Swimming lessons

All of kids had swimming lessons this summer, 4 days a week for a month...and they are becoming little fish! They love going to lessons and have been doing great! Ben surprised me by not being hesitant at all and jumping right in.  He puts his face in and is learning how to move his arms at the same time. We finally got him some goggles like the girls and we can't keep his face out of the water!  Grace does great and always makes a couple friends in class. She had to retake the same class for both sessions but she is getting better with each lesson. Molly is a great swimmer.  In her class they have to swim the whole length of the pool! She is also learning different types of swimming styles like the breast stroke, butterfly and side stroke.  They are all doing great!

Tae Kwan Doe Grace!

Grace has really been wanting to try Tae Kwan Doe, so we decided to let her!  We thought it would be perfect because she always has so much energy!  She had a lot of fun but has decided to stick with ballet and gymnastics:-)

IT'S A.......

We wanted to have a party to find out the gender of baby #4, so we picked a perfect Friday evening and started planning.  Everyone knows I love parties so I figured this would be a fun one!  The summer had been quickly filling up so it was pulled together kind of fast.  I searched Pinterest for the perfect way to do the reveal and decided to do something new.  I have been wanting a reason to rent a snow cone truck and thought this was perfect! Ha, why not, right? So I started there with the planning.  I saw a cute idea for a beverage station and found some cute cups to go with it! Then I thought it would be fun to have team pink/team blue pictures before the big reveal so ordered some photo props off of Etsy.  I think we were ready!

Everyone came in and made their guesses, had a drink and a snack and it was time to go outside to wait for the snow cone truck!!!

Team pink!

Team blue!

So the truck was here and it was time for the reveal!  The kids' guesses have gone back and forth but Ben has consistently stuck with Boy. The girls have changed their minds a few times but ended up with Girl as their guess.

We had an envelope with the sonogram of the gender and gave it to the snow cone truck driver when she got here.  We had her fill up my ceramic containers with the correct color of syrup.  I sent my sister in law (Erika) in the truck to double check the sonogram and make sure we had the right color revealed.

Our plan was to line with kids snow cones up and pour on all of them at the same time. It worked out great except I wish the pink syrup had been a little darker but everyone got the idea very quickly:-) Ben was upset because he wanted a blue snow cone (not necessarily a boy, but he really wanted a blue snow cone).  We quickly got him his blue snow cone and he was happy!  Their reactions make me laugh. The girls were both very excited.   Molly told me that her face wasn't surprised, it was because I was getting her hands all wet with the syrup! HA! 

IT'S A....GIRL!

I think the snow cones were a big hit and the night was a lot of fun! 

Another girl! Crazy!!!

iphone moments

Rainy day boots

Cousin pool day

Grace watching ipad

Bocce ball

Daddy's birthday breakfast

Grace in Mommy and Daddys bed

Roly poly house

Relaxin

Mothers day brunch

Molly being silly

Molly's first jump off the diving board

Fathers day!

1st trip to the  new museum

Molly's last day of 1st grade!

 Summer is here!

Molly's last day of 1st grade had officially come...feels like we waited and waited because all of the other school districts were out already.  We are all ready to have some relaxing time together where we get to sleep in, have pj days, playdates, walk to the park, go to the pool, have swimming lessons, last minute trips to get a snow cone, sleepovers with cousins, staying up late, trips to the zoo, Deanna Rose...all of the things we wish we had time for during the school year.  But for anyone that knows Molly, they know she LOVES school... so she didn't wake up happy for the last day of school.  She woke up a little sad :-(  Sad she wouldn't see her 1st grade teacher anymore and that she just wouldn't be at school everyday.. I again reminded her of all of the things that we could do over the summer and that she would see her teacher next year even though she will be in 2ND GRADE!  It is such a blessing that all of my kiddos love their teachers so much!

We got ready for school a little early and headed to Dunkin Donuts for "last day of school donuts"! We also picked up a donut for her teacher and donut holes for her classmates...think we will have to start making that a tradition because it was a hit!

Here are pics of the first day of 1st grade and the last day of 1st grade...

last day..

After we dropped Molly off at school Grace and I went to work making her a 'Welcome to Summer!' banner :-) Grace was so excited for Molly to get home and see it.

We were ready for her to get home to start all of the summer fun!