Kyson loves to eat....NOT!

Kyson will hit his 6 month mark in two days....meaning it is time for the rice cereal. We gave him his first solid food yesterday and it didn't go over too well. So today I thought maybe he'd take after his mother and like something a little sweeter. Applesauce. I mixed it in with the rice cereal certain that I had a winner. Just take a look at the pictures. It went from...
"not sure about this"...to

"Do I really have to try this??" .....to

"Gag me....You can't make me swallow!!!"

This is him gagging. Seriously. Lexi was taking one picture after another. Documenting it all for posterity. He did not get one swallow down without going through at least 2 gags. Gagging on applesauce? I think I may be in trouble. Just wait til I get to the peas.

Family Week

We have been quite the little partyers these past two months....I feel like every time I update the blog I've been playing! This last week we went up to Angel's Camp and stayed at Gammie's house for the week. The whole Reese clan was there....well, minus a few males (meaning mainly husbands). Every year Greenhorn Creek puts on a Family week which is like a Camp. There is tennis, golf, swimming, arts & crafts during the day and then something at night like an ice cream social (my personal favorite). So we went up on Sunday night and kicked off our last hurrah for the summmer. We had a great time and Lexi even started to swim on her own! WHOOOHOOO! For those of you who have not been in on the "Lexi Will Never Know How To Swim" saga, it's been just that. A saga. A long, drawn out fight to get her to try to swim. We have been trying to get her past the extreme fear she has of getting into the pool without her floaties for the past two years. This past week she has really improved....I think the social pressure got to her. She was watching all of her cousins swimming and having a good time without her. She is still not ready to go off by herself but she has definitely made some progress. Here's a couple of pictures of the girls doing some crafts. They had a huge blow-up water slide outside which would explain the swimming suits. Kendri's favorite was the painting.

Anyhoo, we had a good time and Gammi always throws a good party! Kyson had such a good time during the day that he decided not to sleep at night....that got a little old after the first 3 days. Now he's in the habit of getting up a bazillion times even in his own bed. (I could possibly be the world's most sleep deprived mother. I'd be willing to run for the title because I do believe I'd come close to the gold.) And here we have all the girl cousins except for Kaitlyn....she may have been napping. Rachel, Lexi, Kendri, and Anna blowing bubbles.

This was the second day of golf lessons for Lexi. She got the hang of it pretty fast and seemed to really like it. Kendri wasn't old enough. She'll have to wait another year or two. Now on to other matters....Lexi had her first day of kindergarten today. Sniff, sniff. I couldn't believe I was sad and no, I did not cry. But her daddy did. Well, maybe not on the outside but certainly on the inside there were manly tears shed....He took her to school today and was a little miffed by how readily Lexi got rid of him. Here she is walking to her classroom.

Her teacher's name is Ms. England.

And here are some of Lexi's friends from the neighborhood, Evan and Jacob. She has 3 friends in her class! There are 3 different classes and Lexi managed to get all of her good friends with her in the same class. Watch out Ms. England!

So her first day of kindergarten was a success and she came home at 2:00 and crashed. Tired little thing. And Kendri certainly missed her big sister. She told me, "I sure do miss Lex" probably 7 times today. Maybe more. She was happy to have Lexi home from school. I think she may hate kindergarten by the end of the week. Oh well.

Oh, how we love the ocean.....

We are back from our vacation down at Newport Beach, and boy did we love it! We left early Saturday morning (last Saturday that is) and got there at about 4:30 in the afternoon. Mapquest told us that it should only take 6 1/2 hours from our house. It actually took us a little over 8 hours. I blame Kyson. He decided he was not excited about our little road trip. We had to stop a few times and let him play and look around before we buckled him back up in that awful carseat. (I really don't think carseats are awful but I think Kyson might...) Right when we got there we headed to Costco because Ryan and I were in charge of the meals for Sunday. (Did I mention it was a Reese Family Reunion? Well, it was and there were lots of people. Everyone was in charge of food for the whole group for a day.) Anyhoo, we made sandwiches and spaghetti. From scratch. Okay, I didn't really make the spaghetti sauce from scratch but I told everyone I did. (Prego, really pulled through for us :) Just kidding.

So, really all that was on the agenda was relaxing on the beach. I did manage to get together with two old roomates. We had a good time having a mini barbeque and swimming party. Thanks, Amber!

Lexi and Kendri loved the sand. They played in it most of the time. In fact, they played in it so much that Kendri blistered her feet. Yes, the sand was hot. She told us her toes were hurting one night as she gimped around on her heels. When I took a peek I saw that she had blistered every single one of her little toes. But she was a trooper and only mentioned it a couple of times that night and then she was back in the sand in the morning! What else did we do? We saw dolphins twice. Very cool no matter how many times you see them. We boogie boarded, played frisbee, made sand sculptures that were unidentifiable, and soaked up the rays! Oh, and Ryan and I took a cruise on the boardwalk on a bicycle built for two. See?

FYI, we did not ride on the sand even though this picture leads you to believe that we did. We did have a picture taken of us on the boardwalk. However, the man who took it turned it into a head shot. Totally defeated the point of having a picture taken on a tandem bike. I graciously let Ryan "drive" the bike even though I secretly questioned his qualifications for it. I mean, he did back into someone on our way down there not to mention that I have several years of experience behind me as a self-proclaimed "tandem bike chauffer". Amber and I used to have one. P.S. Can someone ask Uncle Brad where that is? And, here you have a couple of cute pictures of my little beach bums...

So, there you have it. We had a good 4th of July, but that will have to be for another day because this beach bum is pooped and in desperate need of some sleep!