Super Jumps and Swimming

When we cancelled our membership at the fancy pool place Mom was skeptical how it would go corralling two small children by herself at the YMCA, but it's turned out to be a wonderful new routine. We've been going to the Y every Tuesday/Thursday morning and the kids have been wonderful. They've both loved the freedom to do whatever they want in the pool versus the lesson drills, they LOVE to jump off the side of the pool, they love taking long showers (we don't get any ribbons for water conservation....), and the whole locker room experience especially the hair dryers (Nash especially). Reese made great progress with her swimming at the old place, and may have taken a few steps backward in terms of swimming face down, but she loves that she can touch the bottom of the pool and can backfloat more than halfway across the pool by herself. Maybe we'll do Y lessons in a couple months, but for now we're all enjoying the "open gym" routine. We also have been going one day on the weekends so they can show off their new skills to Daddy.

Random Video

We love this video because Reese always loved stacking spices too, but it also shows such classic 2-yr-old attitude.

Reese's Raging 5th Birthday Party

Reese had been planning her 5th birthday party since around July or August.We've always had fairly small birthday parties under the general rule of thumb to have one child guest per each year of age. Over the past year, the kids have been to several events with LOTS of kids and they absolutely love the chaos. This year she wanted a "big house party." So that's what she got. Here are the stats:

• Thirteen 4 to 5 year old guests, plus Reese
• Eight siblings (five of which are 2), plus Nash
• Eleven parents, plus Mom and Dad

To complicate matters it was raining, so all 36 people were in our house. As it is, it sounds like a heard of buffalo's running upstairs with Reese and Nash alone, so you can imagine what it must have been like! Fortunately Mom had hired a balloon twister in the event that it rained and we were all housebound and the kids all loved the creative creations.

Everyone stayed for over two hours and fun was had by all. Nash especially thrives in a chaotic environment, he was funny and had a great time. He was born to be a party animal. There was only one set of tears over a tiara, a brief moment of sadness over a popped balloon (which the balloon twister quickly solved), and no one fell down the stairs (no small wonder!) - so all in all it was a huge success!

P.S. In the future, Mom and Dad are excited about throwing raging 3rd birthday parties in August in the backyard, and casual 6th birthday parties in late October at a salon/spa with a handful of girlie-girls. ;)

 

 

Super Reese and Super Nash!

This year we went Trick or Treating down Harrison Blvd. Every year the residents of Harrison Blvd (a street in the North End of Boise with huge, million dollar, beautiful old homes) go all out with candy and Halloween decorations. Per the (wise) advice of a friend, we started at 5:00 and had a wonderful time casually strolling the boulevard, knocking on doors, and visiting with the residents. One resident who has lived there for 25 years told us that last year they got 3000 Trick or Treaters and that they spend $800/year on candy! Whoa! I suppose if you can afford a million dollar home you can afford $800 in candy. Reese's request at the end of the night was to open "one piece of candy when we get home" (bless her healthy heart) while Nash could have stopped after every house to eat his latest treasure.

 

 

 

 

Beautiful Fall Babies