Tyler's New Photos

I finally got them! Tyler's 18 month photos! Ok, so I didn't get him in soon enough and he was 19 months when they were taken...but aren't they cute?! I was worried that we might not get any decent shots, but I'm pretty happy with them. Of course, despite saying she didn't want any, when we got in there with Ty in front of the camera Kaitlyn felt left out and we ended up with a shot of her, and one of them together.

Raging Waters

The only Must Do on Sam's list for this summer was taking the kids to a water park. Sam decided to play hookey from work today and we headed to Raging Waters. We had lots of fun and sun. Of course, it being a water park and us more concerned with having fun not taking photos, I once again ended up with very few photos. Such is life 'eh?
We spent most of our time doing things the kids could do, but periodically Sam would leave me with the kiddos to go try out the really exciting rides and other things. This (above) was him crossing one of the deeper pools on the ropes. I would never have had the upper body strength for that.
The majority of our day was spent in the tubes. The kids - Kaitlyn in particular - LOVED the wave pool and the lazy river. Kaitlyn insisted on being in her tube by herself the entire time so Sam spent a lot of time hanging off the edge of it since Tyler wanted to be with me anytime we were in the water. They also loved the smaller slides in the kiddie sections - of which there were many, thank goodness.
Getting more daring in the water all the time, Kaitlyn loved to go down the slides by herself. And this was Tyler's absolute favorite thing of the day. I could not get him off that green dinosaur and when I finally just pulled him off he threw a royal fit.

All in all, it was a great day. The kids had a lot of fun (our definition of a successful day :) that, and the fact that we walked away with very little sunburned patches) and Tyler didn't start feeling the nap he had missed until we were ready to leave. He was fast alseep within 3 minutes of getting in the car. We stopped on the way home and treated ourselves to milkshakes (Sam and myself) and shlushies (Kaitlyn - it HAD to be blue) The rest of us are pretty exhausted too and now that the kids are in bed I'm looking forward to heading there soon myself.

Afternoon at the lake

We took the kids to Rockport Reservoir yesterday afternoon. Can you believe that is probably the first time we have made the time to do that? We managed to find a spot with some sand and spent our time going back and forth from floating on the water to playing in the sand. The kids had a lot of fun, of course. We'll have to try to go more often.

No Brothers Allowed!

This is the door to Kaitlyn's room. Why did I bother to post a photo of this? Because I think the story behind it is kind of funny.
Yesterday Kaitlyn had to go to time out for punching her brother (it was more of a love tap, but you gotta nip those things in the bud right?), who I think she was mad at for playing with one of her toys. When I went back to her room to get her to apologize to Ty, I found her on the floor busily constructing this sign. According to Kaitlyn it says "Tyler can't come in my room and play with my stuff." Sam and I couldn't help laughing (as opposed to being mad), and Sam thought it was amusing enough to help her tape it to the door. Here is a close up.
I came home today from my day out with The Girls to find that the other bedroom doors are now sporting their own signs. Tyler's says "no mommies, daddies, or Kaitlyn's in here" and ours is "only for mom and dad" LOL

Swimming Lessons

Kaitlyn just finished her very first session of swimming lessons. Because it was her first time, I had to be in the parent/child class with her. She did amazingly and had a blast. Every day she was SO excited to swim (I however, am glad they are over and that next time I don't have to go in the pool!). Sometimes that translated to her being extra hyper and having a hard time paying attention but most of the time she was pretty good. I was suprised at how brave she was. She will now put her mouth/nose in the water and blow bubbles without any problem and will even put her whole head under too. He favorite is the lazy river where she enthusiastically practices her arms and kicking - she insisted that we get a photo of it. Her only disappointment was that they didn't have the Big Slide running during lessons.

Our Little Party Planner

It was my dad's birthday on Monday. He's always too busy to celebrate so this year we had decided to skip it. But that wasn't okay with Kaitlyn. She insisted that we make him a cake and have a party. So she took it upon herself to plan it. She got Grandma to help her make the cake yesterday. Kaitlyn did all the sprinkles herself. Grandma wanted to sing Happy Birthday right then, but Kaitlyn said we HAD to have candles so we had to go back today for the party, bringing candles with us. As you can see, Grandma couldn't wait to try the cake and snuck a few bites, but that didn't seem to bother Kaitlyn. She happily added all the candles from the box.
Then we sang to Grandpa and Kaitlyn and Tyler helped him blow out the candles. It took a few tries because we had used the tricky sparkler candles - more fun for the kids that way!
One piece of cake wasn't enough for Ty. He would eat his own cake with the spoon in his left hand and use his right hand to intercept Grandpa's fork while it was on it's way to Grandpa's mouth. :)
Next on the party agenda: games! Kaitlyn had us play Hide and Seek; Duck, Duck, Goose (Tyler really liked that one and went around and around us saying "guck!" and bopping us on the head); and a water balloon toss. Then is was time for Kaitlyn's much anticipated "Show." This concept had been evolving over the week - at one point she even wanted to go to all our neighbors/friends to "sign them up" to see the Show and give them tickets. What we ended up with is Kaitlyn with a microphone on the grass "stage" having us ask her questions.
She would say things like "Grandma, ask me a question about fish." Then after Kaitlyn had given an answer she would say "good question. You get a prize!" and hand one of her paintings to Grandma. Then it was Grandpa's turn, and so on until we had all had at least 3 turns.
We finished up the party with a 4 wheeler ride back to the pasture to pet the cows where our timid Kaitlyn (this is the first year she has been daring enough to ride the noisy 4 wheeler) spent most of the time telling me to drive slower LOL.

Happy Birthday Dad! (You can tell he just loves those kiddos, can't you?)

The rest of our long weekend

Due to the holiday we ended up having a 4 day weekend. We took advantage of it by doing a lot of playing. On Friday we went down to the city to get Tyler's photos taken (turned out cute! but I don't have the prints back yet). Then we grabbed a quick lunch and headed to a fun park for the kids' first time playing miniature golf.
Tyler, as usual was all over the place - usally right in the way when we wanted to take a shot. :)
Kaitlyn refused any help and did it all herself, using her own technique. I think it took her 5-6 shots (at least) per hole but she really enjoyed herself.
Sam and I weren't feeling very competitive - hard to be when your attention was always halfway focused on the kids and keeping them out of trouble - and we both did pretty badly. But it was still a lot of fun.
The rest of the weekend included a nice little date for Sam and me, while the kids stayed with my mom. We got to see the new Batman movie, go out to dinner, and do a little (very little bit) of shopping. And of course all of our dates end with a kid-less trip to the grocery store :)

Other highlights from this week include Kaitlyn's first swimming lessons (she's having a blast and getting so brave!) and a very fun visit from my friend Christina. I can't remember what else we've been up to, but whatever it was I'm exhausted and am taking some time "off" to recover! :) (that means no cleaning bathrooms today! LOL)