What You've All Been Waiting For.........A New Post

I realized looking at the date that it has now been 2 months to the day since my last post. I guess the summer had been a little busy. That all ended today as it was THE FIRST DAY OF SCHOOL!!!!! YEA!!!!! Don't get me wrong, I love my kids, but we were all ready for the break from each other. Michael is in 2nd grade, Olivia is in 1st grade, and Jack is in what they call Jr. Kindergarten which is more than preschool but not quite Kindergarten since he just turned 5 and we didn't want to send him yet. All 3 go all day so Carter and I had a very quiet day. It will be nice to get him back on his right schedule. We had been on the go sooooo much that his afternoon nap seemed to always be in my arms walking around the swimming pool. This will also give us some time to work on getting a little more food into him. He is not a great eater and the Dr. wants to see him put on a little more weight. At his 9 mos check he weighed 17.5 lbs and was 27.5 inches. I am beginning to think that the infant seat we bought was overkill. We got the new safe seat from Graco because it holds to 30# and 32 inches rear facing. As it stands now he will be 2 before he outgrows it. Okay maybe I won't keep him in it that long, but the prospect of getting through one more winter without having to put him in a big winter coat, just covering the infant seat, does seem appealing!! Anyway, the summer has brought us many good times. We went camping as a family the weekend before the 4th of July. We had a good time and the weather was perfect still. The only thing I would have changed was that Carter had never slept in a playpen before so we should have done some practice runs!! He adjusted fairly quickly though. Jack celebrated his 5th birthday on July 6th. He is really into Diego (Dora the Explorer's cousin) so that was the theme! We spent A LOT of time at the pool. I just took a minute to investigate a loud crash I had heard fearing Olivia had fallen from her bunk bed again, however it was Jack who had fallen off his bed. He apparently didn't notice though because he was sound asleep on the floor. Anyway, the pool was filled was many acts of bravery. The kids have learned to swim so well and Michael has now conquered every aspect of the pool. Just a few days ago he went down the drop slide, which is a slide that shoots you off into the deep end about 4 feet up. He now has done all the slides and the board. Olivia has learned to swim well enough that she has ventured in all areas except the deep end. (Of course not to my liking, I prefer she stay where she can touch) Jack has even finally begun to go past the little kids slide all the way out to the 3.5 foot. Considering he isn't even quite 40 inches tall this was good. That is where the Lazy River lies, it is a current pool which curves around, so he can now go around it. It finishes a bit more shallow where he can touch. Again of course he doesn't do this unless I am right close. Carter has turned into a fish as well. He doesn't mind too bad being dunked under the water and he LOVES to splash. This is great except he doesn't know the difference between the pool and the bathtub so I got a shower tonight while bathing him. Michael celebrated his 8th birthday on August 8th and his Dad and Uncle Kevin took him camping for the weekend after it. The night of his birthday we went bowling (Jack is freakishly good!) and then we went out for pizza with my dad. We also just last Friday went to the Iowa State Fair with Melissa and Cory, Todd, Lisa, Iain, Lindsey and my dad. Melissa and Todd were back for a family get together on my mom's side. I will post some of those pics soon! The pictures posted here are from today before they went to school!