Swimming Lessons

Clear back in June, when we still lived in Pratt, Christopher took swimming lessons. It was called "Splash Class" and was geared toward younger kids who had a bit of fear of the water. It was perfect for Christopher. Most of the time he just held on to the kick board and walked from edge to edge, but that's more than he did the previous year. One day he actually put his head in the water. That was HUGE. I loved Splash Class - private lessons, five days for $7. Can't beat that!Walking...

Walking...

Walking through a hula hoop...

More walking...
(That's his teacher next to him. I think his name is Josh but it might be Justin. I know it's a fairly popular J name, though. I'll have to ask Christopher if he remembers.)

Leap-up Day!!!

Today is Leap-up Day! That means that Christopher gets to experience kindergarten for a couple of hours. They will go to music and PE and have a snack - sounds like a great Leap-up Day to me, but he's going to be really disappointed when real kindergarten isn't like that (and it's ALL day, not just two hours). Last night, when I told him about going to school today, Christopher was excited. He woke up early this morning and got dressed without much fuss (a first!). But as the time got closer to the time we needed to leave, Christopher did NOT want to go. I was afraid of this and kept telling him the fun things he would do. By the time it was time to go, he was fine and excited to go.Having his name tag pinned on.
Playing with the Star Wars stuff when he first arrived.
Posing with Mrs. Navotny, one of the kindergarten teachers (and a friend of mine - I really hope he gets her next year!!!).

It Must be Spring!

It must be Spring because we are doing Spring things!


Yesterday the weather was so beautiful that JJ spent the afternoon on a tandem bicycle with his friend, Jackson.

While JJ was touring the neighborhood, Kelly and Christopher (but mostly Kelly) planted flowers in one of our front flower beds. (Actually, it was the dad's idea. He's tired of looking like white trash because we have a boy who likes to farm in that flower bed - see the post here. The dad is hoping that the flowers will keep the boy out of that "field" and into the sandbox that we've had in the backyard for TWO YEARS.)


We will probably add more flowers eventually and we will plant the flower bed on the other side of the steps sometime next week, we hope.

Sometimes you feel like getting dressed....

and sometimes you don't.I walked into the living room one day and saw Christopher playing, naked, in front of the television. Apparently the Legos and Micky Mouse Clubhouse was too much of a distraction and he couldn't completely follow the directions to get dressed!

Shadow Puppet Show

A little bit ago Christopher set up the flashlight on the couch, turned off the lights and then came and asked me how to do a bird puppet. We looked it up online and found an easy one to do. Enjoy the show!


(Darn it, I just watched the video on the blog and you can't see the puppet version - just his hands. Oh well.)

Leslie 7 1/2 months

My parents have very politely suggested that they have not seen any new pictures of Leslie in a long time. They even told Kelly to take pictures of Leslie and email the pictures to them. Soooo..... I finally posted some pictures. In my defense, though, I've taken lots and lots of pictures but the girl is so quick that they usually look like this...Or this...

Cute, but still very fuzzy. Then, the other day, I got this one. Not too bad, but still, not great.

This morning, before Church, Leslie gave us this smile. Still a little fuzzy, but you can totally see her smiling at Kelly.

Then after Church I had Kelly hold her for a minute and we got this great picture of Leslie. Too bad Kelly wasn't looking up.

Here's a video that we took of Leslie this morning before Church. I know it looks like she's not doing anything, but I want to point out three VERY significant things...
1. No one is holding her.
2. She is sitting up - without help or being propped.
3. She is not screaming (which is HUGE since we've renamed her the Screech Owl instead of Drama Girl because she screeches ALL the time).

Just a couple of statistics about Leslie - at her six month checkup (which was actually two days before she was seven months), Leslie weighed 21 pounds, 4 ounces (greater than 95th percentile); she was 27 1/2" long (90th percentile) and her head was 17 3/4" around. The doctor said not to worry too much about her being so big and be glad she's proportional. Leslie has started making noises with a very sweet little voice - it's a HUGE change from the screaming that has dominated her vocal tries for the first six months. She says things that sound like da-da and Hi and Yeah.

And so Christopher doesn't feel left out.... Here's a picture of him with a "hairhawk" - before we cut his hair short.

Hat Day

Clear back on November 22, 2010, it was HAT DAY at Christopher's story time. He tried on MANY hats...a cowboy hat...

a Fargo hat...

an army hat...

and a monkey hat....

before deciding to wear a witch's hat (and his spider man pajama top which he never wears to bed - it's just too cool).

Here's the whole class with Miss Leeann.