Boat envy

Guess what I was doing on Monday while my whole family was at the lake on the boat having fun? If you guessed working then you are right. I'm not bitter or anything.

But it looks like they had a super fun time swimming. This was Gabriel's first time going in the water at the lake and he loved it.

This is my absolute favorite picture from their trip. Frejya and Uncle Matt were having tons of fun in the water. I love their side-by-side handstands.

And of course a day on the boat is exhausting. Gabriel has no problem taking a snooze on the boat when he's tired.

How to water the lawn

I'm going to give you a little tutorial on how to water the lawn if you are Gabriel. First, you fill a cup with water.

 Then you walk over to the lawn and throw the water out of your cup.

Then you show mommy what you just did,

And you crack up because you are hilarious.

Then you walk back to your bowl of water,

And show mommy your cup so she knows what you're doing.

And then you start the whole process over again.

But what happens when someone unexpected like a big sister shows up?

Then you water her instead, of course.

The pee blanket

Gabriel has a favorite blanket that he has started carrying around everywhere with him. He wraps it around his shoulders and wanders all over the house with it. That way it's at the ready to play peekaboo with anytime he needs it. He also sleeps with the blanket. And he's a super heavy nighttime bed-wetter so he pretty much pees out of his diaper on a nightly basis. It's awful. I've tried everything to stop this - double up on cloth diapers (I even tried tripling up one time - poor kid could barely move and he still peed through it all), different sizes of disposable diapers, etc. Nothing works. So I have to wash his bedding a lot. And since he sleeps with his blanket every night, it ends up smelling like pee sometimes too. I tried to wash it over the weekend but every time I grabbed it Gabriel would see me and freak out and so I'd have to give it back to him. I finally washed it during his nap on Saturday morning. But when I put it on the clothesline to dry later he saw it again and just had to have it. So he dragged his wet blanket around for awhile until I could finally distract him enough to hang it up again so it could dry. So the blanket no longer smells like pee, but it's probably totally dirtier now than when we started since he dragged a wet blanket around the backyard and house for awhile. Is it bad that I still let him sleep with it after that?

Here are some pictures of him with his blanket. He seriously never puts this thing down (especially on Saturday since I kept trying to take it away from him).

Coach Dad

A friend sent me this picture she took of my oh-so-handsome hubby and some of his swimmers (including Frejya - she's the one in the pink cap). I just love it!

Summer is here

And it is hot! I pretty much hate summer weather, but my kids are loving it. Frejya went to the water slides with some friends yesterday and had tons of fun. She is so tired today. Gabriel and I just hung out all afternoon and tried to stay cool. Which is not easy when it's over 100 degrees. Hard to believe that just a couple weeks ago I wanted to use the heater in our house. Now we're doing whatever we can to stay cool. Which means lots of air conditioning and otter pops. Gabriel has got the lounging around part of summer down already.

And he's also loving all the fruit that summer brings. He would have eaten a whole basket of strawberries for dinner if I'd let him. I finally had to take them away from him so that he'd eat something else.

Notice the bruise on his forehead? He seems to always have one there. He just loves to headbutt anything and everything in sight. Most kids use their hands to feel things out but not this guy. He uses his head to test out every surface he comes across. So I can't even say there's a really cool story to go along with the bruise. He actually got this one by hitting his head purposefully on his crib bars while playing in there. How do you make a kid stop banging their head on things?

Man I'm boring

This working full time thing is really cutting into my picture-taking time. All I've got for today is a picture of Paul with his birthday cake over the weekend. Can't believe he's 4 already. Time sure flies.

Ok so I lied. I found 2 more of Gabriel from this weekend. He sure does love the water. Yesterday I let him play outside with a huge bowl of water and some plastic cups. He thought it was the greatest thing ever to just pour cups of water on his head. Silly boy.

It's boating season

We decided to go all out on Saturday and took the boat out to the lake after the swim meet. Frejya brought her friend Charlie and we had so much fun. Those kids loved the tube. We were very glad to find a friend who enjoyed it as much as Frejya does. I think they would have stayed out there tubing all night if we'd let them. Neither of them tried the kneeboard - maybe next time. But they definitely had fun on the tube. Gabe and I got a little time in the water as well, but we let this mostly be a kids trip. Plus I'm not very comfortable pulling someone behind the boat yet, so I don't think it's very fun for Gabe when I pull him. I definitely err on the side of being way too cautious and slow. Maybe someday I'll be more fun.

My apologies

I suck at blogging this week. I just haven't been all that into it. Hopefully next week will be better. It's been a super busy week what with working full time and then Vacation Bible School and swim every evening. Everyone's been up way later than normal and the house is definitely looking neglected. And of course during our busiest week yet, Frejya broke her tooth again. Those front teeth have taken some abuse from her over the years. I'm pretty sure this is the fifth time she's broken them. So we squeezed in a quick trip to the dentist to get her tooth fixed up too. But not before I snapped a picture of it, of course.

Marshmallow war

Somehow roasting marshmallows in the backyard turned into an all-out marshmallow war the other night. The kids thought it was the greatest thing ever (ok and so did Gabe and I).

So proud of my girl

Frejya swam great on Saturday! She won her breaststroke and butterfly races and got second in her freestyle. It was so cool to see how excited and proud of herself she was. This smile just says it all:

(Thanks for the pictures Steph!!)

She also had lots of fun playing with her friends all day. That's a big part of why swim meets are so fun.

Gabriel was awesome at the meet too. Poor kid had to get dragged out of bed at 5:30 on a Saturday, but he was a trooper about it. He had fun sitting in Frejya's chair and eating any food he could find. He kept hanging around other people's tents until they fed him. Luckily Lila left him her popcorn. (And for the record, I had plenty of snacks but he really wanted everyone else's food instead).

He did lots of playing too. With Lila and any other kids who would play with him. Even by himself a bit. (Thanks again to Steph for this picture!)

He finally tuckered himself out and fell asleep in my arms. It really made me realize how dang heavy this kid is!

After the meet we stopped for lunch at Logan's Roadhouse. The kids all thought it was fun that they got to throw their peanut shells on the ground.

  Even Gabriel got in on the action.

Now that swim meets have started, summer feels like it has officially begun as well. I love this time of year! (And I especially love that it's not 100 degrees yet for our swim meets - although it's starting to get close)