Ladies Night

We've all been in various stages of a summer cold around here, so we haven't done much besides swim and gymnastics.  It has been evaluation time for gymnastics where they check the skills of all the kids to see if they need to move up to the next level.  Caroline already had an eval done last week, but she was a bit floppy on some of the moves, not really giving it her all.  This time around, she had a 1:1 instructor and she did very well.  She didn't move up to the next level yet, as she has a few more skills to master, but she gave a much better effort.  She got "beautiful" and 4's on her bridges, donkey kicks, and some of her beam work.  She still needs to pull herself over on the bars (flip over it with the help of a block) and she cannot hold her chin on the bar for 3 seconds.  Upper body strength is her current nemesis.  Personally, I was completely fine with her staying put since we had just moved her class time to this new coach that she likes.  She is much better at her cartwheels and still smiles big when she does a good one.  It's amazing to see how many skills she has learned on the eval sheet.

Besides gymnastics, Caroline has been a cup tower engineer extraordinaire.  She made Rapunzel's tower, castles, pyramids, circles, many more shapes, as well as a divider in our stairwell so we have an up and down side.  Usually they'll last half a day or so before she destroys them to build another creation, but we had this big circle one for several days.

Henry and I took some time out for Battleship.  He played a perfect game - all hits, no misses.  His first guess on my board was a hit and it didn't take him long to discover my ships were in the shape on an 'H.'  He guessed accordingly and never got a miss.  The next game I got a 'hit' on his board early on and it appeared that he had his ships in the shape of a letter.  I thought it was an 'E,' but it should have dawned on me that Henry doesn't call me Erin.  His ships were in the shape on an 'M.'  Mom.

The boys did really well at swim this week.  They have been "Orange Clownfish" all summer long and I was getting a little frustrated that they weren't passing the class.  Then the very last class of this session, the boys were swimming the entire length of the pool, both freestyle and backstroke.  They looked amazing.  They got the somersault down pat.  That last day, the coach even pulled the boys out of the pool to teach them the butterfly and breaststroke, or 'breathstroke' as Josiah calls it.  When their coach brought their report cards over, he told me they could just skip the next two levels and join swim league if they wanted.  Swim league is not swim team, it's not competitive, but they do swim a lot more lengths of the pool and learn all four strokes.  Josiah was an immediate no.  He likes the lessons and he doesn't want to change.  Henry was interested in swim league, so we'll do that for him next summer.  It actually goes year round, but he's already going to play baseball in the fall so we can't have too many activities.
Caroline stayed an Orange Clownfish.  She still needs some endurance work, but even she has gotten so much better at swimming since the beginning of the summer.  She was happy to stay in that class.  She says it's the best one.

One of their favorite pre-swim things to do is swing and have flip-flop throwing contests.  They have to flick their flip flops off while they're swinging and see who gets it furthest.  Henry wins by a landslide every time.  When they're not throwing their shoes, they're spinning themselves into dizziness. 

Henry's dresser arrived this week.  It's an Ikea dresser, so we knew we'd have to assemble it.  You wouldn't think it would take that long, but it took us three days.  Three days!  We only had about an hour to work from dinner being finished to the kids getting ready for bed.  The directions showed a picture of two adults necessary for assembly.  What wasn't pictured was three kids all asking to help, Henry saying it was his dresser and they couldn't help, one kid leaving mad, another sticking around continuously asking to help, and Henry helping.  The first night we did the shell of the dresser.  The following night we did three drawers and the last night was the last three.  Henry now has all his clothes in his room, and he's a happy camper.

Josiah was sad to have Henry leave his room in the beginning, but now he really likes having his own room.  He loves having two beds.  He starts out each night going to bed on bottom bunk, but try as he might, he can't fall asleep on it so at some point he climbs up to top bunk to sleep.  He loves his art nook and uses it daily.  He loves that he can keep his fan on without Henry complaining to turn it off.  It's been good for both of them. 

Caroline got a special package from Grandad and Nana and now has pretty pink sheets for her new big bed.  It makes her room look much girlier which is to her liking.  I forgot to take a picture when the bed was made nicely, so here's Caroline thoroughly enjoying them in her sleep.

This weekend, Todd took the boys to a Skeeter's game.  Caroline wasn't interested in going, but she was interested in having a fun time with just me.  So as the boys left for the ball park, Caroline and I went to our neighborhood pool.  We typically go weekday mornings, so Saturday evening had a bit of a louder, rowdier crowd.  She only wanted to stay an hour which was fine by me.  We went home and played games and read books.  Meanwhile Todd and the boys were chowing down on hot dogs and funnel fries.  When they came home and rang the doorbell, Caroline let out an, "Ah, man."  She didn't want them home so soon.  She's looking forward to the next ladies night.  She's already started planning it.  First we'll go out to eat and then we'll go to a playground...


This next week is a week of getting the school room back in order and planning out our year.  I'm not looking forward to it at the moment as it's a little daunting given the state of the room.  Bit by bit, we'll get there.  We already started our math a few weeks ago so they didn't get too rusty on their skills.  Now to add the rest of the subjects!