Walking

The bird just started walking more than she is crawling. Her walk is still a little wobbly, so she kicks it into a high gear spider crawl is she needs to get somewhere fast (bottom in air, hands and feet on ground).

11 Month Old Terror

"Who, me?"

What toilet paper looks like after it's been pulled off and rolled back up.

Triathlon Weekend

This weekend was Jeff's final race of the season. He improved his time from last year and moved up in the rankings... we are proud of him! Sandy came in town for the race to support Jeff and help with the quick trip. It was a fun weekend.

As usual, it turned into a Lucas focused trip! Before dinner on Friday we made a stop at the beach so that Lucas could play in the sand. This is what I intended...

... and this is what actually happened : )

Ellen wanted to get down, but we could only deal with one wet and sandy child at a time!

The weather was cool and breezy. I like the beach better that way... it was nice.

After pizza and a jump in a local bounce house that was setup near the restaurant, we snuggled in for a good night of sleep before Jeff's race. Lucas was thrilled that they had Noggin on t.v. He was so focused that he didn't even notice that Sandy styled his hair like this...

Our plan was to get a room with two full beds and to have a cot on the floor. When we checked in they told us the cot was a fire hazard, so we had to figure out how to make it work with two full beds and 5 people. I ended up with both kids while Jeff and Sandy shared a bed. It was not the best night of sleep that I ever got. When we woke up both kids were horizontal and Ellen was cuddled around Lucas's head like his head was her bunny - so cute! She moved before I got that picture, but here is an idea. I had been kicked out of the bed a few minutes prior.

We stayed a mile away from the race site, which was awesome. Jeff rode his bike there at 6am and Sandy and I followed with the kids an hour later. Here we are on a bridge with the sun rising behind us.

We got to the race just in time to see Jeff come out of the water. Poor Lucas was sad that Jeff didn't talk to him (he didn't see us) and is still talking about it! Next race Jeff will have to carry him across the finish line or something special like that. Jeff got to wear his wetsuit since the water was below a certain temp.

Here is Jeff at the start of his bike ride...

And here he is finishing the race. Great shots, I know... I'll do better next time.

And here is how the kids watched the race. Ellen asleep and Lucas snacking. This was my view of them...

sleeping bird

Next year hopefully our post race picture will be one of both us racers and not just Jeff... depends on if Ellen is sleeping through the night.

post race picture

Raleigh

Raleigh is starting to feel like home. We've been here 9 years, so it's about time! My Atlanta friends will be sad to hear this, especially my sister, but I just love it here and think we'll be here for a while. Lucas also loves it here. He'll tell complete strangers that his home is brown or that he has a squirrel in his room in his home. And he refers to the park that is closest to us as his park. The house I was born in was special to me too... I never really felt a connection with the house we moved into when I was 9 years old. Anyway, since the weather has been cooler we've been touring a little more of our neighborhood in our double trouble jogging stroller. The other day we stumbled upon this waterfall and I felt for a few minutes that I was hiking in the mountains. This little spot that we found was the site of the Lassiter Mill in the 40's and 50's. People used to come to this spot to vacation, or so the sign said. It's neat the 60 years later my little Lucas is exploring the grounds : )

Silly Poses

Lucas in an outfit that he picked out and a droopy shoulder, eyes closed pose...

And Ellen with a whole carrot that she gnawed on for an hour...

Cookout at Charles's House!

No Nap Lucas

The turkey has dropped his daily 2-3 hour nap, but still needs one every few days. We can all tell when he needs one, even him, so we just go with it. This day he had fallen asleep in the car and transferred to our bed for a couple of hours. His sleeping has changed so much. When he was younger I used to tiptoe out of his room or it would take me 5 min to get off of the bed after putting him to sleep in fear that the movement would wake him up. Now if he closes his eyes, it's all over. Sometimes he'll fall asleep as we are pulling up to a park and I couldn't wake him up if I tried... we just turn around and go home. And we can also get him out of the car seat and tell him that we're taking him to bed for a rest with no complaints. He appreciates sleep now.

Pics of His Mommy, Sister and Doggy...

... taken by Lucas.

Baby Games at the Park

Ellen has learned how to play chase. She initiates the game with eye contact and a grin, and then crawls off at a baby sprint pace. Another game that she has thought up is to make eye contact, grin and then do something that she KNOWS she isn't supposed to do... like crawl on the table or put something from the ground into her mouth. These first three pics are just cute ones from the park. In the last one she was crawling away from me, under the playground equipment, as I called for her to stop. She paused to look back and make sure that I was still hot on her tail before she giggled and took off again.

Make New Friends, Keep the Old

My friend Lauren used to say that in college : ) We are trying to keep in touch with Lucas's good buddies that he made at Montessori School. It's not that hard because he loves them and I enjoy the company of their mommies. Here are the kiddos at a park with Parker last week. Ellen's baby friend, Sadie, was also there.

Ellen may enjoy the playground more than Lucas these days...

Oh, wait. Maybe not.

Parker and Lucas smiling for a picture. Notice that Lucas never has shoes on at the park. The first thing he does is remove them. I don't blame them... sand feels better on bare feet.

And then totally consumed by the dog water fountain. They are such boys.

Our Sweet Little Preschooler

Jeff and I are so proud of Lucas. He made the transition from his first school to his preschool so well. I think it helped that all of his friends and his cousin Max were talking about starting their new schools and meeting their teachers. It just seemed to him like that was what was supposed to happen.

He seems to like his two teachers, Ms. Rosemary and Ms. Jane. He calls Ms. Rosemary "Roseberry" - hehe. For the past 5 days or so we have walked him into the school, but last Friday when I took him he said that he wanted to hold Ms. Penny's (the director) hand and walk in with the other children. Ms. Penny was in the carpool lane and I explained how it works to him, so I think we'll try that today. For practice, he walked in with Ms. Penny last week. It was so sweet seeing him walk in with her and put his stuff away by himself. Then I saw Ms. Rosemary come out to greet him and he kind of strutted into the classroom with her.

When we pick him up he is sitting outside with his class, his teachers, and the children from the other classes. Three times so far Ms. Jane has told us how helpful and kind Lucas behaves at school. She said one day on the playground a child stepped on his sand castle and he said, "Please don't do that again!" And when it's time to clean up in the classroom she said that Lucas asks her, "May I help you, Ms. Jane?" On Thursday when we picked him up he fell down and Ms. Jane told him that he had to get better soon because he was her best helper : ) Jeff and I don't take much credit for this - Mrs. Xenia and Mr. Len from his Montessori school taught him how good it feels to be polite and clean up after yourself (and he does it better around other caregivers at this point).

After Lucas tripped over his huge book bag last week we went to Target to get him a smaller one. I'm a dummy and didn't know that they made smaller ones when we let him pick out this yellow one. We found a super cute, kind of hip one for him and packed it with his stuff for the next day of school. However, when it was time to go to school the next day he transferred all of the stuff back to the yellow one and said that he was a BIG BOY and needed the big book bag... and apparently it also keeps his back warm... oh well.

Oh yes, I forgot my favorite part of this story. On the way to Target to get his small book bag he told me that we needed to go shopping and buy some new clothes. He has never shown any interest in clothes, so I was surprised. When I asked him what he meant he said he needed a new Spiderman shirt because his yellow one is too big. He then told me that another child at school had a cool Spiderman shirt. So we got this one and he sported it the next day...

And one day last week we had our first cool morning. It wasn't THAT cool, but Lucas insisted on wearing his jacked zipped all the way up. And then he insisted on closing his eyes for the picture....

But then we took a picture with the camera timer on and I got a good smile from my sweet guy....

Crowd Pleaser

We joke that Ellen is going to be a politician or a sales lady one day. She makes friends with strangers everywhere that we go! She likes to catch someone's eye and then smile at them with her whole face, open mouth, eyes squinty smile and wave at them! It cracks me up every time. And check out this picture. At the park this week she was playing in the sand by herself one minute, and then the next she was surrounded by three little five year olds and was loving every second of it. They were doting over her and she was eating it up. Look at her face. Little stinker. And this little girl to the right with the dark pink shirt was a riot herself. She was going into my bag and giving Ellen goldfish, picking her up when she thought she needed to be repositioned, and helping her dig. Her dad said she charges $1.25 to babysit... she was definitely a lady in charge. I love to watch their developing personalities. (Meg - she reminded me of Maddie!)

TT and LB

Lucas wanted his picture taken with Tyson. On Lucas's last day of Montessori school one of his friends asked if he could come to Lucas's house to play. Lucas responded with, "Yes, but Tyson bites, so you have to be veryyyyyy careful!" Poor Tyson - he gets such a bad rap.

You should have seen the other baby!

Ellen got her first black eye yesterday... poor baby. She was standing in her crib, bouncing up and down, when she lost her balance and hit her eye on the edge of the railing. Darn crib... yet another con in my book. She only cried for a few seconds and it doesn't seem like it hurts. This was her right after it happened...

And this was about an hour later : )

So long Summer...

... we're ready for fall!!!!! My favorite season... yay!

Lucas had one last summertime sprinkler play date with Pierson to close out the summer...

Pullen and Meeting Mia

We finally made a date with my old office mate, Erica, and her daughter, Mia. Mia is almost two, so it took us long enough. We met at Pullen Park, which may have also been another summer "last" as I think the rides are closing soon.

The turkey fell asleep in the car and transferred to the stroller where he slept another 1/2 hour... love this thing already!

Here we are.... Team Schroeder minus dada and TT (although TT is usually in the bottom).

Ellen loved the boats, although they both got bored and got off early...

The kids and Mia : )