This summer.

I've been away. 

Not to any place in particular; just, you know, around. Busy with kids, afternoon parks, therapies, soccer and piano. Busy with work, little bit of traveling. Busy with Life. And maybe you missed reading new posts. Maybe you didn't. But, a lot happened this summer. A lot of cool, interesting, beautiful, special things. No big beach trips or European vacations for us. But lots of family time, old friend time, new friend time, explorations and developments. 

Sam, oh our Sam. He deserves a post of his own for all the mind-blowing things he's surprising with us with lately. I forget that he's almost THREE, but in my mind he's still clinging to my leg and nuzzling in my lap. But in just a few weeks he'll be off to preschool. Our big boy. Our hearts are so full of this little being. 

And Adam. What a mind in that kid. The other day he described a color Lego he was looking for as the color of the "inside of a banana". His little 5-and-a-half year old brain may not know this color as, say, beige or off-white, but he created this beautiful description to tell me the color he was needing. I'll post about him, too. He's our big Kindergartener now. (And the coolest things about it are the bus and recess.) 

Highlights of our summer as follows:

This girl. Oh my, this little girl. Niece Annabelle Lynn arrives and time is flying too fast. I've already missed bunches of her growing -- she's already rolling and giggling and smiling -- and I don't like it one bit!

This man. My husband is the best at finding little adventures for us to go and explore locally. It's one of the things I love most about him -- his excitement to just Go. Explore. Find. Create an adventure out of an ordinary Saturday when I may want to stay home and catch up on laundry. But he drags me out and I never regret spending the day, usually outside in the beautiful weather, with the 3 of the most important boys in my life.

This job. I'm grateful for my work and the work culture that puts employees first and allows me to balance home with career without too many demands. Occasionally I travel, and this summer brought me to Chicago. M took me there 15 years ago for a Reds-Cubs baseball game, and we returned 10 years later with our 11-month old after Christmas to see the city in lights. But I hadn't really looked at the city itself or introduced myself to the skyline or really felt the city life like this trip. A riverboat architectural tour by myself was really awe-inspiring. Chicago, you won me over. But next time someone else drives me there.

These people. People who make it a point to be a part of your life. People who check in, not just with what you are doing but how you are doing. I'm so grateful. They may never know how much I appreciate them all for making the time and effort and the distance to be with us.

This community. This summer our city really shined with the MLB All-Star weekend. We loved exploring the redesigned riverfront and taking part in some of the festivities. We also made a point to take in local events, fun attractions and new establishments in the surrounding community.

These boots. If you've been paying attention, you may have noticed that Adam hardly went anywhere this summer without this Crocs snow boots. These were definitely his footwear of choice, even in 90-degree weather. Go ahead and look back. Hiking, fishing, parks, and yes, even the water splash pad. As my sister said, "those dang boots!"

View from the Ohio

My office had a recent corporate outing on one of the Riverboats downtown. The founder of our company took some amazing photos of the skyline at night and I thought I'd share some scenes of our city. It was also a home game for the Cincinnati Reds and every Friday night home game has fireworks following. We disembarked at just the right time to see the show.

Here are some stunning photos of our home city:

Thanks for the fun night out!

Reds vs Rockies

We made our first trip of the season to Great American Ball Park for a Friday night baseball game, Reds vs the Rockies. It was Star Wars weekend ("May the Fourth" be with you), and the ball park was roaming with all the characters. (I have to admit, I was a little starstruck by R2D2.)

We saw R2D2, R5D2, C3PO, Luke, Chewbacca, stormtroopers, Anakin, and of course, Darth Vader.

Oh, and we saw a little Baseball, too...

With our own cast of characters...

Adam mostly just enjoys the food.  

While Sam enjoyed some snuggle time with Grandpa.

The Reds didn't bring home the win, but afterwards there were fireworks, all to Star Wars music.

Fun night!

Opening Day!

We're Cincinnati Reds fans, and Opening Day is a big deal around here. And today the weather is gooooorgeous! Picture perfect for the first pitch.

We may not be going to the first home game of the season, but we nonetheless excited for our annual outings at the ball park with family and friends, singing Take Me Out to the Ballgame with our peanuts and cracker jacks, being downtown on game days, and hopefully this year another post-game Friday night fireworks display.

Adam loves baseball and has been practicing his batting skills lately. His batting is improving so much that we've had to move our baseball "games" outdoors (and yippee! the weather is finally cooperating!).

In honor of Opening Day, here's an encore of his ode to the seventh inning stretch last summer:

Go Reds! Play ball!

Summer in the Cincy

Michael is really good about looking up local events and getting us out of the house for mini family outings. We've been known to pack up the car, load the kids, start driving and then look at each other and ask, Where are we going? We really enjoy checking off landmarks and events that this great city has to offer, like past visits to Findlay Market and Carew Tower, our annual Reds games and recent visit to the Basilica. As we are in the midst of a beautiful Fall here, I thought I'd look back at a few other summer events we shared Downtown this year.

Park along the Ohio Riverfront. Adam had to do the entire maze. 

Activities at movie in the park.

Burlington Flea Market

Special trip downtown to buy an official Cincinnati Reds ball cap.

It was a great summer, and although it all didn't happen in Cincinnati, it's still fun to remember the highlights...

It's easy to say goodbye to summer when Autumn is so gorgeous. Nothing beats Ohio in September/October (except maybe January in Florida)!

Three and a Half

And now for an update on our first born. It's ridiculous how much I love this kid.

Health.

We took him to his first dentist appointment. Pediatric experts say to start dental visits at 1 year old. One. That seemed a little difficult to imagine. At 3 1/2 years, I thought only just now would be the first possible age that he could sit still in a chair. Well, mostly sit still. He did pretty well for his first visit. We took him to a pediatric dentist office attached to his pediatrician's office -- toys in the waiting room, colorful murals on all the walls, and one large shared space with about six dental stations/chairs. (No individual offices.) During the wait between the tech and the dentist he was invited to get out of his chair and play on the various games mounted to the walls around the room (including iPads!) and after his visit chose a prize from a treasure chest.

School.

We had a parent-teacher conference at school and were told that he is cognitively advanced for his age. He has moved up to the 3 1/2 yr room early. Every day when I pick him up he asks, "Where are we going to?" He never seems satisfied with "home".

At school he learned about fire safety and what to do in an emergency. (For a boy who has always loved firetrucks, this is right up his alley.) Every day he points out the smoke detector to us, tells us if we're ever on fire we are to stop-drop-and-roll (and sometimes demonstrates), tells us to crawl if we see smoke, and in the event of a fire we go outside and stand by the fence. (We've amended this and he now tells us we go next door to Mr. John's (neighbor) house. We call 9-1-1 and tell the fireman to come. {Of course, with modern cell phones, I don't think he would know how to pick up the phone and dial!} We're prepared in the event of tornados, too -- at school he goes to the bathroom, at home to the basement. It's great to prepare him but it does throw me a little when he, out of the blue, will say, "I'm glad there's no smoke in our house, Mommy." That makes two of us, bud!

Numbers/Words.
Have I already mentioned his fascination with countdown clocks? He notices the time-remaining clock on basketball games and loves the microwave for that reason. He wants to push the numbers himself (we like to do everything "all by myself") and has been known to run from the other room when he hears the microwave just to watch the numbers count down to 0. He'll stand there until it does.

He still reads signs as we drive. I had to laugh the other day when he saw a "No Outlet" sign and then asked me where the "Yes Outlet" sign was.

Songs.

He doesn't sing quite as often as he used to but still will throw out a line or two, especially from Daniel Tiger's Neighborhood. Have you ever heard of it? For those of us that grew up with Mr. Roger, this PBS cartoon takes place in the Neighborhood of Make-Believe, with Daniel the tiger, Prince Tuesday, Lady Elaine, and the irritating cat who says meow, meow all the time. I enjoy this show more than any other kids programming. Each episode has a lesson, usually accompanied by a song. He'll start singing a verse when he encounters a similar situation, such as:

• When you have to go potty, stop and go right away.
• When you wait, you can play, sing or imagine anything.
• Making something is one way to say 'I love you'
• You can take a turn, and then I'll get it back
• Everyone is big enough to do something
• Stop, think and choose
• If you can't do it alone, work together!
• Clothes on, eat breakfast, brush teeth, put on shoes and off to school!
• Bath time, pjs, brush teeth, story and song and off to bed!

He sometimes uses that last one as a stall tactic at bedtime -- make sure we have all the bases covered!

Baseball
Speaking of bases, we've been to a few baseball games, both major league and minor league. He really enjoys the peanuts and popcorn and all the crowd participation cheers. His favorite part is the 7th inning stretch.

And if you want his piano version...

He loves to help me with "sprinkles and showers" (a line from his Brothers Forever book meaning watering the garden), though we've had to give some instruction on how and when to pick vegetables.

We've been working a lot on sight words and can now read his Sight Words books all by himself. (Did I mention he likes to do things all by himself now???)

He still loves his cars and he instead of lining them up in a "train", he now makes "traffic."

He is sweet with Sam, often giving him a toy or saying, "It's ok, Sam" when Sam fusses.

And as evidence of how proud of a mama I am, I even take pictures of his doodles.

This One Belongs to the Reds!

We kicked off our holiday weekend with our first Reds game of the season!

With cousins! And Grandpa!

Sam's first game!

Family...

Food...

And Fireworks!

(and a Reds win, too.)

Go Reds!

The last time we took Adam to a Reds game he was a wee one:

July 2010

So we figured he was overdue for a return visit to Great American Ballpark.

We ate some peanuts. Enjoyed some popcorn.

And watched a little baseball.

Stroller wheel made a great Lazy Susan.

Perfect night for a ballgame.

And the Reds Win!!

We topped off the evening with a fireworks display.

Well, some of us did...