Lazy Days of Summer

I love summer. Especially, since I can send the older kids out to swim while Owen naps. They love it.

Friday was my sister's birthday so I invited her kids over to play so she could have some time to do whatever she wanted.

I seriously laughed the whole time watching them play in the back yard. For one...these girls are SPITTING images of my sister and I. The best of friends...but a fight can erupt suddenly. My sister and I were close and we played together a lot. They thought it would be fun to bring the teeter totter in from the side yard and see how well they could teeter totter in the pool.

Seriously, if you are in need of entertainment...you need to watch kids do this. The tiniest shift of weight and one kid would slip off and the kid on the other end would go flying. I seriously haven't laughed that hard in a while.
The best was hearing Chelsea tell Alexis that she needed to stop moving and tipping them over. Alexis claimed she wasn't...and Chelsea exclaimed,

"Well, it's definitely not me...so it has to be you."

(I swear my sister would have said the same thing to me when we were that age.)

Then Chelsea decided to try it by herself. After she had tried Alexis wanted to try it by herself.

Chelsea says, "Yah...let's see you try. Then we'll see whose tipping it."

Alexis' laughed and I was busting up.

Alexis gets on the teeter totter and gets a huge shove out to the middle of pool by Chelsea (with an obvious attempt to throw her off balance.) Alexis flew off and came up exclaiming..."Yah...I'm not very good.)

I died laughing to say the least.

1) Because Alexis was unaware of Chelsea's intent and
2) Because I was reliving my childhood just watching them.

Airplane Watching

Owen is in love with airplanes right now. He stops whatever he is doing the minute he hears one to find where it is in the sky and points it out to everyone around him. Time stops when an airplane comes by and we all pause whatever we are doing because of Owen's excitement.
One of things on our summer to do list was to go watch airplanes land and take off at the airport. Friday night we were eating dinner and Owen yelled out "Air-pane" three different times while he was eating. We were inside but our windows were open. Chad decided it was a good night to go after that. We grabbed our beach chairs, some waters and popped some popcorn and we were out the door.
All the kids loved it.

Alexis adores her little brothers. Can you tell?
The best part was when the airplanes had landed Owen would turn around and look at us as if to say, "Did you see that?" His finger would stay pointing through the fence at what he had just seen.
There was no time to put on make-up since this was a spur of the moment thing...but I still love this picture anyway. I love being a Mom.
Ryder was a happy camper just chillin' in his cars seat or in my lap.
I highly recommend this activity. It's fun, easy...and FREE!

Swim Team

Saturday was the kids last swim meet. They ABSOLUTELY love swim team. They never complain about going to practice and they love competing.
Alexis had a great year. She finished off this meet swimming in the official race for freestyle and was the last leg in both relays. Since she was in the 7-8 year old group she will compete in that group again next year.
I'm pretty sure 99% of the girls in her age group are over a foot taller than her. I'll have to find our video of her swimming because this picture below just doesn't do it.
She is such a pretty swimmer, she's fast and she's so close to making it all the way across without breathing. So next year may be the year she gets that "no breather" she's been working so hard to get.

Carter shocked both Chad and I. We thought we'd have to convince him into enjoying the competitive side of swimming but once again his competitive nature came out without any push from us. If you only met him on the soccer field, on the t-ball field or at the swim meets you would HONESTLY think he was a feisty kid because he is so into sports. But outside of those settings he's quiet, kind and mostly reserved.
This was Carter's first year so he had to try out before the season started. They changed the rules this year. The 4 year olds now have to swim the entire length of the pool, unassisted, doing side breathing, never flipping to their backs, never touching the side of the pool or lane lines and never stop kicking or doing "big arms." We practiced with him everyday and he worked so hard. At the try-outs he did all of the above. Both Chad and I watched. We were shocked when the email came saying he didn't make it. Carter was so sad. I asked the coach why and he told me it was because Carter looked tired and didn't think he could go back and forth a few times at practice.

WHAT? Made no sense to us...but we cooperated.

Anyhow, the coaches allowed a few kids that were borderline to practice for a few more weeks and try out again 3 weeks later. By that point I had given birth to Ryder and couldn't get in the water with Carter. So, my sister took him to the pool every morning with her boy and Chad took them every night to practice. Carter worked so hard. He swam the length of the pool six times in a row the morning he tried out. He wanted this so bad and and he knew he only had one more chance. His hard work paid off and he made the team.
He's got his big arms down pat. (He's the one in the second lane from the bottom with his head buried in the water.) He's very consistent on his timing...side breathing every 4 strokes and he's got huge kicks. Next year it will be fun to see if he can get his kicking to propel him faster and pull under water with his hands.

Between their races, they enjoyed playing with their friends, playing with their little brothers...

and relaxing while eating the candy they paid for with their hard earned money doing chores at home.
We were so proud of them. They always gave 100% and it was so fun to watch.

Specialists

When it rains it pours. We've been dealing with lots of health problems that have required us to go see a few specialists.

Long story short:

Ryder is seeing a gastro-interologist regularly to make sure he's doing ok. We had an appointment today. I found out a lot about reflux. And that it is going to get worse. It should peek at 4 or 5 months. I didn't know that. We are upping his meds again. The ups and downs we've had trying to figure out what works for him is another story in and of itself. If we have to keep increasing the dosage of his medicine that tells us he most likely will have this beyond his 1st birthday.

Owen had surgery on Tuesday. 6 ear infections this year and a resistance to amoxicillin gave us a ticket to see the ENT specialist. We had a choice...surgery within 1 week or 4 months...due to the doctors booked schedule. We choose the 1 week option. So glad we did too...because the Dr. drained fluid out of one ear and sticky pus out of the other.

Owen also has an appointment to see the gastrointerologist due to his "aversion" to food. Hmm...he will eat sweets if they are offered...so that makes me think he's just fine. But other days when he won't consume a bite of anything it makes me wonder. We shall see...in August.

Alexis' stomach is acting up a lot so I'm pretty sure we are going to have to start giving her her medicine regularly now.

Carter, please stay healthy! You are the only one left.

Oh ya...I forgot to mention I had to go see the dermatologist a little over a month ago to have some weird growth on my neck removed. Back in January, I had an itch and the next thing I knew I was bleeding profusely. I was in a meeting so it's not like I was scratching my neck like crazy. Anyhow, it bled like crazy every time a kid touched it. I didn't even have a mole or freckle there before. So they removed it after I had Ryder and all is well now.