Super Fun Swimming Videos

David's Post

Lissa keeps telling me I have to contribute to the blog.  You can thank her later.  Today is Wednesday.  We did stuff.  It was fun.  I dedicate this post to Lissa.  She inspires me.

David

"Camping" and Some Randoms

For the past month, Amber and Jade have begged me to set up our tent in the backyard and sleep out there. I've been dragging my feet doing it cause, well, I don't think sleeping on the ground in the hot Arizona summer is very much fun. Don't get me wrong - I LOVE camping. But I prefer to go camping somewhere much cooler. Somewhere the temp is UNDER 102 at 8pm. But after all the pestering I could handle, I finally gave in and set the tent up last night. It took some time as I couldn't find our small tent, only our big 2-bedroom with a "porch". And I don't think I've ever set it up before. But as you can see, I managed to get it up. I'm not joking about it being 102 at 8pm last night. I checked. It was hot. I ended up bringing a fan into the "porch" with a long extension cord to the outdoor plug - it really didn't help much. Amber decided she was too hot around 10 and went in and slept with David. Unfortunately, Jade didn't make that same decision so I was required to stay out there with her. And it finally cooled down. At 4am. I think it "cooled" to 75-ish. I put a blanket over my feet and finally fell asleep. So needless to say, we're ALL taking naps today! I'm surprised I'm functioning as well as I am......

Our campsite. Complete with a Jeep and spare bike tire.

Amber sweeping out the tent. Yes, Pie is nakey - she just got out of her bath and ran outside before anyone could catch her.

Goodnight, girls!

Does this look like a comfy way to sleep?? This is around 2am. I couldn't sleep and I was amazed at how Jade was sleeping.

K - so that was our camping adventure. Now here's some randoms:

Amber made an apron using Fry's bags.

I taught Paisley how to draw circles. Can you see them? She even says, "Circle, circle" as she draws.

This is Jade in swimming lessons. On Wednesday, her class was in the deep end (12ft) and her teacher told them to try touching a brick at the bottom. Jade was the only one able to touch it. So he told her to try picking it up. Now, the brick was 10lbs and the deep end, like I said, is 12 feet deep. He didn't really expect her to be able to. But Jaders went down, down, down, picked up the brick, and brought it all the way back up to the top! We went and got a box of munchkins from Dunkin' Donuts on our way home.

Paisley has finally gotten used to swimming lessons without me. She's cheerful now about going to class, socializes with the other kids, and even giggles while splashing her teacher! And yesterday, we even saw me and instead of freaking out like she has before, she smiled, pointed at me, told the girls next to her, "My mommy!", waved at me and giggled when I waved back. She's passed all the required skills to move on to Preschool B, but has to stay in Preschool A because she's just so young. PreA is for 2-5yr olds and I have to get an age overide every 2 weeks to keep her in there. But PreB is for 3-5 and there's no way they'll overide Pie's age to make her 3 in the computer. Oh well. She doesn't care.

Zoo Trip

David successfully dragged me out of the house Wednesday. lol He had the day off from school and didn't have anything to do till 3 and had the idea to take the kids to the Phoenix Zoo. At first I protested - the girls have swimming lessons, I was going to go to Fry's, it's hot outside, I'm tired - but I was quickly outvoted by everyone, including Paisley who ran around the house in her panties chanting, "zoo, zoo, zoo, zoo, zoo!" So I gave in, got everyone dressed and slathered in sunscreen, told David to pick up water bottles and capri suns, grabbed a couple towels, and off we went! It was hot. We were sweaty. But we all had fun anyways. We visited the Stingray Bay and fed the stingrays raw shrimp and fish heads. Paisley LOVED feeding them, but freaked out when David helped her touch one. lol Amber and Jade enjoyed feeding them as well, but preferred David or I to help them. After wandering around for awhile, we had lunch, wandered around some more, played in the water at the splash pad, did more wandering, tried to go to the petting zoo - which closed right when we got there - and by this time Amber and Jade were worn out and complaining about the heat and their legs hurting. Paisley was a trooper. Even without a nap she had a blast running around, yelling at all the animals. I think she walked more than she sat in her stroller. Afterwards, we stopped at McDonald's for much deserved ice cream. Yum!

This horse was HUGE! And it was funny cause Paisley didn't want to touch it and started freaking out, flapping her arms at him. And he walked away. Awww! Poor guy was sensitive! hahaha

Paisley's saying, "Here, turkey! Here, turkey!" and patting her legs like you were call a dog.

Look! I'm Teaching Them Something!

Hahaha! I stopped at Joann's the other day and picked up a couple kid "cross stitch" projects for Amber and Jade. Jade loves it. Amber complains about it (but I think she secretly likes it cause she works on it more than Jade does). And they're both impressed with my "super-hard" cross stitch pattern.

I accidentally got Amber a slightly easier one than Jade. Oops!  

Just Keep Swimming....

Just keep swimming....just keep swimming, swimming, swimming. What do we do? We swim, swim, swim!

Really, that's all WE do! haha So you get to see more fun pictures of my little fish. Lucky you! =)

This is what we do when we're not in the water: 

Jade helping with dinner. She's squishing the meat/egg goo for hamburgers. Thanks, Jade!

Amber and Jade made this "library" the other day. The two dolls on the left are kids there for storytime.

I think Jaders is their mom?

Because Amber is clearly the librarian reading to the kids....

Paisley LOVES oatmeal. She'll practically lick her bowl clean!

I love this crazy kid! She's got one of Jade's socks on - just one. And she's under the desk coloring on paper (for once). Such a turkey girl!

In other news, The girls are doing awesome in swimming lessons. Jade is moving up to level 3 next week, Amber would be moving on to level 5 but she needs to work up her endurance a bit more, and Paisley got the "OK" to move on to preschool A class - meaning I won't be in the pool with her. Kids normally have to be 2+, but since Pie has already mastered nearly all the skills taught in the preschool level, the pool manager did a system overide to get her into the class. I think that as long as she can't see me and know I'm not an option, she'll be fine. She may cry for the first 2 min, but just like with nursery, I'm sure she'll get used to it quickly. Especially since she loves swimming so much! This is my hope, anyways.....

In baby news, I haven't been sick at all. Just super tired. Like I've said...lol. I'm starting to associate non-sick pregnancies with the kid ending up with adhd. Cause I wasn't sick at all with Amber or Paisley and both (especially Amber just cause Pie is still young...) exhibit signs of adhd. With Jade I was sicker than a dog and she's an extremely mild tempered kind of kid. Paisley reminds me a LOT of how Amber was at this age. Her emotional high's and low's are quite extreme and she has a hard time with sudden changes. Oh, and she has a super hot temper like Amber Smamber (and her mama....). Luckily, it doesn't show it's face very often and she's extremely sweet inbetween tantrums. So we shall see who this next kiddo favors - Amber and Paisley, or Jaders. I'm (secretly) voting for Jade. ;)

Memorial Day: Cresap Style

When I was a kid, we had a ton of really great family friends who we took the opportunity to party with basically every holiday. And since we had a pool, we had a lot of super fun summer swim/bbq parties. Now that David and I have a pool, I want our kids to have similar experiences so we throw several summertime swim/bbq parties. To kick off the season, we hosted a Memorial Day party. We had a blast with everyone who came! I loved how even the dad's were in the pool throwing their kids around and being chased by others. We had bbq chicken, hot dogs, potato and pasta salads, chips, cupcakes, and cookies to eat. There's a firepit in our backyard, but it's too wide to hold any grill tops, so David made a stack of bricks on the far side and used the oven racks as a grill top. Very clever! He had also spent the entire day weeding the pool area. I had asked him to take care of the big tall weeds, but he went beyond that and got rid of all the crabgrass as well! Now it looks awesome out there! Thanks, David! =) I wasn't able to get very many pictures cause I wasn't smart enough to charge my camera the night before and it was dead for pretty much the whole time. Sad. But here's the ones I was able to get.

Jaders doesn't usually stay in the water long enough for me to get pictures of her. She said her heart was too fast and she needed a break.

David tormenting Amber and Taylee

Don't feel bad for them...they got their revenge! They chased David around the pool squirting him with the noodle. Amber aimed and Taylee blew. Too funny!

After dinner treat! These are some happy girls! =)