Summer pics

Here are the few pics I have taken throughout the summer...


Swim lessons! This is at the end of her second round of lessons, as you can tell by the fact that she is smiling and not crying. It was a really good decision to have her take two consecutive sessions since things really started clicking for her midway through the second class.



She adored those darn diving rings. She spent all of her free time in class collecting them and wearing them as crowns.



Victory! She is underwater! By choice! No tears, just lots of pride. She is so proud of herself now for how far she has come.



This is also quite a contrast to the first few weeks...she is in line to jump, and she is HAPPY. Jumping in was a major source of anxiety for her. She would stand in line and cry, and let each kid go in front of her until it was just her sad self, all alone, crying, the only one who didn't want to jump. Most days she ended up breaking down so bad that the instructor didn't make her jump, or allowed her to hold hands and didn't put her under the water. But look where we are now...

Another victory!!! I never thought I would see the day where she just jumped on in. We still have a long way to go, but she has finally mastered jumping in and going under. Yea, Gabby!

This summer we swam A TON with Chalna and Colin. We met up for swimming and picnic lunches at Old Town, Rosemeade, and Flower Mound aquatic centers. And yes, we dorks have the same swimsuit. And we love it so much that we don't even care if the other one is wearing it...we just both keep showing up wearing our favorite suit.

Gabby had a blast one day going down the slides at Rosemeade with Chalna. Chalna was a great sport...she must have gone down these slides 20 times (while I watched leisurely from the pool below...HA!)

This was Colin's favorite game...giving Gabby a push down the slides.

At first, Gabby was too scared to go down this tube slide. It is a pretty tame slide, and I tried REPEATEDLY to get her to try it, knowing if she would just TRY it, she would love it. She was having none of that. Then hours later, she suddenly just up and decided she wanted to try it (all by herself) and she just marched up there and went! This child surprises me daily.

I always thought she looked so cute standing in line...always the shortest one up there!

Because she is little, she always got all turned around in the slide. Didn't bother her a bit, though! Across the way, there is another similar tube slide, but about 3 times as large and much faster. And they don't allow lap-sitting on that one. I never tried to push her to try that one, but did tell her that she was welcome to try it if she wanted to. She never showed interest, but yesterday we were there swimming with my friend Julie and her two kids (Alexander and Giada). She just looked over at the big slide and said, "Mom, I want to go on that big one over there." And she did! I stood in line with her and went down after her...she did great! I thought she was going to get nervous while standing in line with all the anticipation, but she didn't at all. She didn't request to go down again, but did say, "That big one is FUN! It's so BIG! It goes really FAST! It made me come out the wrong way!" (It did...she came out feet first on her belly!)

Gabby begged me ALL SUMMER to have some friends over for a tea party. So finally one day we invited Olivia and Josie, and Christina and Finley over for tea and lunch. We had the girls come over at 10:30...next time I might need to have a breakfast tea...Gabby was SO excited she could barely wait that long. She woke up asking "is it time for my party? Is it time for my friends to come over?" and didn't quit until they arrived.

Gabby picked out the Barbie tablecloth, pink plates, and pink napkins herself.

Finley

Olivia

Toasting with their raspberry-apple tea

I should have taken pictures of the food before they started eating. I made finger sandwiches (PB&J hearts, grilled ham and cheese, and pineapple-cream cheese), strawberry muffins, mini quiches, and little fruit tarts (mini versions of fruit pizza on sugar cookies). We also had veggies with dip and fruit. It all turned out so cute and the girls had a ball together.

Colin had a super fun b-day party at the pool! Here is Gabby ANXIOUSLY awaiting some cake. I was cracking up...she just happened to be one of the last kids to get a piece, and her expression was priceless as she was watching all of the kids around her get their cake while she was waiting. Reminded me of the scene in Office Space where Milton keeps passing cake to everyone else (although Gabby did indeed get a piece, of course).

Score, got cake!!

I just thought this was cool. We made a birthday card for Pattie. I just wrote Happy Birthday on the outside and signed our names on the inside, and had Gabby decorate around it. Here is how she colored the inside. She loves to color in lines like this, but I thought it was neat the way she designed it symmetrically. She did the pink on the crease first, and then extended out to the left with other colors. Then I saw that she went back to the middle and repeated the pattern out to the right. She is pretty orderly when she colors. Now that she has more control over what she draws, she is very structured about how she does things. Interesting!

And to end things, here is my all time favorite picture. We were shopping at Costco and I was trying on some glasses. So of course, Gabby wanted to try some on too. This silly face just makes me smile.