Swimming Lessons

We finally have the kids in swimming lessons!  Camden and Karina had their first lesson yesterday with my cousin's niece, Courtney.  Karina is usually so shy with EVERYONE, but was happy to meet Courtney and went right to her.  I was thrilled!  Here are some cute pictures of their first lesson.

Here is Camden swimming into the "Batcave."

Here is Camden singing, "motorboat, motorboat."  This was a song to teach how to kick his legs to go faster or slower.  He was a little nervous blowing bubbles under the water and holding his nose to go under water, but got a little better by the end of the class.

Here is Karina taking to the water like a mermaid!  She has no fear.  Scary for Mama.

Courtney tried to keep Karina on-task, but the pool toys were just so distracting.  She especially loved this lobster.

This is Camden feeling comfortable in the water with just a paddle-board.  Good thing their was a lifeguard and a mommy on duty!

After only 30 minutes of lesson time, I am feeling confident that they will be swimming well in no time.  Next lesson is tomorrow.  We can't wait!

Camden Lost a Tooth!

This is the "before" picture -- the day it became loose.  May 2, 2009 (Eric's birthday)

Here is the "after" picture (May 8, 2009):

Here is the tooth in a sandwich bag (properly labeled) so we wouldn't lose it!

The tooth fairy was very generous.  Camden got $5 in coins ($1 Susan B. Anthony coins).  We think the tooth fairy went a little overboard because of how traumatic it was for Camden for the week he had to deal with the wiggly tooth and the fear of it falling out!  He is so funny.

Eric's Party Pics

This entry is brought to you by the wonderful people who made Eric possible:

Christine Earl (Mom)

and Kenneth Hanlon (Dad)

We had a couple really delicious cakes at the party.  Who would have thought orange, white and black could look so tasty together?  It took a lot of time, but I love doing the baking!

Daddy was a little overwhelmed by all the candles and had to enlist Karina's help to blow all 40 candles out!

Eric's mom put together a beautiful photo/memory album for the birthday boy.  It was so much  fun to watch Eric looking through it with his friends and family.  That book provided many  laughs that night!  Just a few laughter-inducing photos were the following:  Eric's old hairstyles, cowboy Halloween costume and 1980's style basketball uniform with the shorty-shorts!  Some were impressed that Eric used to play sports!  He is actually one of those "naturally gifted" types when it comes to sports.  Some real classics in that book.  What a treasure!

Eric just enjoyed the evening with his wonderful friends and family.  

He was smiling the whole night!

Here we are enjoying the night!  It was so nice to be past the stressful worrying part and just having fun at the birthday bash.

40 sure looks good on this man.  Many happy memories ahead!  If you couldn't make it to the party, you sure missed out.  We had a blast!

Happy 40th Birthday to my Handsome Huzz!

Happy Birthday to my Sweetheart, Eric!  Admittedly, I usually don't gush about my man, but I feel very grateful today to have this man in my life.  Eric is the most wonderful father to our beautiful kids and I am truly blessed to have him beside me.  Thanks to his parents for raising such a fantastic man!  His party was so fun last night -- all I heard all night was laughter and excellent music from 1969 to today.  I'll post more pictures of the bash later.

Happy Birthday Eric!  I love you.

Hanlon Family Day

Eric has been so busy for the last several months and I felt like we needed a family day to spend together with no interruptions.  It was a very nice day.  We decided to go to Lake Las Vegas and rent a paddleboat.  The kids loved being on the water.

We spent about an hour on the water -- which was a lot for Mommy and Daddy.  Our paddleboat didn't move that fast!  As usual, I was the one taking most of the pictures, so the picture of me and Karina is the only one I have of me for the whole day.  Hmmmm . . .

I do love taking pictures of my cute little kids.  They had so much fun in the sun!  We have it all here in Las Vegas -- snow in the mountains and a lake in the desert.

My little Camden is such a handsome little man.  He's looking more and more like his daddy every day.

After our time on the lake, the kids fed the ducks and then we headed off to our next adventure -- BOWLING.  Camden has never been, but with the wii bowling and bowling on the iPhone, he really wanted to try the real thing.  His score wasn't quite as good as the wii bowling scores, but he had so much fun!

Even Karina got in on the bowling fun!  We couldn't believe they made bowling shoes her size.  She didn't like them as much as her princess shoes, but she wore them when she saw us wearing ours.  None of our scores were good enough to report.

When we got home, we rented "The Shaggy Dog" (with Tim Allen) on Apple TV.  It was a great movie and the kids really enjoyed it.  All in all it was a fantastic day and we enjoyed turning our cell phones off and spending it as a family.

February is Over?

We spent pretty much all of February sick with colds and RSV, so clearly the blogging suffered.  Here are a few pictures of things you might have missed:

The kids were so cute pretending to go to school (in their jammies)!

A new tradition was started this year with a few heart pizzas on Valentine's Day -- they were so fun and tasty!

Once the kids started to feel better, they headed outside for some "Daddy Recess" Time!

We also had a little visitor with us for a week.  Peyton (little sis, Jessie's 8 month old baby) was a fun addition to our family for 8 days.  Jessica and her husband, Eric, were moving from Seattle to Savannah and didn't want Peyton to suffer in a car seat for 4 days.  I flew up to Seattle and brought Peyton down here to Las Vegas for her first "Cousin Camp" Vacation!  She is such an easy baby (and so quiet compared to my own).  The night before I flew Peyton back to Georgia, Camden said to me, "So after tomorrow we're only going to have 2 kids?"  It was so funny!  He was a terrific helper with the baby.

So now we're in March and I can't believe it.  Where has the time gone?  We better get our GREEN clothes ready, it's almost time for St. Patrick's Day!  

Sabbath Day Blessings

This will be one of the classic Camden and Karina pics of all time.  I love this!  We keep trying to get Karina out of the crib by giving her a chance to sleep with Camden.  She is very particular about only sleeping in her crib, but wants so badly to sleep in a big kid bed.  This picture is of a recent attempt which failed like all the others.  We'll keep trying . . .

Today was a great day.  Karina went into her class at church and I only had to stay for about 10 minutes and then left.  She loves being in there and her favorite part (when I ask her on the way home) is when she gets to sing, "The Itsy, Bitsy Spider."  The way she sings it is so wonderful!  Camden and I just listened to her sing the whole song on the way home and we couldn't do anything except smile!  Music just gets to me like nothing else!

Camden gave his second talk in Primary today.  The Primary is an organization in the LDS church for children ages 4 - 12.  Daddy and Grandma attended Primary with us to hear Camden's talk.  He was so excited to have his family there to support him.  If he would have had a microphone it would have been perfect.  He didn't seem scared at all.  I think it was an important message for us all, so I'm going to post it here:

The Plan of Salvation 

Before we came to this earth, we were spirits.  We lived with Heavenly Father and Jesus.

We were very happy when Heavenly Father told us we could come to earth and have bodies.

Heavenly Father and Jesus knew we would miss them, so they promised to stay close to us and help us choose the right.

If we choose the right, we can live with them again someday.

I am so proud of my two bambinos.  Whenever it seems like I have more to deal with than anyone else, I go to church and am reminded that all moms have their struggles.  I'm grateful for that.  With that -- I'm off to fold some laundry and go to sleep!