Our Friend Cathy

What a weekend! We spent one overnight at out friend Cathy's house and it was so incredible. Swimming in her pond, visiting baby goats, riding our bikes on dirt roads and finding gigantic queen anne's lace. It was just one overnight, but it was the most fun and relaxing weekend we have had in forever. Anna even said it was the best night of sleep she had in 4 years!

Monkey Bars

Big Milestone!
Anders successfully took himself across the monkey bars last week!
We happened to find a cute small playground that had a set of monkey bars that were not too far from the ground, making the task a little bit easier to manage.
It was thrilling to say the least. The sheer joy about accomplishing something so hard, so tricky was so cool to watch. It happened on July 17th...it's sort of like the way I felt on the day he took his first steps!

July 4th in Our Neighborhood

              
A bit after the 4th, but it has been busy lately and I haven't had a second to post anything. But each year we have a fabulous neighborhood children's parade!

Champlain 400 Parade

July has been a very rainy month! But it hasn't dampened our spirits. In this series of photo's you will see some shots from a big parade that went right down Main Street. IT WAS POURING!!! These photo's were from the photo gallery of the Free Press, and if you look in photo number three you will see Anders, Jakob and I right in the center, all wearing yellow rain coats. I don't think we have ever been so wet before. Afterwards we treked home and had warm maple milk and cookies! It was such a blast!

A Super Strong Train pulling Super a lot!

Our camera is broken!
So, I dug out our old Cannon digital, which I thought could still record video. I was wrong. I only got audio...no video at all. This was so unfortunate because it was a gem of a moment. I was trying to get this clip of Anders playing with an entire line of trains, Thomas the Train in the lead. Thomas is a battery operated train, so he was hauling a freight line of 15 other trains. Anders has been down on the floor playing with this long train all afternoon. He was adorable, saying things like "He is mighty strong!" and other assorted cute phrases which you will hear if you have the patience to listen to and not watch this.

The scene you should imagine is Anders lying on the floor in the bedroom with a row of 16 trains slowing working its way towards him. He is calling them, saying "Come on Thomas, come on Thomas." The trains somehow shift their path and straighten out, to Anders amazement. He then sends them around the corner and into the bathroom, where Anna is sitting next to the bathtub giving Kuba a bath. Anna starts humming The Thomas song, you can hear Kuba saying "Hi Thomas Train" and you can hear the water of the bathtub draining. It segways into a swimming demonstration by Kuba in which he bravely lays in the very shallow tub and dips his head in.

There is something outrageously satisfying about listening to your children!

Scenes from the 85th

We celebrated my dad's 85th birthday last weekend...in a rented house on Keuka Lake. I love that my dad is 85!! Here are some snapshots from the trip- all taken with my sister's camera seeing that our camera is broken. I especially love the ones of the line up of my big barrel chested brothers and dad, and the one of Grandpa and Kuba asleep on the bed, and my 83 year old mother painting a landscape.

Grand Occasion

Anders last day of pre-school for the year was today. Here he is getting his little "diploma." He has one more year of pre-school before kindegarten, which is so hard to believe!

And here he is with his very best friend of all, Stella.
Anders and Stella have been smitten with each other since last year.
I think they are simply adorable.



Here is Anders little brother...pre-pre-pre school. Kuba has 4 more years until kindegarten. Although, based on Kuba's exponential growth pattern, this is even harder to believe!