6:00 AM

This is what I get to wake up to every morning. I'm so lucky.

Woburn Library

This is a our very Harry Potterish looking library. The children's section is in the dungeon. Hmmmmmmmmm!

The Perfect Day

We had the perfect park/picnic day. The sky was so blue today! It was one of those type of days you are so grateful to be alive and are able to share it with your kiddos. It felt so good to feel the sun and the wind all afternoon. I hope you can enjoy the day from the pictures we took because it was great!

The huge slide

This is how you get your diaper changed on the park bench when it is sunny out.

I love these pictures!

Not Much to Report

So I took a bit of a blogging vacation. It seems there hasn't been much to write about because we are still potty training. It has been two weeks now, but I'm not giving up. I feel like we are going to have a breakthrough any day now. We are forging on.

We went camping this last weekend to Camp Joseph in Sharon, VT. It was really fun. Sadly, we ave no pictures from the campout. The river we went swimming in felt like just melted snow. We all got in though (James only got in up to his ankles).

There is a 25k race on Labor day I'm going to run. I have not run more than 10 miles since I birthed James so we'll see how this goes, but it just sounded like fun.

I finally hung our family pictures. Now I feel like we are moved in.

The John Deere backhoe is a potty bribe.
It is in plain view as a constant reminder!

Potty Training

I must say, I'm not a huge fan (potty training that is). We are now on day 3 and I wish the title for this entry was "Potty TrainED". I figured I had to bite the bullet and teach Daniel the more refined points of life before he turns 3 next month. He is doing a good job, but we are still under house quarantine, except for running and an afternoon swim.

My favorite quote from Daniel on potty training is "It's not working!". He says that every time he stands up on his stool before using the potty. Once he relaxes enough to actually use the potty, he says "It's working!". So cute!

James is learning a few tricks of his own including rolling over (especially when he is mad), and waking up every two hours at night.

So Inspiring

So, we don't have cable TV, or even bunny ears for that matter, but I have been checking the news online every day and tracking the Olympic swimming. I find it so inspiring. They make it look so easy and beautiful.

I was a huge swimmer growing up and watching the Olympic swimmers brings back a "flood" of memories; 5am practices before school, 5pm practices after school, 3 hour Saturday practices, miles and miles of swimming, the constant smell of chlorine on your skin, opening a new pair of goggles, the nerves before a big race, brittle hair, ahhh. Anyways, I'm so excited for when my kids are old enough to join the swim team (I hope they want to). Swimming was such a great way for me to learn principles like hard work, sacrifice, self-discipline, team work, self-confidence...things that have helped me my whole life. I'll even take my kids to 5am practices (they are waking up around that time now)!

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.