Last month my mom and dad came in town for a visit. Always much fun.

Wesley loves his Grandma and Grandpa.

Lunch at Malawi’s.

Wes rode the carousel and liked it.

Wes likes to make his sister laugh. I often have to tell him to stop tickling her, because he’s getting too rough. Here he is doing Five Little Piggies on her feet.

And playing peek-a-boo. “Boo!”

OK, John, forgive me, but I have to include this photo because I love it so much. Last month John and I had a date (!) at a murder mystery dinner theater. Basically, you eat a (really tasty) dinner while the actors mingle with you and put on a performance around you. Some audience members are asked to participate. John not only read a line, but they also asked him to strut around with other male audience members during a musical number. The song was “I’m Too Sexy.” Too bad I forgot that my cell phone has a video option. But at least I got a photo!

Carissa loves to sit on little seats, even if they’re not meant to be seats. Here she is making a pack of water bottles her chair. (Important note: I have since cleaned my pantry and it no longer looks this disastrous.)

I take the kids everywhere. Some places we’ve been:

Shopping.

The park.

Playing in the fountain.

The Bean Museum.

The splash park (that’s Wesley’s cousin in front).

Carissa was brave sometimes.

And sometimes not.

Yesterday I took Wes and Carissa on a mini-outing. We had ice cream first.

Wes ate (nearly) the whole shake. It was a beautiful afternoon to sit outside.

Then we went bowling. Wesley’s first time. Surely not his last.

Wes played two games (just him). I missed the score of his first game, but he bowled a 66 the second time around.

In retrospect, I should have maybe saved the ice cream sugar-load for AFTER bowling.

The music in the background is “Livin’ the Good Life.” And so we do.

Wesley’s first attempt at photography. He had a good subject.

Some of his shots.

Carissa turned one year old August 15th. Her doctor stats say she is a little over 18 lbs, tall and lean, with kind of a big head.

She is a chameleon, quickly changing from this:

to this:

That’s because she insists on feeding herself. It keeps her busy and quiet for several minutes at a time, which I appreciate. But wow, the paper towels we go through.

She likes draping things over her head.

Also a fan of balloons.

And today, a new skill! Two new skills, actually.

I saw her climb up the slide all by herself. And, then, ta-dah! Go down, all by herself. I didn’t even see it coming. I happened to have a camera in my hand to catch her coming down for the first time. (In my defense, I was on the phone with my folks at the time, which accounts for my chattering and laughing to seemingly no one.)

Check out her look of wonder as she goes down. She loves it.

The other day I gave up trying to feed Carissa her morning rice cereal and let her do it herself. Unlike Wes, Carissa has no qualms about getting her hands messy.

Since she got her top teeth (grand total of four teeth now), she likes to bite things between her chompers. Like this toothbrush holder.

Speaking of teething, I just discovered tonight that Wes is getting a new tooth! Considering he didn’t get his first tooth until he was 19 months old, I guess I shouldn’t be too shocked that they’re still coming in when he’s about a month shy of turning four. He’s getting his lower left canine (the one next to the front row of four teeth). I’d often wondered why he had a gap on either side of that front row of teeth, but after a while I kind of forgot that he had teeth missing. He still chews on his fingers, a lot, and maybe this helps explain that.

Last week we let Wes play in this mini-water park where water shoots up from the plaza. He didn’t want to go when it was time.

And Carissa looked on.

This week and next Wes is in “swim school,” which is what we call his swim lessons. Before his first day I really wasn’t sure if he would like being in the pool or not. The last time he was in a pool (in California, in April) he didn’t seem comfortable.

Well, I shouldn’t have worried. Wes LOVES swim school. I take him to a house not too far from our own that has a swimming pool in their backyard. The owner’s adult kids offer the lessons. Wes shares his 45-minute lesson with another child. When the teacher is taking the other kid across the pool, Wes sits on the steps and waits his turn.

Supposed to wait his turn, anyway. The time he spends sitting on the steps is time I spend reminding him to stop throwing things into the pool, to stay on the steps, to stop splashing the other kids, etc. It’s a little tiresome sometimes.

Today, actually, while he was “sitting” on the steps he decided to jump into the water by himself. Of course there was no one to catch him because his teacher was on the other end of the pool with the other kid. Now, if I had thought and not just reacted, I could have snagged another swim teacher (whose back was to Wesley) and asked her to pull my son from the bottom of the pool. But since moms don’t think, they just react, I walked into the pool myself and pulled him back to the side.

Here he is considering throwing something in. He loves those rings. His teacher lets him throw the ring in, and then they go fetch it together.

On his first lesson on Monday, the teacher dipped Wesley’s face under just up to the nose. But by the second day Wes went all the way under. He takes it well.

Here he is on the boogie board, practicing kicking (“splash your feet!”).

Wesley’s least favorite activity is floating on his back. I think the teacher spends most of that time getting whapped in the face by Wesley’s hands as he flails around wildly.

But Wesley’s favorite thing is when his teacher throws him in the air and catches him. Like so.

And, of course, Carissa is here too. I keep her in her carseat for as long as I can, but usually by the end she wants out.

At the end of class the kids get to do fun things, like go down the water slide or jump off the high dive (it’s not so high; you can see it in the picture behind Carissa).

Today the other kid in class started half-way up the water slide (her dad set her up there) and slid down, but she wasn’t happy about it. The teacher caught her in his arm (his other arm was holding Wes). But she was crying, and that got Wes crying. But both kids got over it and Wes went down the slide a little, too.

Then they went to the side of the pool. The girl jumped in first, the teacher catching her. When I asked Wes if he wanted to jump in, he said, “No.” But I nudged him to the edge anyway and he jumped in just fine.

Then the girl went to the high dive. She was sacred to jump off, but the teacher said he would hold her hand (from the water below, where he was waiting to catch her). She jumped in, and then it was Wesley’s turn.

I asked Wes if he wanted to jump off the high dive, and of course he said, “No.” But we went over anyway, and without hesitation he jumped off–BIG jump–before his teacher even had time to grab onto Wesley’s hand to help him jump.

Both kids did it one more time apiece. After his second time, Wes emerged from the water saying, “Yeah!” and gave a high-five to a bystander on the edge of the pool.

Swim School is good.