So busy.

How in the world has it been so long since I blogged? Oh yeah... from working late, visiting friends, birthday parties, trips to new places, a family reunion....that would explain it - lol! Let me go back a couple weeks so that I can get all caught up with all of these fun things we have been up to. Elena finished up swimming lessons and has come so far in just a few weeks! I am so proud of her. Here are some pictures I took of her last day.

We celebrated with a little Applebee's (one of her favorites) and also gave her a new Ariel toy to play with in the water. I don't think she has put it down since! :)

She can officially jump off the diving board and swim to the ladder! In the deep-end. By herself! I was shocked the first time she did it! Here is a little proof - I took a video too, but that will have to be a later post!


Yup, she's pretty proud of herself too!

We also celebrated my friend Mary's birthday with a little pool party! Fun times!


My friend Stephanie (practically a sister to me!) came into town visiting family and friends and we got to meet up and have breakfast with her family before they left town. Elena and Jensen had a blast playing together. It is amazing how much they have grown!


Steph also took some really cute pictures which you can see on her blog.

It was so great to see them and I am glad we had the chance to get together! Hopefully we can do it again very soon!

Hang in there with me...there is much more to come!

Packademics.

With school right around the corner I wanted to tell you about a great company, Packademics. This company takes all the work out of getting school supplies ready for your child by shipping them directly to you! Not only is this a brilliant idea, but the creative genius behind the company just happens to be one of my closest friends! All you have to do is go to their website, find your child's school and grade and order their pack. It couldn't be any easier and the supplies are the same cost as going to Wal-Mart, you simply pay for shipping. Something special that they do is allow you to donate a pack to a child that is in need of school supplies. There was an event last week for the Girl Scouts called Mall Madness, where the stores in the mall stay open late, there is a Dj and dance floor and the girl scouts have a giant lock-in at the mall. Each girl scout was asked to bring a few school supplies that would be packed up and donated. It was amazing to see how very generous people were with what they brought.



Then at midnight all the girls lined up and we had an assembly line for them to put together packs from the supplies that were brought in. The girls got so excited about helping out and really seemed to understand that they were helping other kids in their own community.

This was also part of a bigger project that Packademics is partnering with KAKE TV on - School Supply Landslide. You can read more about it here.

We ended up putting together about 125 kits to donate! Pretty amazing! I am so glad that I got to be a part of this amazing project that will help out so many children.

Wet and Wild.

Last week my Mom and I decided to take Elena to a Wet and Wild day at the Zoo! We went last year and she absolutely loved it so I figured she would love it again this year too. We decided to go a little early and have a little picnic. Elena loves eating outside.

When we were almost done eating this peacock just walked right up to our table! I mean this thing was a little too close for comfort!

Apparently he was looking for some food and even yelled at us until we gave him some bread. Elena thought it was the coolest thing ever but my Mom is not a bird fan at all and insisted we get the heck out of there! (Sorry for the nice view of Elena's lunch! - lol)

There was still a little time before the firetruck started spraying so we visited the penguins. They were really active and swimming around like crazy! More than I have ever seen them move before.

This day the temperature reached about 105 degrees so we decided to get to that cool water ASAP. We listened to the safety talk and then the water came on.

E kept her distance at first but got a little closer with my Mom.

After awhile they turned the hoses off for a bit so everyone could play in the giant puddle that had formed. Elena definitely liked this the best!

Then the water came back on and I guess I should have made sure Elena was a little farther away from the spray than she was because it came down right on her (pretty hard too) and she bolted out of there! She even started crying. :( Poor baby.

I tried and tried to coax her back in to the water after the spray got softer but she had no desire to go near it. I finally talked her into getting wet with me at a little hose and then I finally just picked her up and took her back in to try and show her that it didn't hurt. She was not happy with me!

I guess the older you get the more fears you develop! She had no problems last year - and with how much she loves the water I was shocked with her reaction! Oh well, she will probably go back to loving it again next year! She was also very very tired so we decided to just head home - I think this was more the issue than the actual water. I got her a sno cone as we headed out to the car and that seemed to make her feel much better. :)

We actually ended up leaving at the perfect time because about 30 minutes after we left this crazy storm blew up with very strong winds! Glad we weren't stuck in that at the zoo!

All in all it was a really fun day - even though Elena was a little traumatized by the experience!

Water Balloons.

The other day we decided to bust (pun intended) :) out some water balloons for Elena to play with. She was so excited even though she had no idea what they really were at first - silly girl!
She soon got the hang of throwing them ~
and then started going after some unsuspecting targets~

Of course some of them ended up in the pool. Then we realized how cool they are to play with in the pool. They don't sink but they don't exactly float either - they kind of just hover in the middle. Which makes them perfect diving toys for Miss Elena! They are also kind of fun and squishy to play catch with too!

She preferred to line them up, and throw them back in~

over and over again~

I think I will wrap up this post with my favorite picture from the day. Nice aim Elena! That's my girl! :)