Emmy's First French Braid

I LOVE doing people's hair, especially french braids. I keep asking Bryden to let me do hers, but she says she doesn't like braids! HA! I used to get in trouble all the time in high school for playing with one of my best friends hair during class. Anyway, Emmy's hair is finally long enough, so I did a double braid. Wouldn't you know I took her to get her hair cut the next week! Go Figure!

Swim Team

I decided to get back in to summer league coaching this year, especially since Bryden was going to be on the swim team. I was hired by Old Church and I loved every minute of it. I LOVE the laid back atmosphere of summer league, and our pool atmosphere is amazing. It is a small team that is out in the country, and we all had a blast this summer! Here are some cute pics of Bryden and her very first meet. She made a sign for her "big sisters", Savannah Wright and Tiffany Pohlig! And there is a picture of Bryden's very first ribbon...second place! Then the last pic is a picture of our Honorary Swim Coach! Emmy was a trooper, she ended up coming to way more practices than anticipated, and she did a great job of keeping herself busy (like in this pic). My team's parents and swimmers were amazing, they would play with Emmy, and Bryden when she wasn't practicing, and keep an eye on then so I could coach! I am very blessed to be a part of the Old Church Otters!

Here is video of Bryden's VERY FIRST swim, in her very first swim meet! She is 5 years old, and she was the leadoff on the 8 and under 100 Free Relay. She was a little nervous, got right up on the block, then panicked a little. After talking with her for a couple minutes, she decided she wanted to start from in the water. No problem, even though she can dive off the block and everything, she just wasn't quite comfortable doing so today! She swam so great, I am so proud of her. It was tough for me because I couldn't truly enjoy the moment since I am coaching the team and had to watch the other swimmers too, but I got to see her races today, and she did AWESOME! Thanks to Nanne and Grampa and Uncle John for enduring the heat today to watch Bryden, and to get photos and videos for us since Jim and Emmy are in Maine!
Here is Bryden's very first time she swam breaststroke! It was totally illegal, but she actaully has a great stroke, we just have to get the timing down, make it only one breast kick, and take out the freestyle kicks...maybe by the end of the season she will be legal! She soooo wants to do breaststroke though, especially since Mommy was a breaststroker!

Here is Bryden's 25 individual Free. Her stroke already looks better from her first race, and she definitely swam faster! She even had great sportsmanship, she blew the other two girls in her heat out of the water, it's not in the video, but she sat on the edge of the pool until both girls finished their race! How awesome! We didn't even talk about doing that!

Richmond Metro Zoo

Bryden's school had a field trip to the Richmond Zoo on Friday. It was a gorgeous day and the girls had a great time with the animals. They both got to feed the giraffe, and their faces were priceless, and they both also got to hold a stick with bird food on it, and the birds flew right up on the sticks. Emmy kept trying to pet the birds! Enjoy the pics!

The Garden

Our garden is coming along quite nicely this year! Last year was a bust, but we are off to a great start. I decided to compost last year so I wouldn't have to buy dirt, and we had tons of seed sprout from the compost pile. I did buy a good bit of stuff too, but a few of our tomato plants are from the compost pile, all of my cucumbers are from compost, and I have two melons of some sort, probably canteloupe I am guess (which I have never had any luck growing, but who knows, why not try!) We also have tons of sugar snap pease growing, those are the really tall ones in the back, which I have a close up of too, and you can see all the peas. We have squash, kale strawberries and peppers too, as well as a watermelon and purple beans! Oh, and there is one pic of Emmy holding a strawberry in front of her face, that is her "Ooooo" face if you can see it behind the berry (see following post to get my drift!). Enjoy. Oh, and the first pic is Emmy caught in action, climbing as usual. I heard a noise in the toy room and went to check it out, and found Emmy standing on her play kitchen! "Emmy, what are you doing? Busted! Get down, no, wait, stay still, let me get the camera first!" Haha! Enjoy!

Emmy

Ohhhhh, Emmy! She provides such entertainment. These pictures are not that great, but they are still cute. We are growing strawberries in our garden this year, and Emmy LOVES to go out and pick them. She gets really excited when she sees a bright red one, and goes "Oooooo" and yanks it off and puts it in her little bowl. She gets them all gathered and takes them over to the hose and rinses them, sits on the steps and takes one bite out of each of them, and leaves the rest of the berry! Haha! So funny though. She is so ritualistic in everything in her life, and her strawberry routine is no different! Then the rest are pics when I was outside last week tackling the grass and mulch beds. She came over and sat on my bucket, and the lighting on her was so perfect that I had to run and grab my camera. None of the pics do justice to how cute she was that day, her hair is a bit crazy, and the light reflection in her glasses makes her eyes look funny, but you can see the story through the pics. She had a snack, then I picked a flower and put it behind my ear, then gave it to her, she tried to put it behind her ear, which ended up in her ear, then she tried to put it in her baby's ear! There are a couple cute ones of her legs crossed sitting on the bucket! Anyway, on this day, what I saw through my eyes I just couldn't capture on camera, but they are cute none-the-less! Enjoy!