pool time

we have had great weather all weekend and the pool was a great choice today. love.

bathing beauties

pool refresh

the kids are tired and crazy (read: fighting and crying) so we took a relaxing day at the pool. and we were even the only ones! we needed some fresh air to get us over the mid-week hump.

and back to the church we go! tonight we didn't have as much to prepare so we spent some time at the photo booth before dinner.

the kids were all super excited for the "sweet frogs" to visit with us tonight. and i was happy to get a 20% off coupon for us to use sometime.

vbs is running so smoothly. two more nights to go! love.

the inventor

maddux came up with this clever invention for hands free transportation of his pool toys to the pool. i thought it was pretty good. love.

my little mermaid

one of madelyn's pool friends (she is watched by her grandmother during the summer days and we see her every summer at the pool) let madelyn try out her mermaid fin. madelyn always swims with her ankles crossed to pretend to be a mermaid and was pretty excited.

manning gets tired of swimming before the other kids most trips and lays on me to warm up. today he asked to take some pictures. love.

mommy time

this morning i saw all of my children off to school, stopped for an iced coffee, went to the pool to read a book and close my eyes for the first time in eight years. huge exhale. to just relax (and laugh out loud, with tears) without worrying about my greatest treasures. it has been a really, really long time.

preschool isn't going to bring me much more than two hours a week of truly free time (well time where i can check to-dos off quickly), but it will be glorious to have complete thoughts on a regular basis.

i feel like i am entering a sweet spot of parenting - no diapers and no teens. love.

enjoying every minute at the pool

as labor day approaches, we know that each lovely day is a gift at the pool. so this beautiful sunday afternoon? we swim!

my favorite picture of the day

mason floating - a huge deal after years of not trusting to lay back

or maybe this one is my favorite. the perfect place to nap. love.

daddy is the best pool toy

relaxing at the pool

this week has been super crazy scheduled, but today we are slowing down at the pool. surprisingly, we were practically the only ones there. there was another girl madelyn's age who was there with her grandparents and should be around most of the summer. 

these kids love to swim! i hope it is warm this summer. love.

mason the fish

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like son, like father

after church and lunch, we took nana down to the pool to watch our little 'fish' swim. maddux is usually the first one out of the pool. he likes to lay on a chair, covered with his towel to warm up. or as he says, "i just want to watch the kids swim."

today, daddy joined him on the chairs. they were just too cute not to take a picture. love.

errands, shmerrands

i had a list of things to do today but it was a beautiful day and we only have a few more weeks where the pool will be opened. instead of running our list of errands, i packed us up and lunch and we spent four hours at the pool! the kids were so excited and we had the whole place to ourself until the last hour or so. we couldn't believe that no one else had thought to come to the pool today (it has been fairly crowded this summer).

today was a #mommywin for sure!

since the kids had vbs, i encouraged them to take a nap after getting cleaned up. not only does maddux look uncomfortable, but the finger on his cheek was what cracked me up! he was definitely worn out. love.

classic

if you look closely at this picture you can see the white barcode from my keyring. yes, my keys - in the storm drain. what is worse is that when i parked in the spot right in front of the storm drain i thought, 'i bet my keys would fall right down there if i dropped them.' and then i walked around to open the back of the van and dropped them right in the storm drain! seriously?!

at least it wasn't very full or very deep. i did have a moment of 'um...what do i do now?' we had just gotten to the pool and were unloading. i guess this is the perfect time to meet the new neighbors across the street from the pool.

so i headed across the street with the four kiddos in tow and about a million and one questions all at once being thrown at me - "what are you going to do? how will we get home? what if you didn't have your phone? will we ever drive the car again? are the keys gone? where are we going? what are the new neighbors' names? do you know them? why are we going to their house? what are you going to do with a hanger? do you think we can go in their house? how will you give them their hanger back? how are you going to reach the keys?"

one wire hanger later, i was holding my keys (and, thankfully, the fob still worked). crisis adverted. and then i was told several times to "never, ever park in that spot again." don't worry about that. love.

"the best day ever!"

yesterday was not a good day. the kids were all tired and crying, manning was just plain out of control all day (blatantly trying to be disobedient in a way i remember with maddux - and he laughs at me while he does it) and just nothing went well with them all day. these days happen once in a great while and i know they aren't the norm, but, man, oh, man are they exhausting! they lost out on a lot of my plans for fun yesterday too. but i decided to start today with a clean slate and try to have a fun day.

first stop, "national donut day" at dunkin' donuts! the kids thought that it was so great to pick up donuts and manning couldn't get enough of pointing out all of the balloons everywhere - inside and out.

next we stopped by a local park for about 20 minutes before  "superhero camp." the day was simply gorgeous (we really earned these days over the winter and last summer) - about 75 with almost no clouds.

then we arrived at "superhero camp" for the big boys' last day. the parents were invited in for the last 5 minutes to take group pictures. this was such a great week for both boys.

today's 'craft'. both boys picked daddy as their superhero - me too.

we stopped over at an indoor play place on the same property after camp, but it was closed today because of a dance recital rehearsal being held at the facility. we quickly came up with our 'plan b' - the pool! the kids actually came up with the idea. i had thought that it was the most perfect day for laying out at the pool, but i wasn't too sure that it was warm enough for them swimming.

we had lunch at home first and loaded up to head over. we could walk, but heading out so late made it too dicey for the walk back home (one to four of them might end up crying and/or not wanting to carry their things). the big kids couldn't get into the pool fast enough and with very little complaining about the water temperature. manning on the other hand was not interested at all. at least at first. it might have taken me 30 minutes, but i finally got him out of his clothes and into his swim diaper and swimsuit. he even chose to get off of my lap and sit directly next to me. i had to take a picture of my little buddy and me.

shortly after this picture he was willing to stand on the first step. a few splashes and manning was sold! he was belly laughing while he splashed with his siblings and was soon willing to put his 'swimmies' on. within minutes he was back to the wild boy he was last year (although this year he is big enough for swimmies and it is much less stressful). he was kicking his legs while i helped him around the pool and trying to get him used the the balance of the flotation swimmies. then he started yelling '1...2...3...jump!" before jumping off the steps to me. over and over and over.

on the drive home, maddux told me, with enthusiasm, that this was "the best day ever!" love.

memorial day

this morning madelyn and i headed out early this morning for the memorial day parade. the ymca invites all of the "character champions" from the school year to walk in the parade. madelyn was lucky enough to be selected last year too. daddy walked the parade route with her last year (largely because i was still nursing) and this year madelyn asked me to walk with her. i think her request was motivated by her assumption that i would drive her to the start of the parade and daddy was guaranteed to walk there. we did walk there this morning. thankfully, she did not cry the whole way there like she did when daddy took her to the 'fun run.' and we had a lovely walk too.

unlike last year, it was beautiful today and warm - quickly approaching 80. all of the kids were given a choice of color for their t-shirt this year and madelyn choose yellow. the idea was for the kids to line up by color so that it would look like a marching rainbow. however, the second we hit the parade route it was just a mass of kids.

the boys were there to see us at the start of the parade route. and they got a ton of candy!

it was kind of neat to walk down the middle of main street. there were a lot of people out to watch the parade. madelyn said that there were a lot more than last year. i think the weather helped.

we had lunch at home before heading to the pool! it opens for the year today and we are super excited! there are several new families in the neighborhood and the pool was hopping with kids. usually our kids are the only ones in there even though all of the deck chairs are full so this was a fun change. of course i did a lot more head counts than i normally would have done (but i have always been pretty cautious around water). what a difference a year makes. madelyn is like a fish and doesn't look awkward swimming around any more. the boys still have work to do on swimming, but they are very comfortable in the water and move around very freely. manning was having no part of the pool. he wouldn't even take off his shoes! i did finally convince him to sit in a deck chair. he was a gigantic grump almost the entire time. he was even hitting me while telling me no (about everything) so i told him "so sad" and sat him on a chair farther away from me, saying that he could come back when he was done hitting. he sat there for a few minutes and then calmly walked over, hit me and then walked back to the chair to sit by himself some more. he might not be a "biter" but he is turning into quite the little "hitter."

we are SO excited to be able to spend time at the pool again! love.

summer stuff

we have been so busy with the big stuff, the kids haven't gotten to do much of the little summer stuff this year (not that the weather has helped much).  so here are some pictures from the past few days of the kids doing 'normal' summer stuff.

here they are (all four) pulling weeds.  they actually did a pretty good job!  manning mainly supervised the bucket but then he started to pull the weeds back out and was relieved of his duties.

an impromptu soccer practice to prepare for the fall season!  manning wouldn't step onto the grass but had a great time cheering and 'telling' me what was going on.

it was a little warmer but we couldn't get to the pool so we got out the inflatable pool (that we have had for i think four years) and let the kids go at it while matt worked in the yard.

and i gave them another go today during manning's nap.  the first video is a 'fail' but i still had to share.  the second video shows what i was trying to capture.

i think it has been nice to have some down time before getting back to school.  not that we aren't staying very busy, but we are picking what to do as each day comes with no set plans.  love.

poolside

we spent a little bit of time at the pool after lunch.  manning really wasn't having it and the water was like bathwater.  it was refreshing when you first got in but it actually started to feel hot and uncomfortable.  not that i am going to complain because it was so very cold last summer i don't want them to turn it off.  my goal is to get there every day this week - weather (and manning) permitting.  love.

pool time!

manning was in a real mood today.  he wasn't exactly grumpy but he didn't want to be held and didn't want to be put down either.  it made me a little nervous about trying to do a long walk with my friend and her kids after lunch.  he seemed to be okay when on the move but containment was not working for him.  so instead i thought that we would take a quick trip to the pool before manning's nap.  it wasn't exactly hot out (it was like 70) but they must have fixed the heater on the pool because it was warmer than it has ever been!  it was not warm when we got out of the pool and back into the wind though.

everyone took a little bit to get used to being in the pool again, but by the end everyone was jumping in and 'swimming' (well, except manning who was just floating around) and madelyn was swimming without her floats.  we were only there about 45 minutes before manning was done and ready to go back home for his nap, but it was a great preview to the rest of the summer.  love.

last pool trip of the year?

we were inside all day yesterday so i planned to take the kids to the pool for lunch today.  still low key but fun.  plus, i think this might be the last day that will be warm enough this year (the pool closes on labor day and the 10 day forecast doesn't get out of the 70s).

after grocery shopping in the morning, we came home, had snack and loaded up the wagon and stroller to head to the pool.  madelyn was more than happy to pull the wagon again - even with maddux riding.  when we got to the pool (and had every one's shoes off), we discovered that one of the flotation vests had fallen off the wagon. ugh.  after taking a minute to regroup, we all got our shoes back on and went to see if we could find it.  someone had already picked it up out of the street and clipped it to a street sign about halfway back to our house.  what was super cute was how madelyn said that "it was totally my fault" and asked mason and me to forgive her.  i told her that was very nice but it was just an accident.  she was very ready to take responsibility for everything in the wagon and told me that she forgot to look behind her to make sure nothing fell.  and back to the pool we went.

the pool was not warm.  the pool was not cool.  it was cold.  it was in the mid to upper 80s today so i thought that it would be warmer.  at least the kids were willing to get into the water and we had a great time splashing and 'swimming'.

mason and madelyn in the kiddie pool.

madelyn really wanted me to make a video, so here it is:

i think her goggles might be just a little too tight.  she likes them as tight as possible and had pulled the strap without my knowledge.

the kids were having a lot of fun swimming so it took some convincing to get them to come eat lunch (an hour later than normal too).  they like eating lunch away from home and the swimming had definitely given mason a much larger appetite and i ran out of options for him.  he didn't mind too much and was happy to get back into the pool.

we sent daddy this picture as a text - wishing he were with us.

i nursed manning right before we left the house and he fell asleep on the walk.  thankfully, he slept the whole time and we went ahead and left once he started to stir a little to avoid walking home with a screaming baby.

i had the foresight this time to check maddux' diaper before we left and changed him out of his poopie swim diaper there instead of waiting until we got home.  it was a good thing too because he fell asleep in the wagon before we even made it out to the road.

we look forward to spending a lot more time at the pool next year!  love.