Raising a Couple of Water Babies

Since the really warm months of the summer have hit, we have been hitting the water as much as possible to cool off. My kids are most definitely water babies. More often than not we head to the pool at our gym or to the local splash park. Both kids have a ton of fun splashing around and are always disappointed when it is time to come out. They even get mad when they have to get out of the bath tub for goodness sakes.

Little Dude enjoyed the water from a really young age.

His 1st swim (outside of a bath tub) was at 10 weeks old.

As he grew he really started to love the water.

We took him to many pools, lakes and rivers.

He always had a blast on the water.

He has always loved playing with others in the water. . . especially daddy.

One really great (and also budget friendly) hot summer day activity is to play with a sprinkler toy. There are several brands available. Little Dude was lucky and got 2 different ones for his birthday and they are great! Both came from Target. Here he is enjoying one of his sprinkler toys:

Next year I think we'll buy a slip and slide.

Swimming pools are also a huge hit. Our gym membership allows us access to pools in our areas plus guest passes so we can bring friends with us. A few have splash features and zero entry areas for kids so we try to take advantage of them. Some are indoor and some are outdoor so we can enjoy them year round. Here is 6 month old Baby Boo in an indoor pool at Lifetime Fitness:

 

Little Dude with his aunt also at a Lifetime fitness pool.

The sun was really bright, so catching a well lit smile proved difficult.

Several towns have outdoor splash parks that are sometimes free. Here in the twin cities there are a few and they are a lot of fun.

At a splash park with grandma.

Hubby and I both love the water and we are definitely passing that down to our kids. I grew up in Australia amongst many amazing beaches, and the hubs grew up in the boating world. I would love to move back to Australia sometime, but that is a bit of a long shot right now. I also don't know if I would willingly leave our babysitters parents while the kids are young.

We had an awesome time this past weekend out on the St. Croix river. My in-laws have a houseboat, and at least once a year they take it out to an island off of Hudson along with several of their boating friends. We went and visited them Friday, Saturday and Sunday and had a great family weekend.

The kids went swimming quite a bit (of course) and they absolutely loved it (of course). It didn't hurt that it was in the 90s most of the time.

  

Little Dude also LOVED playing in the sand on the beach:

He spent hours playing with buckets and shovels on the beach.

There were lots of friends to play with too.

Baby Boo was either stuck on some one's lap on the beach or the outdoor pack and play:

Anywhere else and she would try to eat large quantities of sand.

The pack and play came in very handy when she was sleepy too:

It was a wonderful 3 days! Unfortunately the reality of the week and real life is upon us, but I'm sure there are many more fantastic water-themed days to be had this year.

Being taxi-ed back to the mainland on Friday