Little Tiger

Dylan finished up spring baseball with the Tigers. He has such a natural talent when it comes to baseball, so much that he chose to sign up for fall baseball instead of soccer.

Opening game parade.

Sister support.

Slugger.

Catching a ball infield.

The pitcher.

The team.

Sweet boy.

We had an end of season party at our house, where the kids jumped on the trampoline, played ball, and threw water balloons. For the fall season, he will be moving to a different team. It's the first time in years that he won't be a Tiger. While we're sad to see him wear another jersey, it will be great for him to get another season in!

Happy Feet

Ava has been taking dance lessons since she was two and a half. She has always loved music and singing, and even at a young age had the rhythm and coordination to dance! At the end of May she finished up her classes at XD2 and had a tap and ballet number in the recital.

All sass...

Miss Stacy and her little tappers!

After the recital we surprised my mom and dad with a little cake for their 40th wedding anniversary.

We decided that she will hold off on registering for fall classes, because she chose to do cheerleading instead! So, she will do cheer in the fall/winter and start dance back up in January.

Waterbabies....err, kiddos

Dylan has taken swim lessons since he was a year old at Emler. We didn't have time for lessons last summer which was probably the most important year for him to learn since he was finally grasping the concept. Ava was truckin' right along with him, but when she was 3 she had a drowning incident which left her a little unsure of the water.

So this year I thought it was important that they gain the confidence of being in the water without water wings and I was willing to put them in lessons all summer if that's what it took. We started out at Safe Splash. It was a 30-minute class once a week with 4-5 children, with the same format of lessons as Emler. These classes are great for kids..but my kids don't learn well in that type of setting. They need to be pushed and "do" in order to learn. So as a result, Dylan was bored with not enough water time, and both Ava and Dylan weren't really learning anything. I wanted them to learn how to swim and you could tell they wanted to, too! I stuck with the program for a month, and then was referred to the most WONDERFUL swim instructor!!

Always looking forward to their swim lessons with Ms. Sherry.

She pushed them to do the best they could - and wow what a difference it made. In 8 lessons, Dylan was swimming on his own, with his favorite stroke being freestyle. Ava loved "mermaid" or dolphin. Ms. Sherry was exactly what they needed and her style of teaching was exactly what this mama had been searching for!

The crew.

Getting their kick-on.

Ava swimming through the hoops.

We took another 8 days of lessons, and the transformation was amazing to see. Dylan was diving into the pool and swimming all over the place, going in the deep-end to retrieve submersibles, and the entire time he was in the water he smiled the entire time. Ava went from being very unsure of herself and scared to get into the water, to a confident, happy swimmer who was doing the mermaid stroke all over the pool.

Ava freestylin'

Loving the water!

Dylan doing the backstroke.

I'm so proud of how far they came in such a short period of time. Thank you, thank you, Ms. Sherry!

Toothless

Dylan started kindergarten with all of his teeth...but the time the school-year ended, he lost 4!

Look at that handsome smile! Fall school picture.

 

 

In October, he was pushing Ava and a neighbor on a seesaw swing when he slipped and caught the swing with his mouth. Needless to say, the top two teeth had to be pulled by the dentist. 

He thought it was pretty cool that he got to sign his name twice on the board at school.

Then in the spring, the bottom two teeth became loose. We were on our way to the grocery store when he screamed from the backseat, "my tooth fell out eating my nutty bar!" (It was crazy hair day at school.)

Dylan's self portrait in the car.

Shortly after, we were eating dinner and he pulled the other bottom tooth!

Here is Dylan's Spring school picture. He looks so much different than when he started kindergarten - so much bigger!