Little Fishes

Catherine and Mary have been wanting to take swimming lessons for a while, but I'm a little wary of letting them breathe and bathe in that much chlorine on a regular basis. (I know most of you think I'm a little nutty about a lot of this but there is a lot of data showing that even weekly exposure to chlorinated pools during childhood and adolescence has a bad and lasting effect on hormone balance and lung function. It just seems an unnecessary risk.) Luckily there is a swim school with salt-water pools near us and they require very little in the way of chemicals to keep them clean; we walked in the room with three pools in it and it didn't smell like chlorine, make my eyes water, or burn my lungs. Yay!

Anyway, the girls (and Catherine in particular) asked for some swim lessons for Christmas and Grandma and Gigi delivered. They had their first lesson today and loved it!

Catherine is a little more adventurous and comfortable in the water so we started her in the Beginner class. There were four kids and two teachers in her class.

Here she is, swimming from the wall to her teacher with her face in the water, about 7 minutes into class.

Very pleased.

And she got to do a super jump into the pool at the end. I'm pretty sure it's only going to take a few weeks for her to look like one of Dema's dolphins.

Mary is a little more timid about the water so we started her in the Acclamation class, and it was a good choice because instead of feeling overwhelmed, she loved it! There were four kids and four teachers in her class. Here she is kicking her way around the pool on a floaty bar. She also blew bubbles in the water, put her face in, kicked off the wall to her teacher, and jumped in from the side (all things I couldn't convince her to try even if I was holding a bag of caramel filled chocolate covered jelly beans). 

Bonus: it's less than fifteen minutes away, both girls have class at the same time (two pools right next to each other) and there is a good play corner that keeps the boys occupied. 

Un-Bonus: they're having so much fun I'm going to have trouble cutting them off after their Christmas lessons run out.

If anyone ever wants to come with us to watch a lesson, just let me know!

Christmas Treats

One of our 12 Days of Christmas activities was to make some treats. We settled on some chocolate covered almond butter pops. All of the kids loved them, of course, from mixing and shaping to dipping and decorating, but Gussie was perhaps the most excited of all.

This is far too many pictures to have of a kid with chocolate all over his face, but I can't help it. I'll pare them down later. Maybe.

I'm pretty sure this is his "it's all gone" face.

Christmas at Gigi's

We had a wonderful lunch and family time at Gigi and Papa's for Christmas. Sadly it was too cold for tractor rides and running around outside, but Mary got to show off all the songs she has memorized on the piano (have I mentioned lately that she plays piano several hours a day with absolutely no prompting from us?), Michael (and Uncle Tommy) got to play with a fun car track Gigi had, Gussie got to run around with Papa, and Catherine got to follow Olivia around and watch football on TV.

 Of course there were more lovely gifts to open as well. Olivia was very excited about this drum set. She knew immediately to hang it on her neck and started drumming, and Gussie joined in as well (luckily it had several instruments).

The marching band tired her out pretty quickly.

Gussie enjoyed everyone's presents equally.

Catherine, being almost seven (ach!), and desperate to take swimming lessons that we can't afford, got money for lessons and a lot more books than toys this year. Here Gigi is telling Catherine that she was so intrigued by the book Catherine just opened that she read it before she wrapped it! Catherine liked that; when she finishes we'll have to organize a book discussion at Gigi's.

As much as she liked the book, there was a small issue of a Catherine meltdown precipitated by what Mary is about to open in this box:

It was a baby doll in a little car seat/carrier, and she is in *love* with it, which is funny because she has baby dolls that look almost identical to it, and she has carriers in which to carry those dolls and things in which to push those dolls, but she loves this doll above all other dolls and her face shows it every time she gets it out.

I could tell Catherine was struggling when Mary opened her present. I watched her for a bit and she tried to hold it together, but once all the gifts were opened she broke down and curled up in my lap and cried because the other kids got toys and all she got all Christmas long was "books and things". Now this isn't entirely true, and even if it was, she loves books, and will be extremely happy when we go to her first swimming lesson in a couple weeks, but in the moment, as Mary trotted around with her doll and snuggled her doll and named her doll, Catherine wasn't readily able to see it in that perspective.

She did pull it together after we talked a bit and was grateful for all the gifts she received and managed to enjoy the rest of the day without pouting, but she is still only almost seven (ach!) so after all the Christmas celebrations were over we did a little project together so she and her old baby doll could play with Mary and her new baby doll.

Although we didn't buy any Christmas presents for the kids this year, I did give each of the three older kids a set of "Kids' Choice Tickets". You know how little kids always come home from school with a booklet of coupons for mom on Mother's Day for doing the dishes and picking up their toys etc? My schedule has been so bogged down between works and the kids' school that I decided to make them each a coupon book for projects and outings that we want to do together but that always get pushed off to another day for lack of time. Once or twice a month we'll skip a school day and make it a Kids' Choice day and one of them will be able to pick a project or adventure for the day. Catherine and Mary each have a couple sewing project tickets and this doll carrier was one that I had in mind, so we made it a Vacation Day project instead of a school day project. I let Catherine choose fabrics from the basement stash and we got to work. It took two days but I think it turned out great, and Catherine is pleased as punch because her old doll feels like new again.

Of course, Mary is already pondering what fabrics she is going to pick for her new doll carrier and every day she wakes up and asks if it will be a Kids' Choice day. Good thing it was a fun project. :)

Thank you Gigi and Papa for a lovely Christmas!

Christmas at Grandma's

We had so many fun Christmas celebrations that I might never get caught up recounting them. Christmas at Grandma's was a fun day of photos, games, and presents. A friend of ours came by to take some family photos since the whole group was there. He hasn't finished processing them yet so I don't have the full group shop, but he sent me this one of our little family. Gussie had just woken up from a car nap about six minutes earlier and did not crack a hint of a smile the whole time, but I still love it, and them.

Uncle Tommy and Aunt Jena were visiting from California, and Catherine loves attempting to best Uncle Tommy at just about any game. Here she is focused on a card game called "wig out".

I have no idea what Michael Jr is up to, but we made his pink bow tie that morning and he loves it.

Gussie had to be coaxed away from this train set (not a present) in order to open any presents.

Daddy did convince him to open a few presents.

But he kept going back to the train.

Mary on the other hand was having quite a bit of fun with the presents. This rainbow loom she just opened has produced dozens of bracelets, rings, and baby doll necklaces in the last week.

Michael Jr was also pleased. I don't think it's going to be much longer before he has this book memorized.

 Yep, trains. Does this run in all boys or just our boys?

 It wasn't only about the kids - Uncle Tommy and Grandpa (and everyone else I failed to catch with the camera) had a fun time opening presents as well.

Gussie, however, wandered off to collect his favorite toys from the hearth room and plopped back down in the middle of the discarded wrapping paper to push the magic button and watch the snow man dance.

Thank you, Grandma and Grandpa, for a wonderful Christmas!

Christmas Bowling

Well, the Advent calendars were complete on Christmas, but we were having so much fun with them that I made a quick Christmas calendar to hang on the fireplace. It has 12 days of fun Christmas and/or vacation days activities for the 12 days of Christmas. There is a bowling alley at church and every time we go near it the kids want to play, so we made one of those days a bowling day.

Michael Jr loved it. This is how he watched his ball roll down the lane:

The bonus was that he hit the line with his hands or elbows almost every time and set the foul buzzer off. I think he liked that even more than watching the pins fall down.

Mary experimented with a few different techniques.

And Gussie just wanted to do what the big kids were doing, so he usurped Daddy's turn in order to get his hands on the ball.

Waiting for his turn...

Gussie noticed his big brother's technique and tried to follow suit.

This was the last nice day before Saint Louis froze over, so after a bowling game we stopped at the playground before heading home.

Catherine and Mary play together wonderfully 90% of the time. The times that they are fighting, it is almost always over Gussie; who gets to read to Gussie, who gets to get a drink for Gussie, who gets to help Gussie build with the blocks, who gets to help Gussie with a puzzle, who gets to bring Gussie down the stairs. He is nothing if not loved (and his hair is actually starting to grow!).

Oh Catherine... Michael Jr might be the professional monkey walker, but Catherine is the queen of the monkey bars.

Happy kids.

Michael left for five days in Boston this morning (his flight actually left and landed with no delays even though Boston has about a foot of snow) so I've got five nights of being unable to sleep ahead of me... maybe I'll actually get caught up on the blog with all the Christmas posts!