Our Little Fish

Lillian has completed her last swim lesson until the new year and Madison has completed her first season of swim team.
Both girls loved being in the water and are quite the little fish.

Lillian's goal was to become water safe. We wanted her to be able to jump off the side of the pool and get herself back to the wall.

Success!!!!!

 Doing it again.
Here she jumps

 And back to the wall.

 She loved to practice kicks with the bar

 Across and back

 Another jump (always a reward for listening and following Miss Amy's instructions)

 Time to float

 What progress she has made... she can float on her own and for a long time :)
(if you can get her to relax and stay still)

 I think her favorite part was using the kick board to practice floating and kicking on her back.
She would often tell her teacher, "No, I can do it"

Madison loved swim team and is looking forward to the winter season. The once a month meets worked well for our busy schedules and everyone was able to make it to at least one.

 Before each race, the kids are lined up in lane order

 Heading to their lanes

 And they are off...

 Madison has improved her time at each meet. She has taken off 15 seconds from her first Free Style stroke time since the beginning of the season.

We are so proud of our girls. Well done!

Christmas Traditions

It seems that our only true Christmas tradition is that each year we do something different :)

Regardless of the activity, we strive to fill the Christmas seasoning with Giving to Others.

Lillian "giving" the patrons of Chick Fil A a smile...

 This year the girls joined Nana to ring the Salvation Army bell at a local grocery store.

 The girls loved ringing their bells and singing Christmas carols for the shoppers.

 We are very proud of our girls and their willingness to do for others.

Family Pictures

Our Family Pictures
We were so blessed to have our friend from church take our family pictures. Maggie did a great job and really captured the heart of our family.

 Lillian being Lillian

 A bit of coaxing from Daddy did the trick

 My absolute favorite! We had this one made into a canvas for our wall.

 Our blessings.

Madison

Its hard to believe that she is almost a decade old! 

I could not have asked for better pictures. This is my Madi!

Lillian

At 3 1/2 she can be a bit precocious and she always keeps us on our toes.
But her smile is priceless and she brings us great joy.

 The Lillian face- "I solemnly swear I am up to no good"

Playing with sticks- way more fun the having your picture taken

Cooper

My how Cooper has grown and changed just in the short amount of time since these pictures were taken.
He is our little man and completes our family.

 He loves his Goober bear

 Father and son

 A seat to grow into!

In the Leaves

As our photographer was taking our pictures, I joked that the best of the batch were going to be these and I was correct.
I could be disappointed, but I am not.
These pictures capture my children- into mischief and having fun in everything that they do.
I may not have the formal/posed pictures I thought I wanted but I have caught exactly who my children are and that is a much better picture and memory.

(I tried to put captions with the pictures but it was too hard to put into words what was so clearly caught on film. Plus LOL for all of them seemed a bit much).

Siblings

Our 3 Little Goomba's

 "Give me my brother"
Lillian would have probably tried to carry him back to the bench herself if Daddy would have let her.

Our children

The blessings of our life!