Sizzling Summer

It's hard to believe summer is flying by! Here are a few highlights so far.

The kids have been spending plenty of time in the water.  The neighborhood pool is a short walk from our house, and we've been taking advantage of it to help the kids overcome their fear of water and learn to swim.

Sarah is the most comfortable in the water of the kids.  Many of her school friends are on the swim team, so instead of giving her regular swim lessons this summer, we thought it would be fun to have her be on the swim team with her friends instead.  She's not a strong swimmer yet, but she works hard, is learning a ton, and enjoys being with her friends.

Whitney has always been afraid of the water, especially with getting her face wet.  We got her a mask that covers both her eyes and nose and she has suddenly transformed into a fish.  It's as though the mask has gills, too.  She loves being in the water now and is finally making great progress in swim lessons.

Spencer is still completely terrified of the water, but he's finally starting to get comfortable wearing a life jacket and will cruise around the pool in it.  We're hoping that the more we get him in the water, the more comfortable he will be in it.

Michael and Brooklyn are still little, of course, and need a lot of attention in the water.  But they enjoy splashing around.  They also enjoy playing with the water table in the backyard.

In addition to the pool, the kids have enjoyed playing in the sprinklers and rigging up home made water slides to keep cool this summer.

Nothing says "summer vacation" like a trip to the North Pole, right?  I took a day off of work in June and drove down to Colorado Springs the visit the North Pole, which is a Santa themed amusement park.  The rides are geared towards little kids, so we're getting close to the point where our kids will be too old for the park.  In fact, Sarah is still just the right height to ride any of the rides, but 6-year old Whitney is as tall as a 10-year old, so was too tall for some of the rides that Sarah was able to go on.

We spent a Family Home Evening in June creating a gold medal for each of the kids.  Basically everybody took turns turns telling one of the children something we love about them and writing it on their gold medal.  We then pinned the medal on them, let them choose a candy bar prize, and gave them a round of applause.  Each child beamed when it was their turn to hear what we love about them.  Spencer, who as the middle child is easily the most neglected in our family, had an especially pleased look on his face as he received some special attention that night.

Grandma and Grandpa Bellamy took a few days to come visit us and help us out with some projects.  One of the bigger projects is refinishing a dining table we bought from craiglist a month or so ago.  Our family is getting big enough that we need a bigger table and we found one for a good price, but needed a "little" work.  The little work turned into a whole bunch of work, but it's finally done!

Brooklyn is starting to stand on her own for a few seconds at a time.  We let her try out one of Mikey's old walkers to see how she'd do with it.  She cruised around the house like a little pro!

We also decided to try Michael out in a toddler bed.  In some ways it has been nice keeping him in a crib for so long since he doesn't have the ability to climb out.  But after three years in a crib it was time we tried him in a bed, so we gave him Spencer's toddler bed and upgraded Spencer to a twin bed.  It's been a huge success so far, although we'll keep his crib in his room for a few weeks as a back up.

Most of the family came down with a nasty summer cold for the last few weeks of June.  It's a bit unusual for this time of year and it's still lingering for some of us, but fortunately it's mostly behind us.