A few recent pictures

Been pretty busy here lately and Bill and Drew had a couple of sick days, which hasn't left much time for blogging. I thought I would at least post a couple of recent pictures. The first two are from sports camp the last two weekends, and the other two are from this morning at the park.











You'll notice Drew is in long sleeves and jeans in the park pictures. It's finally starting to feel a little like fall around here. Temperatures are still very nice in the 70s and even low 80s some days, but the cooler weather is on its way. This is the first year I've really decorated our house in autumn decor. I so love the smell of the pumpkin and apple candles. It's making me very anxious for Thanksgiving and Christmas!

Climbing, Hanging, Bouncing, Jumping & Laughing

You know...all those things 3 year olds love to do. Drew finished a round of swim lessons the weekend after New Year's, began gymnastics the week after, and still enjoys (thanks to the AZ weather) weekly play dates at the park. All have given him the opportunity to show off his monkey skills. Here's a few of the pictures and a video from the last few weeks.

Big smiles before his last swim class

Jumping in the warming pool

Hanging on the monkey bars

Climbing

Drew gets to the top of the rainbow monkey bars and doesn't know what to do.

Another one that Drew doesn't really know how to negotiate once he gets past the first few climbing steps.

Hanging & sliding

Riding the bouncy whale

Climbing the ladder at gymnastics

Hanging from a monkey bar

Climbing his way onto the balance beam...

Scooching across the balance beam, looking back at me frequently to make sure I'm watching and taking pictures. He has now started to request to see each picture after it is taken, which obviously doesn't work during Tumble Tots class. But the second thing he does at the end of class, after showing me his hand stamp of the day, is ask to see the pictures I took.

Preparing for a somersault

They were supposed to be practicing seat jumps, but Drew looks like he's practicing sliding into second base.

And, in case it wasn't obvious, I am loving my new Christmas camera and the 5x optical zoom!

Finally, in case any of you are reading and would like to comment, but aren't all that internet-savvy, I thought I'd add an explanation of how to do it. At the bottom of each post, to the right of where it says "Posted by The Cherkauskas Family" there is a place that says how many comments there are. If you click on that, it will take you to the comment page where you will see any existing comments and a place on the right where you can leave a comment. So, you type your comment in there, and then below that you choose an identity option. The default button is probably "Anonymous" unless you have and are logged in to your blogger or gmail account. To post with a nickname, click on the "Name/URL" button and then type in the nickname you want to use. Then just click on Publish comment. You should then see a message near the top of the page that says something like "Comment will appear after blog owner's approval." Voila!

Morning at the Park & Surgery Follow up

We spent our Labor Day morning at one of the parks in town. The summer heat usually prohibits playing outside for any extended period of time, but this morning the temperatures were only in the upper 70s. Seemingly perfect weather for playing outside...that is, until after I spent over an hour standing in the beating down sun. Yes Drew managed to get nice and sweaty while running and jumping and climbing. He could barely be bothered to stop for water breaks every now and then.

Who can drink water when there's slides to be slid down (or climbed up as the case may be)...

Bars to climb... Bridges to run over... And monkey bars to swing across? He started out just wanting to hang on the monkey bars and then I helped him cross it once. Then while this Mom was helping her own kids cross it Drew got right in line and she was kind enough to help him too.
Drew is so funny about swings. He typically begs to go on them and after 30 seconds or less is screaming to get off because he's scared. Today was no exception. We were headed to the car after over an hour at the park when Drew spotted the swings and pleaded with me to go on them (even though he said he had to go potty and refused to go in the public bathroom at the park). He promised he could hold it so we went to the swings. He could hardly contain his excitement over getting on the swings and then after I pushed him a couple of times and took this picture he screamed to get off. He's such a funny little guy.

Oh, and for those who asked, after his surgery Drew had to wear his big bandage for 5 days, then he was okay with just a regular band-aid. With a shower the morning of his surgery, we were able to get away with just one additional shower while he had the bandage on. He was quite amused at the concoction of plastic bags and tape that Daddy fixed up.We head back to the doctor for his follow up appointment tomorrow but everything looks good to us and he has full range of motion in his thumb, so we expect to get the all clear from the doc.