Trip to the Lake!

Adam has been complaining that he hadn't gone to the lake much this year and when he does go, how much he misses his kids. Larry had been telling me how he hadn't gone to the lake much this year either so I put two and two together and we planned an outing. It wasn't Michael's first time to the lake, but he didn't remember the times before because he was so little. This was Emma's first time though. They both had SO much fun! Michael did not want to leave. We had to pull him out of the water with promises of coming back again soon. This morning when he woke up all he could talk about was the lake and telling me that he wanted to go back to the 'wa wa'.
:-)

Visiting Cousins!

The other morning my wonderful mother in law called me while I was out for a walk with the kids. She said that some of our cousins were in town and staying with her for the night. So we rushed home, took our showers and baths and headed over for a visit. It was so much fun to visit with Kami, Stephanie, Brie and Kami's newest little one, Bella. Bella and Emma are just 4 days apart in age, but you wouldn't know it by looking at them. Bella was in the 9 pound range when born (Bless you Kami!) and Emma was just barely 7 pounds. They were so adorable together though! Michael was having a blast showing off for his cousins. We had a great time visiting with them and hope they will visit again soon!

Swimming Champ!

Michael has been taking swimming lessons for a couple of months now. He is doing great! He loves his teacher and the water. He looks forward to going every week and showing off what he has learned whenever he is in the water (even the bathtub). He has recently passed his first level of swimming! To do that he has to be able to float on his back for 10 seconds, use his hands to shimmy on the side of the wall over to the step, go under water holding his breath, and blow bubbles. He did it! I was SO proud of him that I teared up like a baby. To celebrate, first they let him go ring a bell in the swimming area and the manager comes in and says "Can I have every ones attention, Michael has just passed level 1 swimming lets give him a HIP HIP" and then everyone in the room yells "Hooray!" and cheers for him. He wasn't sure what exactly was going on but he loved ringing the bell and the guy had a hard time getting him to let go and get back in the water. haha The second part, is after I get him dressed we go to the front and they play the Olympic song while he stands on a podium and is presented with a ribbon while everyone cheers. It was great! He was totally confused as to what was going on but I was still beyond proud of my little man. :-)

Beautiful and growing

Our little girl is growing like a weed. She had grown out of several of her 3 month outfits already. She is just barely 3 months old! She is beautiful! She coo's and giggles all the time. She smiles at anyone that will give her a smile. She is sitting up almost by herself. She hates laying down. She is very curious and wants to be up and looking around all the time. She is usually perfectly content as long as she isn't alone. She wants to be with the crowd and fights sleep so that she won't miss any of the action. Michael and her get along great! He can always make her smile and he loves to help take care of her. The only problem is that he wants her to be able to run and play with him. He never leaves her behind. If he goes outside to play he won't step foot outside until I agree to take 'sister' with us. Even when he sits up at the dinner table he has to have his sister in her Bumbo chair right next to him. It's adorable! :-)

Michael's First Black Eye

A couple weeks ago I was taking the kids to Cabela's sporting good store. It's a great place to take the kids cause they have a huge mountain in the center of the store with running water and a bunch of mounted animals all over the mountain and walls to make it look like real life. They have every animal you can think of! Elk, deer, bear, mountain lion, eagle, elephant, wolf, moose, etc. Michael LOVES it! They also have a huge fish tank with fish, sea turtles, and even mini sharks. So anyways, I was taking the kids for a trip to Cabela's. I got Michael out of the car and had him walk to the other side of the car with me so we could get Emma out. Michael saw his sippy cup on the floor of the car under Emma's seat so he reached in to grab it, tripped over my foot, and slammed his eye in the bottom part of the car. He cried for a fraction of a second until he saw the statue of the elk out front of the store. I thought everything was fine because he didn't make a big deal of it. While we were walking through the store he said "mama mama!" so he could show me the eagle he had spotted. He turned around and I saw it...... his eye was black and blue, swollen, and practically shut. I went and found a store clerk and asked for a bag of ice. They were nice enough to give me ice and a towel for it. He wanted to eat the ice more than hold it on his face but we got the swelling down and it was black and blue for probably 2 weeks. We couldn't get really good pictures of it but we got a few.