15/52 (A Weekly Photo Series)

This week in one word: the PARK!

(Other alternatives: Sunshine! Spring! Fresh air! Many, many firsts!)

The weather this week was beautiful, and the kids and I took full advantage. First, I busted out the pair of roller skates my parents gave Tory for Christmas. They outfitted her with Barbie adjustable skates (think: old-school 1980's Fisher Price skates; I didn't even know they made those anymore!), a helmet, kneepads, elbow pads and protective gloves which were both functional and absolutely adorable. Tory didn't want to take the pads off and even wore them to swimming class. (Not in the pool, of course.)

We took Tory's new skates out for a spin Monday afternoon on our way to the neighborhood park. The skates fit over her tennis shoes and have adjustable training wheels to either keep the wheels locked (stage 1), locked in a forward motion (stage 2) or roll backwards and forwards like regular roller skates (stage 3). I began Tory in the stage 1/locked position and she did awesome! First time on roller skates was a success.

 
It's always fun to see how much the kids have grown / advanced in skill compared to the last season. We've been visiting our neighborhood park since Tory was a baby, and she's gone from crawling around the baby slides to mastering the whole park! On this day in particular, Tory figured out how to navigate across the moving pedestals. She was so proud of herself, and I was too!

When you can't walk on your feet, wood chips collect on your pants wherever you go. #toddlerproblems Aden is going to wear through his pants fast this summer with all this knee-walking business.

Tory, Aden and I visited the new Plymouth Creek Park several afternoons this week. We discovered this park mid-summer last year, and Tory really liked it for its big sandbox. The park was sadly destroyed by vandals last fall, but it's since been completely re-built and now has so many fun and different playground structures for kids of all ages. I'm obsessed with the green Astro-Turf around the toddler equipment because it's soft and easy for Aden to get around. Tory loves the merry-go-round, the swings and still enjoys digging in the sand.

Spring, we love you!

*I didn't lug the big ol' Canon 7D to the park with us this week -- I've already got my hands full watching these two goof-balls! So, these photographs were taken with our Sony Cyber-shot DSC-RX100 point-and-shoot camera.