Haley is the star this week

Here is a picture of our sweet Haley wearing the new green dress I made her. This is what happens when your youngest child finally decides that she can occasionally nap for more than 20 minutes without being held in her mother's arms.

Next are some pictures we took at Haley's first swim meet. Of course the kids were all excited to cheer for Haley during the races, but otherwise the play equipment outside the pool was where it was at.

I included the scoreboard with Haley's time in the 100 freestyle. She was just happy to finish--this is not her favorite stroke.

Fall is a time for new beginnings

I think that the calendar year starts on the wrong month. January is great, but if you have kids in school the real beginning of the year is in September, when the kids head back and life settles back into some sort of routine. This year I especially felt chaotic during the summer months and was happy to set some "new year's resolutions" involving better attention to my housework, more one-on-one time with my kids, etc. Hopefully I can even keep up with my blog on a more regular basis.

The pictures I have included are from our last family trip before school, on Labor Day Weekend. We went out to the coast and spent part of a day in Newport. The sea lions there have taken over part of the pier and are very loud and fun to watch. Then we headed to South Beach for fun in the sand and waves.