mama's back!

i'm back! whooo! i'm back! not that i'm back to blogging, nope, i'm back to bike riding!

i haven't been on my bike for ehh, i'm going to say at least 2 years and 9 months... and well, i got pregnant for max in december so i'm going out on a limb here and say that it was at least 3 years ago since i was on my bike. well, i've finally brought water to that drought.

over the weekend chris got my bike back into working condition. put air in the tires, checked the gears cleaned it up a bit and shortly after, i took my first spin around the block, twice. after that trek back up the hill i had rubber band legs... seriously they weren't working correctly. i stretched, i felt fine and didn't even feel the slightest twinge the following day. which is when i started to scour craigslist.com for a kid trailer to pull behind the bike. i found one. it was a bit more than i wanted to spend but hell, i really wanted to get back out there on my bike in a regular fashion. last night chris made the quick drive to clinton, pa to pick it up. it's in perfect condition. a few spots that need a needle and thread on the netting but nothing i can't fix easily.

then tonight i whipped up a quick dinner and then we packed up the kids and the bikes and the new bike trailer and drove about 4 minutes to the head of the montour trail which sits just at the edge of our town. first we hooked the trailer to chris's bike. he towed it for the first half of the ride. then we swapped and i took it back. it's EASY! the kids LOVE it! max got to see a ton of doggies who we walking on the trail with their owners. we rode two miles, swapped the trailer and rode two miles back, it took about 40 minutes. and the complete outing took exactly an hour. it was soooo refreshing! it was invigorating! i was riding my bike with my kids :) max stayed awake the whole time. andy fell asleep at some point on the way back. he seemed to enjoy it though :) max babbled the entire way and kept saying "bye" to everyone that we passed.

i can't wait to do this again. now i just have to figure out how i can do it by myself.... our bike rack is on the roof of our car. and well i'm slightly vertically challenged... i wonder if i can fit it into the back of the car... we'll have to try it out...

anyways, i'm just so happy to be able to do fun active stuff again with my husband and family. for so long it was chris who was going out and doing all the fun outdoors stuff. i did some hiking while pregnant with max and we did a bit last spring/summer (2007) with him in the back back but i spent most of last summer pregnant again and frankly had no energy to do much outside of what i had to do... now it's back, i feel normal again and i LOVE it! yay!

sorry about not having any photos... i somehow managed to forget my camera on this trip. i'm sure there will be more just like it so look for some on my flickr in the near future.

my week in review - a bit of a hodgepodge

eta: as michelle kindly pointed out in the comments, yes in addition to everything below andy managed to sit up yesterday completely on his own, he went from being on his back to his side to supporting himself with one arm but sorta still on his side to sitting! it was really funny to watch :) i had never seen him do that before and was quite thrilled to witness it! and so was michelle!


this past week, (definition of "past week" last wednesday july 30 - today august 5th) has been a long 7 days.... chris was (and is still) out of the country for work and is returning tomorrow, aug 6th. i was home alone with the kids. the beginning of the week was the roughest. max was not very cooperating and andy was giving me fits. i was nervous and cranky about having to put two kids to bed at the same time without any help, not happy about having to deal with mealtimes alone and jealous that i had to be a single parent while chris was out traveling the world, without me.

i had a TON of help from MY family, however we're 7 days in and still no phone calls what-so-ever from the ils.... not even to see if i've heard from chris... so strange...

anyways, my brother and his wife came over one night with pasta and homemade sauce! that rocked! my parents had us over a few times. i managed to cook a few times too, very proud of that, and ordered pizza only once! i also tried to plan as many things to do outside of the house as possible. we went to target twice... we went on a playdate with blogless lauren and her little guy leo, we went to the zoo with our cousin elizabeth and her twin boys, and today we had an impromptu play date with michelle and amelia which was very nice! max showed a very sensitive and gentlemanly side to him that i've never seen in my life! it was so darling! he was sharing everything he owned, held her hand and gave everyone kisses before they left :)

i have also managed to keep the house in relatively neat order. i have some cleaning to do upstairs tomorrow but i've kept up with the housework more this week than i normally do when chris is out of town for short trips. about mid-way through the week i got the hang of everything. meals were fairly smooth and bedtime was a breeze. i love, i mean LOVE, dvr. really i'm not sure how i would have done it without this new gadget. bedtimes consisted of cleaning up the toys while andy rolled around on the floor and cried and max sorta helped me. then i got him some milk and a snack and put him in his folding nemo chair and put on a curious george episode. i took andy upstairs got him ready for bed, fed him and put him down (awake i might add!!!) and then went back down to watch the rest of george with max and maybe even another episode if it was still early. then off to bed with him too. it was beautiful!

after the kids were both in bed, i then watched a few movies on ondemand this week. a quick review:
1. The Ex with Zach Braff and Amanda Peet. cute movie, a few funny scenes and a few new parent jokes. i enjoyed the baby/parenting dialog the most. wasn't a waste of time.
2. Moving McAlister with Mila Kunis from that 70's show and a guy that i've never seen or heard of before and that guy from napoleon dynamite. eh, so so but sorta cute. i watched the whole thing, enjoyed parts of it but it wasn't the most entertaining movie. cute story line though and the ending was nice. wasn't a complete waste of time but sorta almost was...
3. Definitely, Maybe with Ryan Reynalds and that girl from wedding crashers who was the younger sister who was maddly in love with vince vaugh and a few other female actresses. anyways. this was by far the best of the bunch! very entertaining love story that is creatively told to his young daughter. there are some sad parts about divorce but they are overshadowed by the happy parts. definitely NOT a waste of time and i'm glad i watched it even though the title alone annoyed me and i didn't think i would like it one bit.

knitting, i've done nothing.

sewing, i finished everlasting and started a few others...
i sewed a handle onto my everlasting bag, i'm quite happy with how it turned out:

another photo here.

i started my grocery bag beautification project, inspired by this blog, i pinned this fabric onto one side of this bag from giant eagle MONTHS ago... so long ago that i've never been able to use this bag at the store for actual grocery toting... i have only covered one side. the other side also has a logo on it so it's getting pinned and sewn up tonight. i have at least one other bag to pin and sew as well. i thought we bought three of these things but apparently we either lost one or only bought two... i'm not certain.... anyways, here's the outcome, i'm pleased with this as well.

the fabric i used on this one is one of two vintage napkins that were my parents. my mom gave them to me and i wanted to find a good use for the fabric as i have no use for two fabric napkins.... i absolutely LOVE this fabric and wish i had a big piece of it because i could totally wear a skirt with this print.

i'm really looking forward to heading to the airport tomorrow night. i miss chris a TON and i know he misses us. i've been talking up his return to max so he's getting excited too. overall, this week hasn't been too horrible. i've managed to at least shower a few times, we had some fun outside of the house and now we're looking forward to chris's return home :) and i'm looking forward to a visit to the salon all by myself on thursday! ha!

this is going to be a long one

ok, cleaning house a bit, a few lists:

andy stats:
he's sitting unassisted for a minute or so at a time.
he's up on all fours doing that thing where they sway back and forth and he sometimes does a little crawling in the backwards direction.
he's eating a load of cereal.
he had fresh zucchini from my cousin's garden while on vacation and fresh picked blueberries and some banana.
he will go down for a nap or to sleep at night without being asleep, i can put him in his crib and if he's sleepy enough he'll fall asleep in about 10 minutes. if he's not, he lets you know by screaming, i go get him we play for another 20-30 minutes then try again and he usually goes down the 2nd time.
he has become baptized to the religion of the lake goers.

max stats:
he is feeding himself really well with utensils. he has mastered the spoon for cereal and ice cream and other spoon friendly foods.
he is potty training himself.

yes, i said potty training himself. he's been peeing on the potty for quite some time. not at any really regular intervals during the day but before and after naps and bedtime and any other time we change a diaper (he doesn't always go when we put him on there but he understands that if he goes, he gets to flush! big fun!) so while on vacation we were eating a late dinner and he was giving us a hell of a time basically he didn't want to eat. we didn't fight it. we let him get down from his chair, he went to the other room to be private then quickly came back to let chris know that he had pooed.

it was just a little bit so chris put him on the potty to finish. he went some more and exclaimed that he was "all done!"
the next day the same thing happened except all of the poo ended up in the potty.
this was a few days ago, we haven't changed a poopy diaper since.
fastforward to today, we had lunch he started to play, i was cleaning up and he runs in and says, "mama, this!" and grabbed his crotch. so we went to the potty, his diaper was wet but not warm so i know he hadn't peed lately in it. i put him on the pot and leave the room (he won't do anything in there if you're in there with him). at this point i hear him trying to go. wouldn't you know it, i then had to go too.... so i leave him there and run to the basement. i go. (i know tmi) then run back upstairs to find him still going... so i stand outside the door and listen. then i hear a plop and he starts to whine so i go back in to find that he went a TON! i gave him a big kiss, cleaned him up and let him flush the toilet! big excitement! we aren't close to getting rid of diapers all together because he still pees there quite often. i'm fairly certain that i could train him if i took the time but i need chris to be here on a somewhat normal schedule and frankly that's not going to be the case until the end of august. so maybe we'll attempt it the week of his birthday.

vacation wrap up:
ahhhh the lake! we had some crappy weather, especially early in the week. it would be sorta clear in the mornings but by 10 or so it would cloud up and rain off and on for the rest of the day only to clear around 7 pm or so... then mid week there was one day it rained all day. then thursday and friday it was pretty nice and then saturday it was sunny until about 1 then got cloudy again just in time for us to pack up and leave. regardless of the weather we still had fun. and got a good amount of swimming and lake lounging done too.

andy make his lake debut!
here he is with papa! both look pretty happy to be there!

max played with his bucket and rocks! this is my favorite photo of the entire week!




i relaxed in a chair in the water....


we had a great time not doing a whole lot. my mom and i did manage to go shopping in a small town one afternoon, i found some great antique buttons. three pearly white ones that are square and are angular and 9 dark blue ones that are pearly. i also got some super cool antique post cards from around 1906 for chris. one is of the intersection of 4th and wood downtown (right where he works) and the other is a view of 1st ave taken from station square. both are pretty neat.

another day my mom and i also went to pick blue berries! we got there kinda late and they were going to close in about 20 minutes. but between the two of us we each filled a 1 gallon ziplock bag! we had enough blue berries for the week and we both got to take home about half a bag each! we're still eating fresh blueberries! for those two large bags, we paid $8! can't beat that! i can't wait to do that again next year!

i also made a lot of progress on my FLS. not quite done with the body yet. i did have to fix a mistake (thanks amanda for that technique! i did it all by myself! yay!) i am starting to worry that i need to buy two more balls of yarn...

as for traveling with this kids. this trip was a little easier. we left the house about 5 on our way up. we stopped around 7 for breakfast then again about 2 hours later so that could feed andy again and so that max could run around a bit.
then about 30 minutes after that the kids were both having fits... so i crawled into the back seat and proceeded to read to them... all the while i felt like i could have yacked....

as for the ride home.... we were supposed to leave early sunday morning. chris has a job scheduled for about 3 pm that day so we had to hustle. we then decided late afternoon on saturday that we would just scrap that and instead pack up the car and the kids that evening and leave around 8 pm (aka bedtime). so i cleaned, chris packed the car, max helped us both ;) then we left! my parents stayed until the morning then traveled early. we got home about 2 am... we were very groggy. the kids slept through the whole thing. it was awesome! we didn't have to even stop to pee, we only made a quick stop at a T & A for a caffeinated drink for chris. then we kept going just like the old days b.c. (before children).

the lake

i'm swimming..... so is andy, max and chris.

be back in a week!

review: idlewild and soakzone

wow! really wow! is really what sums it all up!

yesterday we took max and andy along with chris's parents and his sister to idlewild and soakzone for a day of fun! and fun we had!

max was the perfect age. any younger and he wouldn't have really enjoyed it much. andy, obviously didn't do anything but ride in the stroller but that's ok. both kids, since they were under 2 were free.

first we walked through storybook forest, very cute, pretty dated looking and not too exciting. they did have some live animals that max liked. but that was the extent of it. they were having christmas in july though so that was sorta funny, santa was there and they had everything decorated for christmas. although most of the decorations were sort of lame and tacky...

here is max in storybook forest, this was a large pumpkin and i believe it was part of the peter peter pumpkin eater story:


next we had lunch, again, wow! lunch was awesome! best amusement part food i think i've ever had! everyone but me had bbq chicken, i tasted max's and it was really good! yummy sides too! i had a taco wrap and it was really good too! nothing was greasy, nothing was fatty, it was all pretty healthy.


after lunch we went to the part of the part that is called jumpin jungle. there was a huge pit of balls, max was in love! and a large rope wall thing that chris and max climbed up, some fun slides too!

here's max in the balls:after the jumpin jungle we went to racoon lagoon. it's the amusement park portion of the park for little kids. what a blast! max rode a ton of rides, but what seemed like not even half of them. then we took a ride on the trolley from mr roger's land of makebelieve. how cute! we sang a song, we had a party and saw all the characters from the show :) max was beat but he enjoyed it.

after that we headed over to soakzone to cool off. we got pretty wet, there are a lot of fun things for everyone to do. one cool part was this large thing that looked like a pirate ship with lots of decks and steps and stuff. on top there was a gigantic bucket that was constantly filling with water but when it got to it's tipping point it would dump a TON of water on top of the whole thing. however while this large bucket was filling it was constantly "raining" on this structure. there were hoses and spouts all over the place. it was a blast even for us big kids!

we then got ourselves dry and put the kids in the stroller and started to walk to the car. max was out before we even left the pool area. totally tuckered out!

we left the house a little after 8 am, and we didn't get back until 8 pm. max did great without a nap. i'm amazed! but expecting today's nap to be sorta long.... the entire park was fantastic. no annoying patrons. everyone was there to have fun and that's what we did. the funny part was how chris and i both weren't expecting a whole lot. the last time each of us were there we were about 13 years old. and we both remembered it sucking a whole lot. i'm thinking that was because when you're 13 pretty much everything sucks. but frankly, this place isn't for the older children, it's for the young ones. everything was geared towards them and that's what made it super special!

i can't wait to go back soon! and max said, "all done!"
to see more photos of our fun day click here.