Given the drought, this year certainly isn’t the best, but nevertheless, we do see color here in Texas!! And it isn’t New England, but it is better than none at all!   I always forget that the trees don’t turn in earnest until late November.   We took a walk through the neighborhood, played at the park for a bit and then collected red leaves to be pressed for another leaf garland!  It was such a beautiful, chilly autumn day!!  Then we headed home for more seasonal fun.see next post for more!!

Look at that yellow!	Seems to me the younger the tree, the redder it is…
Really, though, the orange-reds are my favs.	Here’s a little bunch of color I liked.
The kids having a blast sailing down a ramp on their rides!  Tyler would want to leave and Quinn would call him back wanting to “come race, Tyler!”	My Sweetie!
A smile on the slide!	Whatcha doin’?

This gift has been a year in the making.  Last year when Tyler turned two, we took him to get this bike, but he wasn’t tall enough yet.  We waited 6 months and figured surely after the crazy growth spurt he went through (2 inches in two months and then some), he was ready.  Nope – still needed a few more inches.  So we took him the Sunday after we returned from Arkansas and hurray!  he was tall enough.

We are very excited about this bike.  It is called a Trek Float.  When you first given the bike to the child you remove the pedals and crank from the bike.  So it is essentially a push bike.   This forces him to perfect his balance on the bike first and then once he is very comfortable, you put the pedals on and off they go.  You know when the child is ready when they are propelling themselves forward and then picking there feet up for extended periods of time.  So they aren’t really needing their feet for balance.

I love this whole idea because we will never have to deal with training wheels and it doesn’t require Chris and I at all.  I feel like we completely botched potty learning.  To be honest, Chris and I are not patient people and have high, sometimes unrealistic expectations.  So something like this that does not require our intervention and allows him more independence because he doesn’t need a parent to help him to ride, is perfect for our family.

At first he was wanting the pedals, but very quickly was satisfied with the challenge of just propelling himself forward.  The bike is pretty heavy, so he had to get used to the weight.  He fell a lot at first – thank goodness for our sidewalks with grass on both sides.   But now, he has this scissor kick rhthym he gets into and off he goes.  He will ride down to the school and back now.  We figure maybe a month of two and then he will be ready for pedals. This bike also has a lot of “grow with you” features, so Tyler should have it for a while. And right about when he is done, we assume Quinn will be ready to take her spin on the Float!

Quinn now has Tyler’s tricycle and is quite happy with it.  Chris adjusted it for her height, but she isn’t pedaling just yet.  In fact, she prefers to take fire truck (he favorite push toy on which she uses to hurl herself down the sidewalk) out with Tyler as she can totally keep up with him on fire truck.  In fact, she likes to bump the back of his bike tire when he is being pokey….he doesn’t much like that!  :-p

It is very exciting to see them reaching these big milestones and also scary.  I told Chris that once he masters that bike – he will be off and biking every chance he gets.  The  challenge is how to give Quinn the opportunity to do her riding and walk around the neighborhood and keep up with Tyler who will no doubt be speeding around the neighborhood??   I haven’t figured that one out just yet….there will have to be some compromise there.  Maybe a morning walk for Quinn (no bikes on this one) and an evening ride for Tyler where I jog with Quinn in the stroller?  I have a few months to figure it out…hopefully.

Getting the helmet on	Final adjustments
Getting ready….	Some help from Dad steadying
Getting Quinn’s tricycle adjusted for her	..and off they go.

I am learning to pay attention to gestures.  Actions truly do speak louder then words and I am just now understanding that.  I think I owe that learning to my kids.  The smallest gesture is not lost on them and can mean so very much.  I have begun to pay so much more attention to the loving gestures of my husband.

The other day we were at a birthday party for one of Tyler’s friends.  I was standing next to a friend and watching a really neat animal presentation going on for the kids.  My husband comes up behind me, puts his arms around my shoulders, gives me a hug and then a sweet kiss on the neck.  He was then chatting about plans for the evening.

But that hug stayed with me the rest of the day.   It is so cool that he can still make me feel that way….that “oh my god – he just hugged me!” feeling you would get about a boy you liked.  It was a small gesture, but huge to me.  I felt so special and so loved.  It was really sweet….*sigh*….he still melts me….

New toys right  before Christmas?  Sure.  We came back from Arkansas with tons of pine cones and other treasures, so I decided to add some more natural goodness to their toy shelf:  a basket of shells, a basket of pine cones and a basket of rocks.  It took a little while, but they got into them.  I had set up a scene and one morning they both got to work.   I can’t even begin to tell you how much I love to watch them play with these natural treasures.  It is the ultimate imagination – transformation.  I love to see what these things can become for the story or play of the moment.

On the way up, we stopped at White Rock Lake in Dallas for a picnic lunch.  *sigh*  I miss this lake.  And here is some sacrilege for you – I prefer White Rock to Town Lake.  There I said it.   {hunkering down waiting for the tomatoes or whatever else you want to throw at me……}

I can’t explain it, but this lake is so peaceful.  And even though it is only a few miles away from downtown – you feel like you are out in the country.  The sky is wide open and there aren’t a slew of houses built all around the lake.   There is a wonderful 9 mile jogging and biking trail around the lake.  Chris and I used to bike and rollerblade around it often and we even once did a Duathalon there (run, bike, run).

It was nice to return.  We also had to get coffee from Cafe Brazil.  The Greenville area has been built up like crazy – that part blew me away.  But thankfully, White Rock hasn’t changed.