The Happenings

We are fortunate to have a State Park and other hiking areas so close to where we live. We have been here for so long and we have not explored any of them. We finally decided to change that last weekend. We live within walking distance to the Patapsco State Park . Every day we see cars parked along side the rode. Visitors to the park of course. Many ride their bikes and some are just hiking (with or without their dog). Last Sunday, we walked up and took one of the trails. We didn't research any of the trails we just picked one. It just so happened that on that day there was a bicycle race. As we were taking our not so relaxing walk, we had to jump out of the way when we heard the riders coming our way. They were coming from both directions. We also noticed that the trail was getting a little harder as we continued on. Tee did a great job he was walking very slow. I had him on my back for some of the time but he was insistent on walking. We were gone about 1 1/2 hours. Not too bad for Tee's first hike.

The boys and my niece.
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I never included a picture of our first real day in big boy pants. Tee took his first #2 in the potty and we celebrated. The toy was his prize.

He is doing well but still having a hard time telling me he has to go potty before he wets a little in his pants. If I get him on the potty at regular intervals then there is no problem. He loves to announce to everyone that he has "pooped on the potty". Who would have every thought that would be music to my ears.

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Tee loves to do whatever his brothers are doing. He adores them so much. One day I caught them on the steps and they were all reading. Well, let's pretend EE is reading.....I actually think that he may be playing DS.

Tee is starting with the Junie B. Jones series. A great choice. I do like those books but the incorrect English and grammar are a bit much at times.

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Speaking of our gaming systems, my neighbor gave me a great idea. I was having a hard time trying to figure out how much time the boys could play their games (WII and Nintendo DS). It is not easy for me to monitor the time for each of the boys. We purchased timers and they are allotted 90 minutes a day. This has worked out so well. There is no arguing because once the minutes are gone they are done.

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My garden has really taken off, well at least the squash and cucumbers. We have eaten squash for the last 3 weekends. The first couple of times I baked the squash with olive oil. It was very good. Last night I decided to try something a little different. I made this squash and onion casserole. It was very good but I think next time I will leave the mustard off.

Here are the first squash I picked.

I have about 8 cucumbers growing in the garden right now. I guess we will be having lots of cucumbers very soon. The green beans are not doing well because they are shadowed by the squash plant. The corn is not sturdy enough and the carrots are still very small. We are working on a plan for next years garden.

Next up we will plant our pumpkin seeds. The boys enjoyed watching our pumpkins grow when we did it a few years ago in NC.

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We don't have much planned for next week as of yet. All of the boys will be getting swimming lessons for the next 2 weeks (3 days a week) at our house. I found this instructor through my neighbor who used her at the gym we belong to.

The boys also have a birthday party to attend this week. They love going to laser tag parties. Other than that I believe our week will be filled with hanging by the pool.