Just like dad

Happy Father's Day!  And to all you dads out there, Graham is trying to take your job, so watch out!  He watches Ian very closely and then mimics everything he does.  Grab a baseball cap, check.  Grab your lawn mower, check.  Stop to pick up sticks, check.  Sit and have a cool drink with your dad, check.  Think your dad is the greatest, check!

Baby doll walks

Boy or girl, you love to take your babies, horses, rockets, or trucks for "baby doll" walks EVERY DAY if you live in this house.  Harper asks every day.  Every day.  Whether in the stroller, the scooter, the wagon or just dragging something behind you, it is all good.  Now it has gotten even better since Graham has discovered that our neighbor down the street has rasberry bushes and has welcomed us to the feast.  So now we walk down to his house, grab handfuls of rasberries and Graham eats a rasberry at every driveway we pass.  He now refers to them as "rasberry walks".  Add lightening bugs and you have a real evening on your hands!

Strawberries!

Our annual trip to the strawberry patch with the Butlers, one of our favorite spring traditions!

Lucy at Daisies

Lucy and Taylor at our Daisy field trip to Huntley Meadows.

Kyle and the slip n slide

What is better than your good buddy, popsicles, and a slip n slide, not much, if you are Lucy.

Time Trials

It's official, Lucy swam her first 25 freestyle race today at her swim team's time trials.  If she would stop looking up and smiling at me, she might have been even faster! One race today, they will build up to doing relays, backstroke and eventually the other strokes.  Good start, she earned a blue ribbon for her heat!  Once she got out of the pool, she ran up to her Pops and he said, "good job Lucy!"  to which she replied, "thanks, did I win?" 

And yes, once again Lucy is the smallest on the team so that means the coaches pick her up constantly.  In this instance,  she was held while the coaches led the team in cheers.

Kids and their music

Harper loves her new cd player and regularly plays music on it. At full volume.  It is something that I didn't think I would have to say for quite some time, but today I had to knock on Harper's door, which had been shut "for privacy" and "so Graham doesn't mess my room up" and ask her to turn her music down.  She was blaring her princess cd and singing full tilt, twirling in the middle of her room with her new bday bear.  It was cute, but I still made her turn down her music.  Better to start now!

Swim Team

Lucy has now finished her first week of her first swim team's practice. After much nerves and uncertainty about swimming in "11 feet deep", the first day they lined up the kids in order of height. This means Lucy was first in line, at the "11 feet deep" and was told to jump in.  Well, she decided to ease into the water rather than jump, but after that, it was full throttle swimming all the way down the pool.  She did terrrific and got to the other end, looked up at me from across the pool and flashed a thumbs up.  I couldn't have been prouder. 
Since that first day (we've only had 4 practices) she has overcome her fear of the depth of the water and has swam repeatedly down the lane without needing to hold the lane or wall once.  She takes breaths like a (semi) pro, smiles everytime she looks up and is eager for practice every day.  She said after practice on Thursday, "my body hurts".  45 minutes of practice, after school is a lot, but she is relishing it and is disappointed that she doesn't have practice on the weekends.  She even has a new team suit and loves that it "makes her swim like a dolphin".  We always did call her our little fish.