Summer Fun!

I simply cannot believe we're past the halfway point in July. For those of us here in the upper Midwest, that means we're on the downside of summer. :(


Have I mentioned that we love Madison even more when the weather is warm--there's just so much to do outside and much of it is very family friendly. In the past few weeks we've enjoyed the farmer's market regularly, gardened often (and actually had our first "crop", snow peas, although the rabbits certainly got more than we did), and enjoyed several events around town.



On Wednesday night we went with our life group to Concerts on the Square, a mid-summer tradition here in Madison, involving the Madison Chamber Orchestra playing live music on the steps of the Capitol building. People either pack a picnic, or purchase food from local vendors set up on-site, spread out blankets on the capitol lawn and enjoy dinner and the music (and in the case of a group with eight kids 3 and under, a lot of child-chasing). This was our first time attending a full concert--the other couple of times we've planned on going it has rained or had too great of a threat of inclement weather, although we did happen on one by accident last summer. We had a blast and so did the kids, and they did surprisingly well for how late they were up past their bedtimes. Joshua enjoyed tearing around chasing a few of his friends and befriended a dog named Moxie, and Lydia played with her toys and her friend, Addie. :) Too cute!

Yesterday we headed out with friends in the morning for Madison's new splash park. It's hard to decide whether the best part is how much Joshua enjoyed it, or the fact that it is free so we can go often! The weather has been hot and muggy here all week, so he had a blast running through the sprinklers and splashing in puddles.

Speaking of Joshua, he's officially been in underwear for the past two weeks and this Sunday, assuming we experience no major relapses, we're declaring him officially potty-trained!!!! We've certainly had a couple of accidents along the way (most notably a nasty one at the park the other day, which I'll spare you the details of, but I'm sure you can imagine if you know anything about the lack of amenities in park bathrooms combined with the stickiness of a certain bodily discharge...ick!) but we've been dry most days and even most nights recently. I'm starting to not be constantly worried when we're out and about, but have definitely re-learned the value of keeping a full set of spare clothes on hand at all times. It's somewhat ironic, potty training has been one of the hardest things I've undertaken as a parent so far, and I've spent a lot of energy working on it over the past 18 months. For all that energy I don't really feel like it got me too far, but when he was ready to do it, it's really gone quite smoothly. As usual the first few times are the hardest, and that first accident in public is daunting, but after that you realize again that it's all just a stage... (I think that should be the mantra of parenting!)

Lydia's sitting on her own now and rolling and scootching wherever she wants to go. Her funniest move is a scootch which she does on her back that looks like the upside-down wiggle-worm crawl. She's decided to put real crawling on hold and focus on pulling-up and cruising instead--so watch out world! She's also eating all sorts of solids now, and it's super fun to watch Joshua get excited with each new thing she tries. :)



I'll try to keep this updated more often, but it seems that life happens way too fast to blog about these days! Have a great weekend.