Tennis and Swimming Lessons

We are playing around a little bit with the layout of my blog.  The pictures are really small, but if you click on them, they will come up bigger and you can click through them all.

The kids and I had a very, very fun summer.  There were very few days that we stayed home.  We were almost always out doing something.  Because of that, I rarely had a free minute on my computer, meaning I got even more behind on my blogging than usual.  I am going to try to get caught up in the next couple of weeks, so hopefully I will be posting something about our summer every day.

As soon as school got out, we got started with our crazy summer.  Robby started tennis lessons and both of them started swimming lessons.

Robby has never been a huge athlete.  He has tried almost every sport available to him, but has had very little interest in any of them.  The last year or so, he has been asking me if he could take tennis lessons, so this summer we got him signed up to try it out.  He loved it.  He felt really comfortable on the court playing tennis.  He had a couple of really fun teachers and learned a lot. It was a pretty simple tennis class where he just learned the very basics, but it was a good start.  We found out that it something he really enjoys, so maybe next summer, we will get him a little more involved.  Zoe liked tennis lessons too.  The tennis courts were at the park, so she got to go down the slide for an hour while Robby played tennis.

A week after tennis lessons started, Robby and Zoe both started swimming lessons.  Robby has never been a big fan of the water and has always hated getting his face wet.  The last couple of years of swimming lessons have helped a lot.  This summer, he did great.  He was swimming underwater, front floating and back floating, jumping off the diving board, and enjoying all of it.  I am so proud of him.  I know that swimming is something that has always been a bit of a challenge for him, but he has worked hard and is now really comfortable and happy in the water.

Zoe has always loved the water.  The main reason I signed her up for swimming lessons was because I knew it would be almost impossible to keep her out of the pool while Robby was swimming.  Her swimming class was a mom and me class, so we got to do it together.   Her class was mainly just to teach kids to be comfortable and have fun in the water.  We sang a lot of songs and played a lot of games.  Every class we would sing "Ring Around the Rosies".  When we got to "ashes, ashes, we all fall down," we would dunk the kids under the water.  Zoe hated it.  She got to where anytime anyone mentioned Ring Around the Rosies, she would panic and say "I no want it."  I was a little worried that swimming lessons was actually hurting her confidence in the water.  After swimming lessons were over though, I noticed that anytime we went swimming and she accidentally went under water, she would just smile and say "I went Ring Around the Rosies".  By the end of the summer, she was going under water just because she wanted to.  She had a lot of fun at swimming lessons and I think it was good for her too.

Our Singing Star

Zoe loves to sing.  She is always singing something, whether it be a song she learned in nursery or something she made up.  It is so cute and I love to listen to it.  One of her favorite songs to sing is "Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star."  We decided that we needed to capture the cuteness of her singing it on video.  Unfortunately, she is two and she was not about to perform on demand.  We never quite got a full rendition of "Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star," but what we did get definitely captured our little star's personality.

Just a little note on the video:  when she sings this song in nursery, they hold up a little star attached to a popsicle stick.  She is convinced that this plastic golf flag is a star, just like the ones from nursery.

She did decide to cooperate a little and sing some Disneyland songs for us.  She sang "Yo Ho, Yo Ho" and "Small World", the songs from her two favorite rides.

Third Grade

On Tuesday, Robby started the third grade.  He was so excited to get back to school, and so far he loves it.  He is very excited for third grade because they get to learn multiplication and cursive, two things he has been asking us about for years.  I am so proud of him and his love of school and learning.  He truly is a great kid.  The first day of school was a little bittersweet for me.  I love that he is so excited and ready to go, but I will really miss him being around.

I can't believe how much both of the kids are growing.  Here is a picture I took on the first day of school.

And here is the same picture from last year.

I knew that Zoe had changed dramatically in the last year, but I hadn't realized how much Robby has grown up.  He has really lost his little boy look and is becoming quite the young man.  I love that kid.

I had to post this picture because I love how Zoe has to do everything that Robby does.  She looks up to him so much.  She is having a little bit of a hard time with him being at school all day.  She misses him a lot.

I am such a blessed mom.

Birthday with Uncle Gavin

Kirk's brother, Gavin, and his family were able to come and spend the first couple weeks of July in Utah.  It worked out really well because Gavin and Zoe share a birthday, July 11th, so we were able to all get together and celebrate.  We went to Kirk's parents house and had dinner and cake.

Zoe with Uncle Gavin

While Robby, Elden, and Bennett were inside playing video games, and Kirk and his mom were finishing dinner, Grandpa, Gavin, Karena and I took Zoe and Keagan outside to play.  Grandpa brought out his big soccer ball.  Zoe had a blast playing in the grass, with the big soccer ball, and with Uncle Gavin.

Zoe also had a great time playing with Toby, Grandma and Grandpa's dog.  She loves Toby.  She is always trying to give him hugs and is always so excited to see him.  For the most part, he is really patient with her and they get along pretty well.

I love this picture of them.  They just look so content sitting there together.

When we went in the house, we had a great dinner and then very yummy birthday cake.  Kirk's mom makes a german chocolate cake for Gavin's birthday every year (if he gets to come home for his birthday.)  She makes a very tasty cake.

Zoe wasn't very interested in the cake.  She was much more excited about her new presents.

We had a great time spending the day with family.

Happy Birthday, Dear Zoe

I can't believe my little Zoe is two.  She is growing up so fast.

Here she is when we brought her home from the hospital at 2 days old, on her first birthday, and on her second birthday.

We had a birthday party for Zoe last Saturday.  It was a lot of fun.  All of our family was able to come; Grandma and Grandpa Atkinson, Aunt Emily, Grandma and Grandpa Lapray, and Uncle Gavin, Aunt Karena, and their boys.

Zoe was very opinionated about what she wanted for her birthday party.  She wanted a pink Tinkerbell cake, pink ice cream, and pink and purple balloons.  She is turning into such a girly girl.

She was so excited to blow her candles out.  She practiced all morning so that she could do it.  When it actually came time, she froze a little.  I think she was a little unsure about the fire on the candles.  It was so cute to watch her pucker her lips though and try to blow them out.

She loved eating the pink cake and ice creaam.

She was very spoiled and got a lot of great presents, which she really loved opening.

I think her favorite present was this drum from Aunt Emily.  She loves to play it.

All in all, she had a really great day.  She walked around all day singing happy birthday, and loved being the center of attention.

We love our birthday girl and are so thankful she is a part of our lives.

The End of Second Grade

I was just looking at some pictures on my camera and realized that I have a lot of catching up to do.

Robby had a great time in 2nd grade.  Miss Pugliano, his teacher, was wonderful.  He loved her and loved going to school everyday.  The end of the school year was truly bitter-sweet for him.  He had a great time with all the end of the year festivities, and he looked forward to summer vacation, but the thought of not being in Miss Pugliano's class anymore and of missing his school friends was a little sad.

I was able to go with him on his end of the year fieldtrip.  We went up in the canyon for a hike.  It was actually kind of a long hike and the kids were a little tired by the end, but Robby loved it.  He was smiling and excited the whole time.  At the end of the hike, we ate our lunch and then went to the Bean Museum.  It was a lot of fun.

Robby and his buddy Riley on the school bus on the way to the canyon.

At the Bean Museum.

The second graders also had an authors' day when families were able to go to the school and look at all the stories and papers the kids had written through the year.

This is one of my favorite pictures ever.  After we finished looking at Robby's writing portfolio, he went and found a book and was reading it to Zoe.  She was so excited to be at Robby's school.  I just love the look on her face.  You can just see how much she adores him.  He is such an amazing big brother.

I am glad that Robby had such a great year and that he enjoys and does well in school.

Zoe's New Hairdo

I  have a million posts I need to catch up on, but I couldn't resist posting this one today.

Today, Zoe got her hair braided, and it looks so cute.  I took her to this very awesome teenage girl.  She was adopted from Ethiopia, and is absolutely amazing with hair.  I was so sure that I could learn so much from her, but her fingers flew so fast that I didn't have a clue what she was doing.  It was the first time anyone, besides me, has done Zoe's hair.  Zoe didn't like it; she cried the whole time, but she loves it now.  She keeps telling everyone to look at her pretty hair.   It was so worth it to get it done.  Even with Zoe crying, throwing herself around, and lots of breaks, she had it done in about an hour and a half.  It takes me far longer than that to do a style not nearly as intricate.

We love it.  She looks so beautiful.