A Good Nap

Clara started zoo camp this week. She was so excited all weekend knowing this was finally the week zoo camp started. She was awake when I went in her room Monday morning at 7:15am (not a common thing in our house) and she sang a zoo song the whole 45 min drive there the first day. She loves it! It's more structured than I thought it would be, which I'm more than pleased with and she is having so much fun! She was so excited to meet all new friends and to learn about zoo animals. There's about 12-15 kids ages 3-5 in her class and there's easily 5 teachers, so they're well staffed. Clara said most of the kids in there were already 5, I'd be surprised if any were actually 3. They do projects and games in the education building at the zoo and then each day they walk into the zoo to visit about 3 different animals. Clara got to see the giraffes, zebras, bears and seals/sea lions yesterday and today they went to see the stingrays and sharks and they saw some crabs as well. As gas prices have been rising this summer I have been wondering whether or not it was a good thing to have signed Clara up for zoo camp, seeing as how it's a 45 min drive each way each day, but now I look forward to next year when I can sign Jonathan up as well (as long as he's potty trained by then). Hopefully, he'll be potty trained well before next summer. They'll even be able to be in the same class! Imagine...3 hours a day with no kids!

Anyway, the kids are adjusting to the early mornings with earlier naps and less flexible bedtimes. Today Clara slept so well for her nap that she thought it was morning when she got up. I think it helped that I had also laid down for a nap in my bed. She came in my room saying, "Mommy, Look!" holding out her shirt. I had no idea what she was referring to. We had changed her shirt after zoo camp this morning because it was still wet from the stingray bay. She said, "I forgot to change it." I told her it was fine, we had changed her into it because the other one was wet. She said, "but I forgot to put on my pajamas." OHHHHH! I finally understood her concern! It took me about 15 min to explain to her that she had not slept through the night, that it was not morning, but afternoon. Just as I thought she understood, I asked her if she was ready to go play outside with her friends, she looked at me puzzled and said, "You mean after breakfast?" I don't think she fully understood until we went outside. It was pretty funny, she's never gotten confused like that before.

I snapped a couple pics of Clara at zoo camp when I dropped her off and picked her up, but I'm going to wait to post them until I get a couple more (hopefully some better ones) later this week.

Tough guy

One of my neighbors cuts hair in her garage and I asked her to cut Jonathan's hair yesterday. It turned out super cute! It's a tad bit shorter than I was going for, but it's too cute. I haven't been able to get a really good pic of it yet, but here's a couple I took last night.

You should see him when it's all spiked up and he has his sunglasses on -- he looks like a tough guy!

Swim Lessons

Thursday and Friday were the last 2 days of swim lessons for the kids, so I got to hang out and watch the progress they had made. I took lots of pics since Chris couldn't be there -- both kids learned a good bit.

Clara's Lessons

I mentioned before that the lessons were given in someone's backyard pool. I didn't think to get a pic of the whole pool, but you can see the length of it in this pic. Clara's class is on the steps at the closer end here, waiting their turns, and the diving board is on the far end -- It's not too big at all, which makes it all the more impressive what they do. Here Clara is pushing off the steps to swim to her teacher.

Clara swimming underwater

Clara swimming on her back. Her teacher said that what she needs to work on is keeping her body straight. You can see in this pic that her bottom is kinda lagging, the teacher suggested I work on this with her and she'll be able to advance to the next level!

The second day Clara was a little straighter

Jumping off the side of the pool

Getting ready for the diving board

'Walking her toes up to the edge'

And the jump! She jumped off the diving board 3 more times on the second day, but I missed getting it on camera each time for one reason or another. Once the kids jump in, their teacher is waiting in the pool to help them orient themselves then to guide them toward the wall. They swim to the wall and then 'walk their hands' along the wall until they get to the steps to climb out. I thought it was great that they taught them those little things as well!

Clara with her teacher, Ms. Kristen

Jonathan's Lessons

Here's what Jonathan does for most of his lesson -- holds on to Ms. Mimi with a monkey hold (arms and legs)

Every once in a while she dunks him underwater

And teaches him how to kick

He tried to go limp when they attempted to make him stand on the diving board

Still, they swung him off as though he jumped on his own

They even taught him how to get out of the water on his own!

I think this is his favorite part!

The first day I watched, Jonathan did fine for the first couple minutes until he realized I was still there, and then he started crying and didn't stop until Ms. Mimi let him come to me about 5 min before the end of class. The second day I hid behind some chairs so I could see what he had learned -- he did great when he didn't know I was there. I hope by next year he's more willing to go to 'strangers'. He spent the full first week crying this year, not because he was scared of the water, but because I had left him with a stranger.

Clara did fantastic!!! I am so impressed with all that she can do -- she's miles ahead of where I was at 4, I mean really, she jumped off the diving board!

They gave each of the kids a little certificate of accomplishment on the last day. Clara is soooo proud!

Look...up in the sky...

It's a bird...It's a plane...No! It's Super Jonathan!!!!!

I found this at Ross today for about $6 -- it's only worth about that, but Jonathan LOVED it. He ran around the house all day saying, "FAST!"

I guess I know what to get him for his birthday in a couple weeks -- more dress up costumes!

Happy 4th of July!!!!

Happy 4th of July!

This evening the kids and I went outside to play for a while after dinner and we got some pretty cute pics. I was trying to get their pic together since they were both dressed in festive outfits. It was difficult to get them together, but there's still alot of cute pics and even some of them both!

Clara taught Jonathan how to do sommersaults. He does them perfectly, but it's really funny to watch. Instead of being a fluid motion, he gets in this position and pauses for a while, then he just falls and his sommersault is complete. He thinks it's pretty hilarious too!

Clara laying in the grass after doing her sommersaults.

Jonathan's face is too cute in this pic

I took this pic of us and surprisingly it came out pretty good!

See, I told you I got a couple of them together!

I've got to get the pics of them hugging and kissing now, because in a few years I'm sure I'll be lucky if they'll even stand next to each other!

A neighbor offered to take a pic of all of us. Jonathan was not in the mood for pics at this point.

Clara took this picture. She was trying to get a pic of me and Clemson, but Jonathan walked in the way at the last minute and said, "Cheese!" She looked at the LCD screen at her pic and said, "Oh! That's all three of you. You guys look pretty cute together!" I guess technically we are all 3 in the pic.

Even Clemson was feeling patriotic today!

He's the best dog. I hope he really knows how much these kids love him.

We decided at the last minute to go watch the fireworks. Clara's been afraid of the loud noises in past years, but she told me she wanted to try again this year when I asked. We actually just drove to a place where everyone was parking in the distance to watch so it wasn't loud at all. Both of the kids enjoyed it. Jonathan kept reaching out his hands to catch them saying, "Lights!" I'm glad we went, even if it did mean the kids didn't get to bed until 11pm.

I hope everyone had a safe and happy 4th. God Bless America!

Swim Lessons

Today I woke up to face one of the most well thought out arguments I've ever heard from a four year old. The first thing Clara said to me this morning was, "There's a good reason I don't want to go to swim lessons today. It is that there's this board thing that they want me to jump off and it's called a diving board. I don't want to jump off, so I don't think we should go." Unfortunately for Clara, the fact that she had thought this argument out so well still didn't mean she got her way. We did go and she did jump off the diving board...2 times. I still don't get to watch until this coming Thurs. and Fri., but I was listening from the front yard and never once heard her complain. I just heard her splash! Jonathan, however, is still crying for just about the full 30 min., though there's been some small improvements. He doesn't start crying as soon as I start getting him into his swim diaper anymore (before he even sees the pool!), he actually reaches out for Ms. Mimi when I hand him off, there are small breaks in his crying and he no longer finds the need to say, "ma ma" the whole time he's crying! I asked his teacher, Ms. Mimi, if he's getting anything out of this, or am I just torturing him. She said that he's learning while he's crying :) Oh well, just one more week to go!

Oh and I asked Clara if the diving board was scary -- she said no. She's certainly more brave than I was at that age!

Chris' Post

Here's a few pics Chris has sent me over the past few weeks. For some reason, that I can only assume is boredom, each time the guys go away they employ some new grooming techniques as some sort of ritual. When we were first married and Chris went away, he grew a mustache and shaved his head. So far this time around only the mustache has reappeared. I told Chris it wouldn't be a bad thing if the mustache had disappeared before he made it home, but he didn't wait that long. Shortly after sending me this picture he said he shaved it off because it was bugging him and he didn't have the proper tools to trim it. I'm not so disappointed :)

This is a picture of the Hong Kong shoreline. Chris said the pic doesn't do justice to how big the buildings are, still it's a pretty picture. The ship was only in Hong Kong for a few days, but the guys were able to get off the ship for a while and take in some sights.

I guess Chris didn't think my sunset pic was pretty enough :) Actually he said he was flying and saw that it was going to be an awesome sunset this particular night, and luckily he landed in time to go up to the deck of the ship and take pics. Any sunset on the water beats a sunset on land in my opinion! The pic was taken in the water somewhere near the Philipines.

I'm not typically supposed to post, or even discuss in email, details about the ship's whereabouts -- but I've stated no more here than you can find out by going to the ship's website: http://www.reagan.navy.mil/

If you're interested in seeing what the guys are up to, check out the link. I don't want to push my luck or get Chris in trouble should I mistakenly say more than I should, but truthfully I don't think I know anything that's not common knowledge anyway :)

Chris is doing well and studying up more on flying. He says he's been working out quite a bit (what else are they going to do while they're stuck on the boat) and working tons. He sent the kids a DVD of him reading some picture books to them. It's a pretty cool way for him to stay involved even when he's not here and the kids loved being able to see him on TV!

With the link we took off the deployment chain this past Sunday, just 23 weeks to go!