swim lessons!

okay...so more than 5 people are checking in on our blog...even more reason to keep everyone updated on life! today we started swim lessons for greta. i was thinking i would be joining her in the pool but when we registered for classes i was told that she would be in the water by herself with the instructor. greta does pretty well in these situations, but i thought to ask a friend to join us which ended up being a great idea. the first thing greta said when i told her we were taking lessons and explained i wouldn't be in the water with her was, "can maja, or emery, or emma come to class with me?" (sidenote - i love that everything still involves maja...it always makes me smile). since maja lives in chicago that wasn't going to work so we asked emery and the lessons were a hit! greta was grinning ear-to-ear the entire time. she loved it! turns out our practice in the tub seems to be paying off...most of what they taught the kids was the same as the bubbles we blow and floating we do during bathtime. keep in mind, this is day one, but at least she started being excited to go back again tomorrow.

greta getting the water on her head, "it's a shower!"

now it's emery's turn for a "shower"- notice greta is waiting her turn! :)

and here are at least a few pictures of the summer! several of my good friends from high school got together a few weekends ago. a few live in portland, one in texas, one just moved to idaho and one in hawaii (there are others who weren't there, but we were thinking of them!). i'm stealing my friend sarah's pictures to post on the blog. it's amazing that now we have so many kids between all of us! how life changes!

all the friends, moms & kiddos

this is the best shot of all the kids we could get...

since i haven't posted any pictures of my girls recently...here they are, enjoying summer! more to come...

daily prayers

mike started to write a post about our blog being a "dead end" (no links to other blogs, which was brought to his attention by his blog hopping sister - these are his words, not mine - beth) and while that is true, i think i'll fix that. it's been a long time and it was time for a new lay out and while we have plenty of pictures, they are not downloaded yet so for now you get a story (you, the 5 people who probably still check this blog- beth, grandma j, lisa, ingrid, and chris).

for the past few nights when we've put greta to bed she has asked during her prayers who we are praying to. "who are you talking to?", "where is God?", "is He here?", "what's He saying?". we have answered saying that Jesus is in our hearts and all around us. so tonight she said, "you mean he's in my heart, like in my tummy?" she then started patting her tummy, got a huge smile on her face and said, "i think i feel something in there!" what a sweet thing for a little girl to start to wonder about God and be so excited about the joy of Him.

the only other big thing around here is that calla has finally figured out the difference between hello and good bye. she finally started waving good bye, where before she would only wave for hello. it was really funny that it took her so long to get that one down. she is a riot! she broke a molar last week, which explains her understandably rotten attitude the few weeks prior. we are enjoying the sweet, lively calla who has returned to us...with all her dance moves still intact! someday we'll post a video of our dancing diva.

pictures are coming...keep checking back, i promise they'll be up sometime soon!