"Can you believe I went down the slide?"

"Can you believe I went down the slide yesterday?" Grace asked me this question at least 20 times over the course of 2 days. Eric took them to the pool last Saturday and Grace worked up the nerve to go down the slides for the first time. She had been thinking/worrying/obsessing about this for about a week now. Poor thing, she's just like me. She thinks things to death and worries herself into a frenzy sometimes. But, last Saturday, she worked through it and went down the slides for the first time. Now, she wants to do it nonstop when we're at the pool. Poor Lyla, she just has to watch. She could probably go too but she's still too scared. She'll be up there next summer I'm sure!

It's about time!

It's crazy how you can live 15 minutes from friends, go to church with them and still never see them! That's how it is with one of my best friends from college, Stephanie. I was so excited when they moved to Nashville almost 2 years ago, but, life gets in the way of keeping up with friends. So, I was excited to finally get together with Stephanie and her family last Saturday night. Greg grilled hamburgers for us at their house. We talked and ate and the kids played. I snapped a few pictures of Claire and Max after dinner. The girls had a great time and weren't ready to leave when we said it was time. I definitely need to make more of an effort to get our families together more often in the future. It was a great evening! Thanks Stephanie and Greg!

Olympics, here we come again!

Last week the girls finished their second round of swimming lessons this summer. This time they took lessons from an individual who did a much better job with them. Grace is doing great. She is learning freestyle and breast stroke. She's trying to get the hang of freestyle breathing but it is proving to be a challenge. She is even treading water, which she actually figured out on her own. Lyla can now swim about 10 or 12 feet unassisted from point A to point B. She'll dive to the bottom to grab toys and she's starting to float on her back. She'll definitely be a strong swimmer next summer I think. She's loves the water though. She loves to go under too. She actually doesn't lift her head when she's swimming from one spot to the next. She holds her breath the whole time. I keep trying to tell her to lift her head but she doesn't. They're both doing great though and by the end of next summer they'll really be great!

Look at those muscles!

The girls were being crazy again last week! They love to take all of the cushions off of the furniture in the family room and jump on them. They were of course only half dressed too. When Eric got home from work they started showing him their muscles. We grabbed the camera and caught a couple shots of the silliness. Grace is actually kissing her muscles! So silly!

Afternoon activity

Today Joni thought we should get crafty and let the girls paint. What we really wanted to do was go to a paint your own pottery place. But, in order to save money, we printed 40% coupons from HobbyLobby.com and went to find our own pieces to paint. Reesi picked a trash can for her bedroom, Grace picked a birdhouse that she wants to use as a playhouse for her Littlest Pet Shop animals, and Lyla, of course, picked a crazy garden monkey decorative thing. So, we got out all of the paints, plastic tablecloths, paintbrushes, paint shirts and everything else and let them go at it. We were hovering of course, ready to wash the paint brushes so their colors wouldn't mix and make it that ugly, gray, brown color that 15 different colors create, and wipe of any drops that made it to the chairs or floors. They did really well though and it kept them occupied for quite a long time. We were impressed at how detailed they were. One little thing I have to mention....poor Lyla's monkey, or cheetah as she called it, had a little accident. As I was carrying in about 4 bags from the van, I dropped the bag with the monkey and broke one of its legs out! I tried to glue it back together but I couldn't get all of the pieces back in place because the shards were just too little to figure out. Little Lyla was so sweet though. She just told me it was OK, it was an accident. Sweet girl! I would have been mad if it had been my monkey. Anyway, here are some pictures and comments about our craft time today.

Lyla double fisting it with her paintbrushes! You can kind of see the poor monkey's broken knee in this picture.
This is Lyla trying to make this a finger painting activity. She tried this a couple of times.

Lyla is posing for the camera here.After Lyla posed for the camera, Joni told Reesi to pose and the picture above is all we got out of her. I thought it was really funny. She was not into posing at all!

Our own personal river

Since we moved to Fieldstone Farms, one of the girls' favorite things to do with Eric is go to the river. There is a little park just down the sidewalk from our house that sits right next to the Harpeth River. Eric loves to take them "exploring" the river. Of course, the girls love to get in the water and mud! This past Sunday we took a little picnic dinner down to the park and then let the girls swim in the river. Usually this is a Daddy activity, but I tagged along this time. They loved it! They were not happy when we had to leave. It was very shallow where we let the girls get in and there was a little bit of current in the river right there. Grace would lay on her back and let the water carry here several feet down stream. Lyla really wanted to do this too but she isn't good enough at floating to really do it. She had me holding her hands and sitting in the water while the river pulled her. They had a great time and I thought the water was nice for a river. I was nervous about poison ivy, mosquitoes, and them slipping on the rocks the whole time though. I guess that's what moms are for.

Fieldtrip to Purity Dairy

Joni and I are always looking for free activities for us and the girls during the week this summer. We decided to go on a plant tour of Purity Dairy. If you're not from Nashville, you may not know Purity. They make milk, ice cream, cottage cheese, lemonade, and some other good things out of milk. It is a family owned business that was started by a man here in Nashville. Some of the family members actually go to church with us, which is a plus, because we always have Purity ice cream at our church functions! Anyway, we signed up for a tour and made the trek to downtown Nashville. We were a little surprised to find out when we got there that they don't actually take you on a real tour of the plant anymore. Our guide said the after 9/11 the FDA wouldn't allow the public to go through the plant. So now they have a big room with a wall of windows that you can watch one room of the plant. On that day they were packaging ice cream sandwiches. It was kind of neat because the line had a little glitch and we saw the boxes getting messed up and several sandwiches thrown away as they rushed to fix the machine before more boxes were smashed. Then they showed us a movie about how the milk comes from the farm to the plant and everything in between. I have to say that the movie was a little old, like from the 70's! Joni and I agreed that if you only get a window and a movie at the "plant tour", then the movie definitely needs to be updated! After the movie was the best part of our visit...ice cream! Our nice tour guide had a whole spread of ice creams to choose from. The coolest part was that we were the only ones there so she let us try all of them! It ruined our lunch, but, oh well! We love Purity! http://www.puritydairies.com/

After the "tour" we stopped by my sister Julie's work and brought her lunch. While there the girls giggled uncontrollably, climbed all over Julie, stole some of her bosses cornbread, and Reesi found a Glade plug-in scent that she has to have.

Golf Lessons

Larry and Joni bought Reesi a set of actual golf clubs a few weeks ago so Larry is excited about teaching her to play golf. He asked Eric to go with him last weekend and take all of the girls golfing! Eric took the camera. The pictures didn't show much golfing being done though. These are the best ones that he took. Eric said the girls were OK and he'd take them again so I guess they had a good time. I'm all for it...I had a nice quiet afternoon at home by myself!