No more training wheels!

Today was a big day for Eli. He learned to ride his bike without any training wheels! For those of you who know my son you know that he is the cautious one. For those of you who don't know him, he is the one that watches everybody else first to see if they get hurt and then will decide if something is worth trying or not. He is also a perfectionist and likes to do things "right" the first time and is easily frustrated when he has trouble. Not really a good combination of characteristics when he is trying to learn something new.

So with all that in mind, this past winter we told Eli that the training wheels would be coming off in the spring. He was willing to try the bike a few weeks ago and just could not get it that first day. We decided to take the pedals off of his old toddler bike and make it into a "balance bike". He used that for about a week but wasn't enjoying it because he could not get it to go fast enough; so the bikes just stayed in the shed for about three weeks. Today we were outside playing and I told him we were going to practice on his bike. After a minute of him moaning and groaning about it he got on the bike, I gave him a little push and he just took off!

















He still needs help getting the bike started and he needs to learn to use the brakes instead of just putting his feet down, but all in all a great start. When he was all done riding he looked at me and said, "Mommy are you proud of me because I am proud of me!" I think he smiled the rest of the afternoon. And yes, I am a very proud Mommy.

A Fun few Days

This has been a busy week. On Sunday the kids sang with the children's choir at church for Palm Sunday. They have been going early to church to practice for the past month and I am so glad that they decided they wanted to be a part of it. It was very cute and they did a great job.

After church we went to an Easter Egg hunt. The owner of where Damen works lives in a private community that hosts the Easter Egg hunt every year to raise money for a local charity. Last year they raised $6000 for a child in town that had cancer. Everyone has a great time and the only thing they ask for is a donation to the charity. I think there was about 2000 eggs on the ground and a couple of hundred kids. The kids had a great time and a lot of money was raised.

Only Eli (yes, I decided to use their real names) would sit with the Easter Bunny. Nevaeh had fallen asleep in the car on the way there and was not in a great mood when we arrived. She would not go anywhere near the bunny.

This is not a great picture, but if you look very closely you can kind of see the eggs scattered all over the ground behind the fence. Okay, you can't really see them, but, trust me, there were eggs absolutly everywhere. I think it took less than three minutes for all the eggs to be picked up.

Today we went to Magic Wings Butterfly Conservatory with some good friends of ours. The kids waited so patiently for butterflies to land on them.

Finally, their patience paid off.

We have had a great couple of days and tomorrow we are going to visit some friends that we have not seen in a few months. We are really hoping that our corrected paperwork comes in this week but I am trying to to remember that things will happen when they happen and to just enjoy my time with the kids now.