A Tooth!

Cecilia finally got her first tooth today. It should be a testament to her amiable personality that I had no idea until I let her chew on my finger! She was a little fussy in the afternoon, but that has been normal lately since she just dropped a nap.

I was beginning to think she wanted to steal the tile of "Family's slowest teether" from Allia, who got her first at 8 months. I guess not!

Date night

I have owed Mariana a date for a while. We were finally able to make it happen Saturday evening after mass and dinner. We went on a little dessert date after I put Cecilia to bed. It was nice, and the place had a cool playground that Mariana really enjoyed!

I sure love her free spirit!

Reading

I have found through teaching the kids that there is always some point that their reading just takes off. Rather than being a "school subject" to be done with me or someone else, it becomes something they do often both with and without me. Stephen hit that point recently, and it is so sweet to see him sitting on the couch reading a book to himself. However, as often happens in our house when you sit to read a book, he ends up with company and happily reads aloud to them. So sweet!

Swim Lessons Finale!

We had our last lesson yesterday. Anastasia passed with flying colors, even being given permission to move up into the "big kid" classes (although I am not up for another 2 weeks of lessons!). Mariana passed her level, and Sebastian came really close. They all improved their swimming greatly these last two weeks! I didn't get any photos of the last day, which is fun day. But I had a grand time watching them, especially Sebastian who enjoyed being in a pool where he could comfortably stand. He was doing a lot of swimming on his own!
Here are a few videos of him from the week...

Sitting baby

I didn't do a 7 month post for Cecilia since we were out of town. But at 7 1/2 months she is making great strides. She is sitting up really well and rolling all over the floor, trying to crawl/scoot but not too successful so far. She really enjoys her new skills. She is also eating avocado, banana and sweet potato and likes all 3. She claps/plays pattycake very gently. It is so adorable! We are loving every minute of this sweet girl.

On a sleep note, she is very close to sleeping all night, usually waking up between 4:45 and 6:30am depending on the night. She is in the process of dropping down to 3 naps.

Swim meet

Allia had her last swim meet of the summer season Saturday. She swam well and is glad to be done with long course season. Daddy is glad to be done traveling out of town for swim meets for a little while!

Swim lessons, etc.

We had a weekend wrought with illness and trips to the urgent care center (me for strep, Sebastian with a sinus infection and Cecilia with an ear infection...could someone please tell the germs it is summer?!) and then started swim lessons Monday! (Sebastian missed the first day as he was still getting well/letting his antibiotics kick in and slept super late).

Anastasia enjoying her swim snack....I don't typically buy junk food, but I make a few exceptions for swim lessons to help inspire them. ;)

 Anastasia has Caleb, Gloria's teacher from last year, as one of her instructors. His favorite expression is "killed it" as in, did amazing. And Anastasia has. She has her instructors quite impressed, and they are testing her on skills above her level to see if she can skip the next level! Her freestyle is looking really good, and she can swim across the deep end unassisted. So proud of our ambitious little girl!

Sebastian, on his first day (which was everyone else's second day) threw a fit and didn't want to get in. I am not sure what happened to this guy, but he usually loves the water. However, perhaps it was his lingering illness, but on our CC trip he started throwing fits about swimming. I was caught a little by surprise and unsure what to do here, but I decided to play it tough and make him do the lesson. His teacher was amazing and had him smiling and happily participating 10 minutes later!

 

Each day he was resistant to go, but more and more quickly cheered up until today he went right up and sat with is class smiling. Whew! He is actually really doing well with the skills!

Mariana really wanted to do lessons this year even though all the other older kids are in swim team. I am proud of her. She is working really hard and doing some good fine tuning on her strokes and major improvement on dives!

 And as if we weren't busy enough we discovered, last minute, that Tuesday was Cow Appreciation Day at Chick Fil A. So we threw together some cow dress up, went in shifts so I didn't have to bring the baby, and got ourselves some free lunch! Yum! Here is one of my cute cows....

Cecilia cheered up quickly once on her antibiotics. It was so good to have my sweet happy baby back this week and get some sleep at night. Whew!

CC Trip and 4th of July!

Right after VBS ended we did a little catching up around the house, a lot of packing, and we were off to Corpus Christi to visit Lito and Lita for the 4th of July week! They are always ready with backyard fun for the kids. (We were supposed to have some fun with cousins like last year, but one of them came down sick right when we got there, so they had to head home. :( )

 

Tia Rosa brought a game for family game night. So fun!

Lito took Allia for a spin in his new car!

 

 Unfortunately I came down sick on the 4th of July, but thankfully Lito and Lita got a photo for me, and Lito took the oldest 3 to fireworks.

 The next day I was feeling a little better so we headed off to the beach. We went to a different one than usual, and it was really beautiful, so we have a new favorite beach!

Cecilia's first beach experience. She loved it!

 

That night we drove to a nearby town for daily mass and dinner with Fr. Glen (who married us almost 15 years ago!). It was so great to see him and visit with him for a bit.
The next day we went to our favorite Splash park...

Cecilia liked it a lot too, and the older girls were so sweet and kept asking to take her in the water to play.

Gloria liked the high dive and kept tring different tricks.

 

 

  And our favorite stop on the drive is this mall with the Cookie Company and lots of space to run/walk around!

As usual, Lito and Lita were generous hosts with lots of yummy meals planned, a whole table of treats and snacks, and lots of fun! Everyone was sad to leave!

VBS Week!

Allia and Gloria were the only ones that made it the whole week! We had an illness (or maybe two?) run through the house. It was a little crazy...so I didn't actually take any pictures but got some from our sweet friend who is also the photographer for the church events. Allia was a helper with snacks and Mariana with music (just like last year). I couldn't find any pictures of Stephen! (He did miss 3 days.)