she's a biker chick!

 Schaeffer Jo & dolly Betsy taking a ride

 ready to hit the road with her helmet

 inaugural ride on the 'road'

Griffin keeping SJ safe

free coasting down the hill

brake testing

I'm not sure when SJ began asking for a big-girl bike, but her big birthday morning surprise was many months in the making. We'd see kids riding their bikes--or families out on a bike ride, and she would remind us just how badly she too would like to have a bike like them--a bike that was not a tricycle. 

Griffin and I were not sure how to fit a bicycle to her mini-size stature without physically taking her to the bike shop, so one afternoon she and I just went to 'look'. It was so much fun watching her ride around the bike shop, select a helmet and fluff the streamers. She made plans about what she would carry in her basket, and how loudly she would ring her bell. 

Then we left without purchasing it. Crisis. So, on her birthday morning, when she received both her bike and her long-lost baby doll Betsy was in the basket--wow. That's a birthday.