Full, Fun Weekend

We had such a full weekend, running from fun thing to fun thing. 

To start at the very beginning, I always try to finish up work early on Friday afternoons so I have some time for myself before Matt brings the kids home. Usually, I spend that time scrapbooking. (It's so tempting since my craft table is literally three feet from my work-desk—even more tempting than the neighborhood pool I overlook from my window!—but I can usually resist until Friday afternoons.)

I've realized lately, after a couple years of relying more and more on what they call "hybrid scrapbooking," i.e. the Project Life-type pages with the divided page protectors, that I miss doing full 12 x 12 layouts. It's great being able to get a lot of photos in easily and still do some embellishments with the divided pages, but while my 2010 and 2011 scrapbooks were a good mix of pages, 2012 only had a few artistic full-page layouts, and 2013 literally has zero. I've missed the greater creative outlet of designing a page from scratch. 

So, Friday afternoon I did a nice 12 x 12 layout with pics from the girls' swim lessons. It felt good :0)

And Saturday morning, we were back to said swim lessons! Week three out of four. Kate swam the whole length of the pool (with a back-floatation thing designed to keep them horizontal, rather than upright, like a vest). I love how she loves it! And Claire had fun too.

After grocery shopping on the way home (one of my favorite Saturday rituals—grocery shopping with the girls), we headed across the street to a birthday party for our new neighbor, turning two! I was so excited a couple months ago to see our newest neighbor had a child close to one of my girls' ages. (Another new neighbor on our street does too, but we haven't gotten to know them as well. It was great meeting a couple other neighborhood families with kids about this age at the party—they're better social connectors than we are, apparently! No surprise there—it stinks to be introverts, sometimes!)

Anyway, the party was adorable—turquoise, purple, lime green, and pink, with a flamingo motif—super cute, and I loved the puff balls hanging from the big tree in the backyard. Claire loved the veggie dip, and Kate helped the birthday girl open our gift.

 

And check out this cake! It was from Puffy Muffin, same place that did the bird's nest baby shower cake for my sister-in-law's shower a couple years ago. They do great work, and it was delicious, too.

 

Immediately after the party, (notice no one has had a nap in here—Kate never takes one anymore, and Claire refused to lay down, after only a brief catnap in the car on the way back from the grocery!) We drove down to the stables where my cousin was in from out of town to work out her horse before a show in Kentucky next week. We rarely see my aunt and cousin, and it was especially nice to see her "in her element." I've been hearing about and seeing pictures from her riding competitions for years, so it was fun to see them and meet her horse.

The kids were a little timid (and tired) but it was a neat experience for them. (By the way, Mom, here's my new haircut. I like it!)

 

Sunday was a great day at church, since it was the first day with screens in our traditional worship service! We've joined the 21st century--yippee! There was a great energy in the room, a friend and I sang "Hallelujah," by Leonard Cohen, and Matt preached a good message about the Gerasene Demoniac. 

After church, that friend and her daughter, less than a year older than Kate, joined us at the zoo. The carousel was a big hit, as always, and we tried out the Lorikeet Landing experience for the first time—an open aviary where you can feed and get up close with all these beautiful, colorful birds.

 

 Matt had three on his arm at one point, and got a few bites as they (a) fought each other for the nectar and (b) tried to see if his shirt was edible.

 

Kate was a little more timid after hearing Daddy say they were biting him.

And Claire mostly ignored the birds and hung out by the little waterfall in there, pretending she was in Hawaii, it looks like.

 

It's good to be zoo members because it doesn't matter if you only have time for a few animals, as we all had to head straight back to church for the evening casual service, The Road. (Since I had my camera in the diaper bag, anyway, from the zoo, I distracted Matt by snapping one photo during his sermon—at the moment the Brick Testament image of the naked demoniac was on the screen, of course :0)

Extra incentive to join us at The Road, if you've never tried it: we always have cookies afterwards, and sometimes (like last night!) awesome, super-sugary cupcakes. Claire screamed whenever I tried to take a bite of hers.

 

 So that was our fun weekend. My feet hurt by last night. Hope you had a nice weekend too!

Swim Lessons

Ever since we moved into our house two years ago, with the neighborhood pool just beyond our backyard, we've intended to get Kate some swimming lessons, but it just never happened. I do get nervous when my kids are in and around the water, especially because they are so brave.

From her first experiences in pools, Kate generally shunned her baby float, preferring just to lunge forward into the water unencumbered. She's had floats and vests she's liked more in recent years, gradually getting more independent, but doesn't know how to hold her breath or anything. And now that Claire is joining her sister in throwing caution to the wind, my anxiety when we're at the pool (especially if it's just one parent with both girls) has increased.

So, we finally bit the bullet and rejoined the Y (Matt has been a member for a while, but I haven't since before Kate was born) and found that there are baby classes as well as preschool and older kid classes! We signed up for a four-week session and have classes for both girls each Saturday morning!

Claire's is first and is a parent/child class, so I'm in the water with her and all the other parents and babies/toddlers (ages 6-36 months), moving her around as we sing songs and rhymes. Claire seems to enjoy it, especially the "tick-tock" of bobbing back and forth to get them used to having their ears wet, and learning how to climb out of a pool on their own ("elbow-elbow-tummy-knee"), then jumping back in ONLY when Mommy counts 1-2-3-JUMP! (Important for kids to learn not to jump in when their grown-up is not ready!)

 

 

Kate has been SO excited about her swim lessons, she was doing her own "swim lessons" in the baby pool earlier this summer, practicing going underwater with her goggles on and all. We worried she would get nervous when she was actually there with the other kids, teachers, noise, and all that, but she LOVED it, right from the start.

 

After the first lesson and for the whole week following, we heard this litany:
"I've got church day, then one school day, two school days, three school days, four school days, five school days, THEN MY NEXT SWIMMING LESSON!"

"Or, you could just say, 'Next Saturday,'" I told her.
"Is that the same thing?"

 

Kate's class is ages 3-5, with three teachers, and they split them up by age, so with only one other four-year-old, Kate basically has a semi-private lesson. The teacher just raved about how well Kate was doing, saying it was obvious she is in the water regularly and that she does either gymnastics or ballet (good sense of her own body). She couldn't wait to practice kicking and blowing bubbles at the neighborhood pool during the week.

 

We had the second lesson this past Saturday, and Granna got to come to watch (and take these pictures for me!) I worked out during most of Kate's lesson, but came back in just in time to see her dive down to the bottom (with the teacher's help) and pick up a ring off the bottom of the pool!

Kate can't wait until Saturday rolls around again—she'll be so sad when swim lessons are over!

Back from the Beach

I started this post at the beach, but didn't get around to finishing it since we were too busy enjoying ourselves! And we got back on Friday night, but I've spent the weekend in denial over vacation actually being over. Now trying to tell you all about our vacation in one post, I may breeze through it, but I'll try to hit the high points.

We arrived in Orange Beach, Alabama on Saturday evening and got settled into our condo. Since it's the nice down time between the spring break and summer peaks, we got a good deal on a three bedroom condo on Homeaway.com. It was nice to have separate spaces for each girl, so they don't wake each other up at night. It was dinnertime by the time we arrived and got settled, but we went out on the beach for a few minutes before going to eat.

Craving Oysters Rockefeller, we found a great restaurant and ordered the big oyster sampler as an appetizer while Matt and Kate fed the turtles off the restaurant's patio. A big storm rolled in, however, and we had to move inside. That was the only foul weather of our trip, and the rest of the week was gorgeous!

Sunday, Mother's Day, we went to church at a cool service at the Flora-Bama, a well-known dive bar on the Florida-Alabama state line. The service was an outreach of Perdido Bay United Methodist Church, and it was great. Very, very well done, and as Matt pointed out, very Wesleyan in its taking church to the people. The bar opened at 11am on Sunday (the same time as the service) so people were already bellying up to the outdoor bars while the music and preaching were going on.

Me and my girls on Mother's Day 2012

After church, we headed out to the beach for our first big beach day.

Kate was excited.

Claire wasn't so sure.

My favorite pic—ultimate joy.

It took Claire a few hours to tolerate the sand
(prior to that, she cried whenever I set her down)

One of my favorite beach vacation activities is dining on seafood—especially at dockside restaurants. Viewing boats while eating shellfish is a beach essential for me.

Suitably dressed in a nautical smocked dress :)

We also enjoyed "Cheeseburgers in Paradise" at Lulu's (Jimmy Buffett's sister's restaurant). Claire got to try lots of fun "big people food"—garlic bread, crackers, and even cheese grits out of my shrimp & grits at Tacky Jack's. She's sitting up pretty well now, and is voracious for any food she can get her hands on. 

We also rode a ferris wheel at The Wharf, went to the Alabama Gulf Coast Zoo, and took a dolphin-sighting boat ride!

We usually ate lunch in the condo, enjoying some shady time on the balcony before heading back out to the beach.

We even played Memory out on the balcony!

Claire is creeping pretty well now, going after toys that get away from her,
and after any food we have out—hungry little piggy!

The very best part of the beach was (as it should be) the BEACH! We enjoyed at least a few hours in the sand and surf each day. This was our set up: rented lounge chairs and umbrella, my big beach bag from Thirty-One (I saw several other families with the same bag in different fabrics—it is really a good pool/beach bag), and Claire's baby tent. 

The tent was the best purchase I made for this trip; she napped in it on the beach every day—longer and better naps than she EVER takes at home or school. (I got it from the One Step Ahead catalog, but it's also available on Amazon.)

Kate didn't like going into the water too much (getting saltwater in her eyes and/or mouth) but loved playing in the sand and at the edge of the water. We collected TONS of shells. I think I'm going to decorate a picture frame with them to hold a family pic from the beach.

It took Claire a few hours the first day to tolerate the sand, but after that, she seemed to enjoy it. We pushed sand up around her bottom (a natural Bumbo!) to help her sit up. Even when she did topple over and get sand on her face, she was totally fine with it!

Claire was equally skeptical about the water at first, crying if it touched her at all, but she later came to like sitting at the water's edge with me, letting the waves get her feet.

This is just a smattering of the almost 400 photos we took—I'll share some of the "nice" family photos we took in another post this week. If you're hungry for more cute beach-baby pics, you're welcome to check out the 240 best pics on Shutterfly, if it will let you view our album.

We never considered ourselves "beach people," always preferring city or inland-nature destinations, but after a very busy year, this relaxing trip really hit the spot. We had a great time and could have spent another week there at least!

Summer's Last Swim

School is in session, the football season has begun, a few leaves are even falling, and I have an unnatural desire for chili and cable-knit sweaters. But alas, it is still 90 degrees outside (and still technically summer, anyway).

Reluctantly siding with reality over my own fantasies, I blew up the backyard pool and we had one last swim for summer 2010.

 

Kate and I splashed around for much of the afternoon, filling and dumping buckets full of water. We flung water into the air with an arsenal of different colored beach shovels, and got the terms "blue" and "yellow" down pretty well. We also started a new game, where Kate flops across my lap and I rock her while she says, "baby... baby..."

She'll always be my baby, even when she's all grown up. But I'll miss that little polka-dotted ruffle-butt.

Next weekend, I'll break out the fall decorations and begin another season that, while not Kate's "first," will still be extra-special.