A New (cheap) Haircut

We decided to give Wyatt a buzz! As you can see, he needed a haircut! Our clippers are cordless, so we clipped until the battery ran out, recharged it overnight, and then I finished it the next day before school! We gave ourselves some cushion, in terms of time, just in case we needed to hit the barber shop before school! It turned out great, though, and we've gotten lots of compliments! Here are the before pictures. This was about 2 weeks ago...I'll get some after pictures and hopefully post them before the weekend is out!

Swimming Time Trials

Time Trials were June 6th. I'm totally new to the swim team thing. So time trials is run just like a regular swim meet, but it is only our team. It gives the coach an idea of how fast each swimmer is, and how she will place them during regular meets. It also gives each swimmer a basis from which to better themselves during the season.

It was a great day, and a test run for our family. We took everybody. I knew Annabelle would be fine, as there are 3 or 4 other siblings that are her age that she pals around with at the pool. It was like a 4 hour playdate for her! Daphne hung like a champ, I walked her around in the stroller to get her to sleep (she slept for about an hour), and was cool as a cucumber for the rest of the time. Wyatt had a great time!

The meets start with the 6 and under age group. The organizers were getting the kids all together and lined up. I was hanging out in our tent w/Daph when Wyatt left to go line up, and after a minute I realized that I should probably go make sure he was where he needed to be. As I walked past all of the 6/u girls that are lined up in their lanes, ready to swim, there's Wyatt amongst them in lane 2!!! I gently told Wyatt that he needed to get with the boys, as this was the girls' heat, and he was all, "okey dokey"! Not a beat skipped, we went over and found the boys and his place to wait!

After he swam his first heat, he came back to our tent. I wasn't sure how he was feeling, trying to read his face. I was asking him how he was, if he was o.k., if that was fun, etc., and wasn't getting much from him. I was kind of getting worried that he was freaked out by the race, when he finally spoke up and said, "I'm just looking for my towel, mom." Uh, duh...

After the second race, I asked Wyatt how he was liking it all. He said it was all good, except he was tired of racing against a certain kid because the other boy kept shelacking him (not Wyatt's word, but that kid is FAST!). So I explained to Wyatt that the other swim meets wouldn't be this way, that he'd be racing against different kids each race, and that also, who comes in 1st, 2nd, 3rd, etc. doesn't really matter. What matters is beating his personal best each race. And that we would keep track of his times for each race and compare to see if he was any faster. He chewed on this for a minute, and then that day and the next asked a few more clarifying questions about that concept. It totally made sense to him, and now he can't wait for the next swim meet!

Okay, enough writing...here are some pictures from the day:

Finally, in the right place. This is how they have the little kids wait, as their event gets closer.


Pretty good dive!


Here's Daphne, snoozing away!

And Annabelle and a friend keeping themselves occupied!


Backstroke...


We just finished our second real swim meet today. Wyatt has improved his Freestyle time by 7 seconds, his breast stroke by 4 seconds and his butterfly by 7 seconds! That's pretty great! During the meet today, 6 of Matthew's polo players got together and each put a letter of Wyatt's name on their chest in sunscreen (and an exclamation point!) and stood at the edge of the pool yelling "GO WYATT, GO WYATT" as he swam the freestyle! Then they all carried him up above their shoulders down the pool deck when he was done! Talk about special treatment!!! Made his papa proud!

Annabelle's Insight

One day a week or so ago (either the last week of school, or the week before), Wyatt was giving me the run-around in the morning before school. He didn't want to do what needed to be done, giving me lip, etc. While this was going on, Annabelle had a sticky pad in her hand and a pen, and was asking me letters to a word. I wasn't paying much attention, but spelling the word for her, as she was writing it down (I think a friend came over for a visit thru all this, too, so I was really distracted!). Annabelle finished and went about her business. Later on in the day, I saw a piece of paper stuck to the wall and went to take a closer look. This is what I found:

This girl, she pays attention, even when you have no idea that she is! :)

Daphne - 6 months old!

Okay, so she's more than that, but I'm trying my best to keep up! She is growing like crazy and keeping everybody happy. She is a social butterfly that will allow anyone to hold her. When we are at the pool, I barely am in charge of her, as she is continually whisked away by some person or another. The other day, one mom came back, empty handed, and pointed to another mom and asked Matthew if we knew her (she was currently holding Daphne). We assured her that she was, indeed, a friend! Everybody wants their turn for a snuggle!

Daphne's working on sitting up. She loves the exersaucer and is just getting used to the jumpy thing (that hangs in the doorway). She hasn't figured out how to get it to really bounce, yet, but I have no doubt that she will. She loves taking baths - she seems to kind of lunge toward the tub when she sees it. I have to be ready with the towel because now she kicks her legs so much that about half the water splashes out! It's fun to watch her having so much fun!

She is such a happy baby that if she cries, I run to see what is wrong, or what it is that needs fixing. Most people have commented on how they have never seen her cry or really be upset. Even the nurse at our 6 month appt. was skittering about trying to make Daphne happy after her shots. I've never had any of the nurses try to comfort my babies like that before!

Daphne weighed in at 17 lbs. 10 oz (80th %tile)at this doctor appt., at is 27.5 inches long (95th %tile). We are so, so blessed with her!!!

Here are a few pictures of Daph in the bath!

She found herself in the mirror!

One of the Cutest Things I've seen in a Long Time!

Annabelle had her dance recital on Saturday. It was a pretty big production, in terms of the number of dancers this dance company has. There were 25 different groups of dancers and four different shows. Annabelle's group was in the first show, third to the last of all of the groups! I did get a video...it isn't that great, but does the trick. Daphne was asleep on me and then I dropped the camera, but I did get the performance. Of all the groups (Annabelle's is the youngest), they had a mess-up on the music on hers! You'll see that on the video. Annabelle is second from the left, doing her thing, not a worry in the world that there were hundreds of people in the audience! We were so proud! Here are a few pictures that we took, too. Enjoy!!!

Getting ready at home entailed parting the hair on the left, low pony, flat-ironed! Sheesh, the things we do for performers!!!

The girls had over an hour to wait backstage, so one of the moms brought a DVD player! This is what they were doing when I left her. I heard they played some games, too!

Daphne, 5 Months and some...

This 5 month old post is a little late, but better than never! I think Daphne has grown a ton in just the last two weeks. Suddenly, it looks like her feet are getting close to hanging past the end of the car seat, and she's just filling out all over.

She tried rice cereal about 2 weeks ago. She didn't hate it, and humored me with it! I've been trying to give her some every day - some days she doesn't get it simply because there wasn't a good time! How horrible is that?! Once she starts really eating, "there simply wasn't time" isn't going to cut it...I better get this figured out!!! I don't have any pictures of just the rice cereal. As you can imagine, I was trying to juggle a few other things at the same time, so this time photos lost out. I did, however, make the time today to take some pictures of Daph enjoying some carrots. I do think she is really starting to like the food, as when the spoon gets to her eye level, she grabs at it and pulls it into her wide open mouth! (If I could get the kids to work the camera, I'd be able to get pictures of that, too. Hmmm...I'll have to start training them!!!)

When she's playing on the floor, she still doesn't care to roll around, but she can. She cranks onto her side and will play like that, but doesn't roll back and forth.

She usually goes to bed around 5:30 or 6:00 and wakes up for the day around 6:30 or 7:00. I have been feeding her once or twice in the night b/c she has this horrible cough that wakes her up, and I like a drink when I cough like that, so there you go! I'm hoping/praying that we are on the downhill side of this cough, as I-am-tired!!! Once the cough's gone, she's all done with the night time snacks!!!

She's still such a sweet, sweet baby. Last week, at swim practice, Coach Janet used her to show the kiddies the correct stroke for butterfly. It was priceless, and of course, I didn't have my camera. I'll get it on film at some point! She loves to be sung to and when Wyatt and Annabelle talk to her. Her smile and little giggles are infectious!!!

We put Daphne in the excersaucer for the first time this week. I think she liked it!

Of Course, Wyatt and Annabelle wanted to be a part of the fun!

She really did seem to like the carrots, despite this picture! Annabelle's looking funny eating a cookie in the background!

This is a dress from a friend...the friend had a birthday lunch today, so I dressed up Daph in her pretty party dress! She's so cute, I wanna nibble her... :)

And here I'm trying to chronicle Daphne's little habit of sucking her bottom lip. This is the second time she's sucked on it so hard that it bruised it! She didn't like me doing this to her...

Only two more short, quick weeks until she's six months old. I really wish these weeks would slow down a bit.

Proof of her Intelligence!

Annabelle learned about "Outer Space" this week in school. Friday evening, she drew this picture and then just started talking about it. I had to get it on video! The first time she talked about it, I didn't prompt her or ask any questions. When I decided I needed to get it on video, she got a little stage fright, I think, and needed prompting. Enjoy!