Tiny Dancer

We may have a dancer on our hands. As you'll see -- she's a solo-artist.

Park

We're lucky to be within walking distance of a small park, so it's great to be able to take Linden there to swing, climb, and play.

She LOVES to swing, but also enjoys the slide. Recently, she's also taken a liking to those seats mounted on a spring in the ground where you can bounce back and forth. You'll see.

Swim Lessons

We signed Linden up for her first official organized activity: swim lessons. We go twice a week and so far she's loving it. As you can tell.

She's learning how to follow instruction -- her preference is to do whatever she wants. In this photo, all the kids are working on kicking and she's perfecting her jump off the edge.

We also recently made our first trip to the neighborhood pool. That's right, one of our neighbors has somehow managed to squeeze an in-ground pool into their backyard.

In a neighborhood with such tiny backyards, I was impressed by the set-up. And Linden was excited to jump in with the other kids.

The outfit she insisted to wear to swim lessons. #stylin'

Fourth of July weekend, 2015

We had a great Fourth of July long weekend. In addition to seeing family, we also had time to relax and enjoy Linden and try some new things. The first thing we tried was painting her toenails red, white a blue, which proved a bit more difficult than we'd imagined but she still really dug it.

On July 3rd, we went to the Miller Park Zoo where we got to visit with some animals and run around a bit.

Before we left, we took Linden on her first merry-go-round ride. She rode an elephant and held on tight. I was ready for the ride to soon after it started. I forgot how easily I get dizzy.

On July 4th we went up to Mundelein, IL to my Uncle Van's, as is our tradition. Here's a brief video montage from our Fourth of July visit to my Uncle Van's where Linden had a chance to swim and play with my cousin Jay's kids, Beatrix and Wes.

The following day Laine and I rode our bikes, towing Linden behind in a bike trailer, back to Miller Park to check out the splash pad and playground. Not sure what a splash pad is? This video will provide a better explanation than I'm able to. 

Hope you all had a nice weekend as well! 

Persistence

Linden continues to amaze me with her persistence. She'll often be working on something while she's playing that I think will never work. This video is a case in point. I badly want to intervene to bend the doll's legs so that it will sit the way she wants but I don't because she's not upset.

When she finally gets it just the way she wants it, she simply moves on....

I often wish I had that much persistence.