Our Growing Family: Catching up with our summer so far...still...

Still catching up with lots of pictures from our summer so far. These pictures are so out of order, but we'll just go with it...

We did swim lessons-every Saturday morning for 6 weeks. No offense, but I've got to just fork over the extra $$ and do that certified infant safety swimming instruction stuff instead from now on. The kids have fun but I'm exhausted after each lesson. I swear the parents do way more work than the kids do. And I'm really over both of them pulling my top down and every which way exposing me every time. Everyone in the pool area at the Y has seen way more than I...or them...ever want to see. With the parent and child lessons, they're so clingy to both Matt and I (neither one of us get an out from it!)....it's just enough, enough. If I even hint at suggesting signing them up for anything like parent-child swim lessons again, please remind me how much I loathe it and set me straight. And send me to the nearest private infant swim instructor, the kids--all of us--will benefit so much more from it that way instead.

But they look cute nonetheless all ready to go. They so happily exclaim "pool! pool! pool!" as soon as we walk into the Y. They're probably going to be disappointed when I start bringing them there for just me to work out and for them to go to the kids watch area instead of the pool...

My Mom was here for about 3 weeks! (Again, all these pics are totally out of order.) She came along to watch one of the swim lessons and took pictures....

Don't let this warm, motherly smile fool you. I'm just trying to focus on the bonding-with-my-kids aspect of this all. Trying is the key word---trying despite my constant urge to look over at the clock very 2 minutes wishing it would go quicker to get to our class ending time...

Here's the grimace normally seen during swim lessons. Just. Get. Through. It. It's for the kids. They love this. This is what mothers do for their kids. On a positive note, at least with this go around of parent-child lessons, the water was WARM!! It was lukewarm water and I relished in it compared to the freezing, arctic cold waters we were forced to endure last summer. Remember? We were asked to actually get out of the water because they saw Camryn's lips turning blue. And I distinctly remember most every baby--and parent--literally shivering throughout the lessons with teeth chattering and all. Okay, so these weren't so bad this go around compared to last time. I guess. I'm still doing the private instructor thing.

They both really did love it though. Cam loved learning how to kick her legs better in the water and Cole loved splashing and jumping in off the side.

Oh yeah, don't get me going on the whole after-the-swim-lesson-changing into dry clothes, etc. ordeal either. It's just all exhausting. Okay. Done. No more parent-child swim lessons for me. I think we all get the point.

Good ol' reading times....

Sometimes Cole likes to skip naps and just hang out with me. And sometimes he takes 5 hour naps. Just depends, and I have no idea what it all depends on...

Adorable, right? They made these at school for Father's Day...

Big Boy in his Big Boy car seat. This happens to be after one of the swim lessons. The kids are starving afterwards so I've learned to have "snack bags" for them right when we get done getting dry clothes on.

Taking a bike ride with Matt. Did you know you can cram a 5 year-old and two toddlers in one of these? Not sure how legal that is, but it can be done. Hey, they're all wearing helmets...

We love that Maggie and Fisher are nearby here in Colorado this summer!

Mimi's here!!! The kids loved having Mimi here for so long. We all did. We miss her.

Cole loves when Fisher stays here. He likes to be the first person he sees when he wakes up in the morning. Cole absolutely idolizes Fisher.

Father's Day morning, they were excited to help Matt open his present.

Ummmm. More "waking up Fisher" pictures. Wow, these uploaded crazy out of order...

I'd say Matt had a good Father's Day--he got to go to Flatirons Mall AND shop at the Container Store. Perfect.

So you can kind of see on the middle left side---it's a picture of Matt with Cole and Cam up at school. This picture was up on the main door going into all the rooms at school. They had "Donuts with Dad" the Friday before Father's Day, so the 3 of them went up there for breakfast. Matt was the only Dad in their particular room that morning and the kids loved it. They liked him sitting with all their friends and showing him all their favorite toys and stuff.

Some randoms... But check out how Cam likes to wear the swim diapers...as shoes? socks? leg warmers?

Here's their very first trip to the library. We like to go on Wednesday mornings for story time. It's pretty fun, it's kind of like Kindermusik like we used to do. We sing songs, shake instruments, do motions with rhymes and then the librarian reads a book. Afterwards we head over to the kid's section where Cam reads about 25 books (there's 3 big bins full of board books and she goes to town!) while Cole sits at a nearby table and does the fun, big animal puzzles they have. It's great. Now we've also discovered that it's fun to bring our lunch and walk over to one of the tables right by the creek to hang out and eat.

Proud Momma moment when Camryn stood in front of the TV in awe of Justin Bieber. I swear there was no prompting on my part, it just naturally happened--and I beamed with pride!

The Shorts came to town. James works with Matt, so Amanda and Caydence came up with James while he was up here in the Denver office working. What a great time we had!

It was Hawaiian Day at school recently. How perfect that we had a shirt with Minnie being all tropical and lovely and a shirt with Mickey surfing?!

We ALWAYS love watching the Olympics--event the Olympic trials. Here are our crazy babies "swimming" along with the swimmers on TV while we were watching the trials. They "swam" every time we had the swimming events on. We can't wait for the Olympics to start!!

Kind of blurry, but Camryn loves pushing baby around in a stroller--so Cole pushes his blankie around in a stroller too!

More library time. Sometimes she moves from the board books over to the bigger kid books. She loves reading--but she really physically loves books so much, I'm always so worried she's going to rip the pages accidentally!

Cole's just as content to do puzzles, or color, or do whatever is going on at the table nearby...

Hanging out at our table after library time...

Two of Cam's loves: Books and Elmo. How fitting that she's sitting up there reading a book during an episode of Elmo that's actually all about books?!

Just a little side note---I finally got some IRON!!!! For the next 2-3 days after getting it, I must admit I felt a little more energized. I got this round of iron when I was already getting my normal, monthly Tysabri infusion. Hopefully insurance will let me get iron EVERY month--every time I'm already getting "infused" with other meds...???? That is some serious "liquid gold" in my book ;)

One evening while my Mom was here Matt and I went to a Rockies game. He got to host a work event in one of the suites there, so that was cool. The babies didn't even know (or care) that I was leaving that afternoon. When you've got a pool and Mimi, all is good.

We also got to have a fun girls night with Maggie and Jennifer. We went to a wine bar then saw Magic Mike. The wine was fantastic--Magic Mike was horrible.