Swim Lessons 2011

So....swim lessons got over a week ago today, but life happens and we have been super duper crazy and after attempting to blog this several times and getting kicked off the internet, TODAY IS THE DAY that you finally get an update!
I signed all 4 kids up for swim lessons again this year and just like every other year they did amazing and had a BLAST.

This is Oakley shooting out of the slide. She lives for the last day when she gets to ride it OVER AND OVER again!This is Oakley's knee dive. She has been trying to learn to dive for the past couple years and it is kind of a tricky thing to learn. She is actually pretty good from her knees. I don't know if you can tell from the picture, but her skin is super dark this year. She tans BEAUTIFULLY. We have been teasing her that her dad is going to think she is a Mexican and start making her change the water if she doesn't stop getting so dark. Here's "D!" He also LOVES the slide. Dallin and Oakley are both really good swimmers and I only keep them in lessons to perfect their swimming skills! :) He is seriously like a fish and spends more time under the water than over. He was a little funny when I told him he was a "pretty swimmer." He didn't quite know what to think of that. HE IS THOUGH!! He seriously glides his little body right through the water making it look effortless.This is as brave as my kids got off the diving board. I convinced Dallin to atleast do a twist off it. I couldn't talk any of them into doing a front flip.And, here is Rhett. OH MY WORD.....this year was AMAZING for him. This was his 4th year of swim lessons and he had successfully taken 3 years of swim lessons and never once got his whole head wet. This time though - on the first day it was normal Rhett. On the 2nd day he cried on the way there because he was worried about getting dunked by his teacher...and I TRUTHFULLY brought home a different child than I took. I HAVE NO IDEA WHAT HAPPENED, but he was a whole new kid. All of the sudden he was no longer scared of water and when I got in the pool that day to swim with them he kept saying things to me like, "Hey mom, do you want to see who can sit on the bottom of the pool longest?" WHAT IN THE WORLD!! It was amazing and he definitely grew the most this year at swim lessons!!!Here he is jumping off the diving board. He has walked to the end of the board several years now, but never actually jumped. THIS YEAR HE DID! See what I mean....whole new kid!And, here is my baby. I know she is almost 5 and NOT a baby anymore, but sometimes that is hard to admit. She had private lessons this year because the other child signed up with her never showed up. Her teacher was amazing and Laiklie ate up all the attention. She has a pretty mean glide she learned and is very proud to show!Here is her jump. I don't know if you can see her face, but it is super funny. You can see the fear!

The other thing that kept us busy last week was the FAIR. Oakley had her modeling....which she looked amazing, her rolls she baked and then this cake she decorated. We had a few frosting issues, but all-in-all it turned out cute. She was excited to come home from the fair with 3 blue 1st place ribbons and 1 red 2nd place ribbon. She also came home the proud owner of $11 as her ribbon winnings. It was ALOT of work and the day we turned everything in she told me that "no way was she doing 4H again next year." But, I think she actually LOVED it and will probably/hopefully forget by next year! :)