Experimentation

As you can see, I am experimenting with the design of my blog.  I was checking out Blogger's new template designer.  Don't be surprised if my blog changes colors over the next couple of weeks.  Today I like blue.  It feels tranquil after a day with my kids.

I took the kids to the pool this morning.  I'm really wanting them to learn how to swim better.  I am hoping that they will get better if I take them more often.  I have friends whose 3 year olds are jumping in the pool and swimming several feet.  My three year old puts on his arm floaties and sits on the steps of the pool.  He doesn't have a clue how to paddle his arms, only his feet.  Barely.  He chokes on the water if it gets in his mouth.  It's a little bit embarrassing.  My six year old takes about 5 minutes to gain the courage to jump into the pool each time. However, she doesn't jump, she just kind of steps in without her head going under.  My 5 year old gets out of the pool and runs away anytime I get near her because I challenged her to swim to me without her arm floaties last week.  She agreed to the challenge, but she sank when she failed to move her arms or legs in the process.  Now she doesn't trust me.  Emily and Bradley can swim, but not long distances.  They would be in trouble if they had to swim to save their lives.  So we are working on it.  Thankfully our pool doesn't go any deeper than 4 1/2 feet.  It's also been helping to get a little bit of tan.  I love when my feet are tan.  I feel like I live on an island or something.

We also went to the museum today and learned about Madame Alexander dolls.  They showed us six of them from the First Lady collection.  The kids then did a craft with some foam dolls that the museum ordered from Oriental Trading Company.  That was fun.

For dinner I made some mini corn dogs. Well, I didn't actually make them, I just took them out of the freezer and baked them.  When they were done, they smelled so good.  The smell was reminiscent of an amusement park or carnival.  Unfortunately/fortunately most of my kids didn't like them, so I ate most of them.  They were as delicious as they smelled.  After dinner we watched Brain Surge on Nickelodeon and they have slime on that show.  Bradley accurately made the conclusion tonight that, "Nickelodeon is all about slime."  It brought back memories of when I used to watch You Can't Do That on Television at my friends' houses that had cable because we didn't have cable.  Then we watched two episodes of iCarly.  I love that show.  Bradley was hoping that Spongebob would come on because that's what Rachel wanted to watch.  But Rachel will pretty much watch anything.  She just says, "Spongebob" because that is sadly one of the only words she speaks.

Now I'm exhausted.  I think I'm going to watch some So You Think You Can Dance and call it a night.