Tyler's Creatures

Tyler has always been fascinated with seasons.  Winter has always been his most favorite.  Afterall, it's the season that has Christmas and his birthday, and on occasion brings him snow.  But he's almost always just as excited for summer to roll around.  I think it ranks as a VERY close 2nd to winter.  In the summer, he looks forward to swimming (he is such a little fish!) and all the creatures that can be found.

He absolutely loves catching, observing, and playing with a number of little creatures.  Fireflies, lizards, turtles, frogs, insects...  You name it and he's probably caught one at some point.  We have to sit out and catch fireflies pretty regularly.  He has a net and "bug catcher" for this very purpose.  He won't stop catching them until all their little glows have faded into the trees.  Then his blinking bug catcher goes to bed with him, and I have permission to release them once he's asleep.  He's a pretty proficient little firefly catcher too.  If you're on facebook, you may have read his firefly story from last week.  If not, here's what it said:

"After running some errands, we got home when fireflies were lighting up the sky. Tyler stayed outside for a few minutes to catch some. About 5 min later he comes running in looking for his bug catcher. He finds it and starts emptying the contents of his little fist into the container. I'm expecting 4 MAYBE 5...but... he caught 17! Amazingly, most all of them were still alive and kicking!"

Tyler also names all his creatures.  And before releasing them back into the wild, we have to take pictures to remember them by (with the exception of the fireflies).  A week or so ago we found Feisty the turtle.  He got this name because he wasn't scared of anything and would keep moving even when being held.  I don't think I saw him go inide his shell even once the whole time he was in our posession.  Feisty got to hang around and play for a day and a half before I decided he might need something more than leaves, grass, and water to keep him alive.

FYI - Tyler was recovering from some sort of break-out (rash? allergic reaction? virus? I'm not sure...) on his face.

Then just the other night, he caught Slip the frog.  We put him in a bowl with holes cut in the lid, but I'm thinking Slip wasn't feeling the love.  We only kept him captured for a couple hours before his release. 

(Please excuse the blurry photos, but he was still inside the bowl.  It was dark out when it was time to release him, so I took the photos inside.  Call me crazy, but I insisted that Slip stay in the bowl while inside the house.  The last thing I want is a frog hopping around my house at bedtime!)

And is it just me or is Mr. Slip slipping me the finger in this next one...

I guess he took the bowl thing personal.

Or it could have been the flashing camera in his face...

Sorry Slip.  It was for the boy.

Pool Days

Summer is winding down, and our days at the pool are quicky coming to a close. Before it's all said and done, I wanted to post a few pictures of the pool fun that we've had throughout the summer.

One weekend, we got to travel to Tennessee to visit Auntie Kimmy, Uncle Butch, and Cousin Lilly to help them prepare to move. While there, we got to spend some time at their neighborhood pool. Here are the kids ready to get cooled off (it was a scorcher that day!).

Tyler has been a little fish since he was a baby. He's always LOVED the water and could be perfectly content swimming all day long. Last summer he took simming lessons and became a pretty good independent swimmer. This year, he worked hard to perfect what he already knew and has progressed so much!

He even got to where he could swim across the deep end, taking breaths along the way!

At the very beginning of the summer, he asked us to get him some "woggle goggles" to use at the pool. (I think he got this term from hearing us call them water goggles.) I wasn't sure how well they would go over with him, but for $2 I thought, "why not?" He ended up loving them and won't get into the pool without them! He loves that he can see everything under water without getting his eyes wet. (He's one of those hyper wipers who can't stand water in his eyes!) With this love of his woggle goggles, he was able to teach himself how to retrieve items at the bottom of the pool (in the shallow end).

The pool we go to belongs to my friend's family who lives down the street from us. So a couple times, Billy has come down to visit with us for a while after getting off work. Tyler had a blast on this day when Billy was throwing him up in the air to make big splashes in the pool. He kept asking to go higher and higher. Nothing about the water frightens this kid!

Last summer Allison was only a year old. And while she seemed to enjoy floating around in her baby raft, her time in the water was always pretty short lived. To get her to stay in the pool longer each time, I would bribe her with lollipops. So this year, I was interested to see if she was going to end up being a water baby like Tyler, or if it just wasn't her thing. She took right to it, and gets just as excited (sometimes more) as Tyler when I say we get to go to the pool. She's not quite the connoisseur that Tyler is, but she really does enjoy being in the water. Sometimes I can't even get her to get out for a snack. Just don't splash water in her face though! When that happens, she's not a happy camper.

It didn't take her long to learn how to balance herself in the water using her new "duck floatie." And she kicks her legs like a pro to get around the pool.

For some reason, she finds it amusing to pull her legs up in front of her and stick her little toes out of the water! And it's the cutest when she tells me that her fingers and toes have turned into "raisin brans."

Here she is drying off in her beloved princess towel after a long day in the pool. That little face just makes my heart melt!

It has been a very FUN and FAST summer. We will miss our pool days, but we are very eager for Fall and all of its festivities that are right around the corner!