"Little Brothers"

Life gave me a brother 

To teach me about life 

He loves and aggravates me 

And gives me strength and strife. 

Thank goodness for little brothers 

They are special as can be 

Don't mess with my little brother 

Or you'll have to deal with me. 

I do think the most rewarding part of raising Skip and Harry is the fact that they truly love each other as only brothers can. They laugh, they play, they wrestle, they conspire, they argue, an

d then they wrestle some more. Skip is such an amazing big brother to Harry and I'm so very thankful and proud of him. It seems he's always there to look our for him, and always there to help him. I just love listening to them when they don't think I'm am. They can be so silly, yet other times you might think they're conferencing for a solution to world hunger.  Most notably was their

 adventures in swimming this weekend. Early this morning the boys were bugging Mike to let them swim off the back of the boat. Something we would normally let them do, but this time of year the

 water is still SO cold, but they were insistent so he told them they could. Skip did jump in a few times but quickly came back out. Then Harry decided he was feeling brave and after several false alarms, he did jump in. Apparently he was expecting the water to be warm, and he had panic written all over him. Skip, who was standing on the swim platform, knelt down, and said to his

 brother "Just grab my hand Harry, I'll help you back up." Harry reached for his arm, and before we knew it, pulled Skip in too! Even worse, Skip fell on top of Harry. Mike reached down and plucked a then bobbing Harry out (there's a reason a child's life jacket has a collar with a handle - and that's it!) and placed him on the platform.  Skip was fine and just climbed up the ladder himself, and w

as laughing at the whole mishap. Harry then exclaimed "See Momma, I can swim" ... to which I responded "Yep I sure did - but I think technically that's called bobbing". 

I was so proud of Skip for trying to help and it once again reminded me how thankful I am for these two little boys.  Unfortunately I didn't have my camera around when the bobbing, err, swimming took place, but I do have more pictures from the boy's second boating weekend:

I love this shot of them. Skip was fishing, and Harry was just hanging around with him. They were shootin' the breeze, talking about jellyfish & sea turtles. It's clear both share a love of the water.

I'm not sure what he's thinking, but I can almost guarantee there's some mischief in the makin'

One of Harry's many funny faces!

We'd been telling the boys that we'd have a fire on the beach and make s'mores but every night we planned it, the weather didn't cooperate. It was either too windy or raining, or foggy! Well last night we just decided to let them make s'mores' anyway...using the butane stove. They didn't mind, and thoroughly enjoyed the treats!

"Mmm"

"Mmm Mmm Mmmm Mmmmm"

Explorin' the creek. We decided to go explorin' up the creek yesterday since it was high tide (the only time you can get up there with the dinghy) but it got so narrow at one point that we ended up having to paddle out...Fun anyway!

Checkin' out Harry's first AND second fish! He managed to hook two of them at once! He was very proud - as was Skip. Mike cleaned 'em,  cooked 'em up for dinner and they were delicious!

Pilot & Co-Pilot.  Skip was driving the boat for a bit (he does awesome with the GPS!) and Harry really wanted to help, so decided to look out up ahead for pirates. Gotta love the imagation on these two!

They never did managae to get it flyin' but they had a ton of fun trying!