Clara's First Wave Meet

Today Clara swam in an intrasquad meet with her swim team, New Wave. She was pretty nervous but did a great job competing in all of the strokes.

25 Free

25 Back

25 Breast

25 Fly - baby's first butterfly! Side breathing like her Mommy, not sure the coach sanctioned that one.

Meghan's Christmas Chapel

Getting back on the blog track with a real time post before we head back into July to resume our catch-up. Yesterday was Meghan's last day of preschool for the year and the celebratory Christmas chapel. Meghan's class performed two songs.

"Ten Little Angels"

Passing out the jingle bells

"Jingle Bells"

Heading out of the church.

Clara's First Swim Meet

After logging so many of our weekday mornings at the pool this summer, it was time for Clara to test her newfound skills at her first swim meet on the first of July. It was really special to see her race for the very first time.

Clara and Rosalind at the clerk of the course.

Relay

Behind the blocks for the 25 free.

25 yard Free

25 yard breaststroke

Summer at the Parks

Scattered in between our many trips to the pool were excursions to the park.

6/22 - We headed to Lacy despite the heat where the kids proceeded to spin themselves into a fairthewell.

Then down at the cooler lower park, they splashed around in the water table.

I'm on a boat.

Such cute pictures of all three. I'm sorry it took me four months to discover them.

Rockin' Daddy's Pats hat.

6/28 - Someone was exhausted from a long day of play.

7/1 - What better way to ring in the month of July with a trip to the dump! In preparation for our fourth of July cookout, I wanted to clean out the old, broken down baby toys from our backyard. The dump takes large plastic baby items like our backyard exersaucer and broken plastic picnic table and recycles them. Business taken care of, we headed over to the Dump Park for some fun. Look how much the kids have grown since the last time we were there.

Queen of the spider web.

Meghan takes the hard way down.

Rolling down the hill.

Climbing back up.

A few good shots with all three in view.

And Clara snapped one of me with the beautiful landfill behind me.

Summer at the Pool

After a nice multi-day trip to Richmond to ease our way into vacation, we returned to Raleigh on Tuesday to face summer head on. 

6/17 - Tuesday evening in the backyard, somehow the kids mixed water and sidewalk chalk and painted themselves and took their clothes off. Meghan looks like a Thing straight out of a Dr. Seuss book.

Blue hair after a shampoo, this stuff is not coming out any time soon.

Enjoying popsicle out on the deck following a delicious dinner from Chipotle.

6/18 - Wednesday morning bright and early we arrived at the pool for Clara's first day of swim team! Meghan & Jack were able to play in the baby pool, while Clara practiced.

Jack had lots of fun player with the fountains, mainly so he could construct "machines" consisting of some sort of toy that would spin inside a container when placed over the sprayer spout.

6/20 - Back again Friday for round 2! Meghan's been watching her big brother and is choosing the pieces to make her very own "machine". (Several days including two showers and outings at the pool later, Meghan's hair remains blue-ish.)

So proud.

Post-swim team snack time before we head over into the big pool. These were just a few of the gems I snapped trying desperately to get one in which all three were looking at the camera smiling (preview to Christmas card 2014 attempts).

6/23 - Back again Monday morning at our snack corner.

A little dress-up diversion in the afternoon.

6/25 - On Wednesday Clara learned to dive. Pretty good for her first attempts.

6/29 - Then on Sunday afternoon we headed down to Apex to swim at Kierstin and Kelsey's pool. Meghan wanted some googles like the big kids.

Clara and Kierstin coming up for air.

Early Summer Trip to Richmond

To start off our summer vacation right, on Friday after the last day of school on Thursday, we headed up to Richmond. Meghan enjoyed some cuddle time with Lucy.

Clara and Jack spent most of the summer sleeping in the top bunk together. Here they snuggled in one of the twin beds.

Camp Pop-pop was in full effect. Clara had fun watering the flowers for Pop-pop with his extra long spray nozzle. And Meghan checked out the water table.

Jack awaits a wagon ride after taking a dip in the pool.

Clara takes a break from watering to smile at the camera.

Meghan absconds with the umbrella.

Taking Us to the End of School

6/7 -  Weekend before school's out, Jack has fun playing with our neighbor Lucy in the backyard.

Sydney is ready to fetch.

6/8 - Meghan enjoys a little Sunday morning reading in bed.

Adventures at the creek with Daddy.

Followed by milkshakes.

Sunday dinner at Player's Retreat, waiting for the food to arrive.

6/10 - Dos Taquitos for lunch on Tuesday. Meghan looked so cute I wanted to snap a picture, but she spotted me and proceeded to show her displeasure at the idea.

Huffy-hufferton

Nice try, I see that smile.

And a grin at last. That little girl knows exactly what she's doing.

Thursday, June 12 - Clara's last day of first grade after two years with the wonderful Miss Shaw. We were all a little teary-eyed.