summer of swimming / arizona trip

i had dubbed this summer the 'summer of swimming'.

i wanted chet and holden to be good swimmers by the end of the summer, no matter how many hours of swim lessons it took!

i had researched a few of the pools around us and had figured out all the different combinations of classes that would work for our boys. and i had also asked my mom to look into swim lessons near my parent's house for the boys to take while we were visiting them the first week of summer. i was really determined to make this happen!

my mom ended up finding a lady named 'miss sunny' to come to their pool and give chet and holden swim lessons every day that we were there. could it get any more convenient?! so i held off on signing our boys up for anything here until we finished up that first week in arizona so i would know what level to put them in here. and good thing i did! because this lady was seriously a miracle worker. she totally ruined my entire summer plan by teaching our boys how to swim in the first week of our break! (not complaining.)

holden was a little bit ahead of chet to start because he is naturally less of a worrier and because he had taken several months of swimming lessons in the fall. still, he wasn't confident playing in a pool without a floatie of some sort. chet has always been nervous around water and has always hated getting his face wet.

on monday, neither of them were willing to even jump in the shallow end (3ft) of the swimming pool without a life jacket. by friday, they were swimming 6 hours/day with no floaties, jumping from the elevated hot tub to the pool, grabbing things off the bottom of the pool, and seeing how long they could hold their breath! i kid you not.

we are seriously soOoo proud of them and love watching them play in the water. (swimming pools are way more fun when you don't just float around in a life jacket, avoiding all splashing!). obviously they still have so much to learn.. but we are the right track. and we just started swimming lessons again at the rose bowl aquatic center today, so they will keep improving all summer long.

and as for tad?

we have never experienced a baby like this - he is a TOTAL water baby! he literally has no fear of water. he loves to jump in, get tossed around, blow bubbles, splash, etc. he is too funny! i plan to get him a parent & tot swim class when the older boys head off to school in august. (i just can't handle having all 4 of us in swim lessons at the same time right now!)

like i just said, a lot of our arizona trip was spent in the swimming pool. it was a hot week, and that was a very fun way to keep cool. but we also went to a couple splash pads and playgrounds, my mom took chet and holden to see troll's, we hung out with the fox family, borrowed toys from the infamous susan down the street, tried out bahama bucks for the first time, and got spoiled by my parents.

i drove out there on my own with the boys, which was scary! but we survived. the boys all did so well. we listened to audio books the whole way and i think that really helped. we finished off charlotte's web and started into how to train a dragon. the boys were totally into it! matt wasn't able to take the whole week off work, but we booked him a one way flight out to meet us for a quick visit at the end of the week and to be my chauffeur on the way home.  

matt and i somehow managed to get in 2 date nights in the 2 nights he was there! haha we don't mess around when a date night is offered to us. because, seriously, date nights are the bomb. we enjoyed eating tasty food and chatting on hot patios into the wee hours of the night.

arizona was a great way to kick start our summer holidays. i am so excited for what the rest of summer holds! we made a giant summer calendar with all of our summer events and wishes on it. it was fun to make, and it is an easy way for the kiddos to see what's coming up next. unfortunately, it also kind of makes me worry when i can look and see how much time i have before my little buddies head back to school. gah! but, then again, i was awake for several hours last night worrying about what to do in case our house catches on fire when we are sleeping sooo.. perhaps i just worry to much!

we reenacted a family photo..

last summer:

this summer:

teacher's pet.

i forgot to mention this in my post about chet finishing second grade, but thought it was a testament to his personality and that it deserved to be documented!

chet's teacher had this way of keeping the class in line - she had a chart on the wall with each child's name and 4 colored cards under their name to indicate how well they were behaving that day.

they all start the day with a green card. then, if they get in trouble for misbehaving (ie. not listening, bothering others, doddling in the hallways, etc.) they have to change their color.

green - good behavior.

yellow - first warning.

orange - second warning.

red - third warning.

our chetty bear was the only kid in the class to never once need to change his card from green. ever. never! 

(for the record, i don't necessarily think this is an accurate representation of how 'good' a student is, and don't really think it inspires little first graders who are constantly having to change their card color in front of their peers, but i am also not convinced there is a perfect way to discipline and/or praise a group of 20 very different personalities. for example, i loved watching chet go up and get his awards at the year end assembly, but my heart nearly broke when i watched one of the few kids in chet's class who didn't get an award as he sat alone in his row and cried. i always loved award ceremonies when i was growing up... because i always got lots of awards! and i am not sure i really thought much about the feelings of my classmates who didn't. i get that it is good to praise the kids that do well, but it doesn't seem fair to ruin the self-esteem of someone so little. i have no better idea of how to go about it.. but it i come up with one, i will be sure to share it with the world!)

anyways, back to chet! so far, he is proving to be a darling little fellow who will do so well in school. and that sure makes life easy for us!


and here is just a cute picture of us walking home from school one day..

other may happenings.

some more things we did in may:

i drove into downtown LA with tad and holden to go to a rad splash pad. it was a fun outing, and i would even go as far as to say it was worth all the stress of searching for a parking spot that didn't cost $900/minute and finally finding one i had to parallel park in on a busy street.

we love having friends with pools!

but, even if the vallejo's didn't have a pool, we would still love them because our families were meant for each other!

shave ice day at school. they park that dang shave ice truck RIGHT in front of the only gate out of the school grounds so the parents all get peer pressured into buying one. touché fundraising committee, touché.

tad the tough-guy. he is seriously always getting hurt, but rarely notices the injuries.

and he is also so dang cute eating a banana

(this picture doesn't capture all the cuteness though..!)

bike washing parties are not environmentally friendly, but sure are a great way to occupy 2 children for long periods of time.

the choir sang at the fifth grade promotion ceremony and i was all emotional thinking about the day when chet will be graduating from fifth grade and heading off to middle school. ahhh!

i am a sucker for a pretty park, and i have absolutely fallen in love with lacy park.

uhh.. tad?

may highlights.

TANK TURNED NINE

it's tradition to celebrate the life of our dear chihuahua, tank. and we certainly weren't about to break with tradition! we baked him (but really us) a cake, forced him to wear a party hat (because dogs in party hats are the cutest), sang him happy birthday, and let chet and holden make him a special birthday dinner with all sorts of tasty things they found in the fridge - cheese, bacon bits, leftovers, peanut butter. we think he had a really great day. haha.

CHET'S SPRING CHOIR CONCERT

chet was part of his school choir again this semester. a lot of his close friends are in the choir, so they have a good time at the weekly practices. the choir directors are really awesome, so that makes it fun for him too!

this semester, the theme for the songs they sang was "disney/broadway", which was soooo much better then last semester! last semester, they were like these made-up songs about pilgrims and ruldolph. and, although i learned every single word to every single one of those songs, i wasn't super fond of them. this time, they were all classics that we liked to practice/jam out to on our car rides around town. 

not only did chet look oh so dapper at his concert, he also did a great job singing! we were proud of him and loved being there to cheer him on. (except tad.. he doesn't really like to sit still for more then like 2 minutes).

T-BALL IS OVER

i don't think matt or i expected to like watching our boys play t-ball as much as we did. it turned out to be such a fun season! the boys on the team all got along so well, and the parents were all really fun to visit with during practices and games. annnnd our coaches were outstanding!

(random fact: one of our coaches is famous! kinda. we didn't find out until the last week of the season but, when we did a little google, we found out that he has been in a few noteworthy shows. one of which is like matt's favorite - the walking dead. sooo basically, we have celebrity friends.)

t-ball was supposed to be holden's 'thing'. chet chose not to sign up for a team when we offered, so it was just holden who was going to play. but.. when a few players from the team were consistently unable to attend, the coaches asked chet if he would like to join. he was a bit apprehensive at first, but totally fit right in after a couple practices. and holden was excited about having his big brother join the team, which made me happy.

the boys learned a lot during the season! it was fun to see how much they improved. the got really good at hitting the ball off the tee and, eventually, got good at hitting the coach's pitches. they are so much better at catching and getting in front of the ball, too. chet and holden both preferred practices to games and, when playing a game, they preferred when they got to be the team at bat rather then the team in the field. don't blame 'em.

i look forward to another season of t-ball/baseball!

BEACH DAY

it is no secret that i LOVE the beach. so i was thrilled to have the most amazing of beach days the other weekend. we went to a beach called sunset beach, just north of huntington pier. the weather was perfect (a lot of the time when we go to the beach it is cool and windy, but not this day.. it was hot!) and the waves were perfect too! they were nice little waves the boys had fun running and playing in.