Lessons

We've recently started both swimming lessons and piano lessons for Asher and Leif. Well, Leif isn't actually taking piano lessons (at least I'm not taking it seriously) but he likes to try out all the things that Asher does and they both like "exploratory time" at the piano, just pushing the notes and pretending they are playing a song (I told them they are free to do this as long as they don't bang on the keys). We just bought a digital piano (which has the excellent feature of being able to turn down the volume so they won't wake up any sleeping babies) that they are both fascinated with and we are doing free online lessons, which seem to be really engaging for them both and I've heard great things about.
Here is Asher practicing his piano posture while playing the first little song that he learned. 

The delivery of our piano coincided with the same week that we had scheduled for backyard swimming lessons (they last two weeks total). This first week was a short week since Monday was a Canadian holiday, but I have been super impressed by the progress they have made so far. They started out pretty tense in the water when they were asked to do anything beside splash around and play, but they were able to duck their heads under the water several times on the first day (I'm pretty sure it took a whole week before Asher did that when he took group swim lessons a few years ago) and were jumping off the diving board and going to get rings from off the bottom of the pool (in the shallow end and at a separate time from the jump of the diving board) by the end of the week. They've also gotten pretty good at floating on their backs or tummies.. Their instructor is light years better than the one Asher had a couple years ago and it really helps that he is able to give all his attention to just Asher and Leif since they are the only ones he's teaching. Heidi loves watching the boys and playing while they swim, but she was heartbroken (and let me know with a huge tantrum) when they got out of the pool on the first day and she didn't get to go in. She was convinced that her turn was next and couldn't believe I was making her leave. I've since talked to her about taking lessons when she is 3 rather than saying "next year" because apparently all she was hearing was "next" and thought she was after the boys. We also have a little routine of letting her dip her feet on the first step of the pool as we are leaving so that she feels like she got to get it (even though it is literally under 5 seconds). After seeing how much progress the boys have made, I'll definitely sign her up next year.