Baby Pool and Sprinkler Fun

I recently read a camera tutorial in a blog. I actually found a few minutes to pull out my camera book and figure a few things out. Today, I decided I would play around with a couple of cute subjects while Macie played.Cropped a little.
I love this one. She might drive me crazy at time, but I really think she is beautiful!
Doesn't she look like she is loving this?

And then she moved to the sprinkler.
She was ready to be done with it! You can see how funny her hair is right now. If you look closely, you can see it standing up on top.
Other than one being cropped and shrinking the picture, these are all straight off the camera. There are a lot more from today, but I will leave you with one last picture. I love the way the color of the rings stand out and she looks so crisp.
Which one is your favorite?

This and That

Carson has been at space camp this week. He leaves with Brad at about 7 and gets home about 5:30. Macie and I have missed him!

Macie did dance camp 3 days this week. She of course loved dressing up and dancing. And, I enjoyed getting caught up on laundry.

Ellie's hair makes us all laugh. I had to share a picture of her old man ring. The picture does not show really how prominent it is. We only have one week left until school starts for Carson. Next week we will be trying to enjoy the last days of summer break. Once again time has passed quickly, but I think we are ready for a little more normal in our lives.

3 Months

This month, we could not decide on one picture, so you are getting several. Once again, I am amazed at how quickly the month has gone by. It has been another busy month. We finished up swim team. Ellie was a little trooper going to all the meets, sitting in the hot weather, having all sorts of people hold her. Hopefully next year, she will stay home with a babysitter a couple times and not have to endure it.
Ellie had her first fourth of July. We went to a parade and went to see fireworks. Once again, she did great.

Two sets of cousins came to visit. We spent lots of time at the pool. Ellie made her first trip to Six flags. She even got to ride a ride-Thomas the tank engine with Annie and Clarabelle.
Ellie continues to be the sweetest baby. She sleep 8-9 hours at night. She usually takes a long morning nap. She would be in a good routine if the rest of us would let her. She is still wearing size 2 diaper and mostly 3 month clothes. Jeff tells her all the time she is the best baby ever.

I don't know her stats this month because we don't have an appointment this month. My guess is she is about 13 pounds!

Swim Team

We live in an awesome neighborhood with a large pool. But, we have never had a a swim team. A number of people have tried other years to get a swim team going, but they could never get past our HOA board. Last summer, I decided I was going to make it my job to get the team going. So, I went to a few board meeting and convinced them to give us a try. Then I got pregnant with Ellie! She was due at the time the team would really be up and going. There were a handful of people who had worked over the year to get ready for the team. They and a few others took over and we had a great first season of swim team.

Carson was in the youngest division this year. He loved every minute of it. I never heard a single complaint about being at the pool at 8 AM for practice. He loved the competition and always asked as soon as the race was over what place he got. The younger kids only swim free style and back stroke. But, in 2 meets he got to swim with the 8 and unders in a relay. One time he swam breast stroke (after not practicing it at all!) and the other time he swam butterfly. He wants to continue swimming on a year round team. If I can get past my issues with it, I am sure he will love it. And, we are all looking forward to next summer when Macie can join the team. She swam all the way across the 25 yard pool once this summer already.

Here are some pictures. They are not in order and I am too lazy to fix them.

Getting ready for the first meet. It was just a mock meet with our team.

Swimming free style at one of the meets.

Getting ready for the start at RiverGreen
Warm ups at River Green with Carter and Eli in the water.
The best part of swim team was getting to be with friends!

These are Carson's friends Eli and Carter. They have all been friends since they were babies.
Carson and Jack. Jack is Carson's best school friend. We are lucky that he lives in the back of our neighborhood, so they got to be on the team together.

And what do you do while your brothers are swimmming? Eat as much as possible! Macie and Addison enjoying ring pops in one of the rare moments they were sitting. We are all looking forward to them being busy swimming next summer!

A couple pictures

I am not sure what happened to the corner of this picture, but I kind if like it. It is at the fireworks on the 4th. I think it is the first one of all of us!


How sweet is this little smile. I took this after Ellie had been entertaining herself in her activity mat for about 20 minutes. When I went over and started talking to her she just smiled at me. Usually she has a big toothless open mouthed grin. But I just love this one. She is such a good baby.