Super Busy Weekend

This was possibly the busiest weekend I have ever had. And after attending going to college in New Orleans and attending 4 MardiGras that is saying a lot. But Ally and I went to 5 parties, gymnastics class and swimming lessons and Becky ran a 5k. Yes we did all of this from Friday after school until tonight, Sunday. Here are the photos and information. It was lots of fun, but I am pretty tired.

Friday after school, Becky had to work at the museum, so Ally and I attended the Grand Opening celebration of a new children's store in Brookline (The Tiny Hanger) some friends of ours own the store and we were quite excited to check it out, and Ally had fun playing with Olive at the party.

Saturday morning I took Ally to gymnastics. For the very first time she did a flip on the bar ALL BY HERSELF - it was awesome. And she got to swing from the high bar of the uneven bars. But that is not all, she also did a forward roll on the balance beam. It was such a great class.

After gymnastics we stopped at one of my work projects - its a 250 year old church that we just finished an exterior renovation and I needed to hang up pictures on a bulletin board before the 250th celebration gala that night.

After that stop Ally and I attended a Sukkah party at some neighborhood friends' house. Ally had fun doing crafts to decorate the Sukkah with, tissue paper flowers, a mural, a painting etc.

Then it was home for a 2 hour nap for Ally before we attended our 3rd party of the weekend.

Ally all dressed up for the birthday party. Becky came with us to this party, it was a princess theme and was hosted at a local children's theater.

In the car Ally decorated this card for her friend Mia. I was pretty impressed with the castle. Ally liked the apples she drew in the tree.

The party was fun, and after that we went grocery shopping for the week and back home for some play time before bed.

Next up was Sunday.

Here is the card Ally drew for Stella. Yes this picture is Ally's signature drawing. I thought it was amusing she made a picture of herself in the card.

Becky all ready for her 5k. She was running with some members of our neighborhood mom's group and they had T-Shirts made that say "C-port moms run..." on the front

"like we're chasing our kids into traffic" on the back.

Ally and I loaded up the stroller with birthday gifts, a pbj sandwich, and water bottle ready to attend our first party of the day (weekend party #4)

It was Stella's and her is Ally with Stella and Semi on the swings.

Sack races with Stella.

they were adorable!

Then it was 3-legged races. Ally is with a friend of Stella's and Semi and Stella ran together the first one.

Then they switched partners. Ally and Semi were impressive - they had it down right away.

These 3 girls are such good friends. Even though they go to 3 different schools now, they played and had fun and enjoyed being together. It was great to see. (from left to right, Semi, Stella and Ally)

When the party was over Ally climbed into her stroller and we headed off to our final party of the weekend - Luca's birthday! (his card has train tracks on it)

There were tons of friends from pre-school at the party, but Ally was kind of overwhelmed by the crowd and had more fun trying to push and pull this tree than anything else.

The highlight of this party was that there was a grilled cheese truck serving lunch for everyone. So you went to the truck and ordered your lunch. It was pretty cool. Ally of course just ate potato chips (half her pbj on the way there and half on the way home!)

She was so cute

Becky texted me while I was at the party that she finished the 5k and was home. Ally and I are so proud of her for running and finishing the race. Go mama!

On our way home from the parties we stopped at Ally's school and she played on the playground:

climbing the spider structure

rolling around on the field

We hurried home just in time to pack our bag for swimming lessons and hit the road again with the stroller on our way to the pool. I seriously don't know what I would do without the stroller on days like this. It is truly the most efficient means of travel around town.

Ally had a fantastic time at the pool and a bit of a breakthrough. We go early and swim together first, then she has a 30 minute lesson with Stella and their instructor. Ally has been making pretty good strides, but has been really hesitant to let go or swim at all without aid from a flotation device or an adult. But today she started to push off the wall towards me without help and had to actually swim a little on her own! Then during lessons she put her face in the water a lot and floated all by herself for a bit. I was so proud of her. She swallowed a ton of water and was coughing up a storm a few times, but she was ok, and it was great to see how much she has improved and how brave she could be.

My favorite picture of the weekend.

I love Ally so much. We had fun together celebrating with friends all weekend. I am so proud of how she handled herself, no meltdowns, and big steps in gymnastics and swimming.

At a couple parties she was pretty clingy - but there were a lot of people - and eventually she would play and join in.

Oh and on Friday night I laid down the law about whining - there was to be absolutely no whining or pouting the weekend. No groans or moans. Or it would be an immediate time out - no 3 strikes. We talked about what that meant and what would happen.

It worked. Once or twice I got a look, or started to hear the start of her "Ahhwww" whine and all I had to say was "remember what we talked about...timeout" and it immediately stopped.

We are going to continue the zero tolerance for now. It really did make our time together much more enjoyable.