Our pottery!

Yesterday we went to pick up our pottery pieces from Paint A Piece.  The girls were thrilled with their projects and we ended up staying for a bit to work on some more.  They both chose mermaids to paint and we will pick them up next week sometime.  Enjoy!  

Baby it's hot outside!

One hundred degrees!  That was on Monday.  The weather man says it has "cooled" a bit- it's only in the mid 90's today- but I am a firm believer that once you get above 90 degrees it is all the same.  I know this is Memphis and I have been coping with these summers since 1996 (how is that even possible- 12 years now!), but my goodness it doesn't get any easier.  After spending 23 years growing up in upstate NY though, I will say this: I will take a hot and humid Memphis summer over a cold and snowy winter in NYS any day.  

We have been keeping busy this week... Maggie finished her last summer camp this morning.  She has been a "Mini Mad Scientist" all week and has been coming home with all sorts of science projects to work on.  It's been fun for her and she has learned all sorts of interesting things about dinosaurs, planets and outer space, and "polymers", which is another word for clay she informed me yesterday when I picked her up.  She cracks me up! 

We started our last session of swim lessons on Monday afternoon.  Maggie and Lydia are in the same class this session and are doing pretty good.  Maggie especially- she seems to have gotten over her fear of jumping into the pool and I now have a hard time getting her out of the pool.  It was the other way around for a while- we couldn't get her to stay in the water!  I'm so proud of her progress.  Lydia is coming along slowly, but these things take some time and this really is her first experience swimming so we are not putting any pressure on her.  When this session is over next week we are planning to take a little break and re-enroll later this fall.  

Jack has been busy just being a 9 month old.  He is everywhere and into everything these days- definitely keeping me busy!  He pulls up now too and has been doing this crawl/ scoot move where he is sitting up and just sort of scooting around with one leg tucked under.  Lydia got around nearly the same way when she was his age too.  I think he finds it a more efficient way to get around the house- he can really move, especially across the hardwood and tile floors.  A picture from lunchtime this afternoon- he was more interested in being silly than eating his summer veggie puree (can't say that I blame him!) 

Time to go wake the troops from their nap to get ready for swim class!  

Oh- forgot this little tidbit

Jack is crawling.  And pulling up.  He has been a very busy little boy these past 2 weeks perfecting these new skills.  Life has surely changed as he now has the ability to get into things.  Electrical cords seem to be a new favorite toy so we have been spending some time re-baby proofing the house to suit him. 

Good times!

We have had a busy weekend around here.  Friday night we had Brian's mother over to celebrate her birthday.  I took Maggie and Lydia to the party store to pick out decorations Friday morning and then off to the grocery to get the ingredients to make Nana's favorite- banana splits!  Jane and Frank came over, Jane's brother Dale, and our neighbors and good friends of Jane and Frank- Mel and Donna.  Just a short little fun ice cream party- the best kind! 

Yesterday I took the 3 kiddos to Paint a Piece and we painted pottery for a little bit.  The girls each made a dinner plate for themselves and I painted 2 switch plate covers for our front hallway.  I will have to post pictures next week of our projects after we pick them up.  The girls are excited because we signed up for 2 workshops for the first week of August.  Maggie will go to an Ice Cream Party workshop where she will paint an ice cream bowl and make sundaes.  Both girls are going to a story time- they will read a story and then paint a little pottery animal to bring home.  

I don't have much in the way of pictures right now... our vacation in Sandestin was a quiet one, very relaxing, which is just the sort of trip we needed right now.  The weather was great- no humidity and very breezy.  Very unusual for the Gulf this time of year.  We managed to get back to Memphis just in time for some very typical summer temps- it will be 97 degrees today and very hazy and humid.  Sounds like a good day for a movie!  

By special request

A while back my brother-in-law Jeff asked me to put a picture of him on my blog.  Jeffrey, your day has come:  Welcome to my blog!  Ladies and gentlemen, Mr. Jeffrey Bray!  

Just a few more pictures...

Jack in his crib- notice his legs and what he is about to do.  (The side rail was down, by the way, because I was just about to take him out when he struck this pose).  
This is Maggie's Fairy House (see earlier update).  Fairy houses I think are mostly made of natural materials- sea shells, twigs, leaves, bird feathers etc.  Maggie filled the little white shell in the back with water so her fairy could take a bath.  

Pictures

The birthday girl at Build-A-Bear
Lydia, with Nana, blowing out her birthday candles

Long time, no post

Happy Fourth of July! 

We have been pretty darn busy at our house since my last update.  We have celebrated a birthday, been to summer camp, and we have taken swim lessons.  

First, the birthday girl!  Lydia turned 3 on June 16.  We had a Curious George themed birthday party for her the day before with some of our friends from the neighborhood. I think she had a good time celebrating with all of us and sharing ice cream cake with her friends.  The next day, her "real" birthday, we took the girls to Red Robin for dinner and then to Build-A-Bear to pick out some new furry friends.  Lydia selected an elephant and Maggie brought home a panda bear.  Nana and PopPop met us at Build-A-Bear and then we all went to the cookie shop for some sweet treats.  

Maggie has been to 2 summer camps since my last update.  Her first was an art camp which she really enjoyed.  Maggie likes to create so this was right up her alley. She was a bit nervous the first day but she warmed up quickly when her teacher told her it was her first day too.  She made a "landscape collage" (these are her words),  she painted, and she made a sock puppet and puppet theater.  

Her second camp was last week and it was called "Fairy House Camp".  The whole week was a celebration of all things fairies.  She painted pictures of fairies, she drank fairy tea and ate fairy cookies, made fairy perfume, and yes, she built a fairy house.  She really enjoyed this week of camp and it was alot of fun for us to hear about her adventure each night.  Did you know fairies are only as big as your thumb?  ;)

Maggie and Lydia also finished their swim lessons yesterday afternoon.  We had a rocky start this time- Maggie because she had a new teacher she was not familiar with and Lydia simply because this was her very first swim lesson ever.  After talking with the coaches we decided putting them together in a class with an instructor that Maggie has had before would be worth trying- this was the right formula because both girls spent the next 5 classes happily splashing and floating about in the water with Ms. Deborah.  Their next session starts July 21 and I need to get in touch with the director of the program to see if we can do the same thing again since they both responded so well.  

And now, Jack.  Jack will be 9 months old in 10 days!  He is growing so quickly and changing and learning so much every day I can hardly keep up with him.  Right now he is trying to decide if he should give crawling a try or go right to pulling up and standing.  So many decisions!  He is a champ at eating solids and I plan to start giving him more finger foods over the coming weeks.  Jack can shake his head "no"- appropriately too I might add.  He tells us "no" when we are changing his diaper or trying to get him dressed (he is not a fan of either task).  He knows who his "doggie" is- if you ask him where the doggie is he will start looking around for Dublin.  

I think that is it for now.  I am going to try to get some more pictures on here in a little bit.  I need to get some packing done- we are heading back to Sandestin tomorrow evening for the week.  

More later...