Lorelei's Swim Lessons

Lorelei was very excited for her first swim lessons! The aquatic center has lessons all year round with the high school girls from the swim team. They are all one-on-one, which is what I prefer. We tried signing up earlier in the year, but the spots fill up quickly so we had to wait for a later session. I was not exactly looking forward to taking her out in 0 degree weather with wet hair so this was a lot easier in that regard. :)

She was much more nervous than I expected for her first lesson. She is not a fan of the unknown! I think she feared they were going to make her jump off the diving board or something. :) As soon as she finished her first lesson she has been nothing but excited. It was a tough schedule as we went four nights a week for two weeks. She has been completely exhausted. The second week was less chaotic schedule-wise but with the gorgeous weather she has been going really hard. Naps are back full swing for the time being. :) She made improvements quickly so that was fun to see and hopefully made the crazy schedule was worth it.

In the bottom pic she is playing basketball.  They got to have 5 minutes of games at the end of each lesson.

Because of over-booking ourselves with Brad's activities and the kids, Makin went along to most of the lessons the first week. Yes, you can imagine one cranky three-year-old by the end of the week. I found out they had open swim, so Brad played with both kids in the pool Thursday before/during lesson time. Makin especially loved that he could touch and loved playing basketball.

The second week of swim lessons we saw even more improvement. By Wednesday her teacher said she had mastered the level 1 techniques so she went ahead and did a few level 2, so very proud to hear that. She is still very nervous for the teacher to let go of her while she does the back float, but she is capable of doing it. The amount of time she goes under water and swims is amazing! Especially compared to how she was before lessons. Love seeing it. When I said something about her swimming underwater so much she said, "Yeah, I love that." She also just casually said, "I did the front glide." as we were heading out from her lesson, like it was no big deal and lingo she uses all the time. :)

Apparently this is what they learn in swim 1 and Lorelei now knows how to do. :)





 

Easter 2014

We loved celebrating Easter at my parent's house. It was always a special holiday growing up and it was great having the whole family together for a couple of days.


Egg Dying

The kids were very excited for dying eggs. Nana went all out and got several kits so they hand painted each egg. One kit even had mini rollers. They turned out very cute. Lorelei's were mostly rainbow tye-dye looking and Makin's were mostly different shades of green. Brad painted a car on a green egg for him so that was his favorite. It was so amazingly quiet while they were both working so hard on their painting. Both had tongues out most of the time since they were concentrating so much on their artwork.

Lounge Time

Lorelei had fun fixing up Nana's hair as well as coloring and playing Littlest Pet Shops (from the old days) with Aunt Heather.

Piano Time With Nana

Tractor Tire Pics. Gotta Love 'Em.

Family Time At The Hooker Grill

Easter Morning

They were so excited to find their Easter baskets.

And now begins the Easter Photo Shoot Pictures...I didn't know if we had time for pics at church so we took before and then again outside. :)

Lorelei loved how twirly her dress was. :)

Can't you see the pics with M and AJ in  years to come as he gets taller? :)

Church Egg Hunt

Loved our visit! Thanks for a wonderful time!!!

Texas Friend Time

We had a wonderful time visiting friends. I determined I would actually get pictures of the grown up friends too, not just the kiddos this time. :) We are very much in the, "if you take a good smiley one, then we can take a silly one" picture phase, so you will see at lot of those this trip. 

The Hughes

Disclaimer on top photo, they threw a ball and snake at us when we were attempting a pic. And, the pic by ourselves wasn't that good so you have one with us and our cuddlers. :)

The Armstrongs

The Burkes

The Rogers

Amanda and John organized a glow in the dark egg hunt for the night we arrived.
The kids loved it.
In the bottom right pic they are being robots while waiting for John to hide the eggs.

We were so blessed to get our little friend trip in before our Easter visit with my family.
We sure miss these faces!

Visit to Edmond

Even though I'm usually a practical person, we took a trip last week that was not necessarily practical, but good for the soul. :) Since we planned a trip to my parent's for Easter, it wasn't TOO crazy to make it longer and visit Edmond and Dallas. Because Brad is able to work from anywhere, he worked some on the drive and then hopped to different coffee shops while we hopped to friends houses. He basically did it for the kids and I as he knew it would make us happy to see everyone again.

Our first stop was Aunt Heather's! We were very excited to see her new, spacious two-bedroom apartment. :)

They both brought their own stuffed elephants and then added Heather's two for a fun batch of cuddle buddies for bedtime.

The kids were excited to wave palm branches at church on Sunday and bring them to the front with the other children from the church.

Lunch At McAllisters

Giggle Time

Park and Short Walk

We got a chance to see Grandma Juanita. It had been way too long and we were glad to get to see her new living space as well. She is a close family friend who was one of our "adopted" local grandmothers.

Pool Fun After Arriving In Frisco
Lifting One Is Harder Than It Looks, I've Tried :)

Spring!

The temps are starting to cooperate a bit more this week and we have really been enjoying it. As long as its warm enough, we get to the park every day. Sometimes we head out in the car to a special park (like in these pics), but usually we go the one down the block from our house. We can go there no matter how many kids we have and we are so thankful to have it close. We miss our backyard swing set, so this makes up for not having it just a little. :)

We were thrilled to see a whopping 80 degrees in the forecast for Wednesday!

Bubble Time

We did some Easter crafts and activities this week as well.

It is amazing how much kids love this game! :)
On Pinterest there are different variations for each holiday.

Egg hunting. One color egg for each child. Brilliant!

Egg carton lunches - so fun!

We had some special school activities for Easter as well. Jelly bean graphing and egg sight words were especially fun. Makin is keeping up with his big sister pretty well. He asks to do school work with her if she does it when he is awake. He was enjoying the file folder number games in this pic.

I'm not pushing reading right now, but saw this idea on pinterest and thought it was fun. Plus a certain girl is very eager to learn to read so it's hard not to get excited. :) So proud of our girl!

Weekend In Kearney

Karter is the one in the fur hat.

We headed for another Stahl get-together in Kearney over the weekend. We enjoyed getting to watch Hannah and Karter perform as well as hanging around with Grandma and Grandpa in between performances. We even got to see their old college stomping grounds as that is where DI was located. It is much easier to keep Brooklyn home so we missed seeing the newly-turned one-year-old but can't wait to see how much she has grown sometime this summer.

There was a carnival the kids enjoyed after the shows. They loved all the different games!

We had hours of swimming that afternoon/evening and then swam again the following morning. Lorelei and Makin even tried jumping in for the first time!

Thanks for a fun weekend!

First Lost Tooth

Miss L has been asking "When am I going to loose a tooth?" for about 3 years now it seems. :) Ever since she heard about it she has been dying to loose a tooth. The big moment finally came! After our initial shock (and my mom and google reassuring me its a normal age to loose a tooth) we were so happy for her. When you see Lorelei, she will probably say, "Guess what, I lost one tooth. Eating an apple." :) She tells everyone and anyone she sees.

So, to tell the story, we were in Omaha because Brad had to fly out early (this is why they are in a hotel room) and she was having a quick apple after swimming and bath since supper was worn off. She took a couple of bites and then suddenly held out her tooth and said, "Whats that?"

I just loved them hamming it up for the camera for me. :)

She also loved calling Nana and Grandma to tell them the big news.

Checking out her hole in her mouth in the mirror. You are probably wondering about her cheek, the same day she ran into a pillar at the mall. She was not watching where she was walking. No relation to the tooth being lost. :) 

She was very excited about the tooth fairy coming. I was a little concerned as I had a whole plan of making a special envelope that hung on her bed, which of course we had not done yet and certainly could not do at a hotel. But the tooth fairy made her appearance despite the circumstances. :) Lorelei had the idea to write her a note. "I lost one tooth." She was elated the next morning and got a very special dollar since it was her first. She thinks that means the tooth fairy turned her tooth into the dollar and is not planning to part with it anytime soon! :)