Progression....

When you are living your day to day life, it's sometimes hard to see how things have progressed.  

At the gym tonight Tyler was doing some great work and I happened to have my camera to catch some video.  Sitting down and watching, it's amazing to see how far he's come in the last few months.  His strength is improving and it really shows.  

Here's the video mash-up....

I thought it was funny that he had the same outfit on, 6 months apart.  

We found out his main coach is set to leave the gym for good in the fall to pursue some higher learning.  We should have him for a while longer, hopefully long enough to jump a level. 

Tyler does the Butterfly....

Tyler is moving up an age group in swim this year.  With this jump, they will learn the butterfly and breast strokes.  He will be one of the youngest ones in the group, if not the youngest on our team.  To give him a leg up, we signed up for 4 lessons through a local swim school.  We were also looking for a way to use up some of our school funds and gain some PE credits.  Cody and Tyler are doing this class together as a semi-private lesson.  

I didn't get any video of his breast stroke, but it wasn't super pretty.  Also not super impressed with the swim instructor, hopefully it gets better over the next 3 lessons.

Boys' New Room

The boys are growing.  With all this growing, they are in need of more space to sprawl out.  

For a while I've been looking into ways to possibly redo their room so that they have more space.  Loft beds seamed to be the answer to give them two levels in their bedroom; a place to sleep and a reading nook / drawing area.  

Here are the before and after shots

There are two small shelves to put up still for their trophies and painted art pieces, but being indecisive, the perfect spot hasn't been found yet.  

Very happy with how it's turned out!

Valentine's

We had a very low key Valentine's this year.  We were trying to organize a party with our homeschooling group but schedules conflicted and things out of anyone's control came up and w weren't able to put anything together.  

Nonetheless, we had Valentine's designed and it was a fairly quick process to get things together if need be and we sent some up to the cousins and handed a couple out to friends. 

 The boys' Valentine's

 My Valentine's

Family....

We celebrated Birthdays for Eli and Stuart in January.  It was nice to have everyone together as we were traveling for Christmas.  

 

Baby Aiden hangs out with us a couple of days a week while Virginia goes to work, it's been fun to see how fast things change.  

Photo Dumping Randomness....

Yep, that's what this one is all about!  

We missed the chance before Christmas, so we made winter gingerbread houses.

 We've seen a lot of beautiful weather this year already, the boys like to take pass the ball around a bit.

 

Study spot...

 

 Little man has been working on his reading skills and is starting to read through some chapter books.  He's not super interested yet, but we're looking to find something that will spark his interest.

We went to a play in Roseville, School House Rock!

 

It was a nice piece of community theater. 

 LEGOs, lots and lots of LEGOs.....

 The boys love to play with tennis balls on the trampoline.  

That our practice for the next Matrix movie!

 The books the boys wrote in the fall arrived, they were very proud of their stories.

 We watched the Super Bowl, kinda....

 Grandpa inspected the backyard tree and deemed it strong enough for a climbing rope.

 Oh Gees!  We're working on a plan to build a better swing set with rings, that will include adding cedar mulch at the bottom for soft landings.

 The hallway makes a great ball alley...

 Wii! 

 

 

The boys went to a model train show with Grandpa which gave them new ideas to continue their train table.