Eighteen Months

Eva Kate turned 18 months old today.  It's hard to believe that it's been a year and a half since our surprise baby girl popped into our lives.

 It's fun to see her personality develop.  She can be pretty sassy sometimes.  She's not talking much yet, but she understands much of what we say to her.  She loves to eat applesauce, pumpkin, waffles, and cheese.  She is fearless, and while that characteristic makes me crazy right now, it is my hope that God has a plan to work though her in her fearlessness. These days her fearlessness is played out by climbing upon anything that is stationary, but it is my prayer that she will follow fearlessly after Our Redeemer as she grows.

 We gave her a little gift to open today.  Nothing extravagant, just some fun little things.

 A bottle of bubble bath.

 A bag of balloons. Balloons are a fun thing to have when we're stuck inside with bad weather, but I forgot about my latex allergy when I bought them. I blew one of them up for her, and I was immediately reminded that we can't have latex anything around here.  Sigh. Yes, I'm a pharmacist.  James is going to be responsible for blowing up the rest of these balloons.

 And a little ball with Tinkerbell on it.

 I made some brownies for her that we shared with our small group from church this evening.

Happy Half-Birthday, my girl!

Understanding Samuel-Speak

Back in May, James' parents took care of the kids for a little over a week while James and I were in Hawaii.  Before we left, we wrote down and interpreted some of the things that Samuel was saying at the time.  It was cute, so I thought I would share it here. He was 2 years and 3 months old at the time.

• Tan-too = thank you
• Elmo = usually means he wants to watch Sesame Street
• Me-me or Miss-Mouse = Mickey Mouse
• Duck = if you’re looking for a book to read & he says “duck” it means he wants to ready “The Icky Little Duckling”
• Cat = Cat in the Hat
• Hat = also the Cat in the Hat
• Bobble = bubble bath
• Baaah – he wants a nutri-grain bar to eat
• Eye-Yai – outside
• Ding-ding = he wants to watch “What does the Fox Say?” on the you tube app on your phone OR he wants to read the book by the same name.
• Day-she = the dogs. His words for the dogs are almost the same. Sometimes he calls Lily “Did-he”
• Eis = this
• Bah-we = Eva Kate’s bottle
• shock-ut = chocolate

He can say a lot more now - sometimes he can say more than we wish to hear. It is fun to watch his language develop. Today when he got up from his nap, he told me that he wanted to watch Yadi hit.  I told him, "You and the rest of St. Louis want to see that, buddy." (Yadi is one of our favorite players with the Cardinal's, but he is out with an injury as of last night.)  Then Samuel said to me, "I watch Matt Holiday hit then."  Haha. There was no game today.

Pedal the Cause - Ride Day photos

Photos from the ride day are finally available!  

 I rode downtown with my neighbors.

This was such a fun event, and I'm looking forward to riding in it again next year. Before the ride started, we took a team photo and I ate breakfast.

Breakfast was provided by Whole Foods and Kaldi's Coffee. I had yogurt made from coconut milk, granola, a banana, and almond butter that had been sweetened with honey. That was all quite good. Kaldi's hit it out of the park with their coffee the night before, but the stuff they served the day of the ride tasted like it had been sitting getting reheated and reheated until it was burnt. Yucky stuff. I've been to Kaldi's shop several times, and they are capable of way better than what they were serving on this day.

Finish line photo

My stats for the ride:

Finish time = 1:24:44, 94th overall out of 1,668 fifteen mile riders and 33rd out of 806 females.

Not bad. This wasn't a race, but I did want to finish at a reasonable time. My goals were to finish at least in the middle and to stay on the bike - no walking the bike up hills or stopping for frequent breaks.  I stopped once just over halfway through the route, and I stayed on the bike. I had my bike computer with me, measuring my speed and distance.  When I crossed the finish line it read 16.2 miles.  I don't know if the route wasn't quite 15 miles, or if I got off the route inadvertently for a bit. I had reset the computer right before the ride, and I tried to stay with other cyclists. Oh well. I felt like I could have ridden longer anyway.

It was a little before 11 AM when I finished, and James was there with the kids. I changed clothes, and we ate lunch. Sugarfire BBQ provided the food, and it was fabulous.

James had trouble finding a place to park when he arrived, and he ended up parking in front of a Hooters that was several blocks away from the finish line.  I decided to ride my bike back to the car and get it loaded up while he walked with kids.  I needed to use the restroom before we drove home, but I didn't want to use a Port-A-John again. Those are nasty, nasty places. So, I went in Hooters just to use the bathroom. I had never been in a Hooters before, but I knew that it would be way cleaner than a Port-A-John.

Samuel has been playing with my finisher's medal. He will pick it up and say "I go bike race."  Makes me smile. I hopes he love it as he grows up.  Last Saturday, there was a new section of highway opened up for pedestrians and cyclists. Just four miles there, four miles back. Easy peasy. We decided to take the kids with us in the bike trailer.  What I didn't account for was the 27 MPH headwinds. Oh my word. James had the kids hitched to his bike when we got started. He lasted about half a mile, then I took them. I didn't make it far with them either.  James decided to take the kids back to the car and go to the library while I finished my ride. That was the most awful, difficult 4 miles of riding followed by 4 miles of fast, fun, easy riding.

I got up to 25 MPH without exerting much effort. Even after being out in the cold wind in the trailer, Samuel asked to go back for more.