Siena rides a bike

I am grateful for our long, somewhat flat, driveway to practice on.

There are a few things that dads are just meant to do. In my mind teaching a kid to ride a bike is a dads responsibility. I am glad Dave took this on. He was very good with her. Ben was really excited to run along with her.

I thought Siena might be ready to ride a big two wheel bike. I realized that most of her friends her age are riding a 2 wheeler and she probably should try. Suprisingly she was excited to try. When Dave got home from work they went out on a hot and sticky night and tried. I have to say Siena is not the most graceful of all of us. She did love her dance class but I was worried about her balance. We have this step down in our house from our kitchen to our family room and I am not even exagerating when I say she fell down it every day. I don't know if she forgot that it was there or if she just fell on it. So I wasn't too confident that she would get this balance thing for a 2 wheel bike. She really surprised me! She did great. The issue is she stops pedaling and coasts and she can't balance yet when she does that. So if she would just keep pedaling she would have it. Also she has trouble starting so I have held it steady and kinda just push her off. She is doing great. The problem is that it is so hot she can't practice long before she gets too hot and comes inside. Hopefully by the fall she will have it down and can ride outside for hours.

Alexandria's Birthday Celebration

I got lucky and got a shot of a heart firework. Siena's favorite. Claire enjoying the fireworks

enjoying some birthday cupcakes.

my cute matching girls.

There are a lot of fun activities around here in July. The weekend after the fourth of July Alexandria city celebrates it's birthday. Everyone gathers down by the Potomac river and has birthday cake and fireworks with fun bands playing the music. It's all American and it's lots of fun. We love any firework show and it's always fun when it's accompanied by cannons going off and a live orchestra. We were all set with our glow sticks so we didn't have to pay their ridiculous price and a fun picnic.

Fireworks!

We had an awesome fourth of July! I love going into D.C. and sitting by the sites for the fireworks. It seems so patriotic and fun. We went in this year again and sat right by the Washington monument. We were really close to the fireworks and could feel the boom and actually had ash on us when we left. It was well worth it. All the kids loved it. Even Claire was good during the fireworks. We got there early to get good seats and the kids were good at entertaining themselves. There were a lot of kids there. Between them all there were coloring books and an Ipod and glowsticks so they were all entertained. The kids are looking forward to next year on the mall again.

summer fun

We went to our first baseball game of the season. It was so much fun. It was a double header but we decided that we probably only have the attention span for one game. Our kids know that going to a baseball game basically means that they get to eat junk food all through it. It keeps them occupied. Dave did try to teach Siena how to keep score on the sheet they have but she lost interest pretty quickly. We had a fun time. The Nationals won the game. Our friend found $2 seats so it was all cheap except all the food. It was a really hot day so we had good seats nice and shaded. It wasn't even that far off third base. It was Claires first game and she did great. The kids all had fun playing together. They had an awesome firework show after the game. It was so fun. I love that my kids love fireworks. It is one of the best parts of summer. It was a really good show. The best viewing area for them were in our section so everyone was rushing over to get seats and we were there first so it was perfect.

Pohick Bay

Ben digging for gold

the girls swimming

We love Pohick bay so much. We had a fun playdate there with some friends the other day. There were a lot of little girls and they had so much fun playing together. As usual Ben was a little outnumbered but he had a good time playing with the girls. The kids were really brave. Siena was in the big pool most of the time. Sometimes with her life jacket on sometimes not. The big pool is 3 feet where she plays so it is safe. She has started putting her head under water a little bit and not being so scared about it. She still is too scared to go down the tunnel slide. Maybe next year. Siena was excited to use her allowance to buy a popscicle there. We haven't heard the ice cream man in our new neighborhood and that all she wants to buy with her allowance is ice cream. It was a fun day and Claire was really good. She was out in the sun/pool with me for 5 minutes then she sat in the stroller for the rest of the day. Ben still enjoys the kiddie pool and sandbox over the big pool but is getting stronger in the big pool. Especially if everyone else is in there. We are starting swim lessons next week so I am excited for that. Ben has a little mean streak in him lately and I was 50 feet away from him in the pool when he started this fight with another boy over a water gun. I don't know where the other mom was and I don't know if Ben started it (he probably did) but he was really mean pushing the kid all around. I thought he was going to push the kid into the water. I have no idea how to deal with it. He will take a time out but it doesn't seem to translate in to making him stop fighting people. I know it has to do with super heros but I don't know how to stop it. It seems like everywhere we go he is pushing people. It was a fun day overall and Ben fell asleep in the car before I even pulled out of the parking lot. That means it was a success!

Claire 3 months

Now that Claire is almost 4 months I am finding this picture of her at 3 months. She is so much fun. She is smiling and making all sorts of sounds. She is trying to laugh. She still covers her face when the kids come too close to her but she loves the attention from all other people. She gets so happy whenever anyone comes close. She sucks on her fingers and doesn't really like the binky but I can soothe her with it if she is really frantic. She loves her exersaucer that she can sit up in and look all around and she can follow us around the room. She is a good nurser but not a very good sleeper. She still wakes up too many times during the night. Overall she is a good baby she still just loves to be held. At church on Sunday we were sitting near the front of the chapel and she had a screaming fit in the middle of the meeting. I had to scramble out of there with a screaming child. Our congregation does not have a lot of babies so it was really noticeable. I got MANY comments after about how strong my babies lungs were. I even was told, nicely, that I should find a seat closer to the back in the future so I can leave easier. Really nice. Luckilly because there aren't many babies in our ward people love to hold her and entertain her for me at church. She is a strong willed baby though. She goes from happy to crying fit in 30 seconds flat.

Vacation Bible School

The theme was big Apple New York so they have these cute shirts. performing with the Kindergarten and preschool classes.

Ben was there. He got a hold of my phone and sent a couple people text messages. So if you got some weird text from me it was probably Ben.

Claire was there too.

We love VBS. It is so cute. We went to the Baptist church that Siena goes to preschool at. Half of the kids there are Mormons. It's kind of funny. So I told Siena we were going there Sunday night and she told me she didn't want to go. I told her she had to go atleast once and then she could decide if she didn't want to go back. We went Monday at 9 and WWIII broke out. She was crazy mad! She really didn't want to go. She was scared for some reason but she wouldn't tell me why. She said she didn't want to go back to her preschool. It took me about 30 minutes to get her in to the school. Luckilly her teacher from this past year was her teacher for bible school. I went in and got her. I told her Siena was screaming and didn't want to come in. She told me to give her a kiss and she would take her in. The teacher called me an hour later and said everything was fine and Siena was happily playing. She had her good friend Kaylee in there and she helped Siena feel better. Thank you Kaylee. The only thing I can think of is that she graduated from that school and thought she wasn't going to ever see it again, and when she was there only 4 weeks later she freaked out. She came away from it Monday so excited to go back for the rest of the week. We haven't had any problems since. I am so glad. I was excited for it. Tonight we went to the worship rally where they sang all the songs they have been learning.