Alright…so maybe these pictures weren’t exactly “lost” in the technical sense of the word, but they did get pushed to the wayside in the order of editing! Or lack thereof I should say!! Not quite as much as the pictures I took back in Kansas that still haven’t been edited though, but you get the idea! {Mom, I PROMISE those Kansas pics are coming…I just have to be “feeling” them before I can get theme edited into perfection!!}
So anyway, we bought the kids life jackets this summer. Well, Chris did, I didn’t! They LOVE them! Huntler is all over that pool like a crazy kid and Gentry has gotten much more comfortable and gets a little more brave each time! Huntler’s doesn’t have a strap on the bottom so once he hops in the water it shimmies right up under his neck, but he doesn’t seem to mind! He looks a little uncomfortable and it makes for memorable pictures, but as long as he is cool with it, then we are too! There is plenty of room for him to grow!
Huntler has really gotten good at getting around the pool this summer. Having the life jackets has been nice from the standpoint that one person can take both kids swimming and not be panicked the entire time that something is going to happen. However, my hair stylist totally reprimanded me on the whole situation saying that it wasn’t a good idea and that the kids won’t learn their body weight and then they’ll jump in without them sometime and sink because we haven’t taught them to swim and blah, blah, blah. No, we haven’t put them in swimming lessons yet. We HAVE been lax on that…I totally admit it. I just am not a big water person so the thought of swimming lessons is less than appealing to me. BUT…that being said, I also realize as a parent it is my responsibility to enroll them. Next summer. In the meantime, there is NO WAY our kids can get into the pool. First of all, every door in our house has an alarm so it sounds off if opened {front door, back door, garage door, etc…}. But the kids never just go out on their own anyway…I always know where they are! But say they did happen to get outside without my knowledge, the pool is totally gated and there is no way they can get in. And it also has an alarm if opened. I am SUPER paranoid about water so we have every safety feature known to man!
Anyway, enough defending myself from my hair stylist! Sorry but apparently I needed to vent! Now to the fun part of the post…LOVE this shot of Huntler!! I added some extra haze to it and am loving the look!! Doesn’t his hair look so red? It is but we keep it super short so you really can’t tell!
And the littlest bean being her ornery self! This shot cracks me up!! It is just.so.Gentry. I mean, everything from her pink life jacket {this is the one she apparently insisted on…Chris said there were much cuter ones but she had to have pink!} to her sweet grin to her crazy hair to her chippy nail polish! Totally our girl!
This is one of the typical faces I get from Huntler when I am trying to get him to cooperate. There are also the mouth wide open, cheese ball smiles and eyes rolled to the side looks that he throws at me so I guess this one is the lesser of the evils! At least he still looks like himself and he IS looking at the camera…weird tongue action and all! I love how you can see his whole body!
Gentry girl and Daddy! She is SUCH a Daddy’s girl! She loves me and is stuck to me like glue every hour of the day, but there is a special place in her heart for her Daddy! And he is pretty darn fond of her too! She is absolutely spoiled rotten and has him totally wrapped around her little finger!!
The more I look at these, the more I love them. I love how real they are. I love the stories they tell and the stories they make those who weren’t there create in their mind. These are the pages of my family…the images that they will one day hold dear, just as I have a little box full of pictures I hold dear. I wonder if one day many years from now when Gentry is preparing for her wedding and creating a video of pictures from her childhood if she’ll scan through the thousands of images on the computer in search of this one of her and Chris. I wonder which ones will stick out in her mind just as I have pictures from my own childhood that stick out in mine. As challenging as being a mom is, these are the moments that remind me I wouldn’t change this for anything in the world!
Filed under
my-lil-lollies,
by Bethany
I didn’t know you had a pool! I can’t believe there aren’t more pics of the kids swimming, especially with how hot is there! I remember seeing a lot of splash park pics, but not pool pics. Actually, I do remember seeing pics that looked like this, but I assumed they were taken at a lake or something. Is the bottom of your pool dark? Is it a saltwater pool?
My cousin (who has been a kids’ swim instructor for years) has me trained to never use a life jacket in the pool for the same reasons your hair stylist told you. She really discourages the arm floaties too because they create a false sense of safety for mom and child. I just don’t buy them so I won’t be tempted to put them on her! But I am very adamant about her wearing a life jacket at the lake at all times! Even when she is just walking around on the dock! I have seen kids fall in between the house boats on the dock before and it’s scary! My in-laws took Madison out on the boat on Memorial Day, during a thunder storm, without a life jacket, without my knowledge (she was four months old). When I found out where they were, I was soooooooo mad I was shaking! When they got back, I yelled at everyone in the boat, then I cried and took her back to the cabin. I told them that it wasn’t that I didn’t trust them (they were just on a pontoon boat), but I didn’t trust all of the other drunk crazies out on the water. And how well could anyone see in a down pour on the lake?
Sorry, this comment is a mile long! Ha! Also wanted to say that these pictures are priceless! I love the real moments you captured and the coloring of the images. I need to take more photos of the girls playing with their daddy!
LOVE these photos! I had no idea you have a pool…how fun! Looks like Gentry is a total daddy’s girl….so are my girls! I wish my parents would have taken more photos of me when I was little….maybe that’s why I take so many photos of my girls….I want them to look back and hopefully remember some of those precious moments!
They are all sweet photos….
Great pool pictures! I have some “lost” pictures from the summer too! There are just too many and not enough time in the day
You can vent to me anytime! I don’t know much about wearing life jackets in the pool. Sounds like a good idea to me, if they don’t know how to swim yet. Great post…and it makes me teary-eyed to think of Gentry picking out pictures for her wedding day. I am sure she will always treasure this picture of her with her daddy…along with many more to come! Love ya~
Adorable pool pictures! Don’t feel bad — we didn’t put Carson in swimming lessons until he was 4 and we won’t start Kamree until she is 4 too. We always insist they wear life jackets — almost to the point of being overprotective, however, it’s the only way I can relax around the water with them. Unfortunately, we have had too many drownings around here lately and it only takes one time!
Love these pictures! I don’t know what you do to make them look so unique, but it works! The water looks amazingly unreal….if that makes any sense!