whistle

 

 This girl gets impatient with the rest of us when its time to go swimming. I don't blame her.  She's been waiting everyday during swim practice and just watching the boys swim both at practice and the meets.  So no wonder when its her turn to go swimming she wants to go RIGHT THEN! 

She also doesn't like adult swims and having to sit out of the water so she took a whistle Joel had been playing with to the pool and blew her own whistle during adult swim and all the kids jumped in the pool.  And I had to apologize to the lifeguards....good thing shes so cute

End of a season...maybe

Colin made the divisional team in breastroke and butterfly.  He ended up with 5th in breastroke and 5th in butterfly. He has had some hard practices this week and started overthinking his butterfly so it was nice to see him just go out there and not think too hard but swim fast.  And he swam fast.  And we are so proud of him.

 

 

He has had fun this season and is now hoping he made the All Star meet.  They take the top 12 times for all 5 divisional meets and there is a chance he could make it.  So we will see and wait until those results are posted tomorrow. 

 

Big Girl Bed

We took the crib down and Norah is in a big girl bed now.  She slept in a crib longer than the boys but was having trouble falling sleep in it so we decided to put her in a twin bed. Its always sad taking down the crib and leaving the baby stage.  This time is a little harder for me because I'm not sure the crib will ever be put back up. 

 But I'm trying not to think about that too much and enjoy this stage that Norah is in.  It is nice to snuggle up with her and sing her songs together.  She loves her bed and will put all her stuffed animals and baby dolls in bed and put her blankets over them so they can sleep.  So cute.  She even wanted to take a nap the other day.  WIN!  She got to go and pick out her sheets.  She picked orange and pink polka dots and it reminds me of Angela. 

She sleeps all night and as of writing this hasn't even gotten out of her bed at night or morning. she will wake up and call for mommy or daddy to come get her and usually Colin will hear her and go get her for us.  She gets in and out of bed during the day just fine.  I think she's just so used to us coming to get her out of the crib that in the morning she just is used to calling for us. I'm just waiting to see how long that will last.

Blueberry picking

 Today we went blueberry picking with our church.  Colin makes me laugh in that picture above. 

 Brent took off work today which was nice to have him with us.  He took a lot of the big boys with him and they picked a lot.  The boys wanted to pick more but they also wanted to meet their friends at Pungo Pizza so the Pizza won out. 

 Dont let all the happy faces on Norah fool you. She was done after 15 minutes and kept asking to go home. But then she would pick/eat some more then complain and ask to go home then go pick some more. 

Brent does know the man next to him :) although it would be funny if it was some random stranger. it's our pastor 

 

 Thanks to the boys hard work we got two really full buckets. 

Naps (or lack of)

Naps are very rare these days. She actually isn't sleeping in the above picture but she pretended to sleep then told me she didn't need to take a nap since she already napped at the park. 

These are probably most of the naps she's taken all summer or close to it! 

Before school got out I would put Joel and Norah in the jogging stroller and we would go for a run so Norah could nap. And even then it would be the last five minutes of our run. 

We are outside most mornings all morning and she still doesn't crash when we come home. Sometimes I doze off while putting her down for a nap. It's amazing how she doesn't fall asleep. I still try everyday and she plays in her bed for an hour but just refuses to sleep.

 But she does fall asleep at 6:30/7 most nights which is nice and she sleeps until 8:00/8:30 (compared to Colin at this age who was awake at 5:00) so I'm not complaing too much. And it is nice to not have to leave places or hurry home for a nap anymore since most likely she won't take one. But somedays a nap would be nice for all of us. 

beause after a long day of working in the sun you think daddy needs to wear a pink beach hat to dinner

Little Mermaid

 

This little girl loves the water.  She has no fear of the water (which sometimes is a bad thing because she will just go jump in) She loves to jump in and then put her face in and kick her little legs. Then she will turn over on her back and float and kick for backstroke.  She watches her brothers and tries to swim just like them. 

 she can also walk on water

 

 

Swim season

 

 This guy is having an amazing year.  Usually bringing home first, seconds, and third place ribbons.  Today he got a 4th and 6th place but against a really hard team.  Its nice to be at the top of your age group and one of the fastest.  He typically swims 4-5 events:  at least 1 relay and then always 25 butterfly and 50 free.  Today he swam backstroke instead of breastroke and  did great.  Back is his least favorite stroke.  (just like his mother and just like his mother butterfly is his favorite)   But he loves swim practice and I've been sending him to the pool early while Joel and Norah and I get ready so Colin can play with the other kids before its their turn to get in the water.  Its nice to be a 5 minute walk from the pool. 

 Joel is doing great. Its really amazing to see the transformation from the first few weeks where he rubbed his coach's pretty ear for backstroke and not putting his face into the water to becoming a little fish.  He swam a kickboard relay a few weeks ago and loved it.

 

He is swimming all over the pool now and when we go in the afternoon spends his whole time in the deep end swimming where he can't touch. But put him in a lane for practice and he freaks out.  He did swim down the length of the pool all by himself this week during practice and they put him into the meet.  It was our last home meet so they put everyone in as many events as they could. Joel has the best birthday for swim team because he's still registered as a 4 year old.  His birthday was after the cut off.  So give him a few more years in 6&Under and he'll be at the top. 

I was worried that they put him in a real relay and then 25 free and he was a little excited a lot nervous. But he really wanted a ribbon of his own. Then we had to wake him up to go to the pool and he didnt want to do it.  But he didnt want to tell the coach to take him out either.  He did line up and go stand in his lane so I guess thats progress.  But he didnt go.  They just sent the same kid who had swam down to Joel down for another lap.   No amount of bribery from us or the coach could get him to go.  Can't make that kid do anything he doesnt want to. 

But he did do the kickboard relay and loved every minute of that. 

I think it also helps that he has a guppy "coach" in the water next to him. Anna is one of Joel favorite helpers.  I like her too.  Her sister Katie was in Colin's class in 1st grade and just a great family. 

 

We have one more swim meet and then we find out if Colin made Divisionals.  He hasn't in the past but this year actually has a chance of making the Divisional Team.  Its been a great swim season and I'm not ready for it to end yet so I hope he makes it to give us another week of swim team. 

 

its not letting me upload videos but hopefully soon I can post some of their swimming.

FIVE

 Happy Birthday Joel! 

 He's been talking about this birthday FOREVER and was always inviting kids to his birthday party. I had to tell someone in November that Joels birthday wasn't for a long long time. 

 I always knew if he had a good time playing with someone because he would tell  me later that "so and so was invited to my birthday party"  He would also uninvite us when he was upset at us. Colin told him once he couldn't uninvite mom to his birthday party because mom was the one who planned it!  but that didn't stop Joel from trying to uninvite me at times. 

He has also been counting down for weeks.  20 days, then 15 days then 8 days then it was "6 days because 2 days ago it was 8 days mommy"  and so on. Each morning he would wake up and first say how many days left until his birthday.  And he was always right. 

 Sarah spent the 4th of July weekend with us so my parents came over for dinner one night and we celebrated Joel. 

This morning we tried to take him out for breakfast but he just wanted me to make him eggs and to play with his new toys.  He's not a big breakfast person.  

You would think for the boy who had been talking about his birthday party for months that we would be more on top of planning his birthday party but it all came together last minute.  I tried to talk him into the Kona Ice Truck again but he wanted a pool party like Colin and when your birthday is in July a pool party it is. And to me it was the perfect pool party weather.  
 

 Brent was in high demand today.  I'm pretty sure he had more fun than the kids!

Happy Birthday Joel!  We love you and cant imagine life without you. 

You try so hard to keep up with Colin and for the most part you do in every way. Its hard to imagine you are only just turning 5 sometimes because you act much older.  

You don't like big crowds and get nervous in new situations.  You rub my pretty ear less and less and that makes me sad a little bit.  But once you conquer your fear you are unstoppable.  You were so afraid of the deep end that even in the shallow end for swim practice you'd rub your coach's pretty ear sometimes. Then after you jumped in the deep end once you now spend most of the pool time in the deep end where you can't touch.  Its fun to watch you and Colin swim around and play together in the pool.  Same thing with VBS this week - you didnt want to go in at all but once you realized it wasn't so bad you've loved it.  And I hope the same thing happens with school this year.  

You are still so strong willed and determined which makes life hard at times but I hope that you never lose that and use those for good as you grow up. 

 You are our snuggliest kid still and we are just soaking it up since Colin doesn't snuggle very often with us. You like to have a snuggle buddy to fall asleep next to and it starts out with daddy putting you to bed and then somehow you end up in our bed every night RIGHT NeXT to me.  You don't understand personal space when it comes to being snuggle buddies.  

You still love to make us laugh and its fun to watch you and Colin interact.  You and Colin are best friends but its Norah who is your little shadow. You are usually very patient with norah who tries to boss you around.  

You dont like writing but love to sound out words.  Especially figure out the silly ones.  Like BUTTER - "mom did you know that butter has the word BUTT in it!" things that I never knew or though of before. 

You still can't poop and had us really worried a few weeks ago when you went 2 weeks without popping and no amount of medicine or suppositories were working.   We are still working on that.

You are very thoughtful and even today after getting some birthday money was planning on using it to buy a friend some legos.  Another friend has a feather collection so you've been collecting feathers to help him add to it.  

We have VBS every night this week and I told our pastor it was Joel's birthday so somehow he spread the word and they sang Joel happy birthday everywhere he went.  He doesn't like attention on him but he had the cutest expression on his face when my class sang to him.  He told me in the car that "they sang me happy birthday 4 times and I didn't like it!" But it made his birthday special and Colin told him that he never had that many happy birthdays sung to him in a day and Joel then thought it was pretty cool.  

We love you Joel and I hope this day is everything you've been wanting it to be for the past few months.