Swim Lessons Week 4

Friday ended week 4 of lessons & Dad came home to watch. The girls are making a ton of progress. Audrie is the stronger swimmer & Ellie has a stronger float. They are both doing amazing! Here's some video..
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13 Months

Audrie & Ellie turned 13 months today. Ellie is continuing to walk more and more. She's definitely more persistent than her sister. Everytime you say, "Try again!"; she gets right back up and tries again. She's been doing a bear crawl which is pretty funny to watch. Usually she does it when she's trying to stand up and walk, but ends up doing the bear crawl for several steps until she makes it up.
Ellie is clapping now. And Audrie has started doing "Arms Up," when I show her the words on a card. I found out one of their favorite foods, other than cheese; is pineapple. I bought a fresh pineapple and they, I kid you not, ate the...entire...thing..


Here are a few pictures...Daddy was hiding under the blanket and they thought it was pretty funny.

Finally Some Pictures of Swimming Lessons

This is Audrie swimming to the edge

I've had a few people complaining that I have no pictures of swimming lessons, so finally here you go. Justin was able to come to watch the girls lessons today so I got my camera out. Normally both girls cry during the lessons, but not the case for Audrie today. Prior to today we haven't really had any smiles yet..just tears. Well, today apparently Audrie felt like showing off for Dad. There were absolutely no tears..just smiles, claps, & waves. Ellie on the other hand still cried. I told Justin, now he has to be here for every lesson because Audrie did so well.

The picture & video today are of Audrie, but will there will definitely be more later; hopefully of Ellie :)

My Little Fishies

So, after researching quite a few different swim programs for the girls; we finally decided in ISR or Infant Swim Rescue. With so many backyard pools in AZ, you hear of drownings nearly everyday. For this reason, we wanted our girls to be able to save themselves should the worst happen. You can check out a video on youtube than is pretty amazing. They re-enact an 11 month old falling in a pool, then floating for 10 minutes before his Dad comes out to get him. Crazy to watch!!

The goal for Audrie & Ellie is to learn swim-float-swim. So they will go under water, open their eyes to find the exit & start swimming to it. When they need air, they roll into back float then go back to swimming. We are starting their 3rd week today and they are doing amazing. It still involves some tears; but this is entirely normal until they are confident in their abilities.

Last Friday's lesson was incredible. Both of them are doing really well at breath control, opening their eyes, and finding the bar at the edge of the pool. On Friday, the instructor was still keeping a hand on them, but said it was really to make sure they stay confident & keep working. Both of them when laid on their back in a float would initiate rolling over to swim and find the bar and pull themselves up out of the water.
The lessons are intense...she comes to our house M-F for 10 minutes with each baby. It is really neat to watch though as they improve each day. Hopefully these lessons will lead to them be great swimmers & to love the water. Since I have no pictures yet...sort of hard to handle a camera and getting 2 babies in and out of the pool by myself; I'm posting some more scrapbook stuff. This week hopefully Justin will make it to a few lessons and we'll get some photos and video.

Dad & Audrie's Project

We finally got the girls "Big" present for their birthday on our doorstep last week. We needed more storage for their books and toys, so we got them a new book case. Audrie was Dad's little helper putting it together. Ellie would have helped, but she was watching from the background in her jumperoo. The only thing Audrie was missing was her tool bench. She also got a little tool bench for her birthday and she carries it around all of the time like she's getting ready to go work on something.

Ellie Bean's 1st Steps

My latest addition to their scrapbook, our little "Ellie Bean" as we call her


Our little Ellie Bean started walking this Saturday, July 3rd. Audrie took her first steps over a month ago, but Ellie just wasn't quite ready. She's been cruising around behind her lion toy for awhile, but didn't want to try on her own. Finally on Saturday she started standing on her own & then doing a 1/2 crawl, 1/2 bear crawl. By evening she was taking a few steps by herself.

If it's anything like Audrie, all of a sudden she'll stop crawling all together & be walking everywhere. It was funny with Audrie, when we were in Kansas she was happy walking as long as there was someone across from her she could walk to. As soon as we got back to AZ and I put her down in the living room; all of a sudden she started walking everywhere. It was almost as if she said, "if I can do it at Grandma & Grandpa's, I can definitely walk on my own here. She's never looked back...the day we got back home she totally stopped crawling. She's practically went from walking to running in the past 2 weeks.


Last but not least, we had their 1 year check up last week. They are doing amazing. Audrie weighed 20 lbs. 10 oz & Ellie weighed 18 lbs. 14 oz. They are healthy as can be.