Swimming Lessons

Drew had his first swimming lesson this week.  He was very excited!  He loves to watch the TV show, Wipeout, and he is convinced that he will be a professional Wipeout contestant as a career someday.  We've told him that he will have to become a very good swimmer if he ever wants to be on Wipeout, so he is motivated to do well in his swimming lessons.  :)  

The children kept moving from the water to the edge.  The teacher would give them instructions on the edge and then have them get back into the water to try the new skill.

 As the kids practiced the skill along the side of the pool, the teacher would take each child out into the water to try the skill with her.

 Maddie was content to watch from her stroller for a while.  She didn't nap that afternoon, and the room we were in was extremely warm.  The combination of tiredness and hotness made for a miserable time as the lesson progressed.

 The kids learned about kicking and stroking.  They also got to try floating on their backs.

 The teacher tied a pool noodle around the kids for one of their trips out into the water.

 Our little swimmer.

 Drew's buddy, Joseph, is taking lessons too, and the boys were very hyper after their lesson.

 They were also intrigued by the water aerobics class that was starting up right after their lesson.  There were a lot of older women and a couple of men in the class.

Drew will be taking swimming lessons for the next couple of months, and we are hoping that he will learn to be a good, safe swimmer (if not an eventual "Wipeout" contestant)!

Project Life - Week 13

Maddie and I run errands a couple mornings each week while Drew is at school.  This Tuesday morning, we went to Target, Aldi, and the thrift store.  I had a coupon for a free Caramel Macchiato from Starbucks, and I used it at the Target Starbucks.  It was a very nice morning!

I hard-boiled a dozen eggs this week.  I made deviled eggs from 6 of them.  Jim loves deviled eggs, and I never think to make them.

 Drew took the other 6 eggs to school on Wednesday and dyed them with his class.  Here he is with his beautiful eggs.  His Mario shirt was one of my thrift store finds from Tuesday.  I got it for 40 cents!

 Our church preschool group had an Easter activity on Thursday afternoon.  We had a potluck lunch, and then our youth pastor's wife taught the kids an Easter lesson.  Maddie was wandering around throughout the lesson.  She did not want to be held - she wanted to be part of the action!

 After the lesson, we went outside for an Easter egg hunt.

 Maddie found one egg.

 Drew found about a dozen.

 Here is the whole little group.

We have a whole little collection of stuffed Peeps.  My sister started the collection for us when Drew was a baby, and I've added some with some thrift store finds.  I took some pictures of Maddie playing with the peeps.  She is wearing a little top that my mom made for her.  It has cute little bunnies on it, and I thought it was the perfect thing for her to wear for the Easter egg hunt.

Drew's buddy, Grant, had a super hero birthday party on Friday.  Drew wanted to be Superman, so we used some Amazon gifts cards to order Drew a Superman shirt.  He got the cape at the party, and he loves it!

 Since Drew's stomp rockets were so popular at Christmas, we decided to give Drew's friend a set of stomp rockets for his birthday, and after the party, Drew wanted to come home and use his own stomp rockets.  The cape made him able to stomp extra hard, I'm sure!

Maddie had just woken up from her nap right before we went outside.  She had taken off one of her socks during her nap, and I didn't realize it until we got outside.  I put her down in the grass, and she was not very happy to feel the grass on her foot!

Here is what I did for Project Life.  It was simple and straightforward this week, after several weeks of inserts.  I used Easter papers since so much of what we did this week was all about activities leading up to Easter.  I will do an Easter insert for next week's layout.

This is how it looks across the page from last week's page and insert,

and here it is with the insert flipped.

I am linking up again with The Mom Creative.

Easter 2013

We were thankful to be able to spend Easter as a family this year!  We had originally thought that Jim might have to work on Easter, but he was able to get things covered and spend the day with us.

The morning started with Easter baskets on the kitchen table.  I love to gather things to fill the baskets, and I've been slowly collecting things for the past few months.

Drew was very excited to see what was in his basket!

We got Maddie a toothbrush, some cheddar bunny crackers, some hair clips, and her first little bottles of nail polish!  I had heard good things about Piggy Paint, which is a natural nail polish, but it is pretty pricey on-line.  I found a two-pack at Walmart for about $4!

We got Drew a mix of candy and other fun things.  He loves Angry Birds, and he got some Angry Birds pencil toppers, an Angry Birds notebook, and some Angry Birds pajama pants, in addition to his candy.

I had some cinnamon rolls in the freezer that I heated and frosted for our breakfast, and then we got ready for church.  Our church did an Easter cantata in the morning service, and it was a beautiful reminder of Christ's sacrifice for us on the cross and His triumph over death with His resurrection.
I asked for a family picture after morning church, and this was the best we were able to get.  It is tough to get a good group picture!

We went over to Jim's sister and brother-in-law's house for Easter dinner.  Maddie was starting to get a little bit of a runny nose, so she wasn't quite the hearty eater that she usually is, but she did pretty well with her dinner, and Drew ate pretty well too.

The kids went outside after lunch, and they had fun playing with Drew's stomp rockets.

After playing for a while, the kids did their annual Easter Egg Hunt.  Each child had a different egg color to search for, and eggs were filled with money!  Drew searched for blue eggs, and Maddie searched for pink eggs.

This was where one of Maddie's eggs was hidden - in my mother-in-law's hair!

Maddie found one of her eggs in a flower bed.

Drew did a pretty good job of finding all of his eggs.

Maddie looked so cute walking around with her little eggs.

Drew with some of his eggs.

After the hunt, Maddie sat on the front walk and played with the basket full of empty eggs for quite a while.

The kids were pretty tired after our morning at church and the afternoon with family, so we had a quiet evening at home, with early bedtimes for the kids.
We had a very nice Easter, with all the fun of baskets, egg hunts, and family, but we know that Easter is truly about Jesus and all that he did to provide us salvation.  We are so thankful that we serve a risen Savior, who loved us enough to suffer and die for us so that we could spend eternity in heaven with Him!

Project Life - Week 12

Drew started the week with a swim test.  He is starting swimming lessons this month, and he had to go take a little test to determine which class he should sign up for.  He and his buddy, Joseph, took the test together.

 The teacher had them try to put their faces in the water.

 The guys decided to rest after their test.

 We took the boys out for dinner at McDonald's after their swim test.  Jim had stayed home with Maddie, so it was a fun little moms and boys dinner.  The boys played for a while in the play area after they ate, and the moms sat and talked.  It was nice to have a little evening out.
When we got home, we filled out our NCAA tournament brackets.  Jim, Drew, and I are competing against each other this year.  Drew chose his teams based on their mascots, and Jim and I tried to choose by actual basketball knowledge (though mine is pretty limited).  Drew is winning so far!  The winner gets to pick the restaurant for a family dinner after the tournament, and if Drew ends up winning, he says that we will be going to McDonalds.  :)

 Maddie still takes a morning nap several mornings a week.  Sometimes, I have to go in and wake her up so we can get over to Drew's school in time to pick him up.  I found her like this one morning and thought she looked so cute!

 Maddie likes to walk around the house with Wii controllers, just like Drew.  She drags her controllers through the house several times each day, and Jim and I think it is funny that she knows how to hold them properly.

 She is so funny!

 I decided to let Drew and Maddie take a bath together for the first time this week.  Maddie is still a little wobbly in the tub, so it was an interesting experience, but it was nice to save a little time by bathing them together.  I let them play together for a few minutes and then washed Maddie and got her out.  I let Drew play for a while longer on his own while I got Maddie into her jammies.

 Drew's birthday party was Saturday morning, and we all came home tired after the party.  Jim and I both fell asleep while the kids were napping that afternoon!  Jim came in and woke me up at 3:30 to tell me that some friends had just called to see if we wanted to go out that evening for dinner and then a concert by the Detroit Symphony Orchestra.  We scrambled to get ourselves and the children ready, drop the kids off with Jim's mom, and meet our friends by 5:00.  We had dinner at a fancy steakhouse (our friends had gift cards from a client that they shared with us), and then we drove downtown for the concert.
The Concert was called, "Mancini at the Movies."  The orchestra played songs by Henry Mancini, and Mancini's daughter sang some of the songs along with the orchestra.  My parents liked Mancini music when I was growing up, and the songs were almost all familiar to me.  We seemed to be some of the youngest audience members, and we were amused by some of the people around us as they oohed and awed over Monica Mancini's stories and hummed and sang along with the music.

Here is what I did for Project Life this week.
I made my main page with a Design A page protector, and kept things pretty simple with my photos.  I wanted to include the concert ticket, so I combined the ticket, the program photo, and a strip of patterned paper on a 4x6 sheet at the bottom.

 I had a few extra swim test photos that I wanted to include, so I cut a 4x6 section from a Design A page, and sewed it onto the right edge (right along the perforated line).  The extra photos are inserted in the extra sleeve, and it just flips open, like another page.  Here you can see it flipped over, and you can see the extra photos.

 I also made an insert about Drew's friend birthday party.  I used a Design H page protector.

 Here is my layout with the insert flipped.

 This is the front of the birthday party insert,

 and this is the back.

I am linking up again at The Mom Creative.
I hope you all had a great Easter!  We did, and I am planning to post about it later this week.