I love Easter.  I love the spring, the joy of this season, and I always hope that I can use our amazing Easter testimony to grow faith in our kids’ hearts.  I found this easy, fun Easter project that the kids and I are working on, making your own Calvary Hill and Empty Tomb.

I’ll post pictures with our progress!

Well, I’m a week late on posting his huge milestone (sorry, second-child-syndrome!), but here it is!  As Analise was riding in the driveway on Monday of last week, her 2nd day on 2-wheels, Josiah begged for us to take his training wheels off, too.  We thought, what the heck… but imagined we’d be putting them right back on.  Lo and behold, I held his seat and he literally just rode away from me!  It must be in the genes!  He’s amazing to watch!  The learning curve was a bit steeper, and he wasn’t as quick to catch on to braking.  But now he’s got it down.  He still can’t get himself started, but we’re getting there.  He pedals so fast on his little wheels!  I love watching both of them ride!  We rode tons last week during Spring Break!  More videos forthcoming, but these two are great to start with, Josiah’s first ride and my pro girl, Analise, on her 2nd day.

What a day!

On the outside, it didn’t look very promising. 40’s and intermittent drizzle, at a 2.5 hr bike race. But we took warm clothes and rain boots, as well as the kids bikes, with us to Guntersville. Over the course of waiting for Brian to come around for each of his 4 laps, the kids rode and played on the damp playground.  Despite my warnings, they ended up sliding down a slide into a puddle, and Analise was completely wet. Of course, I’d packed lightly, with no extra clothes for anyone. She had to change into Brian’s cycling tights, vest, and rain boots, and she shivered the rest of the day. Then,  Josiah told me too late he had to go to the bathroom. Damp and chilled, I wasn’t impressed with the state of the day halfway through the race!

We’ve been talking it up for a while, and so Analise asked me to to take her training wheels off and help her ride. And so we did…

At the end of the day, my sweet girl can ride a 2-wheel bike without training wheels by herself… and even stop! And Brian won the race! The soft rainbow we saw summed up the day!

A few more pictures…

Learning to get on and start by herself (a work in progress)

Blurry, but the most obvious photo of riding on her own.

Josiah tears around on his little bike, over gravel and grates, flying around the corners, coming at you full-speed, and screeching to a halt. And of course, he is asking for me to take off his training wheels, too. Man oh man, can the world handle 3 Toones on 2-wheeled bikes? Watch out!

A few iPhone pictures that didn’t resize right… Email me if you want a larger version!

Brian's on the right... His teammate, Sammy, is an amazing sprinter. Brian led him out in the sprint, but when Sammy looked back and seen they had a big gap, he sat up, and Brian stayed in front. A Tria 1-2!

The promise of a good day 🙂

Exhausted after a hard day of riding... and working hard on falling asleep without sucking her thumb. All these milestones!

Ok, please don’t judge me.  Yes, Josiah will be 4 in June.  And yes, he still uses a pacifier at naptime and bedtime.  Until very recently, I didn’t care.  I just love finally getting some decent sleep, and really… why mess with that?  But before we see the dentist in May, I figured we’d better be done with the pacifier, so I don’t get another raised-eyebrow-look.

Josiah and I had decided this weekend we’d be done with the ‘fiers’ as he calls them.  Brian was away on Sunday, and as we neared bedtime, I reminded him that we were going to get rid of them, and that he and I were going to Toys ‘R Us the next day to find something to celebrate him being a big boy.  We were ok for a while, but right at bedtime, after a long day, he unraveled into coughing and tears.  He’s been sick for a couple weeks, and when push came to shove, I gave in… sort of.

I tossed 2 pacifiers, and took the remaining 2 in the kitchen and quickly poked holes in them.  They don’t suck right when they have a hole, and he tells me to throw them away, because “they’re broken”.  So I gave them to him as he was laying down in bed, and just as I’d hoped, the first pacifier didn’t work, and I told him I’d throw it away.  Unfortunately, the 2nd pacifier worked ok, so I guess the whole I poked wasn’t big enough.

So, we’re not quite free of the pacifier.  And I could push the issue.  But we’re down to one, and who knows how long it will be around.  I keep warning him that if it gets lost, that’s it… we’re done.  And it has a hole in it, so I’m sure it’s not going to work much longer.

I’ll keep you posted!

Brian raced the 100-mile Rouge Roubaix in Louisiana today. This epic race models itself after the famous Paris-Roubaix spring classic race in France with mile after mile of cobblestones, and the local version includes 20 miles of gravel. No, I’m not sure why anyone would want to race on roads like that, but that’s another post for another time.

Anyway, I just got a brief text/phone update from him, so I don’t have all the details. But it appears he finished pretty well, maybe 12th. His teammate, Mike, was in the first group just ahead of Brian, and finished in the top 6. Yeah, Tria Cycling!

Almost even more exciting for Brian, this 3ft printed version of his beautiful colored TopoCreator map of the race course was on display at the race! He’s been working on TopoCreator.com for a long, long time, and the website is so close to going live. I’m really excited to see such a great response to all his super hard work.

Analise’s good friend, Ansley, spent the night with us last night. We enjoyed some outside time yesterday afternoon, and Ansley taught Analise some cheers so they could cheer of Josiah’s scootering.

This morning (after excitedly waking up at the crack of dawn), the girls and I went to the International Tea with their Daisy Scout troop. We had a great time, and Analise even bravely went up front to present their troops charity donation, and shared in the microphone how much they’d given. Their troop was definitely the youngest group there, and I was so very proud of her!

I’ve wanted to blog so many times, yet I just haven’t gotten to it.  No excuse… just busy with life, kids, the usual sicknesses of winter, and just plain laziness.  If I am to get caught up, it will seem too overwhelming, so I’ll just start right here, right now.

It’s March already!  How did that happen?!?  Here’s a couple random glimpses that our camera captured recently…

My sweet girl, all dressed in pink and brown, in my favorite hairstyle... braids. She is just so cute.

While Analise and I had a Daisy Scout meeting, Brian and Josiah went to his preschool art show. Here's my crazy sweet boy with his table of artwork.

At a Sunday afternoon bike race (which Brian has placed 3rd and 2nd in!), we found this little possum clinging to a tree that seemed too small for him. So cute!