Life lately

in general, we've kept busy. 

Between play dates, birthdays, swimming, gymnastics and all sorts of family fun, it has been a very busy summer.
We're wrapping up the month of June and it is definitely our favorite time of the year. All 4 of us simply L-O-V-E the heat. The more the merrier. We just don't seem to get enough of it in our 3 short months of summer, so when we do, we live it up. 

Updates:
Regan has settled into her summer program routine and is starting to enjoy herself a little more each day. She was overwhelmed at first, but has adjusted well. She's making new friends, keeping some of the old, and learning her new role in her 3 day/week summer schedule. She continues to attend weekly swimming and gymnastics classes and is doing great in both of them. She's working on the butterfly stroke (AMAZING!) as well as handstand-bridge-kick overs. Fun stuff! She is keeping up with some reading this summer (not as much as she should be, I'll admit) and continues to pick out chapter books on our regular library outings. She'd much prefer to watch a movie or the beloved Disney channel and I swear we could drive to Russia and she would be content watching TV the whole way (in her defense, the poor girl gets car sick if she tries reading in the car). 

Sidney is still little Miss Popular in her ongoing preschool program. She has remained with the same core group of children for a very long time. Some of them since infancy. This really is her second family. They love her and she loves them right back. She's told us she is trying to decide which of two boys to marry. Yes, we have our hands full. Depending on the day, she is married to either one of them. This girl cracks us up! She too is participating in swimming lessons and gymnastics classes on a weekly basis. She has mastered swimming across the deep end of our pool without any floatation device; quite impressive to watch her tiny 34 lb body paddle 16 feet without stopping. In order to keep up with the bigger kids, she still puts on a life jacket or grabs a noodle but she's really making some amazing gains. Though she adores her Disney channel like her big sister, she tires quickly and we joke that on a 2 hour drive, we can't make it 10 blocks without her saying she's bored. Makes for some long trips. 

As for us parents, well, we're taking life as it comes these days. I commented to Ryan that with all we have going on in our house right now, we are both handling the summer in a positive manner. Not much rattles us anymore, and while we still have very full weekends (and week nights), we've learned to take things one moment at a time. And it's proving quite helpful for both of us. 

Ryan's loving his new job (something he hasn't ever really been able to say) and is still a goofball in the pool, doing all sorts of "tricks" as he likes to call them. As for me, I'm enjoying my sleepless nights feeling baby kick (the first pregnancy to keep me awake with kicks), multiple trips to the bathroom day and night, and wishing my (other) full time job as social coordinator for this family would pay in dollars :) 

Here's to another two months of fun in the sun!