Summertime Fun

Becky and I took our kids to a friend's swimming pool today. Ann has offered the use of her pool every summer but this is the first time we decided to take her up on it and am I glad we decided to today because it was H-O-T hot! The kids had a blast too.

Ariel was brave and got a running start off the diving board

Noah and Alex playing in the shallow end

Lily waving to the crowd before her first jump to Auntie Becky

Beautifully executed!

Noah's first leaps into the pool

Noah and Lily both love the water and they seem to get braver every time they are in a pool. Today they both jumped in from the side and from the diving board. Of course, they were wearing floaties and they jumped into waiting arms but I still think it's pretty cool that they did it. Noah starts swimming lessons next week so hopefully he will learn to feel safe in the water without the mask and floaties.

In case you were wondering...

Lily is progressing well in her (or should I say, my) potty training endeavors. Man this was so much easier than it was when Noah was the child in question. Of course, he was three and Lily was a newborn, which means both of us were having emotional issues. I'm glad I didn't wait until Lily was three because her will is going the way of Noah's--getting stronger every day. And I'm glad that I had a method even though it may not have been the miracle I was hoping for. With kids it is definitely live and learn, isn't it? The poor first-born children...they are so short changed when it comes to our bank of knowledge as parents. Sometimes I wish I could go back and erase the memories of some of Noah's experiences, like potty training, and insert more pleasant ones in which I knew better what I was doing.

What's worse though is that I wish I could do that for Lily too, which means that I didn't learn everything I needed to know to be a perfect parent the first time around. Shoot.

Look, Ma, No Diapers!

Could it be true?

Yesterday was potty training day here. Grampy came to pick Noah up in the morning and Lily and I spent the day in the kitchen with lots of juice and treats, a doll, and a potty seat. Two of my sisters used this method from Toilet Training in Less than a Day, and both had pretty good results. We had a rough start and I lamented to my sister-in-law after several major accidents that I thought there was something wrong with my children (neither one of them responds well to praise--Noah gets embarrassed and Lily just doesn't seem to care much). After that though something seemed to click with Lily and she was quite successful for the rest of the day. She has had some accidents today already but is able to catch herself and I think that I will be able to follow the book's instructions and not use diapers anymore. I will of course have to continue reminding her for a while yet and maybe even have to do more 'practice' trials but she's got the gist of it and I guess I would recommend the book to anyone else who might be in the market for a training technique.

Finally, some pictures...

Luke fixed the computer and I was finally able to upload all the pictures from our trip. There were a bunch so here is the link to my web albums so that you can go and check them out. Enjoy!

There and Back Again

We have returned home from our vacation in Pittsburgh with my family. What a great week we had! We left last Friday and drove the 9 hours to my parent's house. The kids did well and we had no traffic. We didn't get in til 11 PM though so it was straight to bed for us after a warm greeting from Mother and Daddy. Saturday, Loey and Craig and their kids, Ana and James joined us from Philly and Brian came over with Seb and Oren (Jen was still fighting a bad cold so she had to miss the fun of our first evening). We all went to my Dad's church on Sunday and then all had lunch together, including the great-grandmothers. We went swimming and to an amusement park and did several Bruster's runs (one of our Pgh traditions) and just plain had a lot of fun together. The kids had such a great time with each other--they had a sleep-over every night in the living room, ran through the sprinkler, played spies, and built a house for the Hershey Kiss Fairy. Lily of course had everyone wrapped around her little finger, especially Grandpa and Uncle Craig, her 'buddy' for the week. She did warm up to Grandma and her Aunties too and even let Grandma rock and sing to her. I hope that made up for some of the disappointment she faced with her youngest grandson, Logan, whom she visited in Colorado 2 weeks prior--that story can be read here. We missed being able to meet Logan and see Evan and Matthew and Sophie as well as my sister, Melissa and her husband, James, this summer but hopefully we will all be able to get together again soon. At least we can keep up with them on Melissa's blog.

We spent a couple of mornings at the nursing home where both of my grandmothers live. I'm glad we decided to go back the second day because the first day wasn't enough time for the kids to really warm up and interact with their great-grandmothers but they did during the second visit and gave them a glimpse of their true personalities. Since we don't get to see them very often, I am glad to have the opportunity for my kids to build strong and lasting memories of their great-grandmothers, Grandma Jennie and Grandma Nadzia.

Thursday night I had a couple of my college friends, Erin and Jess and their families over for dinner. It's always a short visit but it was so nice to at least see them and talk for a bit and it was especially nice to meet Erin's new baby, Caleb, who is 4 mos old and terribly cute. Jess's son Maxwell (19 mos) is also a doll and it was fun to watch them interact--the squeezing, pinching, biting--such wonderful displays of mother-son affection. We've all changed so much from our college days--but then are still the same in many respects. Very neat to see. They both have their own blogs as well. Erin's can be seen at "'Burgh Baby" and Jess' at "the Bovard Family Singers" over in my side bar.

We returned via Philly and my sister's house where we stayed over night Friday so the kids could have more time together playing in their nice big yard. So we arrived home Saturday evening just in time to head over to Luke's parent's house where the extended family had gathered. Luke's uncle's father had died during the week and they were all in town for the funeral, which we missed but at least got to see them for a short while before they headed back to their homes in California, Mexico, and New Hampshire today. It's been a long week of late nights of fun and reminiscing and building new memories and we are all tired. It's nice to have today to relax and recuperate before we get back into the daily grind. This week that will include a day of potty training for Lily according to the book, Toilet Training in Less than a Day, which I am praying will work well.

I do have lots of pictures but I am not able to download them from my camera yet and I know I have a lot of weeding through to do. I wanted to at least post about our experiences and soon I will upload all the pictures to my web albums and link you to it so you can see for yourelves what a great vacation we had.

A Movie Recommendation

I just watched the movie, Miss Potter. I was terribly moved by it. It is the story of Beatrix Potter, the author of the classic children's book, The Tale of Peter Rabbit. She was a fascinating woman: incredibly imaginative and talented as an artist and author. She led a very interesting life and the movie portrayed it well. The story was endearing and true to her life, the cinematography was gorgeous and they used a little bit of animation to really bring her imagination to life. The special features on the DVD provided even more background to her life and I feel as though I have gained some very worthwhile knowledge. I highly recommend the movie and am excited to go out and buy my own copies of Peter Rabbit and other stories like The Tale of Jemima Puddleduck and Squirrel Nutkin so that I can read them again for myself and share them with my kids.