Category Archives: Audrey

Swimming Lessons

We signed the kids up for some super intense swimming lessons and let me tell you, the results are amazing. I can’t decide if I should show you the most surprising one first or last…. I guess we’ll go from oldest to youngest.

Audrey and Kate started a month ago and Audrey caught onto everything really fast.  She’s on the swim team now (not a competitive swim team) and doing awesome. She’s even learned how to do the butterfly stroke.  Something about Audrey is she inherited her dad’s confidence and she believes she can do things which I really think helps.

Kate made some awesome progress right from the start and then when they started focussing more on technique with her, she started getting feisty and wanting to stick to what made her feel secure (flipping onto her back).  So, sometimes we’ll go to a lesson and the teachers will be like, “She’s totally ready for swim team.”  And then three minutes later, they’ll say, “Maybe we should do another week of lessons with her.”  Something about Kate is, she didn’t inherit her dad’s confidence. She’s more like me and second guesses herself a lot.  She’s told me that she doesn’t really want to do swim team, but she does want to continue with lessons.  She really is doing awesome though.

Simon started lessons this week.  On day one, he floated on his back on his own for an entire minute.  His teacher put her hands up to show me she wasn’t helping him and then started counting out loud.  When she got to 30, she looked up at me with big eyes.  Then at 60, she finally grabbed him to move onto something else.  Afterwards, she said, that just doesn’t happen in a first lesson.  He’s made a lot of progress in just a few days.  This video is of day three.  He knows how to make his way to the surface and flip onto his back.  He’s still working on making his way to the side on his own, but when he gets to the side, he knows he’s supposed to flip over and grab on and pull himself out.

It is a good feeling knowing that all of my kids would know what to do if they fell into the water.

Practice makes… cookies

Audrey and Kate started up piano lessons again today and Scott came up with this great incentive to get them to practice in preparation for these lessons.  We now have a practice jar.

Every time either one of them practice piano, or when Audrey practices violin,  they get to put in a spoonful of M&M’s.  So, after the first full jar, we made cookies.

Yes.  Simon is in great need of a more manly apron.

After the second full jar (of marshmallows instead of M&M’s) we made rice crispy treats.  And now we’re ready for M&M cookies again.  I don’t know what we’ll make next yet.  Audrey has requested  something healthy.  She and Scott are on a no sugar kick after they both had several cavities filled at the dentist this week.

Fablehaven

Clear back at Christmas, Brad and Chanda got each of the kids a book.  They got Fablehaven for Audrey.  The thing about Audrey is she loves to read, but she gets scared easily.  That’s an understatement.  She’s a wimp.  One time while watching the beginning of Night at the Museum (not even a scary part – mind you), she started screaming and bawling to the point, where Danielle and I left with her to do something else while everyone else watched.  Anyway, I didn’t know how she would do with Fablehaven, so I thought if I read it with her, it might help.  Brad turned the audio book on for us and we sat in his office listening to it and following along.  After a couple of chapters, Audrey told me she was done and walked off.

A little while later, this is how I found her.

She’s told me since then that she doesn’t want to listen to the audio books of Fablehaven because the voices might be too scary.  Audrey set it aside a few times, but finished it up by the beginning of February.  She was so excited about the book and the characters, that I decided to get her the second book and finish the first one myself.  I got really into them and ended up getting the whole set for Valentines day, but Audrey is really hard on books, so I was a little selfish with my books.  She finished the second one and I bought her the third one as a St. Patrick’s day gift (No… we don’t normally give St. Patrick’s day gifts, but it was a good excuse to buy it).

On Saturday, we got to go meet Brandon Mull and get our books signed!

I think meeting him lit a fire under her because she had read two chapters before Saturday and had finished book three by Tuesday.  I know I’ve been bragging about Audrey all through this post, but it’s about to get much, much worse.  So, if you can’t stomach the bragging, you might want to stop reading now.

So, while we were in line to meet the author, Audrey was reading book three and I was reading book five.  The lady in front of us came back to Audrey and said, “How old are you?”

Audrey answered, “Seven,”

The lady said, “And you’re reading that yourself?!”

Audrey smiled and nodded.

Then later, after waiting in line for probably a half hour or so, the lady looked at me and said, “It’s just so cute watching her read.  She’s so into it.”

Wait!  There’s more.  Then, when we met Brandon Mull, he asked Audrey how old she was and she answered, “seven,” again.  He said he had a seven year old daughter too.  Then a little while later, he said, “Wait! And you’re reading these yourself?”  I was so proud of my girl and I could tell she was so flattered.  It was so fun.  We ended up buying the rest of the books for her while we were there.

Girls Day!

A couple of Saturdays ago, I told Audrey and Kate that we were going to have a girls day and to get dressed really cute. This is what they (well, we) came up with.

On the drive to our destination, they kept asking where we were going, but my lips were sealed.  When we got to the doors of the Energy Solutions Arena, the ticket man asked if they were there to see the monster truck rally – trying to throw them off a little.  They finally figured it out when we walked in and saw Disney paraphernalia everywhere.

I got the cheapest tickets possible which equals super high seats… I’m talking so high I felt dizzy for the first 15 minutes up there.  The arena wasn’t very full, so once it started the usher told us to move closer.  We ended up being able to see everything great!

Christmas in a nutshell

Early in December, we got a surprise visit from Santa Clause.

While we were visiting with him, Kate whispered to me, “I’ve never met the REAL Santa before.”

We visited Temple Square with Grandma Jean and Grandpa Gramps.

It was pretty cold, but so beautiful.

Kate was determined not to let go of Grandma and Grandpa’s hands – even when people got in the way.

We had our annual Christmas program

complete with Joseph, Mary, the donkey,

the angel,

and Baby Jesus.  Mary was nice enough to give up her spot on the donkey when Joseph got tired.

Christmas morning led to some fun surprises!

Simon spent all morning playing at that kitchen while the rest of us opened presents.

He broke away long enough to line up some new cars.

Scott and I (mostly Scott) made this awesome car town.  Scott added some Texas flare by putting a Rudy’s and an HEB on it.

After Christmas, we headed up to Brad and Chanda’s to have some fun on the wii, eat tons of good food (Brad is the best cook ever!), and get super addicted to American Ninja Warrior.  So awesome!

Then, we headed to Jodi’s to celebrate Grandma Baldwin’s birthday.

Everyone had fun with the cousins.

Audrey and Lily had some fun getting pulled on a sled behind the snowmobile.

Okay, by “nutshell”  I meant lots of things combined in one really long post.

The end.