I love summer time! It is fun to have no real schedule and to be able to do fun activities with family and friends. I feel sad that it is over, although we are starting an exciting time for Stratton...he is starting preschool!
This summer Stratton took swimming lessons. He took them for 6 weeks and the first 3 weeks were the longest most miserable times! Stratton did not like to go and it was pure torture waking him up and getting him to go. It was just as painful once we got to the pool. His teacher would ask him to do something and he would say, "No, no, no, I don't want to...I'm so scared." I guess most kids do this, but it was really frustrating. The most frustrating part was that we would swim everyday and he'd be fine, but 'swimming lessons' were different and he hated them. The second set of swimming lessons went much better. One day Stratton decided he could do it and just started swimming. By the end of swimming lessons he could swim about ten feet under water and he knows how to bob, hold his breath and glide. He even went off the diving board without floaties (my brother caught him and pushed him to the side). These were big steps for him and I am so proud of him!
This is Stratton after a few weeks of swimming lessons. He loved jumping into the pool to either Alyssa or Bryanna. We are so fortunate to have a community swimming pool in my mom's neighborhood. We went for about 2 hours each day during the summer with most of the cousins. That is how I grew up, so I wanted Strat and Marley to have the same experience as I did.
Marley actually hated the swimming pool for the first half of the summer. She would tolerate it, but she was grumpy the entire time she was in the pool. Over time she actually decided she liked to be in the water.
One day I was crazy and took most of the cousins to the Sandy Aquarium. I had about eight kids with me. The Aquarium is pretty small, so it doesn't take too long to go through so it was pretty painless. It helped that my niece came and took care of the kids too.
These are our sunflowers in front of our garden in the backyard. We planted peas, cucumbers and pumpkins at our house. We also planted tomatoes at my sister-in-laws house. The peas were good, but short-lived. The cucumbers were awesome until the dogs decided they were awesome too! The tomatoes are just getting good and the pumpkins are soon going to take over our entire backyard!
The pumpkins are out of control!
One day during the summer Strat and Mars went out to play in the backyard. It was really quiet for a while so I went to investigate. I found Strat and Mars in the dog kennel locked up. This was Stratton's doing, and he said they were pretending to be dogs. They played this game for about 45 minutes! - and they got super dirty...
Never play baseball with your three-year-old. Okay, so Strat is nearly four, but he can hit the ball pretty hard. I was practicing with him in the front yard and I told him he could have one more hit. I threw the ball and instantly it came back at me, right at my mouth. I was trying so hard not to cry! It was just a wiffle ball, but it hit me so hard and it stung really bad. I had to sit down for a minute and Stratton came over to me and said, "Oh mom, you're bleeding, I'm so sorry."
Jason and Stratton. During the Rocky Mountain Review, Blake go these lovely headbands from his trainer friend. Stratton loved the headbands and shared with my brother. My brother had to take the headband off after a minute because he said it was cutting of his circulation. Strat loves 'Jase' and asked me why we don't go live in Idaho like them. They have been staying with us for the last week and all I here is how he wants to live with Jason and Akaela. We were so glad they could come and I don't know why I have no pictures of their cute baby!!! We hope they come back soon!
Seth turns one!!! Marley's closest cousin just turned one and had an Olympic themed party. It was so dang cute! They had Olympic decorations and Olympic games. In this picture Strat is participating in a relay and Marley is having fun in the freezing cold water.
Marley on the balance beam.
Marley eating an Olympic flame!
And here is the cool cake. Seth went for the Olympic torch cupcakes instead of the cake, but isn't the cake soooo cute?
Simon has a super long tongue!
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