June recap

So June seemed to disappear quite quickly.  Here's a recap of things...

"Helen" got lost while flying and came to live in our waterfall.

Gus babysits the dishes on steak night.

Natalie got her carseat all washed and ready to take to Nebraska

We went to McCormick-Stillman Railroad Park in Scottsdale...

 

 

 

Gus went to the doctor and decided he was a couch dog

Natalie took Grandma Becky's toast with cottage cheese to the next level by adding chunky peanut butter.

We took weekly trips to the library to get new books to read at home.

We ate popcorn and watched a few World Cup games.

We got a new dress from one of mommy's friends.

Gus babysat my bowl of popcorn without so much as touching it.

It got hot.  Really hot.  So we played in the water.

We had a bad dream at naptime and crawled in daddy's big black chair with mommy.

Katie went to Musical Theater Camp and put on a show.

Daddy manned the grill at a family BBQ.

Aunt Wendy played pirates with Natalie.

Daddy and Natalie went to get the mail and had smoothies on the floor while reading the mail.

Daddy continued giving horsey rides around the living room.

Second week of BIG GIRL swim lessons

After the successful completion of her first swim lessons this year, she moved up to the next level of classes this week with a new teacher and all new kids.  She is the youngest this time again (class is for ages 3-6.5) but that doesn't stop her from trying to swim just like everyone else.

They start each class by singing "Ring around the otter - pockets full of water - splashes - splashes - we all go under..."

She LOVES being in the water and usually never looks back.  But daddy came to watch one day and she was a total ham for him.

Each kid gets time to practice their starfish float while the other kids sing "Twinkle twinkle little star"

And finally, this class is working on getting her to put her face in the water while she swims so she is starting to look a little less like Gus (in the water) and a little more like a person swimming.

Pre-dinner ritual

Natalie has recently starting insisting that we say a prayer before we eat, but only before we eat dinner because "breakfast is just cereal, mom."

Here's the prayer she learned at school...

Modern-day Bubble Wrap

So many things don't come with actual bubble wrap anymore but rather with the plastic bags full of varying amounts of air.  I support this, because you can recycle the bags but couldn't recycle bubble wrap, but there was something pretty fun about bubble wrap.  Turns out, Nat discovered that there's something pretty fun about these bags of air too...

This one is mostly for you, Auntie "Bubble Wrap" Adrienne.

Camping: West Clear Creek

In honor of Father's Day, we took a quick family camping trip the weekend before Father's Day up near West Clear Creek (just outside Strawberry, AZ).  The weather was spectacular and we found a great site.  The kids and Gus had a fantastic time and everyone came home tired.

Katie, daddy and Gus did some hiking down the steep trail to the creek while Natalie and mommy setup the camp kitchen and then went on an adventure walk around camp.

Now THAT is one happy dog.

Hey look everyone -- Gus is in the water!!!

 

Our campsite is somewhere up on the ridge in background.

Happy Father's Day, Scott.  We got you a camping hammock!

A little more exploring after dinner...

Someone is pooped.

First week of BIG GIRL swim lessons

We signed Natalie up for BIG GIRL swim lessons this summer, not knowing how they would go.  The kids in her class range from age 3 to 5.  And while she love love love loves the water -- after the disaster that was her ballet lessons -- we just didn't know if she'd willingly go in the water without mommy or daddy.  But we told her that only the babies get to have their mommies or daddies in the water with them.

Low and behold, after mommy walked her over to the pool and introduced her to her lifeguard teacher ("swimguard"), Miss Libby, Natalie never looked back.  Not even once.

Nat has not been shy about volunteering to try things first.  She's like a different kid when she's in the water.

Swim lessons are EXHAUSTING.

She LOVES Miss Libby.

 

She is learning to float on her front (blowing bubbles) and on her back.  This video shows her learning to flip back and forth between the two while singing "I'm a little pancake on my back..."

Come on lil dude....SWIM!

Found this old gem from June 2012.  How did we get another dog who refuses to swim or get anywhere near the water, sprinklers or garden hose?

Fancy coffee maker

If you come to our pool, be sure to bring a plastic coffee mug.  We've got the best coffee in town...

http://youtu.be/sqU2qFpuszE

Memorial Day weekend

Thanks to Natalie's school, we brought home a special reminder on Thursday afternoon that the weekend wasn't about it being a 3-day weekend, about the great sales on mattresses, about the hamburgers/hotdogs or about the pool ... it was about all the people who have given their lives to help keep us safe.

Mommy and Natalie went to the grocery store on Sunday morning (while daddy was out mountain biking) and she enjoyed her patriotic donut...

We hosted a pool party with some friends and their kids on Sunday - which was pure chaotic fun (that's life after kids, right?).  And then we followed the pool party up with some chill family time in the pool on Monday...

 

Bobbi Conzet -- didn't you send us this swim suit when Nat was real little??  I seem to remember it came in a box along with the fleece Husker mascot costume and a pair of denim overalls.  But I don't remember the story behind it...

 

Chopsticks and a brainstorming toddler

Daddy was planning to ride his bike after work today and I didn't feel much like cooking (or doing anything, really).  So on the way home from school, I asked Natalie if she'd like to go on a date with me.  After she agreed, I asked her if she'd like to go to the noodle place or to the hero sandwich (I was referring to a Greek gyro restaurant but called it "hero" thinking she would associate it with super heroes and flying and capes and other fun things) restaurant.

She was uncertain.

So we pulled up and parked right in between both of them.  I pointed to the "hero sandwich" restaurant and then to the noodle restaurant.  She looked back and forth between them.  Then she asked if we could go look in the windows at both of them.  OK.  So back and forth we walked.

She chose the noodle restaurant.  So in we go.  We order and wait.  She finds chopsticks and is instantly curious about them.  She looks around the restaurant to see what other people are doing with them. I showed her how I use them and the rest of this was all her brainstorming as she went.  I narrated the photos based on her facial expressions and what I can remember of the conversation.  Here are a few photos that capture the evolution of the chopsticks experience...

It started with her trying to pickup Edamame beans while we waited for our dinner to arrive, but I'll admit that it is tricky even for me.

Once dinner came, it progressed to trying to stab the big pieces of chicken...

But that wasn't reliable or super successful.  "Mommy, are you SURE I am supposed to use these to eat?"

Ok, let's try pinching food between the chopsticks with TWO hands.

Maybe....?

Nope - that didn't work either.

Ok, let's try holding them with one hand (like everyone else) and then putting the food I want to eat in the sticks with my other hand and then squeezing the chopsticks with a death grip until it gets to my mouth.

The two-handed assisted death grip WINS!!!!

Updates coming...

March was a little insane in the Hayes house.  April -- well I don't remember much of April but apparently it is already over.  And now it is not only May, but it is mid-May.  Wow.

None-the-less, over the next few weeks, I will be working on slowly updating the past few months worth of photos and stories on the blog while I simultaneously work on catching up on Natalie's baby book.  I figure I should probably get that up-to-date before we have another baby...

Spring Swim Season - the Final Meet

Each swim season has four meets in which each swimmer earns points for their placement within each rate (it is weighted by heat and place).  At the end of each season, the top 8 swimmers in each age group (separated by gender) are awarded medals.

For the first time since she began swimming, Katie was among the top 8 finishers in her age group.  She finished in 3rd place - and only missed second by 2 points!

Each swimmer was called by name, awarded a medal, a "Top 8" t-shirt and called out to stand in front of the lane representing their place.

The Top 8 11-12 year old girls (minus 2nd place and one girl who got cut out by accident):

 First and third place winners (again, 2nd place was not there):

Katie with her medal.  I told her that olympians often bite their medal (as a tradition to see if it's real) but she wasn't so interested in trying.

 Backstroke:

 Her usual block-side cheering squad:

She makes the most inefficient stroke ever invented (butterfly) look graceful and so easy...

Friday funday!

Today mommy took me to the super fun pool with all the buckets and sprinkers and sprayers and slides.  We were supposed to go last week with my friend Ben and his mommy, but I had such a hard time listening and following directions on Thursday night that mommy and daddy had to call Ben's mommy and tell them we couldn't go.  I was really sad.

But this week I got good reports from my teachers at school everyday and had good behavior at home -- so mommy said we could go to the pool.

IT WAS SUPER COOL!!

Mommy had told me that there were buckets and sprayers and slides but I had no idea that THIS was what she meant.  When we first walked in and I saw all the cool stuff, I stopped in my tracks and gasped with a giant smile on my face.  It was like nothing I had ever seen before!!!

We put sunscreen on all over me so that I wouldn't get any sunburn.  It was cold when mommy put it on.  And it smelled funny.  But I held still and let mommy put it all over me and then sat still while mommy put hers on too.

After we were all sunscreened up, I took off for the pool.  It's pretty neat because you can just walk into the pool and it gets "deeper and deeper and deeper" as you walk towards the play thing.

My favorite thing to play with was the strings that you pull on which then activate a faucet above you and dump water on your head.  But I was smart and stood on the opposite side of the faucet so that when I pulled on the string -- I got water on some other kids instead of on myself. 

We walked around the play thing a lot and I'm so tall now that I can touch the bottom in the 3' section... but I have to keep my mouth shut because the water is over my mouth.

And now that I've seen other big kids swimming around underwater with goggles, I told mommy that I want to learn to swim.

Thank you, Grandma Becky, for the Sofia swimsuit and matching towel.  No one else at the pool had a suit like mine but lots of little girls pointed at me and said, "Look mom, she has a Sofia suit!"

Final cello concert

Katie decided to switch gears a bit and signed up for Choir at school next year.  She is very excited to try something new and we are excited to attend different concerts next year.  But that made the Spring Orchestra Concert her final cello concert.

Here is an unsteady recording (Natalie was sitting next to me continuously asking for a lollipop) of one of their songs from the concert.

http://youtu.be/5LUh4ugaTDI