Ellie Takes A Dive...

I love watching my kids participate in activities.  The girls are currently taking swimming lessons, and Ellie's class was learning how to dive today.  While Ellie has been swimming for a couple of years, diving is something she has never attempted.  But today she was so brave and gave it a good try...

Unfortunately every time she'd lean forward to jump in head-first, she couldn't quite seem to make her lower body cooperate, and she'd end up going in feet-first...but still in the "dive" position...

Ooops.  Maybe her form needed a change.  She'll try again, like a rock star!...

 But still...feet first.  Oh how I love this brave little girl and how she makes me smile!!

Cloud Dough...

I love having lazy days here and there when we have nowhere to go, and we can just hang out and play at home all morning long.  So this week I decided to spend our time making homemade "cloud dough" with the girls while Mason was at school.  It was really easy--only 3 ingredients--food color, cornstarch, and hair conditioner.  This gave it a very silky and soft texture.

 I thought this might entertain the girls for 30 minutes at most, but we ended up playing with it for nearly an hour and a half, and even then I had to force them to put it away because I needed to clean up to make lunch.

 We played "restaurant", and two of us would order food while the other would make the food with the dough.  It looks pretty tidy here, but believe me, after all was said and done, the table was covered with it, it was all over the chairs, and under the table all over the floor.

Loving this time with my girls!

Gymnastics, Week 2...

There is something so exciting about watching my girl take part in something that she enjoys so much, and that she is good at.  I don't know who is enjoying these gymnastics classes more--me or her!  During her second class, they did a little more work on the bars.  She thought this was lots of fun!

 Then they did an activity similar to monkey bars.  They started on one end of the high bar and had to "walk" down to the other end using their hands.  She made it the length of the bar all by herself...she's definitely a monkey!

Ellie's First Day Of Gymnastics...

Ever since Ellie became mobile, she has been very agile and loved to climb on everything, jump, roll, spin...you name it.  I always thought I might decide to put her in gymnastics at some point, just to give her an outlet to channel her activity.  Well today was the day, and she did great!  She is already asking when she can go to her next class!

 Before class started, she was up in the observation room with Mollie and me, looking down into the room she would be practicing in.

 My pictures turned out a little blurry because she was moving so much.  I had so much fun watching her though.  She loved every minute of it!

Random Silly Pictures...

Since this is a collection of my little memories for the kids to read about when they are older, I thought I'd include these two random pictures from earlier this month.  

Every time we go into Old Navy, Mollie first looks for this little girl mannequin.  Every time she finds her she hugs her and says, "Look Mommy, it's me!!!!"  Then she tells me that the bigger girl behind her is Ellie, and that the lady mannequin in the back is Mommy. 

 Every. Single. Time.

 And I don't know what I love most about this picture...perhaps her fleecy footy jammies on a hot summer day.  Or maybe it's the inside out tutu, or the fact that her helmet is on backwards while riding her brother's old bicycle.  I just love everything about her unique personality!

Last Swims of the Summer...

Once Mason started back to school, I took advantage of my time with the girls by visiting a pool that we never go to because Mason doesn't really care for it...it's mostly shallow and has no diving board or big slide for him to enjoy.  Instead, it has this awesome little clam slide that the girls had lots of fun playing on!  So after we dropped him off at school, we got to enjoy this pool 3 times before they closed for the fall last weekend.

 So long summer!

First Day of Third Grade...

I'm nearly a month late, but here is Mason's first day of 3rd grade as we were about to walk out the door.  

I

I really don't want to think about how he is beginning his downhill side of elementary school.  This is going way too fast.