All grown up

This has been a big week for Annika. For the past few months she has wanted to learn how to ride her bike without training wheels. She loved the idea of being able to ride like MacKayla and her friends. However, Annika was very scared to ride without the training wheels. A few months ago when we had a nice day we tried for a while and she ended up in tears and I was frustrated. Well this week she asked again if we could try, and wouldn't you know after a few attempts she got it. We did have a lot of tears and frustration, especially when she would say that it was too hard, but I made her keep doing it and then she got it. For a while she was able to ride, but couldn't get herself started, when she finally figured out what it takes to get started, she came in the house and with a big smile proclaimed how easy it was to ride a bike. What a goofy kid!

Riding like a pro!


Look at how well she avoids crashing, what a trooper!

This August we will be celebrating five years in our house, and in those five years we had never once mowed our own lawn. We have a great neighbor with a son that she allowed us to slave out. He would mow our lawn every week in the summer and we paid him a pittance :) Well the son is growing up and getting busy and we realized that we needed to grow up as well. So after getting fatherly advice, and research from Consumer Reports, we picked out the number one rated lawnmower. Of course being the lazy generation that we are, we sat at home ordered it online and waited for the UPS man to deliver it to us. After all that though, James put it together and mowed his first lawn in at least 13 years. He wasn't excited about having to do yard work, but was proud of how it looked when he was done. The girls got a big kick out of watching him and cheering him on.

Ever the safety guy, he had ear plugs (actually a Zune, but it functioned as ear plugs) and safety goggles on.Doesn't the lawn look great now!