Back to School!

William started school this week and I thought I'd share the pictures from his big week back. He LOVES school and we are so thankful for that!

There are only 4 kids in his class so far, which is great for him and his teachers. (One kid from last year came back for only the first day and then a new girl came later in the week.) He has been a wonderful leader at school this year too. Everyday we got a glowing report in his planner and at pick-up, about how he's been such a good boy! We are so proud of him!

Thanks to Miss Debi & Diane for these pictures! :)

Abbey - our big 3 year-old!!

Abbey turned 3 years old this past Saturday! It's pretty hard to believe that it's been that long since our "little" 9-pound baby came into our lives right in our own little apartment!

My parents were in town last Thursday and we met up with them for lunch and a treat at Dairy Queen before they headed home. Abbey thoroughly enjoyed her chocolate ice cream and William had fun with the camera, as you'll see....

(This is a self portrait)

Friday night we had cake and Abbey opened presents. She did better this year than last, although she still needed some help. She was ready to stop opening boxes after the first one! Thankfully, William was right there encouraging her to keep going! :)

Here's Abbey in her cute Holland shirt that Papa brought her from the Netherlands.

Happy Birthday, Abbey! We love you so much!!

Independent Cuties

Happy Independence Day!!

All ready for church!

It may look like we were going to a baseball game below, but Abbey was just excited about bringing her new pink baseball glove with her. You can see that William really likes it too! He looks pretty cute in his new shades too! :)

Tally Trip Pictures

Swimming at the hotel, Friday afternoon. Here is the happy couple, at their rehearsal luau!

Jonathan took the kids exploring towards the lake (at the park where the dinner was) after they ate, which is where William somehow wandered into some kind of poison oak or ivy. Saturday his arm was red, itchy, and swollen, so we ended up with him in the ER later that night. He had also been stung by a wasp the night before, so we weren't sure what was going on with his arm when we arrived that night. Thankfully, after 3 days of meds, his arm was back to normal.

These pics are out of chronological order, but here he is with his bandage.

After the dinner, it was back to work on some special things for the reception...

Here are the helmets I painted...

And here's what the kids were doing while the women worked on the stuff for the wedding.

Here are the 3 musketeers waiting for the wedding to start. Abbey looks thrilled! They actually had fun I'm sure, since they went to play in the nursery with grandpa during the ceremony.

Here are the 'groom cakes' we made for the wedding. Jake is a Michigan fan and Heidi is a 'Buckeye.' My mom baked the cakes, Holley decorated them, and I painted the little helmets. They were DELICIOUS!!!

William and Joey kept pretty close to Grama during the reception, since she was in charge of the good cakes! :)

Swimming Videos

Swimming Without Screaming

Here's the deal...William has never been a huge fan of any body of water. However, it was made a lot worse last year, when his head went under at a friend's pool and he couldn't get it up fast enough. Since then, he's had a terrible fear of 'big pools' and wants NOTHING to do with them! If we take him to a 'big pool' he cries and screams something fierce! And unfortunately, his fear has been passed onto Abbey, although she's never had a traumatic experience with water. Which is completely frustrating when Jonathan and I love the water, and hello...we live in Florida and it's summer! It's HOT and the best way to cool off is in the water. And it's no sense in taking the kids to a pool to cool down, when they don't get in!

So anyway, while we were in Tally, we took the kids (with their cousins) to the hotel pool, where our extended family was staying. It was great, because it had 3 steps the entire side of the pool where the kids could sit and be mostly content. We let them get in on their own time and when they saw how all of their 'other cousins' were loving the water, they slowly ventured in. Abbey even let us put the floaties into her swim suit and wanted to get back in the water when it was time to go home.

So after that great experience we decided to take them down to our friends' pool last week. William recognized where we were going and wasn't very happy about it, but once we arrived and after he ran around and got hot enough, he eventually allowed us to take him off the top step of the pool. He let us take him around on the floaties for a bit and liked that he could reach the bottom on the shallow side. Even though he didn't need to, he could 'tip toe' around the shallow end and asked to do it a few times on his own. And Abbey, wow, she wanted to get into her little boat and was really having a blast zooming around in circles! Jonathan and I just watched in amazement and relief!!

It was lunch time by the time we arrived, since we had to wait for Jonathan to get home, so I think getting out of the water for our picnic lunch kinda slowed down our momentum that day. However, progress is progress and I'm thankful for every bit of it! It may not sound like a big deal to most people, but when you have a child, or in our case - 2 of them, who has such a fear of anything, I can't explain to you the sense of pride and accomplishment you feel when they take a step towards overcoming that fear! Especially, spectrum kids, who may never overcome certain issues! It's just wonderful! I know it will be slow going, as our visit yesterday showed us. However, I'm hopeful that this will be our summer to swim without screaming! :)