Swimming Fishies

 The boys took swimming lessons mid July. I had been gearing Henry up and trying to prepare him since he really had no interest in swimming or getting wet. The first day of lessons was terrible. Henry cried. Jonah cried. No one wanted to get in the water. It was a disaster. But we regrouped and Tuesday, everybody got in the water and never looked back! Henry surprised me. He LOVES swimming!! He had a great teacher and only two little boys in class with him. By the end of the session, he was even putting his face in the water and jumping off the edge!

Jonah is a natural fish and did really well also. He actually learned to swim! He was swimming out to the middle of the pool! Both boys can't wait to take swimming lessons again!

crazy

 Sunday afternoon, after church and lunch, we and about 17 million other San Diegans hit the beach. Seriously. What were we thinking? The beach was so crowded, we had to walk on a little path the lifeguards had set up and snag a tiny section of beach surrounded by tons of other beach goers. Cramped. But, it was a hot day and the water felt really good! The kids all had SO much fun in the water! Lucy wouldn't come out!

ice cream and legos

 Saturday night, we (and by that I mean I made the ice cream mix, and the boys took turn manually turning the ice cream thanks to our defective ice cream maker) made some homemade ice cream. It was SUPER yummy!! It was a whole ordeal trying to get the stuff made, but thankfully the boys all thought it was fun to stand out in the heat and take turns hand cranking the machine! But later that evening, we had ice cream sundaes with lots of yummy toppings and we all hunkered down to watch The Lego Movie. I don't think Jeff and Suzanne were impressed with the movie, Gavin had nightmares, but the rest of the kids loved it! Success?

Independence Day

 Best. Picture. Ever.  I have no idea why Henry has that face, but I love it!!

Jeff and Suzanne and the kids came down to visit for the long weekend on 4th of July. It was so fun to have them back! The kids all love each other and it's fun to hang out with them. Friday night we went to Poway High School to watch a big firework show. It was a lot of fun! We got really lucky on finding parking spaces and found a nice grassy area to watch the show. Suzanne and I took lots of snacks for all the kids and tons of glow sticks/necklaces so they were all happy campers! The show was really well done and lasted for quite a while. Not too bad for free! Although it took over an hour get out of the parking lot. Thankfully, Jeff and Suzanne have a DVD player in their van, so the kids all piled in and watched Frozen. It was really fun!

Lucy wasn't a big fan of the boom from the fireworks. It was just too scary for her. So Dan took her back to the car and they watched inside where it was a bit quieter.

 Happy little guy!

Butterflys

 Jonah got this great butterfly hatching kit for his birthday last year. Since we had just moved, we didn't really have time to undertake raising butterflies. Then it got cold and took a while to warm up. So we waited patiently and finally, after Henry's birthday and all our house guests had come and gone, we decided to send away for our baby caterpillars. They came in a jar with all their food. They just ate and crawled around until finally one day, we saw they climbed up to the top of the jar and formed cocoons. It was neat but also kind of gross. They lived in the jar, crawling around on their food which they also pooped on. And for whatever reason, they made a lot of silk strings that were really tough to break up.

We followed the directions and moved them carefully into the special butterfly cage for the time when they would emerge from the cocoons. It was a little over a week and I was pretty much convinced they were all dead. Then one day, as I was walking by our school room, I noticed something moving around. It was all our butterflies! They had hatched without anyone noticing! So we quickly got them some flowers and sprinkled sugar nectar on them for the butterflies to eat. It was neat watching them eat. We kept them in the cage for a couple of days and then decided to let them go. The boys had so much fun watching them go and were actually able to hold several of them, as they landed on Jonah while they were leaving! Overall it was really fun, but it was kind of gross and I really don't want to do it again!

 So cute!

 Henry enjoyed watching the butterflies as the left

 Love this little guy!

Lucy's Photos

We went to one of my favorite places to take photographs and got some really great shots of Lucy for her one year old pictures. She wasn't in the best of moods, but she actually cooperated really well. These are all unedited. I'm looking to get some new software to do some fun editing before I print them out for family.

 Love love love this one

 That's my girl! Always running away!

 So incredibly sweet! It's funny how you can set up a shot or see something in your mind, but it's all really just a matter of capturing the moment.

 Just need to brighten this one up and then perfection!