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4 years ago today Cooper Benjamin was born into our family. He is the 4th baby out of 5. Cooper is full of life and enjoys swimming, pushing his cars on the floor and talking about the ups man, the fedex man or the garbage man. He keeps us laughing with his funny little quirks. Happy Birthday Benny, we love you!
I have not posted about my little swimmers in a long time. Presley is now 19 months old and is a bit of a maniac around the pool. Thank goodness we did ISR with them. She now jumps in to the pool, even if there is no adult close enough to reach her and she rolls to her back and waits for you to pick her up, just so she can do it all over again. Little fishy. The other night we brought out the Nikon to capture some shots of them at play. The light was still too bright and a bit funky.
We tried to get a shot of all 5 floating but 2 of the big kids just didn’t “get it” so here are Cooper, Presley & Carson floating on their backs in the middle of the pool. Crazy but our 3 yr old and our 19 month old can out-float our 7 & 5 year olds!
This little man is turning 4 on Thursday! Birthday pictures to come…
Our family just returned from a very fun week at the beach in Panama City Florida. We went for Rick’s family reunion, and it was a blast. There were 70 of us that came from TX, AZ, AL, VA, TN, PA and NC. We all stayed in one high rise condo building. The condos were huge, very lg. balconies that wrapped around the condo all with ocean views. I think the best part was being able to step out right onto the beach or to the pool & not have to gather the kids into the car all week. They had such a blast on the beach, starting at 7am each morning. Our kids are cousin crazy, it’s so fun to watch. Here are some quick pictures, the only ones I was able to get to tonight. A special shout out to Tim, my brother-in-law who did a fantastic job taking our family pictures on the beach in the early morn.
Besides childbirth, I don’t think there is much that fascinates me much more than watching a baby swim underwater. The entire process of Infant Swimming Resource was amazing, I was actually sad when it ended. But we have been swimming every single day for 3 months straight and it’s truly paid off. All 5 of my babies are strong swimmers, but most importantly could use their self rescue skills if needed. For my birthday last week, Rick bought me an underwater camera, ok so the quality is NO-where near the NIKON, but that’s ok. We just wanted to capture this amazing time in our lives, when Presley is swimming as a baby. Next summer she will be two. Our last baby. Our youngest swimmer of the bunch. Our little feisty tadpole.
Oh and you can’t leave out Benny Bop- age 3.
A few weeks ago we went over to the Steiner Ranch Boat club and I shot some pictures of my big kids on the docks. They love to pose for pictures, pretty funny to me. Makes it easier for sure to get shots with them. Could be to make up for the years they made it hard to get anything of them. On this particular day, there was this cool haze and great fog over the water! Love that!
Griffin-7. Parker-5. Carson-7.
I met my mom in NYC this past weekend for our yearly shopping, eating, catching up trip. We had a fantastic time, amazing weather, and lots of good laughs. We really never go for the sites *gasp!* But each time we do try to do different things. This time we went to Lion King. We had front row, center seats, could not have been any better. That is my favorite Broadway show by far. The costumes are indescribable, the cast is out of this world. If you have have the chance GO see it!! I promise you will not be disappointed. We also hit some favorites, American Girl, The Today Show, Time Square, SOHO (biggest FAV), Anthropologie, H&M and Central Park. We dinned at many fabulous places here they are with their links.
http://mesagrill.com/newyorkcity/ owned by Bobby Flay (yummy! Can’t say enough good about this one) (Dinner)
http://nohostar.com/ in Soho, fabulous, we go each time and have been happy with it. (Dinner)
http://www.balthazarny.com/ another old fav of ours, we go there for the macaroni and cheese, no doubt the best I’ve ever had! (Lunch)
http://www.frescobyscotto.com/home.html (Lunch) this is where the Today show people always go for lunch. You will almost always run into a famous someone there. This time it was a Congress Man from FL , of course my mom knew who he was and stopped him to chat. He came over to our table and talked with us.
http://www.sohogrand.com/ (late night drinks) this is a fab. hotel, such style! You can go for drinks and desserts though.
http://www.risotteria.com/ (dinner) we went for their Gluten Free Pizza and it was fantastic! This one is also down in Soho
http://www.babycakesnyc.com/ (dessert) they serve the yummiest, organic, gluten free cupcakes. No processed sugar or junk! Super fresh, also down in Soho, we walked forever to get to this one. Oh and MaDonna goes there too!
http://www.thecentralparkboathouse.com/ (brunch on Sunday) always a fav. for brunch!
It has been a picture taking marathon weekend. Rick’s wonderful cousin, Michelle, came in from MO to take a crash photo course with me. It was a great weekend for her to choose because we had 1 family session, 1 newborn, 1 bride and then of course my kids. I have not posted sweet Presley in a few weeks, she has grown so much. Especially the massive amount of hair on her head. At 17 months she is a toot! She loves climbing, emptying the dishwasher, dresser drawers, you name it, she is into it. Taking her picture is yet another story, she is on the run. So we had to put her on this bench, just for a decent shot. Bye, Bye baby hello toddler!
Near and dear to our hearts… Our family is full of little fish, we love to swim around here and all of our kids learn to swim very very young. Presley (who is just now 16 months) and Cooper (3) have been enrolled in the famous Infant Swimming Resource program for the last 6 weeks. This is the most amazing, which is an understatement, program of all time. They teach aquatic survival skills. We went everyday for 6 weeks, 10 min. a day. I can not even describe how much I loved our instructors and how I could never re-pay them enough for the life saving skills they have taught our babies. So sad it’s all over!!
If you are interested in learning more about this amazing program go to www.infantswim.com to find an instructor in your area. Instructor shown: Tiffany Muse- Works with the Circle C babies in S. Austin. She is FANTASTIC and I would be happy to pass along her info to any of you S. Austin readers.
Every Friday for 6 weeks I was allowed to video tape my kids, really fun to watch. Here is our YouTube page where you can see them swim: http://www.youtube.com/user/tanyawarpula Each week is labeled. The last week Presley was in her winter clothes and a HUGE full diaper!
Last month I happen to have Carson & Parker with me for a session, it rarely happens that way. The session was canceled, due to rain and then at the last minute it was back on again only I had my kids with me and could not run them home. It worked out beautifully though because they played so well with the kids from my session. While there I happened to snap a few of them. Only posting on Parker today. Here she is in all her cuteness.
On Thursday I took the older 3 kids to Sweet Berry Farms for some good ole’ Strawberry picking. We met our other home school friends there too and had a great time. We picked over 5 lbs of strawberries and brought them home and made a strawberry pie with Rick’s mom. The berries were by far the freshest, yummiest berries I have ever had! Here are some snap shots from our day.
