Enjoying a great find!

Eli and Madison spent the evening enjoying a garage sale find!

Courage Graham

We spent the weekend at a family wedding. This meant being at a hotel and spending time in the pool. This summer we have gone to the local pool or a friends house a time or two and both Luke and Eli were very comfortable going in the water with floaties. Graham however seemed almost paralyzed when in the water. Clutching onto me for deer life and just terrified to be left alone. I would keep trying to prying him off me but he would literally drown as he would just freeze up and not even try to swim. So he would swallow water and that would be the end of it. So this weekend my goal was to swim as much as possible to get him used to the water.

Joe was in the wedding so taking 4 kids to the pool seemed quiet crazy, but we did it Friday when we got there and it was fine. I couldn't get graham totally comfortable in the water as I was holding Madison also, but it was a start. Saturday morning joe and grandpa Nash were both there for help. So I took graham and tries to pry him off me and again he just became paralyzed and frozen in the water. We went in the hot tub and they wanted Togo back in the other pool and I mentioned that I needed to find courage to go back in as I knew it would be cold. So we talked about courage. Then I said he needed to ask God to give him courage to try to swim.

So after talking about it we moved to the big pool and I jumped in. Then I talked "courage graham" into joining me. He did and I got him swimming by holding him by his floaties from behind and then letting go as he was kicking away. As soon as he realized he wasn't being held he just froze and started to panic. We did this 2-3 times and he would panic but I kept talking about courage graham can do this. I would lift him out of the water to the side each time. So I am swimming or doing something with the other kids and graham says, "courage graham is ready". I say ok. So I get him in and let him go and he swims a little bit! Then he does it again and again and ends up going 10 times up and back! It was great to see his face light up as he realized he could do it, and that he had courage! He kept saying "courage graham is on the move". Such a good feeling to see him conquer his fear!

Next up no floaties! But that will have to be another time!


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Meri blouse

Aunt Erin lives in Papua New Guinea. The dress of the ladies over there is to wear a Meri blouse for special occasions. Since the boys all passed around a PNG flag outfit Erin bought this for Madison. It is still a little big on her, but she still looks cute in it!

Madison weeding!

Happy birthday DAD

Wednesday is my dad's birthday. So we traveled to Bradford for a day and had a great time celebrating! We had Tasta pizza, played at the playground, had a great chicken dinner, the. Cupcakes and Ice cream! We had tired kids who fell asleep shortly after we started home! It was a long day, but a good day. We were glad we got to celebrate together!