Okay, I'm warning you right now:  if you don't like seeing pictures of kids in swimming pools and kids petting kittens, you might want to abandon reading this blog for the next six months or so.  Because, it appears swimming and cat petting (and, okay, I use this term loosely because it's more like assaulting the cat than petting)  are going to be the bulk of our activities for the summer.  Abigail insists upon picking poor Copper up by his tail and Gracie hugs him so hard sometimes that I wonder if he'll survive his first month living with us...but he seems to be a fairly mellow cat and he's developing a definite fondness for me - could it be because I'm usually the one to rescue him from his little attackers? As for the swimming thing, well, my mom and dad got Abigail a Little Tikes pool for her birthday (a bit early, but this way, they get to enjoy it for the whole summer) and the girls' day is not complete unless they spend at least 30 minutes in it.  Gracie's underwater swimming skills are improving remarkably (actually, that's an understatement considering that she flat out refused to put her face under water until about two weeks ago and now she's diving to pick up sticks, swimming under Steve's legs and trying to see exactly how long she can sit on the bottom of the pool).  Abigail is trying her very best to mimic her by throwing herself face-first into the water, making my heart stop each time she does it - it only starts beating again when she comes up (or I pull her up) laughing....

All this underwater activity is wreaking havoc on the girls' eyes, though.  We try to convince them to close their eyes under the water, but Gracie says (quite practically I might add), "How will I see the sticks to pick them up?"  and Abigail say, "Yeah, yeah" when I tell her to keep her eyes closed and then promptly opens them wide up.  So, our solution was to get them goggles.  We had to get Abigail a pair because denying her their coolness while her sister paraded around with her beautiful pink pair just wouldn't have been fair.  So, last night, they tried their new goggles out.  They looked.........ridiculous.  Really, there's no other way to descripe it...they looked like geeks..Abigail even more so than Gracie, because, truthfully, I don't think goggles are designed for kids who are less then two years old....

And here's the proof of how geeky they looked:















This would be why Abigail needs goggles - Gracie splashes A LOT of water when she dives under



And here's a picture of why I enjoy them swimming so much - it completely wears them both out. A mere seconds before I took this picture, Gracie was spinning around the living room, chattering away. I turned to look at something and when I turned back around, this is what I saw...curled up in her little playhouse, fast asleep:




And here's Gracie "petting" Copper.  I think he's say, "Hey, Lady!  Put down the camera and rescue me!"



I hope you enjoy the rest of your weekend.  As for us, well, we'll be petting the cat and swimming......