Summer Fun

I can't believe our summer has almost come to an end. Technically, there is still about a month and half left of summer, but for me, it ends when I have to go back to work. I know that I am very blessed to have a job that allows me to have time off to spend with my kids. It is one of the perks for being in education and a big reason why I went into it. The boys and I have spent much of our summer at the pool. It is a short walk from our house, they have a blast, it wears them out, and they then take a great nap. As for how their swimming skills are going, they are doing great. Ryan's form is better than Luke's, but he doesn't have the courage to swim in the deep end like Luke does. They are swimming about 2 or 3 body lengths and the next step is to teach them how to tread water and come up for a breath when they are swimming.

We have been to a nearby park a few times that has a clean creek and water features for kids to play in, as well as a neat playground.


Ryan drew this picture for one of his teachers - I took a picture of it because he wrote his name for the first time.

I set up these tents in the backyard before Conny and the kids were here. I wanted to see if they would work for the 7 of us - we determined that they were too small, but the boys enjoyed playing in them for a couple of days.

Sorry for the picture of food in Ryan's mouth - but I thought this was a sweet picture of the boys and their cousin Thomas. He and Jenny joined us at the pool a few weeks ago and Tommy really loved the water. Hopefully they can come again before the pool closes.


We are now in our second summer of soccer. The boys' skills have greatly improved since last summer but there is still alot of room for improvement, especially in stamina. Another problem is that we teach our children to share and to take turns, but in soccer (as in other sports) the purpose is take the ball away from the other team - that is a hard concept to get them to understand. They both are pretty good at kicking the ball and heading for the goal, but they don't understand how to keep the ball and then to try and get it back.

Below - last year's soccer picture.



Recent cookies and such:

I made these cookies for an open house at the boys' school. A parent painted a mural in the library based on the Kevin Henke's book Brown Bear, so the cookies are based on the mural (part of it involves raining blueberries).

I also made cupcakes - Snickerdoodle cupcakes with Vanilla Bean Buttercream frosting and Oreo cupcakes.

And these cookies were for the school director who retired this summer.


Random video of Ryan being silly tonight on the swing set. I wish I had gotten a video the first time he ran onto the swing because he was flying. He was more cautious the second time because he said it hurt just a little bit.


Lastly - pictures of boys at the pool the last few summers.

2009

2008

2007