Begining of the Summer Fun

Our summer was filled with fun activities.  My goal was to make the most of everyday and enjoy not having many things scheduled to impinge our daily activities.  When preschool let out in June we stared our summer with a couple of trips to the beach.  It was great fun to be able to go the beach for as long as we liked without having to rush home for naps.  Not having to rush home also meant that we had time to get ice cream and enjoy it!  Let's face it, the ice-cream was probably my favorite part. I am also very happy that I took advantage of being impatient about going to the beach in June instead of waiting until August because the beach is so sunny in June (it is very cloudy in August, typically, and I did not take this into account when panning our fun).  For once I did not procrastinate and it worked out very well for us!
We also had tons of fun playing in the wading pool in the back yard.  The kids turned everything into an extreme sport and it was great fun watching them jump off the baby slide into the water.  It was fun watching Hank do it as well!

At the end of June Nana and Tickle Grandpa came for a visit.  Excitingly, their visit coincided with a visit from Tim and Cheryl and the kids so there was a ton of family excitement smashed into one week.  We had a great full-day party at Kathy and Sam's for the June birthdays. We had a nice beach day in Capitola.  We hung around Burlingame for lunch and shopping.  We swam twice at Kathy's and some at my parent's hotel and it was amazing.  The boys were in heaven having Nana and Tickle Grandpa here as well as Hailey and Jenna.  It was SO much fun to have everyone in California!

We concentrated on swimming lessons this summer and the boys did great.  They made extensive progress and it was great to see them get better each week.  I was so happy that they both loved swimming as much as the did. Brady started off with gusto.  He was so excited to put his face in the water and boasted about the fact that he does not need goggles.  Brody was more reserved at first and was hesitant to try his best on the fist day.  As soon as his coach took over though, he was all in and improved rapidly.

We participated in a week of Olympic sports put on by the moms in our Mother of Multiples play group.  Each mom hosted a morning of activities.  We had three days of track and field days with various relays and skill sports, baseball day (hosted by us), and a swimming event.  At each event the kids read a sports related story and did an Olympic craft.  It was SO much fun.  What a way to kick off some excitement for summer Olympics.

We did a lot of bike riding.  The boys upgraded to a larger frame since they had done so much growing.  We also went on our first family bike ride- dogs included.  There were many mornings when the boys, dogs and I would go out for a 1-2 mile ride.  I had to jog to keep up with them which the dogs loved and the boys got some great practice on their bikes.  They even did their first town line sprint.  All in all it was a very energetic first half of the summer!

The first year of preschool is over!

As quick as can be, the boys have finished their first year of school!  I had one goal for their first school year and that was for them to LOVE school. All I wanted was for them to look forward to school days and for them to be happy when they were there.  My goal was achieved!  They absolutely loved school and I am so happy.

Their preschool did pictures twice over the course of the year.  I love being able to compare them, though I do not see a tremendous difference from October (top) to May (bottom).  I give myself major points for remembering to dress them the same for both picture days though, that makes for easy comparison!

They loved school and their teachers (Brady had teacher Kris and Brody had teacher Helena).  They both blossomed so much over this school year. I would say highlights were getting to read to their class for the boys' birthday, Mom's and Dad's day, their Mother's day gifts, and hatching chickens inside the classroom.  All in all I am so happy with the way the year went and I think this year set a good president for how fun school can be!  Over the summer they were tremendously sad that there was no school  I take that as a good sign that they were very happy there.

Last, this little note encapsulates Brady and Brody so well. Brady: no frills and no extra words when they are not necessary (but will randomly blurt out "I love you" to me 10x a day)... and Brody: taking every chance to say something extra nice.  I love these little reminders of how different they are.