Busy, busy, busy!

I know it's not true,  but it seems like we spend a lot of time at the pool. Really they have just had swimming lessons 4 days a week for the last 3 weeks (which is only a half hour long, thankfully for Shawn and I, since we're not in the water) and I've been trying to take them to the pool about twice a week. They have definitely made some improvements in that area. Well, Katy still doesn't like to put her head under or jump in, but HAS done them both, so we'll call it progress. Reilly is swimming pretty well, but really has to figure his breathing out still. He is not afraid of trying anything, and will do back flips under water where he can touch the ground.  Jaina is somewhere in between. Shawn loves the water.

I've been meaning to give the girls summer haircuts, and planned to take Jaina, at least, somewhere, because her hair is so straight and fine I was afraid I would mess it up. But then one day after I bath I started cutting on Katy's. And it ended up shorter than I expected. Then Jaina wanted on the same day, and was grumpy I wouldn't make hers any shorter. They aren't perfect, but at least there is less hair to mess with with all this swimming!

We've had several visitors over the last couple weeks, especially since it was Katy's birthday time. Grandmas, Grandpas, and lots of party time.

Katy turned 4 and we had a fun day. She chose Lucky Charms instead of birthday pancakes, then she chose a park to go to before some quick present and then swim lessons. After lunch she picked IKEA as her fun place to go to. She is finally tall enough to go in their play area this year, and she loves it. The wait was nearly 30 minutes, but they had a blast. Shawn hung out with us, and had another first. (sitting in the shopping cart) After IKEA Jeremy had to get back to the office, so we had pasta (I believe) for dinner, at Katy's request and hurried fast to make her cake. It wasn't dairy-free, (since it used a whole stick of butter) but it was gluten-free, and pretty delicious.

The next day we rushed from swim lessons to Kinzi's birthday party and the girls had a blast too. Shawn did too, especially since his other Grandma was there waiting to kiss on him. (The lipstick is actually from Jaina - they were dressing up and doing a fashion show). We also went out to eat with Kinzi's family that night at IHOP (just Katy, Grandma, and I). There was a picture, but Katy looks a little crazy in all of them. Not in a cute way. She is my challenging one when it comes to the camera.

Grandma Weech stayed at our house for a few days, which was really fun. She made us some treats, came to swim lessons with us, took the kids to the Carson pool one afternoon (wearing herself out in the process), helped me get the kids' pictures taken Friday morning (forthcoming), and helped us throw a fun little family birthday swim party. It got a little scary the 24 hours before when we realized our neighborhood pool was temporarily closed, but luckily it opened before we wanted to swim that night!

It has been a little crazy having everyone home all the time. Thankfully up until recently they haven't fought any more than usual. I just have trouble with the constant noise level... things have been getting a little more stir-crazy lately, but the 4th of July and the mountains are coming up soon to break things up! It has been nice for Jeremy to get to spend a little more time with all the kids together. Saturday he took them to the airport to watch the planes, and they liked that. He and Reilly have also been watching little bits of the first Harry Potter movie some evenings since Reilly is currently reading book 5... Today we tried sorting ALL our Legos into sets and colors so we could get the sets put back together and not have Legos stored in 4 different places.

Shawn is growing fast. In the last two weeks he has started giving (open-mouthed, sometimes latched-on, painful, slobbery, adorable) kisses, he's getting much closer to sitting up, sleeps unswaddled -some- of the time, and has tried several foods for the first time (pears, green beans, sweet potatoes, squash). He likes them, mostly. He is still not really rolling (after doing it 5-6 months a few weeks ago) but has his second tooth through. Sleep training will probably be our next hurdle, as getting him to sleep is becoming increasingly difficult sometimes and he is still up every 30-60 minutes many nights. (The longest stretch he's done in weeks is just over 3 hours - I get excited when he does a 2 hour stretch even, and he's still sleeping with me much of the night...) Sigh. He's adorable, though!

These pics were after we took the group ones Friday, and he was not impressed. We'll be going back in a week or two when he's sitting to get some better ones...