Swimming Lessons & More...

It's been very busy here lately, lots going on and not much time to write. I am trying to keep up with pictures, at least, of which there are more in the August 2008 album.

While Kirby was here on vacation, we all went to the Florida Aquarium. Katie had fun walking around on her own, and Jimmy got to see a lot more fish than in our aquarium at home.

Sarah "talks" to us all the time now. She is starting to roll over from her back to her tummy, but doesn't know how to go the other way so we have to rescue her when she gets tired of being face-down. She is sleeping well, eating well, and was about 12 1/2 pounds on her three-month "birthday". We got out the Jumperoo for her, which is fun for her and for the twins, they all like to look at each other when Sarah is upright.

Jimmy and Katie absolutely love the pool, so we started them in swimming lessons at the club. They are doing great so far, we can dunk them under water for a second or two and they come up laughing and smiling. Katie is doing especially well with floating on her back (with someone holding her, of course), and Jimmy is catching on fast to kicking his feet.

Jimmy finally figured out clapping, and now both of them clap along when I sing "If you're happy and you know it, clap your hands." They have also both mastered climbing up onto the couch, which means we'll have to rearrange some furniture again (we just changed things last week to fence off part of the room for Sarah to play in where the older babes won't squash her. The other day I left them alone in the (formerly babyproofed) living room for a few minutes, and when I returned, Katie was waving the remote control around and Jimmy was sitting ON the end table trying to open the big box of goldfish crackers.

The house addition is coming along nicely, though we're still a couple of months from being completely finished with paint and carpet and furniture. We all made the trek to Ikea in Orlando on Sunday to look at some storage furniture and kids' room things. In the meantime we are trying to keep our growing collection of kiddie clothes and toys and STUFF as organized as we can, which is challenging when we don't want to make any major changes right now since everything will be rearranged so soon anyway.

I have also been trying to capture some video of all the little ones, and I put together some pieces from the past few weeks: