We Went to a Bike Race!

Each year H enters the Chequamegon Fat Tire Festival bike race. This year he got into the 40-mile race! Yahoo! So we packed up the car and went to The Hayward/Cable Area (which is apparently the Golf Capital of Wisconsin). We brought our friends and had a grand old time.

On the way up, unfortunately everyone had to go to the bathroom approximately 100,000 times. Here we are on the second stop (it's a 2.5 hour trip) at a Holiday in like Turtle Lake, WI. The Roses found hats to try on and to beg me to purchase. I didn't, but I took a couple of cute shots:

Rose #3 thought her hat was very spiffy. I thought it looked like a jazz singer's fedora:

We stayed at a cabin that we found on Vacation Rental By Owner. It was surprisingly extravagant! It was on the shores of Lac Courte Oreilles (which I am trying to figure out: Lake Royal Ears? Lake Court of the Ears? I am reasonably sure that "oreilles" means "ears"). The back deck looked out on the lake. Here are Rose #2 and #3 enjoying the first morning when it was really quite chilly:

I took a quick shot of the Roses sitting on the fireplace. How cute are they?

On Saturday morning I dropped H off at the starting line at about 8:15. We didn't see him again until about 2!! The race started with 1800 riders at 10:00 a.m. and we were standing at the finish line when he rode across. The girls were happy to see him:

They were also happy to lay on top of this random small house in the parking lot. Rose #2 said that she wanted me to take a picture of her as Snoopy:

And Rose #1 showed her smiley face and her extremely strong abs:

After we got back, H "bonked" which is a biking term for "totally crashed and burned, was completely exhausted and had to go to bed at 7:00." He was right as rain in the morning, made pancakes for all, and we were on the road by 11:00 to come back home.

It was a great weekend! We're looking forward to Cheq '12! You can read about the race here.

The First Day of School

No cute "getting on the bus" photos. Rose #3 goes right to Discovery Club, which is before and after school care.

Roses #2 and #1 missed the bus. On the first day. I am trying not to see this as a harbinger of an awful school year to come. The bus was scheduled for 8:04. We walked up to the bus stop at 7:57 only to find it had left 5 minutes before.

ARRRRGH. They did look cute walking in to school from the dropoff line though...

The Kids of Summer 2011

These are the kids of Summer 2011:

They went to daycamp together. They had cheerleading camp together (well, some of them did). They had swimming lessons together. They played a LOT of legos in the rec room (that's the basement, for those of you keeping score at home). They got a few sunburns, despite our nanny's best efforts. They ate a LOT of food - we spent a TON of money on groceries. They went to the zoo and to the park and on picnics - lots of picnics - and they had a lot of fun. It's hard to believe that summer is over, but it almost is. Tomorrow we go to the Minnesota State Fair!

And Baby Duncan Got A Quilt

After my mom died and I made sure I got her leftover fabric and other sewing supplies, I became the person in charge of making sure that each new baby in our family gets a quilt.

May I say that it is a very, very, very good thing that my cousin's wife in California is a quilter? Although I coordinate the distribution of fabric and collect up everyone's completed squares, she works the real magic of putting all the squares together.

Last Monday night was the night that we officially welcomed Duncan into the family, and his quilt was ready for him! The 4 squares in the corner were sewn by Guppy before she died. The other squares were contributed by me, Heidi, Tonya, Brenna, Charity, Charity (yes, TWO Charities!), Missy, Jean, Karen, Ginny, Abby, Polly, and Cynthia.

And most of all, Jill put the squares together and sewed everything and made it look wonderful! Thank you all for working on the quilt.

We Went Out For Dinner

Last weekend we went out for dinner, because the weekend before that, Rose #2 asked if we could. I make menus by the week (this is a necessity, really, with two full-time working parents) and so we had to slot in the restaurant outing for last weekend. We also held the outing out as a reward for good behavior.

I like going out for dinner. I don't have to cook. It is an infrequent event for our family, so I get to do things like let the girls have a milkshake!! Here's Rose #2 intently sipping her chocolate milkshake. She had it for dessert. ONLY AFTER she finished her chicken tenders and french fries. I do have some standards.

Rose #3 got a strawberry milkshake. Ooooh, she loved it. Almost as much as she loved 1) going to the bathroom there (3 times), 2) eating french fries off my plate (which I encouraged as I am still pathetically counting calories, and so the fewer french fries left for me, the better. Why didn't I ask them to substitute fresh fruit? Next time), and 3) coloring her kid menu.
Rose #1 was there but not in a photogenic mood. She will be happier at the state fair, which is this coming weekend. I haven't told her yet, but I am planning to get her one of those MPR t-shirts that says "It's 7:01 And the News Is Next." I love it that we're raising an MPR geek.

I Got Me A New Nephew!

Welcome to our family, Duncan James Peterson! Born 8/16/2011 at 1:52 a.m. 8 lbs, 6 oz, and 21 1/2 inches. We love you so much!

Here he is sleeping in his Aunt Tonya's arms:

And here he is with his already-favorite auntie:
Aunt Tonya does love a baby:
And his beautiful mom, who was in labor for 3 hours and got a wonderful baby out of the deal!
Welcome to the world Duncan. We're so glad you're here!

And One More Rose Got Some Ears Pierced

Rose #1 has a very expressive face. You can see how she went from nervous:

To unhappy:
To scared-ish:
To exceptionally pleased with herself (and very, very cute to boot):
Even though Rose #1 has technically been eligible for ear piercing for 2 years now, she told me this afternoon that she didn't want to go all alone, so she waited for Rose #2 to be ready. I thought that was so sweet. I always hope that my girls will be friends in addition to being sisters. I still hope that. I hope that they will remember back to days like this and feel really good about them.

I loved this day. I loved going as a family for a big adventure (OK, relatively big, compared to, say, climbing Mt. Everest) and feeling so happy that it turned out well. My memories of having my ears pierced are weird - my mom brought us to a doctor's office only after I demanded that since I was in second grade, I was old enough to handle the responsibility of earrings. I hope we made a different memory for our girls today.