Welcome!

This is for all of you that found our blog from our Christmas card...only to arrive and see the blog woefully out of date!  I promise, the blog massive update is coming!  But, let's be honest, it isn't going to happen before Christmas!  So check back in a few weeks and I promise it will be better (I hope!).  And maybe if I use a few more exclamation points you will believe me!!!

Melinda

Look who is riding a bike!

After having trouble teaching Alex how to ride a bike (and relying on grandpa to teach Caroline and Carter), we decided to sign him up for a bike riding class at REI.  Alex did so great and came home riding his bike--still in need of practice, but definitely riding!

Motivated by the success Alex had we decided to get the bike riding lessons over with and signed Aaron up for the same class.   That did not go as well.  It went more like Aaron yelling at the instructor and refusing to talk to him, yelling at me but me making him try through the screaming....by the end of the class he was gliding on his bike (the class has you take the pedals off and learn to balance while gliding before working on pedaling) but that is about it--and not gliding very far.  The instructor offered to give me my money back because it went so badly!  I refused and decided I would just work with him more at home.

We have gone out a couple of times this week and worked on gliding in our driveway and he did great.  Today I took him to a park and thought we could put the pedals on and see if we could get him going.  It wasn't looking good and he didn't like the pedals.  I was about to give up when I decided to go to the traditional method of having him put his feet on the pedals and I would hold him for a second then let go.  The first time I was holding his bike and he told me to let go.  I did and he started riding!  We did it a bunch more times and he is officially riding his bike!  Definitely in need of more practice, but he is doing it!  I think getting the balance down first was key, but I also think he didn't really understand how the pedals were going to work--so having him do that while I was helping let him figure it out.

Here is the video Caroline took of his last ride at the park...

Hiking Stone Mountain

 One of my goals for the summer was to hike up Stone Mountain.  It was almost the end of summer and we hadn't done it yet.  It also happened to be my 14th wedding anniversary.  Matt was out of town on a business trip so I played the "it's my anniversary so I get to pick what we do" card and we hiked up the mountain.  It went great, until Aaron was running on the way down and fell and cut his knee pretty badly.  (see the picture).  Luckily it was on the downhill side so I carried him on my back the rest of the way down.  After we got home we cleaned up a bit and went to see a movie that the kids had wanted to see--Smurfs 2.

Growing up!

We joined Lisa and her kids in going to the Children's museum of Atlanta.  We had a membership here back in 2006/2007 when Caroline was in preschool, Carter was 3 and Alex was just a baby.  Shanna and I used to go together almost every week.  There were two adults and six kids with the oldest being 5!  

I had forgotten that just before our membership expired they created a mural of hand prints for a wall in the museum.  When we went we found the hand prints that we had made.  It was fun to see how much they had grown!

Carter's is the blue tile on the bottom row.

Caroline's hand print on the yellow tile with the pink paint that is near her face.

Old Soldier's Day Parade

We always are sure to attend our favorite parade of the year--The Old Soldier's Day Parade in Alpharetta.  It honors vetrans and is a fun parade with lots of floats, marching bands, and, of course, candy!  Even though it is on the first Saturday of August, everyone dresses in red white and blue and there are always flags handed out for everyone to wave.  We've been doing it since Caroline was 2 and it is always a fun time.