Even more swimming

We've had a lot of fun in the water this summer with the King's Island water park, public park water playgrounds, Grandma and Grandpa's pool, sprinklers, and swim lessons. Natalie loves going to the pool whenever she gets the chance, and we went over to Dave and Nancy's neighborhood pool the last couple of weekends. Natalie wears her Dora life jacket and jumps and swims all over the place. Eric spent a bit of time in the water as well, but he spent just as much time playing in his little shade tent. He went back and forth through there a whole lot of times, smiling every time.

Baseball practice

Eric has recently taken a liking to Natalie's baseball bat, which is nearly as big as he is. He still manages to hit the ball around with the bat, and he cracks himself up doing it. He also likes hitting the ball off of the tee outside. We've tried getting him to use a smaller bat that we have, but he prefers the one he can barely carry.




Meanwhile, Natalie and Mom were outback hanging out in the clubhouse :-) Natalie has been having a great time outside this summer!

Natalie's goggles

Inspired by her recent success in swimming lessons and with swimming by herself, Natalie decided she needed some goggles after watching a few of the bigger kids swim around with them. After finally acquiring her first pair she decided that she needed to try them out for a lot of the first day, whether she was swimming or not. It was pretty darn cute.

Ironically, after wearing them so much inside the house she hasn't yet worn them while swimming in the pool. I think the realization that she needs to put her head under the water to make use of the goggles has slowed the adoption of them :-) She'll still think it's pretty cool to see under the water when she does get around to using them. When that happens we'll be sure to let you know. Until then, here are a couple of pictures of Natalie using her new goggles above the water only.

Natalie's swim lessons - round 2

Natalie is once again taking swim lessons, and she has been improving quite a bit. She's now to the point where she can swim down the length of the pool on her own with her life vest on. They also occasionally pull out the slide at the end of class, and now she'll actually go down it. Enjoy the pictures!

Eric is also taking lessons for the first time. We'll get you a few pictures of that as soon as we can.

Grandma Ginny's birthday

August 1st was Grandma Ginny's birthday (Happy Birthday Grandma!), and we went back to Indianapolis for some swimming and a big birthday party. The kids got to see their aunts and uncles and swim with Grandma and Grandpa since the weather was great.

Grandma and Grandpa also took us downtown for a picnic and a ride along the canal. All six of us took a ride in a large, hard-to-maneuver bike with brakes that theoretically did stop the bike... after about 45 yards. It was actually very fun and we managed not to kill anyone, so that's a bonus.

Here's a picture of us eating our picnic lunch. You can see Natalie talking philosophy with Grandpa, and Eric giving Mom a taste of his yummy food.





And here are some shots of Mom and Eric taking a walk through the park.



And here are a couple shots of us on our mega-bike.




Thanks for the great weekend Grandma and Grandpa Robinson!

Fort Robinson

A few months ago one of Natalie and Eric's favorite things to do was play inside a homemade fort in the living room. We'd simply drape a big blanket over the furniture in the living room and watch the kids have a blast. Eric always had a huge smile on his face when crawling through it and he loved it if you surprised him when he came out on the other side.

It was pretty popular for a few months, but at this point they both seem to have gotten over their fascination with it. Eric is walking now so crawling through forts seems to have lost its charm, and Natalie mostly loved to chase Eric through it. I don't know why I can only find one picture of them playing in a fort, but I wanted to post about this one before I completely forgot about it.

Chores for Eric

Now that Eric is 1, I sat him down to let him know that it's time for him to start earning his keep around here. He's decided that his favorite chore is sweeping the floor with the Swiffer and the Stick Shark vacuum.

He's getting pretty good at it, and what he lacks in steering ability he makes up for with stamina. He does many many laps before getting tired of it. He also likes the noise that the vacuum makes. Even when the vacuum isn't on or when he's pushing the swiffer, he makes his own little vroom vroom sound as he's pushing it around. It's too cute for words.

Eric's new car

Eric's up and walking now, but he still needs a way to keep up with his big sister when she's riding around on her big wheel. To help him out he now has a blue car that he can ride while we push him along. It has a fun little steering wheel and horn along with a neat trunk to hide toys in.




Even Natalie enjoys taking rides in it :-)