Water Play on a Hot Day

WEll, it's been a good 99 to 100 degrees, or hotter, every day down here in good ole Florida. Now, that's not even factoring in humidity so I don't even want to think about what the temp. would be with that factored in. We have been doing our best to stay cool with water activities and trips to friends pools. This day we set up the slip n slide and buckets of water.

Coral has been so funny lately and she is definitely going through a new fase. She used to be fearless and love to swim in the ocean, pools, beach, anything. Now she gets so excited about going swimming but then refuses to even get in the water. These buckets of water are perfect for her I guess and maybe not as intimidating, funny girl. she has also started to follow me around the house and ask me at least a hundred times a day, "What you doin, Ma?" A few more Coralisms are: "Ha, Ha, so funny guys" (as she shakes her hips back and forth), "I stomp my foot at you" (says this when she's mad cause I've told her no she can't do something), "My tummy so hun-ge, Ma" (as she rubs her tummy). You might have noticed that she call me Ma a lot. When she calls me that it makes me think about Little House on The Prairie, one of my all time favorite shows.
Needless to say she is definitely my challenge right now and I hope we make it through all right and in one piece. Just since I started this post I have had to stop her from drawing on our house, a really big problem lately, and I had to clean her up and the carpet from painting herself with glue. I have also cleaned up numerous other messes of her this morning, heaven help me. I told my mom this morning that I fell like she needs to come with a warning label sometimes that says, "Warning, Does Not Play Well With Others! May hit, pinch, scratch, or scream and. Do not be alarmed! Is still very cute and needs love and a lot of attention!"

Miles is still not to old to play in a big water bucket.

Fisher and cousin Samantha. I got the pleasure of having Samantha stay with us for a few days this week. She was such a joy and played so well with everyone. we love you Samantha. I must add that she is so tan right now that Fisher looks really white.

Walking, almost!

At the beginning of June, when Fisher was exactly 9 months old, I pulled out the baby walker and Fisher went to town. He thought it was the funnest thing to walk around the house, especially with Shelbie close behind steering the way. Ever since that first walker experience he has definitely got walking on his mind. He walks around everything holding on and at this very moment is pulling up, letting go, and taking one step forward before falling. You can see his little wheels turning in his cute head about how this real walking works and he seems determined to figure it out soon. I predict that by his 10 months mark he'll be walking around the house.
Fisher continues to be a joy in our home and the whole family is smitten with him. I wanted to add that he has started to eat more food which I am very grateful for. He has four teeth now and I think one more poking through. I am excited to see his personality develop but I am also so sad to see my baby grow up.

Graduation

At the beginning of June Shelbie had her graduation from VPK. Her school put on a great show and Shelbie did a great job singing and saying her part. I think that she could have said just about everyone's part because for the two weeks prior to the program she would come home and tell me so and so's part. I think that her class practiced there parts every morning so she just picked up on it. It was so cute during the program cause I could see her mouthing other parts :) She has such a sweet disposition and is a true joy to be around. She is so ready for Kindergarten and it's going to be hard to make it through the summer cause she is already asking every day when Kindergarten starts. I love this girl! Shelbie is my second mommy at home and I'm really going to miss her nest year when she's at school all day.
Me and my girl!

Shelbie and her teacher Ms. Vicky. We have just loved her teacher this year and she has learned so much. She is already reading short words and has a great grasp on letter sounds and sounding out words. Ms. Vicky was a pretty strict and on task teacher and was exactly what Shelbie needed.

I wanted to include a picture of My Miles so here's one of him at his last day of school party. Miles really grew a lot this year. His teacher's, Mrs. Johnson and Mrs. Meert, were so great! Now I'm not going to say that there weren't rough spots here and there, cause there definitely were, but over all we made it through! Miles made it all the way to the highest reading level for 1st grade and he did well with his math also. He still loves art and illustrated quite a few stories this year (they were so cute and mostly about his stuff animals - he is so like his mother that way). My boy is growing up so fast and getting so tall. 2nd grade here he comes - ready or not :)

End of May

I wanted to write up an update but thought that I'd do it the easy way and just sum up the end of May with some highlights and pictures of course! We have been so busy with the end of school happenings and the thought of summer has definitely been on our minds. I send my luck and love out to all the moms out there with there kids being home 24/7 and the dreaded question, "What can I do?". I am glad for the pace to slow down but I do wonder what we will do all summer to keep the troops occupied :)

Shelbie continues to love to hold Fisher and play with him. Fisher continues to learn more and more every day and is improving on his crawling and standing up skills. He is also really starting to get in to every thing he can!

Coral has started to not take naps anymore and in the below picture she just couldn't make it through dinner she was so tired.

Soccer just came to an end for both Miles and Shelbie. Both of them had a little party to close up the season. At Shelbie's party her coach said that Shelbie was one of best defensive players (or Swiper as they call it) and that she scored two goals. She also said that Shelbie was the most aggressive girl on the team. At Miles' party his coach mentioned that Miles loved to play defense and had really improved throughout the season.

Grant thought it would be good to give the kids a choice if they would rather have a trophy with their name on it or if they would rather have the $10 in cash that the trophy would cost. Shelbie choose to get the trophy and Miles choose to take the cash. Miles went straight to the store and bought a webkinz that he has been wanting with his money.

Here's Shelbie with her trophy. We really enjoyed our first season of soccer and will hopefully be doing it again sometime. However, Miles says that he wants to play tennis next and Shelbie would do tennis, soccer, and ballet if we would let her. So far we have stuck to our rule that we only do one thing at a time, so we'll see what's next.

Fisher is getting better at eating some foods. He loves the Gerber puffs and yo baby yogurt. He has also eaten mashed potatoes, cooked carrots, bread, strawberries, and little pieces of chicken. He still doesn't like baby food so I guess we'll stick with real food for now.

Here is Fisher in his baby seat and the hand is Coral feeding him some puffs, so cute that she loves to feed "baby Fi-er" as she would say.

Fisher exploring the playroom and playing with the pretend kitchen.

Last year our water table broke and we sadly threw it away. It had lasted us three long years of fun. Now that Fisher is getting older I thought that I would get another table for some summer fun. Just my luck they went on sale last week and the kids were so happy to come home and open it up. It still amazes me how much fun a table that you put water in can be.

Saturday we went Strawberry picking and had a blast not to mention got a ton of great strawberries. The three older kids were hard workers and did there fare share of picking. Fisher was happy watching from the stroller as long as I fed him some puffs or yogurt melts every now and then.

Here's Fisher checking out the yummy basket of berries.

At the corner of the strawberry patch they had this little playground. When all the picking was over the kids got the rest of there energy out on the playground

The only thing about picking your own strawberries is coming home and spending a couple hours cleaning them and cutting them. They sure are good though and it was a lot of fun!