Water, Water!

This week's theme at I Heart Faces is "water"!  We have been in the water A LOT this summer, making it hard to choose just one photo!  I picked this one of my little guy - he is so focused on the splash he just made with his hand.  Less than a minute later, he was off chasing his sisters around the pool!  Such a fun theme!  Be sure to check out the other "water" entries at http://www.iheartfaces.com/.

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Reed Visit

I am originally from Michigan - a state which I hold near and dear to my heart.  After 16 years in North Carolina, I still miss Michigan.  Even more, I miss my family and friends that I left behind (although I was successful in recruiting my parents and sister to NC!).  We especially miss the Reed family.  Pam is my aunt, my mom's sister, and she is like a sister to me.   She is married to Keith and they have two awesome kids - Jennifer (12) and Jordan (9).  My kids adore them.  I think Katie and Jordan would be best friends if they lived closer together.  They all made the long car trip (including Jennifer's friend, Savannah!) to visit us for a few days at the lake!  We had so much fun ... especially the kids!  Swimming, tubing, skiing, marshmallow roasting and just hanging out together pretty much sums up our time together.  We can't wait to see them again!

Summer Fun

We are into the second week of our four week break (year round school).  It is really hot here .. almost too hot to be outdoors.  Needless to say, our pool is getting a lot of use!  Here are some photos that were taken after a recent swim team practice...

James & Henry!

We had dinner last night with some good friends that we hadn't seen in a long time!  Way too long!  (Thanks, Jen & Andrew for having us over and helping us out of this rut!).  Besides catching up, I took the opportunity to snap a few shots of their sweet boys.  James is the older, more serious one (with some killer dance moves) and Henry is the younger, silly one!  I have known them since before they were born and love them both!

I couldn't decide on the processing for the next one, so here are all three!!  I think Henry clearly has the surfer look in this photo! 

Puppies!!!

Grandma's neighbor has puppies and they are realllly cute.  Too cute!  What is it about puppies that just makes a person melt?

Little do the kids know that I could have been persuaded.  They should have begged just a little more.  I was starting to teeter - they just didn't see it.  Phew!  That was close.  3 kids and 1 dog - we are good ... for now!

I Heart Faces - Red, White and Blue

 

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4th of July - Red, White and Blues

My poor baby!

Emily woke up with a raging sore throat on the last day of school, so she stayed home.   She missed her very last day of Kindergarten and ended up with strep throat!   Since strep is treatable with antibiotic, I figured she'd be on her feet in no time.  She did seem much better later in the day and I was giving thanks for Amoxicillin.  Now it is July 4th weekend - time for swimming at the pool, BBQs and hanging out at the lake.  She is miserable.  Maybe she has a really, really bad cold on top of the strep?   She had a fever today.  And an earache.  And a headache.  And a nosebleed.  And stayed on the couch all day.  Poor baby!  Not the way to spend the 4th!

School's out!

Finally!

My girls go to a year round school, which, for the most part, is great.  They have breaks in October, January and April when other kids are in school.  This means we can go to Disney World when it is not so crowded or hot!    And when I get realllllly tired of packing lunches after 9 weeks, we have a break.  It's very nice for those reasons!

But I do wish they had a little more time in the summer.  They have 4 weeks - the month of July - only. 4 weeks to go to summer camp, go on a family vacation ('cause that's what you do in the summer!), do swimming lessons, hang out with friends, go to the pool, have sleepovers and buy supplies for the next year. Not enough time to get bored, but not enough time to really enjoy the lazy days of summer.  For them or for me.

So I have not planned anything extraordinary for our 4 week summer.  We have family coming to visit for one of our weeks, which will be tons of fun.  Other than that, nothing - nada.  We are not taking a family vacation this summer (bummer!).  We'll try to do this in October.  Maybe we will get to experience those lazy days of summer and maybe we'll get bored.  Maybe then, I will go back to loving our year-round school schedule.  Maybe I am already starting to get crazy as I hear the girls fighting at this very moment!  On second thought, is 4 weeks going to be too long???