daniel a You Tube video of the Discovery shuttle lift off and now every cylindrical object in our house has become a space shuttle or booster rocket.

Rockets are the only thing on Daniel's mind these days. Last night Daniel said the dinner prayer and it went something like this:

"...thank you for the food (long pause)
Blast off!!!!"

Both Christian and I had a hard time keeping the laughter under control. Does anyone out there have any good tricks for keeping the laughter at bay when your child innocently does something improper? I know the laughter only encourages the improper behavior, but sometimes I just can't contain myself.

Yesterday we talked about tools and how the astronauts have to use different tools to build the space station. We practiced too.

I guess the nail needed some air pumped into it

Today we talked about gravity and did some throwing/dropping experiments at the park. Daniel was having so much fun that all the other kids came over and joined us (there were only 2 others at the park).

Part of my new schedule includes a 30 minute Spanish lesson. We have the Pimsleur Spanish CD's that teach conversational Spanish. I get out the Lego's or blocks to keep Daniel's hands busy and we listen to the CD while I nurse. It is helping me refresh my Spanish and Daniel will occasionally repeat some of the phrases.

Being that we live in a sports mecca, I thought I better start exposing Daniel to the basics of some sports. So, I've included some time to kick a soccer ball around, ride his tricycle, play catch, do gymnastics, etc.

I've also been trying to expose him to rhythm and so we've been dancing to get our wiggles out. Even James likes dancing. You should see him boogy down. Finally, we end the day with a dip in the pool. We don't have an AC and so an afternoon swim really helps us cool off for the evening. And one night a week, Christian takes Daniel to do some really cool father/son stuff. It is great.

James just can't wait any longer to go to the pool!

The other day, my scheduling did not account for changing 7 messy diapers! You may be wondering what I am feeding my two children that would lead me to have to change 7 significantly messy diapers in one day. James is on a strict milk diet and Daniel wishes he were on a strict milk diet. So I guess as much as I schedule, I still have to go with the flow...no pun intended.

Anyways, I am really excited about this new schedule of ours. Now that things are more planned, all we have to do is have fun. I do reserve one day as "Mom" day where we do all the errands and other things I want to get done, done. It's like my mission P-day and tomorrow is P-day!

Blueberries For The Hahn's

There are a couple of summer activities that bring back floods of childhood memories. Picking raspberries is one of them. My grandparents had several raspberry bushes in their back yard where we would pick berries and eat them. My grandma would make the most delicious raspberry jam and we would eat homemade whole wheat bread with jam and butter on it whenever we visited. I was reminded of all those great memories today as we picked 4lbs of berries!

Daniel picking berries

James' idea for berry picking...napping.
I think he is the smartest one in the family.

The harvest

Blueberry picking was not interesting enough once he spotted the tractor.

Hooray for life!

The Cougar

I drained my "Fun Money" account on Thursday and bought this jogger/bike trailer chariot. For those of you unfamiliar with "Fun Money" in our family budget, it is a personal rolling account for each spouse to spend on whatever they want...no questions asked. It is a great thing. The only other thing I've splurged on like this was my GPS heart rate monitor. I guess my "Fun Money" account is my hobby fund. Anyways, I'm really excited about this stroller, We live so close to everything, I can get anywhere with either my bike or on foot.

Boston Children's Museum

I have to admit I am feeling a little overwhelmed with all the things there are to do in Boston and New England. I don't even know where to start. Sometimes I wish we didn't have a yard to take care of so we could play all the time....and I love working in the yard

We did go to the Children's Museum yesterday. It was fantastic! We were there for 5 hours and didn't even see everything! Here are some cute pictures from the day.

This climbing maze was 3 stories high.
I couldn't get Daniel out of this thing he loved it so much.

The tubes and other contraptions had magnets on them. The kids created an obstacle for their golf balls to travel down.

Right outside of the museum.
I'm pretty sure the Boston Tea Party occurred where that little shack in the water is on the left side of the picture....but not positive.
Isn't Boston a good looking city?

I think our next adventure is going to be blueberry picking.

New House

You still have to come out and visit us even if you see pictures of our house on the blog. I promise you it is better in real life.

How much water can a size 5 diaper hold?

Bus Stop Games

The other day I let Daniel play in the newspaper stands. He startled a lady who was expecting to find a newspaper instead of a little boy!

Up And Running

I'm back! Did you miss me? After two weeks of sporadic internet accessibility I am back online with plenty to blog about.

We are in Boston and loving it! The house we stumbled on has turned out to be great...well, there have been some issues, but the location is fantastic. We are a block away from a community pool (I was thrilled when I stumbled into it, and even more thrilled when I payed $20 for our family's yearly membership...but I do pay a lot in taxes here), play ground, baseball diamond, and soon to be tennis courts. We are .4 miles from the grocery store and YMCA. We are 2 miles from the library. The bus that takes you to the T station (subway) has a stop 10 steps from our front door, so we can easily get downtown without having to worry about traffic and parking. Anyways, I have decided I am going to get a double jogger/bike trailer and put the car up for the summer. I can get anywhere I need to with my two kids in a stroller or on a bike.

We've been in our house for a week now. Most things are unpacked. I still need to hang pictures and window treatments which I plan on doing this weekend. It is starting to feel like home.

The boys and I have done some local exploring. Today we went downtown to a children's festival for the 4th of July. It was an adventure, but fun to get out. I will post some pictures when I find our camera's USB chord. It is around here somewhere. Stay tuned for updates on our Boston adventures.