Spoiler: there was no smashing. Definitely a different personality than his big sister. If you’re wondering, that’s a root beer she’s drinking, or as she still says, “ro-beard”.

One of the (very few) good things about living in our very conservative suburb is that there are a lot of kid friendly activities year round and many of them are free. Every summer various orgs put on movies in some of the many parks. This year we were lucky enough to catch one of Eleanor’s favorites, “Despicable Me.” This one was put on as a fundraiser by a local charitable org that provides dental care for children in need. It was free, but all the money from concessions went to the charity.

This was mid June, so George was just about 2 months old, which is why I look exhausted and he looks like a tiny thug, or maybe that’s just his hat. He did okay during the movie, he nursed for a while, fussed a little, and fell asleep for the last 30 minutes of the movie. Eleanor mostly sat still and watched the movie. As well as we could expect for the excitement of going out to the park with a bunch of people to watch a movie at her bedtime. It’s almost too exciting to sit quietly and watch the movie. She wouldn’t even hold still for a picture before the movie started.

Check out more summer adventures from our Summer Bucket List!

I’ve been absent for a while, but I assure you we’ve been busy working on our Summer Bucket List, and, you know, still getting the hang of parenting two wild creatures.

So this one was kind of a gimme. We always go to see a Fireworks show for the fourth. It’s one of my favorite parts of the summer. I love Fireworks. The last few years we’ve been going to a show at a local park and sitting just outside the park, to make a somewhat quick get away, but still be close enough to get a good show. This year, we decided to go to a different park to watch a different fireworks show from a distance. We wanted to avoid the crowds and be able to leave early if George wasn’t happy, and we’d heard that this park had a good view of the show.

Well, George was good, he nursed and then slept through the show, but Eleanor was disappointed and I didn’t blame her. It really kinda sucked, we were too far to hear the fireworks and we were only just able to see them over the treetops. We’ll go back to the other show next year.

At least George and Eleanor looked cute together in their 4th of July outfits.

Check out more summer adventures from our Summer Bucket List!

Love you more than ice cream (and that’s saying something)!

image from my maternity session with Modern Love Photography

Here’s a little anniversary walk down memory lane:

Our Fifth Anniversary

• Five Years Ago: The Wedding
• Five and Counting
• Anniversary Portraits
• Our Anniversary Party

Our Sixth Anniversary

• A Song for Saturday: Giving yourself to me can never be wrong…
• Anniversary Trip to the Mission Inn Part One
• Anniversary Trip to the Mission Inn Part Two

Our Seventh Anniversary

• 7th Anniversary at the Farmer’s Daughter – Part One
• 7th Anniversary at the Farmer’s Daughter – Part Two
• 7th Anniversary at the Farmer’s Daughter – Part Three

We’ve been buying popsicles as an after school treat for Eleanor for the last year or so. I’ve been planning to find a mold and make my own for at least that long, but never got around to it…until a few weeks ago I found a mold at Buy Buy Baby while shopping for some baby stuff. I can’t find a link to the exact product, but look for the ones with the straws if you can. Eleanor loves that as her popsicle melts while she’s eating it she can drink the juice out of the handle. Brilliant!

Now, we’re saving money and having healthier popsicles, since we’re making them from organic juices from Trader Joes. We usually just use a single organic 100% fruit juice to make them, but I decided to get a little fancy this week and had Josh pick up three different flavor lemonades, regular, strawberry, and mango. I just did one layer at a time and let each freeze before adding the next (with the stick in, it’ll slide out and back into the first two layers pretty easily.

So delicious and summery! Now you go make some popsicles! If you don’t have a mold I just picked up some more from the Target Dollar bins! Go, pick some up, get some delicious juice and get to popsicle making! Yay summer! Yay popsicles!

Josh here. Don’t be alarmed. I’m here to talk to you today about.. yes.. swimming.

Eleanor is nuts about the pool. I guess most kids are, right? We’ve been going to the pool for years now (and well she’s only 4-and-a-half, but I can say that, for YEARS, which, technically, is true! and also makes me feel grizzled). And just in the last month, she’s finally unlocked the secret, finally earned that badge — Eleanor swims! Like, underwater, by herself! What a champ. I’m so proud of her!

There she goes.

Don’t worry, that creep in the beard and sunglasses is me.

I’m taking credit of course, because this girl hasn’t had a swim lesson since she was a year-and-a-half (that’s three years ago, swimfans). And Maggie doesn’t do the pool if she can help it, so it’s usually me and Eleanor, pool pals.

To be honest, though, I feel a little silly claiming to have taught her how to swim, because really she did it all herself (though I will still take credit, as it is the fatherly thing to do). She loves the pool, as I’ve said, but in the past she’s been a lot more interested in playing AROUND the pool than in it. This year she’s finally developed a taste for spending time IN the water, though still clinging to me. She’s never owned any floaty type devices, so I always just hold her and swim her around myself. We consciously decided to avoid the floaties when she was younger because we were concerned that she would develop a false sense of security around bodies of water. If you know Eleanor, you’ll know why we didn’t want her being brave about water without the requisite swimming skills. May I remind you of her daredevil tendencies? Yeah.

Lately though she’s been enthusiastically “borrowing” the noodles, inner tubes, and other assorted flotation devices of her fellow pool-going children. We finally decided to get her a noodle of her own.

It was apparently the right time, because she went wild on it. Hog wild — if hogs could swim (can hogs swim? surely not, that would be terrifying). As soon as she had her own noodle, she was swimming all over the pool, by herself, just her and the pink extruded tube of polyethylene foam, with utterly no fear or concern about where or who Daddy was or was not (P.S. I found a lot of the words in this Wikipedia post about noodles upsetting — particularly “noodleskin”. Say it again…  “noodleskin”. Say it again.. um no thanks).

Then, without a lot of prodding, I convinced her to try it without the noodle for a few minutes each session, until she was doing it more and more, and then she was just dog paddling her little bottom off! Go girl! Yessir.

Oddly, she has this habit of not using her left arm whilst dog paddling, which gives the impression that she has been grievously wounded there, perhaps in the course of a bank heist or liquor store hold-up in which she has been winged by the overzealous gun-toting cashier and then leaped down the gorge (who built this 7/11 next to a gorge?) into the fast flowing river below and is paddling one-armed to freedom. And she’s left-handed! Doesn’t she want to use that arm? I can’t seem to convince her.

Nevertheless, the girl is swimming! Dog paddling, and under water alike! Proud.

So hang on to your noodleskins, Eleanor is probably on her way right now to a body of water near you! Yes, YOU (I am vigorously pointing in your direction, heads up and when did you start wearing that hat it is stunning)!

Here’s a few reminders of what a cutie pie she has been at the pool:

First swim ever! (6 months old!).

First (and last) swim lessons (one-and-a-half years old)!

First swim of 2010 (two-and-a-half years old).

First swim of 2011 (three-and-a-half years old!).

Check out more summer adventures from our Summer Bucket List!

Enjoy the video! Eleanor is the tiny ballerina second from the left:

Our Sullen Ballerina

We got a subscription for Eleanor for Christmas and she loves it! She’s excited when a new box arrives each month with new projects for us to work on together. What’s great is that there are varying levels of difficulty, so some crafts she can complete almost entirely on her own and some need a lot of parent assistance. I’m sure this will be great as she gets older and can do more of these projects on her own.

The very best part is that each crate comes with all the necessary supplies to complete your projects. This is wonderful for a parent like me who does not have the time, nor the crafty skills and knowledge to plan a project and shop for supplies. And at just $19.95 per month I’m sure it’s much less expensive than if I were to purchase all of the supplies separately for every new project I came up with. Love, love, love Kiwi Crates!

Click here or on their ad in the sidebar to subscribe and get your own awesome monthly craft deliveries!

The doctor said George is looking great, and growing really well. George had his two month vaccinations at this visit. The poor baby looked so shocked when he got his first shot and then cried his loudest angriest cry, but wasn’t too difficult to calm down. When Eleanor had her first shots she barely cried, but was cranky for the next day or two afterwards. George didn’t have any crankiness, but he ran a low fever that night. I’m sure he must have been uncomfortable, but he didn’t really show it. He was in his usual pleasant mood. Such a sweet baby!

It’s just Greek Yogurt topped with Berries and Granola. I start with a low fat plain greek yogurt, it’s pretty low in sugar and very high in protein. Perfect for a healthy breakfast. Then I top it with mixed berries. Here’s the crucial step though. You need to use frozen mixed berries and defrost them in the microwave at half power. This warms them just a little and creates all this delicious berry juice that turns your plain yogurt into berry yogurt. So good! Then for some crunch and a little fiber top it with just a little granola. I like Trader Joe’s Low Fat Granola Cereal with Almond.

Try it! You won’t be sorry!