Baby books

I am not a baby book type person. The eldest four do have baby books and first year calendars, but they are rather lackluster. Lots of blank pages.

tangent--I tried to be a scrapbooker, too. I bought lots of supplies. I have maybe 15 pages total, 10 of {l}, 5 of {r}, a big goose egg for {j} and {s}.

I didn't have a baby book growing up and didn't need counseling for it, so I never really thought they were a big deal. For each of her four kids my sister-in-law (the rancher one) would write in their baby calendar daily. DAILY. Something written in each day.

"Sucked on my boob again today, good boy."

I don't think she ever actually wrote that.

The kids, though, like looking through their mostly blank baby books and first year calendars so I figured I should at least buy them for {c} -- because it is totally apropos to pay $64 for something you will leave mostly blank.

Here's what I got (minus the baby on the front):

Advice please

oh wise ones who have kids older than mine and have gone through this before, what advice do you give to a child when people she considered friends decide not to really be her friend anymore??

i did the usual, "be nice no matter what, don't exclude people, try to branch out to make new friends." easy for an adult to comprehend, hard for a heart broken kid to.

any advice??

How many licks does it take

to get to the center of a tootsie pop?
A ONE. . .
A TWO. . .
A THREE. . .
Happy 3rd birthday to our tootsie pop loving little {s}.

replace tootsie pop with the word gum in that last sentence.

and just for fun, here she is with her sisters.

Racer

Decidedly not speed racer though. {r} decided she wanted to be on our pool's swim team this year. She has never been on a swim team. She doesn't even know how to do the required strokes (aside from freestyle) but, luckily, this is an entirely 'for fun' league. Her first swim meet was this past Saturday. She came in last (including relays) in all but one race (finished 3rd out of 4) but she had a great time (she swam 25m free, 25m butterfly, 25m backstroke for the medley relay--no one wanted to swim backstroke so she said she would--, and 50m free for the 4x50 free relay). She was afraid to go off the blocks but Tug worked with her later on dives and I think this weekend she might give the blocks a go. She is in lane 4.

{l} didn't want to do swim team but I made her sign up so she could get the workouts in (I make her go to the half hour daily practices, but told her she didn't have to do the meets if she didn't want to). After seeing this meet, she has decided to give it a try next weekend (I think she was nervous she wouldn't do well but after seeing people cheer on even the last place straggler, she now realizes it is just for fun).

And, just to give you some pool relief, here is {c} sleeping. . .
Back to the pool we go.



This is where we are spending most of our days (in between breaks to go to gymnastics--and breaks due to rain). Hope you are all having a great summer!

Fourth fun

Happy 4th of July! Here is {c} in her bouncy seat while the others were outside (too cold to take her out there). . .
having lots of fun with sparklers . . .
pretending to play the guitar (notice the flag that she drew and taped on her shirt). . .
or fly rocket ships. . .
and imaging herself playing drums. . .
and it was all great fun. . .
until daddy lit a firecracker that made noise. . .
and then two decided to watch from indoors.