First swim, first foods, first heat wave!

As usual, the boys had their first swim of the season in the pond at Uncle Paul's party. No matter what the water temperature is, they dive right in and get busy swooping around like little minnows. Eamon stuck to the shallows and scuttled around like a little crab. He's more of a sand-lover and told me it was "really too deep" for him to go in over his belly. Liam only almost drowned once and luckily he had Colin the lifeguard there to haul him out. He seemed to have forgotten that many months have passed since last he practiced swimming without floaties and needed a small dose of fear to remind him to kick himself up to the surface.

Now that Sadie has TWO big girl teeth and went to her six month appointment, she got to start solid foods. The boys were having carrot sticks for lunch anyway so I pureed up a big bunch and she loved them! She mostly wanted to feed herself and was less than pleased with me for taking her spoon away. She was almost 17 lbs at her appointment this week but missed out on getting her shots since her oh-so-nice brothers shared their gunk with her and she had her first fever. She doesn't look too upset about it though and as long as they keep kissing her, she'll happily take the germs with it! Good thing she can eat real food now. It's hard to keep that bulk up with only a liquid diet...


Unfortunately, Sadie picked the worst day of the spring to have a fever of 102.2 since it was almost 100 degrees outside! She looked very cute in her swimsuit and sun hat but I didn't catch any photos of her because apparently when you dip a tiny feverish body into 40 degree hose water, the shock is just too much to bear and she actually cried. It's so rare to hear her complain that I knew she wasn't feeling up to par. The boys took advantage of the heat and had a ball in the kiddie pool. At first their old slide sufficed to cause a splash on the way in but they were soon fashioning bigger and more dangerous platforms to jump off. No one actually broke any bones so I didn't find it necessary to interrrupt their fun and ingenuity with my boring old "try not to kill anyone" mom lecture and we were all a lot happier for it.

Sadie Two Toofer

Go climb a tree

Sweet As Pie.

And his brother, Cute As A Button

Welcome to the Circus

What do you get when you mix 27 kids under the age of 6, two rooms full of giant bouncy slides and obstacle courses and lots of cupcakes? A three ring circus of course! Liam had his 5th birthday party at Pump It Up, and the kids were PUMPED alright! Everyone had a great time, bounced their energy out and enjoyed the snacks. We are starting to think that these over-the-big-top parties are getting to be a little much so maybe we'll start alternating years they get full-blown crazy fiestas. But for now, it was a good time and well worth it to see the birthday boy (and brothers) having a ball.

Gone With The Schwinn!*

The boys have had pedal bikes for a while but we feel the need to take them to places to ride - we live on a dead end road but the few residents drive like lunatics at times. Not so conducive to learning to ride a bike without training wheels. Well, today that changed. I took Colin and a couple of bikes to a local field and tennis court and he was riding free of training wheels in less than an hour!

We had some success coasting down a grassy hill and getting used to balancing:

and of course some less than satisfying moments but it all came together remarkably quickly and well!

* Yes, my favorite line from Kermit the Frog in The Muppet Movie.