Cowabunga!!

Ellie started swimming lessons again a month or so a go. Its amazing to me how much she loses in 6 months and equally amazing how fast she can get it back. As it happened this week, she ended up having a solo lesson. She had 30 straight minutes of solid progress and boy were we proud of her! Just two or three weeks ago she wouldn't jump into the pool without holding the instructor's hand (even though she would jump in by herself 6 months ago!). This picture was taken yesterday and she had so much fun doing this, she wanted to do it again and again. It must be the goggles. She just got new goggles and she promised me she would do her very best at her lesson - and she did!

Baby tricks. Jilly has become quite the little performer. She claps (which she has been doing for a month, actually) and it is so funny because it is her default reaction to most things. Of course if we say "Yay!", she drops whatever she's doing and claps. If she is upset about something, she also drops whatever she's doing and claps. If she is really tired and starting to melt...well, you get the picture.

Daddy has also been teaching her other tricks. She can pretty much say "uh-oh" if you say it to her or if she hears it anywhere. Very cute. If you say to her, "how big is Jilly?" She will throw her arms up in the air like she's signalling a touchdown. Oh, and she waves. She does this whole arm motion thing and actually waves to you, not to herself. Cute, cute, cute. Of course when she does any of these baby tricks and you say "Yay!", she stops and claps. Tooth count on this baby: 2.

Rachael. Rachael is a bull in a china shop. The bigger the mess she can make the happier she is. We try to teach her all of the same baby tricks that Jilly does but Rachael would rather stand up and get down, stand up and get down. She can now stand up against anything (or anyone) and is getting more and more brave - barely holding on with one hand and reaching for something with the other. She loves the remotes and will work very hard to get to them! And the phones, and Ellie's Leapster and anything else we don't want her to have. She has discovered the stairs, the cat's hiding places and Ellie's special drawer that has her art supplies. She is our little explorer and it is fun to watch how determined she is. Rachael's tooth count: 1!!

Mommy. Tracy and I have been training for the Breast Cancer 3-Day walk - in which we have the pleasure of walking 60 miles over the course of 3 days all in the name of breast cancer research. The walk is not until September which is good because it is going to take me forever to work up to that. Today we walked 8 miles and somewhere between the 6 and 7 mile mark I realized that my little Sketchers are definitely not meant for this kind of walking!! OOOO, my dawgs are barking tonight!! Guess its time to step up and buy some real walking shoes!

Daddy. Mike has been working hard to get our yard back into shape. It suffered terribly last year when the babies were newborns. He went out and bought a bunch of plants today and now we just need to figure out where to put everything. I'll post some pictures as we start to make some progress. Slowly, we are trying to get back to something resembling normal!