Busy Nutty Week and Swimming Lessons

I feel like life has ramped up about ten notches than its usual pace! The thought of uploading a bajillion vacation pictures and writing about them is still giving me anxiety, so I'm starting small with catching up on blog posts. I feel like a broken record.

This week's highlights included:

-Playing super spies with Eli and Charlie. Eli is so into pretending and imaginative play and it's hilarious watching Charlie play along with him.

-Listening to Charlie's vocabulary improve. It's amazing the things he understands and communicates now. He is even getting to the point of reasoning - the other day he was crying about something and I said, "Charlie, if you keep crying I am going to put you up in your crib. I'm going to count to three, and if I get to three and you're still crying, we're going upstairs. One, two..." and immediately he stopped crying and snapped out of his tantrum. I felt like angels were singing, it was such a glorious moment. He gets it.

-Three newborn photography sessions this week and getting positive feedback from a recent extended family session that I worked very hard on (it's so rewarding once it's all done to know that the family is really happy with it - it had been a super sunny session so the light was tricky and the editing took longer than usual). 

-Photographing another birth, this time at the hospital in the middle of the night. (Boy am I sleep deprived now - I basically slept for two hours last night).


-Tutoring session today with a client who wanted to learn how to get stop using the auto setting on her DSLR camera and learn manual settings. It was so fun and I think I'll try to do more of this. The best part is that once the tutoring session is over, it's OVER! I'm up to my eyeballs in photo editing and this added some nice variety.

This week's lowlight has definitely been work stress on Ben's end. The ups and downs of the stock market have made the last week extremely stressful. We're praying for things to calm down a little. Ugh.

The second lowlight is not having time to run to the grocery store because things have been so busy. I've had to get creative with what we've had for dinner since our fridge is almost completely empty. I will admit to personally eating peanut butter puffins cereal for dinner two nights this week. I am vowing to make balanced, nutritious, delicious meals next week. And to get more sleep. And catch up and not feeling like a crazy woman. To find balance. And no, I'm not pregnant. Didn't want to give you any ideas with my weird eating or spacey brain in the next lowlight.

-The last lowlight was completely spacing that the boys had swimming lessons on Monday and not realizing it until that night when I looked at my calendar to get ready for the next day. We used to do lessons on Fridays and I'm still adjusting to the different schedule. I was so mad at my silly head for forgetting something like that, especially since we're paying for both kids in that class.

Here are some pictures from swimming lessons two weeks ago when I actually remembered their lesson. :) The kids in the class range from 2 1/2 to 5 years old, but their teacher Angie handles it really well. I have to laugh at how tiny Charlie looks standing there with the other kids.

So we are finally to the point where I don't have to go in the water with Charlie during lessons (now he's less crazy/better about following directions), so it's a treat to be able to sit on the side and watch (and take pictures!). We had one scary moment though last week when he was holding on to the side and his hands slipped, so he dipped under water, and in that split second when I realized what was happening and jumped out of my chair to go grab him (and my heart sank), he somehow got his face up enough and reached up for the wall. I was so proud of him and feel like this is why we do lessons - he understands to reach for the wall!



There is nothing cuter than watching your two-year-old learn how to swim backstroke. He's not really close to doing it on his own, but he's learning the steps and getting the hang of floating on his back.





Charlie always swims with the green goggles, and Eli has these blue goggles. He's getting better about floating and swimming on his own for short distances, which is great!


Back to Charlie again. Love these cute little swimmers :)