One week before Jane was born, Audrey and Kate headed back to school, so we of course did our traditional back to school festivities.
Audrey and Kate go to a charter school, so they get to wear these cute uniforms.
Simon didn’t want to be left out of the photo ops and really how could I refuse him when he looked so awesome in his high water Lightning McQueen jammies.
This is Audrey and Kate’s first year of going to the same school and it has been so fun listening to them make plans of meeting each other “on the bridge” at recess.
In July, we headed to Edwards, Colorado (near Vail) for our Edwards family reunion. We rented a condo and 26 of us stayed there together.
We had so much fun with our own little Amazing Race and Minute to Win it games.
The women-folk got some much needed R&R with some delicious breakfast, pedicures, and shopping.
A few weeks later, we headed to Stanley, Idaho for the Baldwin family reunion. Each family stayed in our own little cabins. We spent most of our time outdoors which was kind of tricky with temps in the 30′s at night and 80′s during the day.
This picture was taken right behind our cabin. We had the most beautiful view.
We spent one day at Red Fish lake and had so much fun playing in the water and canoeing around.
Somehow we talked Audrey into doing a dive off the dock and swimming back to shore. We told her we would canoe right along beside her in case she was tired. She got her goggles on and got all ready to go. She dove in and then came up screaming because of the freezing water and jumped right back into the canoe.
She inspire Mason and Uncle Stephen to dive in too.
Audrey and Kate participated in the Provo tri on Saturday. When I first told them about the triathlon, Kate told me that she wasn’t going to do it. Audrey was game, but Kate was quite emphatic about her decision. So, not wanting to force Kate into anything, I only signed Audrey up…. until Kate saw that Audrey was getting a new suit that would work better for all three events. Then, she said, “I think Audrey’s right. I’ll be sad if I don’t do it. So, I guess I’ll do it.” Luckily, there was still time to sign her up. Being the nice Mom I am, I told her she could do it and get a new swim suit, but if she whined at all at the race, we would put her old suit on and take the new one back.
Kate did really good not to whine until we put on her swim cap – which she usually loves. I think she was just getting nervous about things and it was coming out in the form of complaints about the swim cap. I threatened the whole swim suit thing again and she snapped back into shape.
The temperature outside was mid 60′s. The temperature of Utah Lake averages 60 degrees this time of year. I’m pretty sure, it was no where close to that.
Originally, Scott and I were both planning to swim with the girls but once we got there we convinced ourselves that one parent (Scott) would be enough and that way they other one (me) could stay with Simon and take pictures. Audrey started out great. Look at her awesome freestyle in those pictures above.
Apparently, Kate was having a hard time getting started in the frigid water, so Scott picked her up and put her on her back. I had just enough time to take this picture of her screaming before I saw Audrey begin to come back toward Scott and grab onto him because the cold was finally getting to her. So, I ran back to the stroller, stripped down to my swim suit, ditched Simon, and jumped in the water. It was a good thing I went out there. Scott had already run eight miles that morning and was feeling like he’d be lucky to finish the swim, let alone helping two panicking girls. They both finished with a backstroke – well, more like floating on their backs and kicking, but hey, they finished.
While I helped them dry off and transition to bikes, Scott dried off himself and ran off after them.
The girls came back looking great and full of energy. Scott, however was spent! Audrey got back a little before Kate, so I sent her off on the run and then followed along with Kate a few seconds later.
Audrey finished her run a couple of minutes before Kate and was able to cheer for Kate as she crossed the finish line.
I was so proud of both of them. They worked so hard and did awesome coming in, in the last two spots.
I think Kate may have been the youngest one to do it. They rocked!
I’ve always thought it was kind of funny when I heard that schools did kindergarten graduation, however, when my kid has been going to a school where she learns performing arts, I expect to see some skills at the end of it all. So, I was totally excited for Kate’s graduation.
They learned tae kwon do. In the first picture, they were meditating which Kate has told us is said, “Moy-en” in Korean. They did such a cute dance showing off all of their martial arts and I must say, that I am quite impressed with Kate’s push ups.
At the end of this portion, their teacher brought a board for each of them to break with their foot and then they were presented with a new belt. It took Kate a few tries, but she did it in the end. Their teacher told us they had never done this before so it’s pretty impressive that they were all able to do it.
The costumes for the dancing and singing were so cute.
They did a few more songs once they were dressed in their gowns. They sang, “I’m proud to be an American,” and someone may have got a little teary eyed in that one. Scott would have too if he hadn’t been so busy making fun of me and trying to catch the teary-eyedness on camera. When they got to the line, “And I proudly stand up next to you and defend her still today,” they jumped into this defensive pose that just cracked us up.
Each of the kids got to go up to the mic and tell what they want to be when they grow up. Kate said she wants to be a mom. Phew! I haven’t completely ruined it for her.
Before the whole thing Kate was giving me a run down of how things were going to go. She said, “After Miss Cynthie gives me a piece of rolled up paper, I’ll stop on the X and in case you don’t know why I’m standing there, that’s your opportunity to take my picture.” She gave me ample time to get her picture. I had to give her thumbs up a few times before she realized she could move on.
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.
