Swimming while waiting for isi to get home

While Troy was at scout camp, we tried to keep ourselves occupied with activities without getting too exhausted. And we actually, or should I say that I, managed to do it very well.

On Friday afternoon when we had less than 24 hours until Troy would be home, we went over to a friend's house to do some water activities and swimming. The kids also made some Father's Day cards.

The kids had a sponge relay where they used a sponge to fill up a mixing bowl with water. Saku participated the whole time and had a great time. Sometimes he can be timid around bigger crowds so I was happy to see him join the fun. Eerika even went to do it once. 

Eerika opted to swim in the little baby pool, which really was fine by me as the pool was fenced and there wasn't a good spot for me to sit next to the pool and there was only one step where she could have been safe. 

So she played with sponges, splashed and floated to her heart's content. Plus she had the pool to herself.

Saku is such a strong swimmer but this was the first time that he had swam in a pool that had bunch of toys, bunch of people and a middle section where he couldn't touch the bottom and keep his head above the water.

He loved the tubes. He loved jumping into the water. He loved the bigger boys' games and horsing around. However, I was a bit nervous the whole time. He would swim underneath the huge tubes and sometimes he would keep bopping into them instead getting through them and I had to keep checking to make sure that he was strong enough to keep treading the water while doing his game.

It was a great experience for him, but it took a lot of energy out of me to SO vigilant plus to check on Eerika as well. 

Miss Eerika LOVES her swimming lessons

"What day is today?"

"It is a swimming lesson day"

"YAY!!!" followed by dancing.

Eerika loves her swimming lessons. She loves her teacher Ms. Savannah. She will jump into the water if you hold her hands and doesn't mind going underwater. She is still a bit apprehensive about floating on her back, but there are NO tears. She can do monkey walk all by herself and she can climb out of the pool after doing a monkey walk.  She has strong legs when she kicks around. She won't be swimming on her by the time this session ends but she will be moving up to the next class, which should be getting her much closer to independent swimming.

Plus girlfriend is cute enough to walk into Sprouts with just her bathing suit and rocking her brother's sunglasses. 

Sometimes I Just Need to Breathe

Lately I have had crazy dreams. Dreams that leave me feeling restless and sometimes even anxious. I lay here in bed and say a prayer in my hazy brain, takes some deep breaths and usually miss Eerika wakes up by then and off we go for another day.

Eerika loves sleeping on our floor. There is a comforter folded up as a mattress, a pillow and another comforter to work as a blanket as on most nights, she ends on the floor. Last night it was little after 1 am when I heard some whimpering. She was laying on the landing and wanted a drink. She got a drink of water, went potty and was back to sleep within 20 seconds. She just likes the comfort of sleeping near us. It is quite wonderful to be the source of comfort for someone like that. I always sleep so much better when Troy is sleeping next to me. 

This week has been busy with Saku's birthday celebration and the birthday party. Yes two different things. Grandma and Grandpa have been visiting us. It has been very good. Tomorrow night is my last shift at work. I realize that being busy sucks the life out of me. Especially when I am pregnant. So this morning I am craving for our usual routine of slow morning with lots of reading, lego building and the obligatory playing of "little girl".

These two children are growing. They are still little, but they aren't so little anymore. Eerika vacuumed her room, by herself, after playing with styrofoam.  

Pictures to prove that I strive to have Eerika's hair done every once a while, but the reality is that we do our hair about every other day. It is a fight to get it done, but then she is usually pretty proud of her "pretty hair".

Here is pictures to prove Saku's culinary skills the other day. 

My growing belly. This picture was taken in the afternoon as I was 19 weeks along. The little one moves all the time now. It is such a blessing to feel it. 

The anxiety of this morning has left me as I listen to Eerika's breathing. Sometimes i just need to lay here for a bit, look at my wonderful life and take a deep breath.  I am blessed.

Saturday Reflections

On Saturday morning, Troy and I went to the Gilbert temple. I feel much obligation go to the temple to be obedient and also to serve. It is not that I don't like it, but it feels a bit like work sometimes. I always leave feeling great, but I am not always running with enthusiasm  to get back there. 

I really enjoyed my time there on Saturday. I felt peace. I felt like I found some simple answers to what I am looking for. I loved watching the sisters who were helping with the temple work.  I felt renewed sense of wanting to focus on the things that matter the most. 

It was simply a good morning.  

I am not great at taking pictures of myself and Troy together so it is fun to see our happy faces together here. We really live a happy and blessed life. 

I love this man!

Striving for simplicity

I have been reading a book about being intentional about our lives.  Slowing down so we can enjoy life. Making choices that support the way we want to live. I have loved every page of that book. 

So I will be intentional and quickly write my joy of feeling the little baby move inside my belly. Just since Thursday can I feel it more consistently. Ironically enough it was after my doctor's appointment and hearing the whoosh of the heart beat. Maybe my poor crazy brain needed another assurance that everything was okay to really believe that what I was feeling was the baby.

We have started to read Harry Potter to Saku. He loves it. We love reading it to him. His imagination is captured by the world of wizards and we spent a good 45 minutes during the day reading it. 

I snuggled Eerika to sleep during her nap time as I do on most days.  I treasure these little moments with her. 

Saku cracked six eggs and made scrambled eggs with ham for lunch today. He said that "being a chef is hard" but insisted on doing it all on his own. I helped just enough to make sure all the eggs were cooked.

A little voice is calling my name from my bedroom. The kids are sleeping in there. Or at least Saku is. Camry and her kids are upstairs. Tomorrow will be a full day with friends and swimming lessons and I will go to sleep so I can enjoy it.

Mr. Peabody and Sherman

Because we live far away from everything, when we go to town I try to multitask and do several different things in one trip. Sometimes it works great and sometimes we come home so exhausted. 

On Tuesday morning I had the idea of taking the kids to the movies before their swimming lessons. 

We saw Mr. Peabody and Sherman 3D. I wondered if the kids would be okay keeping the 3D glasses on for the whole movie. They did fine and looked so cute with the glasses on munching their popcorn.

We also smuggled our dinner with us. It was a fancy peanut butter and jelly sandwich and string cheese. We did not have enough time to do a proper dinner so we packed it with us.

Fortunately, this outing did not leave us exhausted. The kids got scared for times during the movie but liked it overall. 

Flounder and Goldfish

The kids had their first official swimming lesson. Last summer we did few lessons with Andrea, but the pool was freezing and it was not a fun experience for any of us, including Coach Andrea.  So we decided to fork out the money and enrolled Saku and Eerika at Sunshien Swim School. There are three kids per one lesson so they get good personalized time with the teacher.

Eerika is not afraid of water per se. She will go under water in the shallow area and in the bathtub and she will hold her breath nicely for good five seconds. But this summer, she got afraid of the "deep end" and has absolutely refused to swim with us.

She was all smiles before the lesson. And she was all smiles after the lesson.

 Their lessons are 25 minutes long and Eerika cried 20 minutes of it at different degrees of loudness. "I want to be done" "You are not listening to me" as she referred to the "I want to be done", "I want to sit at the steps" were frequently heard phrases during the lesson.

However she calmed down by the end of it and she was smiling when the lesson was done. I was impressed how composed the teacher was. She was kind while being firm. She dunked Eerika under the water, made her hold on to the pool's edge and climb out and she held Eerika a lot. 

Eerika is not usually the kid that cries a lot so it was hard to watch her struggle, keep cheering for her while knowing that she was little bit afraid and a lot of bit mad. I hope that by end of our 10 lessons she will be happy in the water and learn the basic swimming skills. 

Saku, on the other hand, rocked his lesson. He would throw a ring, swim to it and dive to the bottom of the pool to retrieve a ring and then swim back to the steps. He needs to work on his back floating but he let Ms. Paige help him with it which is better than he does with us. He really loved the lesson and I think he will improve in his skills dramatically. He is a natural swimmer so it will be fun to how much he can learn when he has someone teaching him.