The only one of my children I made get dressed up for photos. Happy 9 months to my little boy too!

The girls started a new set of swimming lessons this spring. Josie was super excited as they moved her up two levels after the first day. Celia was not so pleased by the second lesson though because now her sister wasn’t in class with her anymore (although they were at the same time). But we persevered and went to family swim as well to help her get more comfortable and now they’re both swimming like fishes. Well sort of, Celia swims like a fish with a big piece of styrofoam on her back, and Josie swims like a fish with a lot of water getting in it’s mouth, but it’s been big progress for both of them.

They’ve just about finished up the first session and will start a second to keep the moment going for summer. Josie got moved up a level so she’s thrilled, Celia’s teacher says she made fantastic progress, but will need to learn to swim with fewer bubbles on her back (4 currently) before she’ll be ready to move on to another level. Celia has thus far refused to move down to three bubbles, but she says she’s going to jump in off the block next time. This past week was ‘peek week’ which meant the parents got to come in with cameras and take pictures. I was the only looney one doing that pretty much. But I’m pleased. My dad came and hung out with Ewan so I wouldn’t be trying to balance a baby and my camera next to the water.

I took this one this morning and I looooooooooooove it.  It is definitely going up on the wall, in a big print.

So guess what this is?

If you said ‘the sun’ you’d sort of be right, in that the sun’s light is what you’re seeing, but that was the moon, past 8pm tonight (read: totally dark) as I hurried to try to take a few pictures while keeping my kids from knocking over some generous people’s super-expensive telescopes. Gotta work on that. My Boston skyline ones came out a bit better, but still need some practice.

We brought the kids up to see the night sky after bedtime to complement the school work we’ve done about planets. Members of the local astronomy club shared their telescopes and let us look at the planets and moon! It was actually really hard to look at the moon though because it was almost full and so very bright. They were able to see Jupiter, Mars and the moon.

Celia has a habit of chewing her finger nails these days. This happened in the car on the way home from soccer.

Jordi: Celia take your finger out of your mouth. (but he said it in spanish)

Celia: But I’m just eating my booger off of it.

Touche.

In our neighborhood there’s a woman who makes an easter egg tree every year. This was Ewan’s first trip to the egg tree! The woman actually yelled down from her porch that we could take one each, that’s the first we’d ever heard of that, so the girls were super excited to pick their own egg.

Trying out new ways of showing off pictures too.

One of the big changes we made around here, in addition to Jordi’s new job, was in February we took Josie out of public school. We did this for a number of reasons, which I’m happy to discuss not in a public forum like this, but in short, she wasn’t happy. We’ve had her at home and she’s come back to being her usual mostly delightful self. It’s a bit adjustment to have three kids here full time, especially for Celia who had gotten used to having more one on one time with me, and that’s getting more rare as Ewan drops his nap too. We’re getting into a routine though and finding more things to do in addition to having more time to play with friends in the afternoon, because playdates were not working when Josie was in school, it was just too much. Now we can do one every day! Tomorrow we head to a big gymnasium with gymnastics equipment, a trapeze, a giant foam pit and lots of  things to bounce and climb on and the kids all work on their strength and coordination and have a blast. We also spend a lot of time at the library, but that’s not particularly new. We spend way more time outside and Josie works on her reading, math, and science understanding through regular activities like cooking, playing and reading to me, alone, and listening to others.

Yay it is finally getting warmish up here. Just watch out for pushing your toy into fish on the basketball court. He had a total fit that the fish wasn’t moving, back arching, crying-fit. Also loved to try to eat some dirt and sticks. Girls did a lot of biking and tried to climb some trees and we all soaked in the sun.

This is from the ‘this is real’ collection, because hey it’s the 31st and oh no the kids have to go to bed.

Chlorine smelling girls from swimming lessons, and a naked baby. In our bed, with a crown, and a book. This is us these days.