I Love These Girls!

 Doesn't this picture make you want to curl up on the couch with a cup of hot coffee and have some fun on your computer?  That's what I thought at least.  But I love these girls!  They were so excited to ride to school in the rain today!  You can tell that doesn't happen very often around here.  As for Ruthie and I, we're enjoying an inside morning and I thought I would share a few (fairly) recent pictures with you, since I've been a little lax in that regard lately:)

 

First, you'd better check out these cute first day of school pictures.

Here's Josie, heading off to Kindergarten!  On the bike ride home that first day she told me fifty times if she told me once-literally- that she LOVES LOVES LOVES Kindergarten!

And Anna, all ready for first grade (which she has been absolutely loving so far, too, I might add):

Ruthie and I came with them that first day for the Opening Ceremony/Rose Ceremony.

Thank you Mema and Papa for the fun dresses, the girls love them!

 

 What better tradition to have than ice cream on the first day of school in the heat of August?

 Anna lost her first tooth!  Look at that great grin!

 We are enjoying our new house.  For those of you that I haven't kept in touch with very well lately, we moved into a house here in Boulder right before school began.  We are loving our backyard, back porch (we've had dinner out there every night), new climbing trees, and this Mama is especially enjoying the normal size kitchen with a dishwasher and having a washer/dryer!

 

Three good friends in their climbing clothes eating peaches on the back porch on a sunnier day:

 I designated some climbing clothes for them after they were destroying all their school clothes getting them covered with sap while climbing the 50 foot tall Spruce tree in our backyard.  Anybody have a remedy for sap in hair?  I've learned that the alcohol in hand sanitizer will take sap off hands beautifully (thanks Rob and Michelle!), but I've yet to find a remedy for hair. 

 

One of my favorite recent pics of these three sisters.  Classic.  A moment to remember and treasure.

 Friends over for dinner!  The Kennedy's came to celebrate our new house with us.  Little Ally and Ruthie are fast friends.

Anna, Isaac and Ruthie reading on the couch.  I'm loving this new step into reading with my big first grader.  Way to go, Anna!

 Anna found a way to climb onto the roof of our house.  Whose kid is this???  She was quite proud of herself.

 Ruthie and I love our mornings together while big sisters are at school.  I'm also loving all the space and light in this wonderful kitchen.  Put the two together and you can find Ruthie and Mommy working in the kitchen together on many a morning!

 Anna and Josie are wonderful kitchen helpers.  They're making Daddy's lunch in this photo.  Pancake sandwiches! (Daddy'O Update:  Mitch has 3 more weeks until he's done with his masters!!!  THEN we can truly celebrate!  But it still feels like a big push to get through these next 3 weeks.  Keep us in your thoughts and prayers, we need extra doses of patience and grace in this house.)

 Ruthie climbing the Russian Olive tree in our backyard while I'm hanging laundry.  It's hard to find a time when at least one of these girls is not in a tree.

 Last but not least, I thought I would share our most recent family photo.  It was actually taken in June on Father's Day. 

Another Ruthie blog post was in order. This crazy, determined girl has a new skill:

Can you believe it? I'm a bit in shock. She's had a little balance bike she likes to ride around on, but that was getting a little short for her. Her balance seemed pretty good on that so I thought we would give the pedal bike a go. I can't say I had a lot of patience to teach her, I kept getting frustrated when she would stop pedaling and tell her we were waiting until she was a bit older. But then she would get frustrated at me because she was really determined to learn and wanted me to keep helping her. She wants to keep up with the big girls. She can't get started on her own, and has a ways to go before she's just riding around the courtyard in laps on her own, but I'd say she's doing pretty good.

One more video:

I'm excited to have three kids riding their own bikes. That feels like a huge milestone as a parent! Ruthie has been wanting to ride her balance bike when we go to pick up Anna lately, and has even ridden all the way home twice, over two miles! But it's slow. I'm pretty much walking my bike behind her. And Anna and Josie get tired of riding a few feet and then waiting. Riding her own two wheeler will let Ruthie be a part of everything but will still allow us to get home in a decent amount of time. Soon, that is. She's not ready for a long bike ride yet. But soon! Good job little miss Ruthie. We're all proud of you.

I'm sold on the idea of learning to ride a two-wheel bike in the winter. Long pants and mittens means no scraped knees, no scraped hands, no tears, soft falls into the snow... By the time warm weather hits we'll be past the dangerous stages. I'd recommend it to any parent.

Riding Bikes with Daddy'O

Mitch got a new commuter bike today. Weren't you all saying that the Clements needed another bike around our house? We did, actually, Mitch's old commuter bike had no brakes left, and was not much of a winter bike since it had no traction on the tires. No more crashes on the ice this winter, Mitch! Thank you, Thomas, for the bike. The girls were excited about this bike because it came with a rack on the back.

Josie:

Anna:

Ruthie:
Wahoo! Lots of laughing in the courtyard today!

Heavy Snow

Two days ago we were all running around barefoot, the girls were playing in the creek, laughing in the sun, 80 degrees.

Today, winter arrived.

We had to find all the coats and hats and mittens and scarves in a hurry from where I had tucked them for summer storage.
So many colorful leaves are still on the trees.
We had been enjoying the crispness of Fall, a bit of change every day, something new to discover as the earth was preparing for the change of the season.
The suddenness of this storm littered the ground with branches, huge limbs, cracked trunks of trees.
These little girls noticed and continued in their play, making use of overhanging branches to hide under and make a secret house. Don't worry, I didn't let them play underneath any trees today, but the supple, heavy laden branches of the bushes in the courtyard were home and hearth.

Josie is a nonstop blur. This pretty much captures her in her snow play:

The best part of my day was biking Anna to school as she lounged in the bike cart, chattering away about all the beauty she saw and heard around her. A fresh morning, a beautiful winter wonderland so incredibly different from the world a day before.

Celebrating Mitch

We sure do love this Daddy'O of ours.Josie had been making and collecting and wrapping gifts for him for at least a month and a half:
You are one well loved father.
I love the cries of "Daddy!" when you walk through the door each evening and Ruthie running as fast as her little legs will carry her to be swooped up in a hug by her Daddy'O.
I love when we meet up with you on the creek path as you're riding between work and classes and we're on our way to or from picking Anna up at school. I love how fast Josie's legs start spinning on her bike as soon as she catches a glimpse of you through the trees.
I love the laughter that fills our house as you chase three little girls around and tickle them to cries of "Don't tickle me!...Tickle me!...Don't tickle me!...Tickle me!"

I love the smile on your face that you always have for us, no matter how stressful your day has been or how tired you are because you were up late the previous night getting work done.

Celebrating Mitch means spending a day doing what he likes best. We got serenaded in the morning with guitar music. Some of us joined in:

We went for a family bike ride, Anna in the lead, then Mitch, Josie, and Ruthie and I bringing up the rear. Yes, I am taking pictures while riding:)

Birthday dessert was my own creation of berries, peaches, and thickened, sweetened cream all baked in the oven for a while per the birthday boy's request:

We love you, Mitch, and we loved celebrating you on your birthday!

Josie's Pictures

Josie has a new camera and boy oh boy has this budding photographer been enjoying her picture taking over the last few days. I wanted to share some of her photography with you. It's a fun way to walk through her day with her, see what she saw, the things that were important to her or beautiful to her today. You can literally look at the world through her eyes.

Mama with her morning coffee. (That's my favorite mug, I use it every morning.)

Ruthie, still waking up.

The slow, casual side of the morning.
Daddy 'O

Anna leaving for school:

New toys from Nona, having a 'show' with them:

More of Mama:

Outside our home:

Playing on the stoop with a neighbor, laundry basket empty of laundry that's now in the wash:

Decorating the bunk bed with pieces of colorful wrapping paper:

Beautiful Fall trees along the bike path on the way home from picking Anna up at school:

Red Virginia Creeper, also along the bike path:

We must have made twenty stops on the way home from school today on our bikes as Josie yelled "Wait! I see another one! I've got to take another picture!" And we would all stop, the camera would come out, and another beautiful Fall tree would be documented.

For every picture you see here there are ten others of a similar nature, sometimes almost exactly the same, with slight differences that maybe only Josie would notice as the world around her changed almost imperceptibly and caught her attention yet again. I loved watching her excitement today, her joy in capturing pieces of her world, her eye for detail and her own love of natural beauty.

Ruthie?

Yup, Ruthie.

That's Ruthie riding a bike-with training wheels, mind you- but pushing those pedals around nonetheless.




I'm proud of my not-so-little girl. She worked hard to figure that one out. She is not going to be left behind by her big sisters. Her feet can barely reach all the way around the rotation of the pedals, I don't think she can do it barefoot, only with shoes that have a good thick sole on them. It took some determination and desire to keep getting back on that bike until she figured it out. Now we just have to work on teaching her how to brake on purpose.

P.S. I was finally able to upload this video today. I don't know why I haven't been able to upload any videos lately, but that definitely puts a damper on wanting to blog when half the stuff I want to show you has been in video form. Sorry about the technical difficulties, hopefully I have the issue resolved.

Following in Daddy's Footsteps

All three cyclists busy cleaning their bikes. Oh, the sunny days of February!

Two-Wheelin' Josie

That's right folks! Josie can ride a two wheel bike "All by myself with no help from Mommy or Daddy!" as she says. She is such a tenacious, determined little girl. It didn't bother her to be off balance at all as she was learning, she intuitively corrected each wobble from the very beginning and peddled through until she was balanced again, up onto the grass, through the snow, she just kept going! I just can't believe that I have a three year old who is riding a bike! Way to go, Josie!

I have to say, I am quite sold on the concept of a balance bike. We made Josie's training wheel bike a 'balance bike' for her a while ago (just took the training wheels off, a real balance bike doesn't even have any peddles) and encouraged her to practice all she wanted just 'riding' around with her feet on the ground. They pick up the balance of a bike so well that way, and it's a lot less work for mom and dad when they are ready to learn. About a week ago I started helping her ride and she just took off! Pretty exciting for this Mom and Dad (and Josie was pretty excited herself, I must say!).

Here's one more video if you want to see more:)

Congratulations, Josie! Welcome to the world of cyclists!

Rain Ride with Nora and Sam

You know it is going to happen if you make plans for a picnic and a bike ride with two of your favorite people. That is the surest way to make it rain. We had to picnic inside on the living room floor but we still wanted to go for our bike ride despite the pouring rain and thunder and lightening. Dont worry, we waited until the storm had passed over and there was at least no more thunder and lightening before we took off. Just a little bit of light rain still coming down and lots of puddles to ride through.

The girls found a puddle in the courtyard as we were getting ready to take off, little ones do seem to have a radar for puddle finding.

Before:


And after!

We had fun! Yelling and laughing and finding every puddle there was on our ten mile ride. If you ever want to go on a fun bike ride, just take Nora and Sam along. But be ready to ride fast and be ready to get wet! Even if I had wanted to avoid a particularly deep looking puddle the rooster tail arching up from Nora's wheel was enough to soak me through and through! Nora at least had a crate on the back of her bike that acted like a fender to keep her from getting covered with a majority of her road spray. The roads and bridges were a bit slick and Sam had one fall that sliced up his hand. Other than that we sure had fun! Do you want to go again sometime soon, Nora and Sam?!

Vacation is Over

And summer has begun.

At least it feels that way to me.

Which is better? Vacation or summer? I love them both. They seem mostly synonymous this time of year. Vacation, in this family, meant Mitch not working or schooling (and me not blogging). Summer means sunshine. I like it best when they both go together.

For those of you who have wondered where we have been and what we have been spending our time doing:

We have been doing

ABSOLUTELY NOTHING!

Well, that's not really true. It can't be true in a house where three active little ones live. But we haven't gone anywhere and haven't done a lot of things that we normally count as normal in the daily rhythm of our hectic 'dad's in school' lives.
We HAVE been on lots of bike rides, spent lots of time in the garden now that we're finally past our frost date and can plant all the warmer weather crops!, gone to bed at a decent hour and gotten up at a decent hour, felt well rested!, played, laughed together all through our dinner meal, sat in the sunshine together, had a few normal bumps in the road that go with being in a time of transition between a crazy schedule and a normal, healthy, daily rhythm, had lots of family around, celebrated a graduation, said good-bye to a good friend who graduated and left the area, started a new summer job, enjoyed our morning coffee sitting on the couch together with both of us fully awake!, finished a ballet class...
And basically have fully embraced and enjoyed switching to a healthier rhythm of life for our family.

Congratulations, Mitch, on graduating with honors!

Hooray for Daddy'O!

Mitch with his brothers Chad and Jeb:

(Thanks for the pictures, Chad!)

Meeting my niece, little Maia Sage, for the first time:Windy bike rides with Jeanette, Michael, and Maia:

(Thanks for those pictures, Jeanette!)

See, we are still alive and quite well! Enjoying our days, laughing lots. Hooray for doing ABSOLUTELY NOTHING!