Swimming at Aunt Mindy’s!

Last weekend Aunt Mindy and Uncle Steve invited us over for swimming and dinner.  We had a blast!

I loaded the car full of baby gadgets, including the go-pods.  This is Michael.

This is Joanna, the fish.

Natalie looooved this!

Thomas was grouchy and did not want to chill in his go-pod.  I wasn’t intending for the boys and me to swim, but it was sooooo hot, and the water looked sooooo inviting.  So we got suited up!

I would have bet money the babies weren’t going to like the pool.

I would have lost.

They loved it!

Thomas was sturdy enough for the baby float, and Michael enjoyed laying on my chest as I laid on the floaty.  It was sooooooo nice.  Steve had just installed a shade over most of the pool, and it was heavenly.

You can see James in his favorite get-up for the afternoon.  He loved swimming “all by himself.”

After we got our fill of swimming, we got dried off and changed, and Uncle Steve grilled burgers and dogs.  Yum!!

We sat outside and enjoyed dinner and company.  It was lovely!  The kiddos enjoyed playing around the pool, being watched like hawks of course.  I’m glad I didn’t have to fish any of them out.

Adorable, yes?

The babies did really well, even though we stayed past their bedtime.  And then they had a great night of sleep – wahoo for swimming!!

Swim Lessons–I survived!

We made it to 7 of the 8 lessons, and I’m proud of that.  :)  They were scheduled for M-Th, M-Th, but because the 2nd Thursday was the 4th, they asked everyone if it would work okay to do M-F, M-W.  I said yes (why rock the boat?), but simply could not summon the energy for the 5th day in a row.  So we missed the Friday class.

The last day I asked David if I could borrow his zoomy lens to take some pictures of the girls in action.  Mom also offered to watch James, so I was able to concentrate!

My swimmers!

Miss Natalie isn’t quite brave enough yet to just leap into the water on her own.

I’m pretty sure Joanna can actually propel herself in the water, basically unassisted.  She has to completely stop to breath, but it’s progress!  Below, the black arrow is pointing to Joanna’s head.

I love Natalie’s pose here.  She’s doing her very best to swim without getting water on her face.  :)

In hindsight, it would have been more fun to take the camera on a different day.  This day was “safety day” and they did very little swimming.  They had everyone lined up on the side and were telling them things and demonstrating things.

But I still got some sweet pictures of my wet girls.

We got out of there quite a bit faster without our two year old accompanying us.  :)  And he had lots of fun at Gran’s house!  We’re going to have to find a lovely shady, “cool” day to invite ourselves over to Aunt Mindy’s house and try out our new skills in her pool!

VBS and Swim Lessons… so far.

This week is Vacation Bible School at the church.  Joanna is old enough to be dropped off without having a parent on-site volunteering.  The littles aren’t as lucky, so they’re stuck at home with me.  I’m just not up for volunteering this year.  :(  I miss it though.  I thought about seeing if there was a super-easy job I could do, but then I thought about just getting everyone up and out the door, being gone from home (draining for an introvert like myself) for a few hours, then coming home hungry and having to fix lunch five days in a row would be much more than I should do.  So we’re not.  :)

I am sooooooooooooo super thankful that Lisa is taking and bringing home Joanna every day!  It is HARD just getting everyone out of the car, walking inside, and then getting them back in the car!

Monday was orange day, and Joanna came up with this shirt that has some orange hearts on it.  We’re not really orange people, so it’s not something we buy much.  :)  I put the bow in her hair to help with the over all orange effect.

The girls also have swim lessons every afternoon this week at the YMCA.  That’s another good reason I shouldn’t tire myself out in the mornings!  They are at 4:15, which is prime “fall asleep in the car” time for Mr. James.  Yesterday I pulled him out of the car, and he stayed crashed on me.  Then we walked inside and into one of the family change rooms.  I laid him down on the bench in there because I really can’t go 20 minutes without visiting the facilities.

He stayed asleep, even after I picked him back up and put him on my shoulder.  We walked back outside, signed in, waited for lessons to start, then went in to the pool area, and the girls were about halfway through with lessons before he woke up!  It messes with his nighttime sleep and overall grumpiness when I let him nap, but it was much easier to keep a sleeping James entertained than an awake one who would have wanted to hop in with the girls.

Joanna:

Natalie:

I deeply deeply deeply love the family change rooms at the Y.  We can all go in, lock the door, shower, dry off, go to the bathroom, and get dressed.  It is AMAZING.

My clean babies:

I didn’t bring our showering gear yesterday, so we just rinsed off and then brushed hair at home, but today we full-on showered everyone.  I figure it’s late enough in the day that we might as well! 

Today James and I wore our suits and got in the water while the girls were having their lessons.  SO MUCH BETTER!  It felt amazing in the water, and James had a blast!  And with my swimsuit on, I could shower everyone off in the change room while sitting on the bench in there.  Hallelujah!  And while I’m doing that, Matt is at home fixing dinner.  So even though I’m pretty sure I could go to sleep right now and sleep until some time on Thursday, it’s doable.  :)

Swimming at Aunt Mindy’s!

Last Sunday Mindy and Steve invited us over for swimming and dinner. (Okay, so really what happened is that Joanna called them and invited herself over.) :)

Anyway, we headed over after naptime for some pool fun!

Joanna the fish got some good practice.

I deeply deeply love that for once the adults outnumbered the kids. Lovely!

James is still not crazy about the water. (Oh, and this coming up is the only picture of me from the day. Can someone talk to my husband about this?) :)

Mindy and Natalie feeding Weensie a little pool water:

Natalie wanted to lay out in the chairs with Uncle Steve.

Isn’t she the cutest little thing?!

Almost a smile from James!

Mindy did some carting around of the girls. They LOVED it!

James liked sitting on the raft. He could be mostly out of the water but still splash some – yay!

Happy boy!

And just for grins, here’s Joanna on the same raft in the same pool at almost 8 months old:

I don’t have goggles for Natalie, but Mindy dug up an old pair around her house. Hilarious!

Putting her face in:

This whole summer, I could not find this floatie thing. Both girls used it, and I can remember putting it away last year or the year before, but I could not find it! Just before we left for Mindy’s, I checked one more time in a closet I’d already looked in four hundred times. Lo and behold, it had magically appeared!

James tolerated it for a little while.

I LOVE this picture of Matt and James. LOVE.

After swimming we all got dried off, warmed up, and snuggled in for a movie!

Natalie borrowed some of Mindy’s socks because her feet were cold. :)

We had chicken nachos for dinner. YUMMMM! This is Matt’s plate; you know mine didn’t have so many vegetables on it. :)

Thanks Mindy and Steve for letting us come over. We had so much fun, and the kids slept GREAT that night!

Swimming and other Tuesday stuff

Here is Emma the fish.  She has suddenly become quite the swimmer!

So somewhere between last Friday and yesterday, Natalie lost all fear of the swimming pool.  Before, she was stuck like glue to me, but yesterday she was all over the place!  It was too much for me with James, Joanna, and Natalie.  That will be the last time I think.  Three is too many for me to safely watch.

That being said, Natalie couldn’t sink with her jacket on, and I didn’t let go of James.

Miss Jen worked a little with Natalie on blowing bubbles and kicking.

Look at that cutie patootie.  Can she rock blue goggles and a swim vest or what?!

And she put her “eyes” in the water.  What fun!

We all came back to the Pence palace for lunch and a little play after the lesson.

At one point Lisa and all the girls were piled on Joanna’s bed reading.  Love it!  For the record, they were reading The Little Engine That Could.

After lunch wonderful Mamma came over to watch the girls so that I could take James to the doctor.  He was having some trouble with his diaper area, specifically the boy parts, if you know what I mean.  He’s all on the mend now after some meds poor kid.  Thank you Mamma – the girls LOVED reading and snuggling with you!