Swim Lessons & Art Class - All in One Week!

Summer time means fun times!  It also means swim lessons.  Kendrick was also old enough to take the art class through the Spanish Fork Art Fest classes they have in the summer, so we decided to give them a try.  

The teacher is Angela Gibson Eckhardt, who grew up in Nephi and her daughters have been babysitters from me too!  She is also an elementary school teacher and so she has lots of fun activities for the kids.  Annie has had Jake and Ryan take the class before, so I knew it would be fun for Kendrick to take it too.

 They painted on bread this day.  Kendrick loved it!

 This was the last day and they made shaving cream projects!  Again, Kendrick loved it!

 He really enjoyed taking the art class.  He looked forward to it everyday!

We also had swim lessons that same week!  We had to sign up for a week in June since we would be on vacation in July during the week that the mom and me class was being taught.  It was kind of crazy going from swim lessons, run home and eat a quick lunch, and then go to art class.  It also was a week that the weather was cold!

Kendrick needed to take the Mom and Me class --again!  I am hoping this year will be his last!  He did ok last year in swimming.  He really liked it the first year when he was almost 2.  He cried to go in the water.  Now this year, he cries when we get in the water.  I would end up being so frustrated! But Miss Debbie, the teacher, would tell us that we needed to remain positive and always leave the pool happy so the child would want to come back and would remember feeling happy.  I struggled everyday.

Well, one day, during the afternoon, I showed Kendrick pictures and video of his first year at swim lesson.  He went down the slide and he was having a ball.  Kendrick said, "that's me?".  I told him, "Yes."  He then said that he was going to be happy at swim lessons and that he was going to go down the slide.  So, sure enough, the next day we had a great day at swim lessons.  He even went down the slide!  It was great!

He did regress a little the next day and cried a little bit, but then I reminded him about how he was the day before and he was ok.

These pics are from the last day.  It was freezing cold, but luckily the pool felt like a bath tub of hot water!  Kendrick did so so this day.

 climbing up the wall like a monkey

 hop hop hop kerplop!

 He went under, but he didn't really like it!

 He did great blowing bubbles and kicking his legs - this was actually a big improvement.  He would not do this the first few days!

 He did great this year - at least the last three days of the week.

 He said he was going to go down the slide, but then he decided he didn't want to.  Oh well, there's always next year!

 More bubbles and kicking.

Ring around the rosie and good-bye bubbles.

Kendrick can take beginning 1 next year!  YAY!  No more mom and me!  I won't have to get in the pool with him now.  I just hope he will do ok on his own next year!  My main goal is to have him like swimming and learn how to swim.  Something that I didn't do as a kid.  Hopefully we can accomplish that goal!