Young Party of Four

Okay, so we didn't actually get anything checked off the bucket list this week... but we did have an awesome weekend worth a recap. (Though, technically we could double check the whole "Spend the night with Nana and Papa" thing because the kids did it a couple of weeks ago and I am doing it with them this weekend.) The week started with Kenzie restarting swimming lessons. She only had the week left but we took an extended break while her swim instructor was on vacation. I had a few worries about how she would do after such a long break, but she took too it again like a fish to water (see what I did there?) She jumped right back in and it was like the lessons never ended. Actually, she did even better than she ever has before and at the end of the week, we ended up with an official graduate of the Red Cross Preschool Aquatics Level 2 course. Here is a recap of her swimming lesson journey this year.   She passed her clothing test with flying colors and we are so proud of ...

And with today's lesson, the kids have both officially finished swimming lessons for the summer. Will has actually been done for a while as he finished his 10 lessons prior to the break we took so the instructor could go on vacation. You can read about him HERE if you haven't yet and would like to. Today though, wrapped up Kenzie's 20th and final lesson of the summer. I wasn't going to recap her lessons this year, but I am so very proud of her and I just couldn't resist. Mainly so I could get some cute pictures and videos in there showing her amazing progress. Back at the beginning of the summer, Steven and I thought long and hard about how we wanted to go about lessons for Kenzie this year. Last year she did... okay. Just okay. She made a lot of progress, but we weren't sure about how she was going to do this year due to how much she cried last year. She didn't cry the entire time, but it was a lot and we wondered if it was too much for her to do...

Welcome to Round 3 of July Weekend Craziness in the Young House! This week we are celebrating two family birthdays, Steven and his dad, so we are extra busy, it seems. Our weekend started early again because Steven was able to work (had to work??) extra hours earlier in the week and ended up being able to take Friday off.... or rather, didn't have to work it because he already did his time. Thursday night he had to go to church for the band rehearsal (he does tech periodically) so when he left for the evening, I got the kids ready to check off a bucket list item. Bake with Mommy! See, Steven's birthday was Saturday and since we are pretty much done with cake at this point in the month, we wanted to make him something yummy and special so we set about making a cookie/brownie thing. I really don't know what to call it. It's super easy though, which is a plus for me because while I love to cook and am pretty good... I am not the best baker. We elected to use boxed mixes ...