So it's been a while since I've posted...tonight is an evening of catch-up! The girls are continuing to grow and amaze us and challenge us every day! Both Chad and I noticed that Lydia seems to have grown up over-night lately! Her vocabulary and comprehension has gotten so much better...she's definitely not a baby anymore! She and Makayla will have the cutest little conversations with each other! She is very independent and wants to do everything herself and also do everything that her big sister does! She gets frustrated and easily falls into tantrums when she can't do something that she wants to do herself (like zip her jacket). She also easily falls into tantrums when I am too quick to help her with something (like zip her jacket). So I have learned to be patient, which sometimes means planning to leave the house WAY earlier than intended...just to give time for Lydia's independence (aka tantrums). My patience is getting better, but still has room for improvement! ;)
Lydia has also dropped her nap in the past few weeks. She has been fighting it for a while and was starting to try to crawl out of her crib, so I finally got frustrated with trying to get her down for over an hour, only to lead to her not sleeping! Then, if she did sleep, it was a fight to get her to bed at night! And it was sometimes a fight to get Makayla to bed too, because she needed to go to bed earlier than Lydia since she isn't napping, but she was mad that Lydia got to stay up late! So last week I decided enough was enough and we'd just end the nap! Lydia was definitely happy to hear that! We had a few rough days, but I haven't looked back. Now, both girls have lights-out at 7:30 and they are usually so exhausted that they are both asleep within 5 minutes! And Chad and I are enjoying our quiet evenings to watch TV or relax or do things like update this blog!! The kids are up between 6am and 7am, but that is perfect for getting them ready and getting Makayla to school by 8am! And amazingly, we are sometimes pulling into the parking lot at 7:58am...so we definitely need the time in the morning!
Makayla has grown a ton lately too! I wrote about her tantrums and outbursts last month, but they seem to have ended as strangely as they started! She has an occasional outburst, but they are becoming more infrequent and less dramatic. I speculate that it's a combination of age, more consistency with time of bedtime, and getting past the numerous transitions we've recently had (me leaving work, kids leaving daycare, Makayla starting a new schoool, and the kids starting all their new activities). At any rate, it's so reassuring to see the "light at the end of the tunnel" with her behavior!
Makayla loves her preschool and dance and she just can't get enough of her gymnastics class. She wants to "play" or "practice" gymnastics 24/7 and she wants to go to the YMCA everyday to do gymnastics...which was one of the factors that led to us joining the YMCA. We've got her in a beginners gymnastics class at a local gymnastics center and they recently bumped her up a few levels into an "invitation only" advanced class. She is one of 2 kids in her class of 10 that got bumped up...now she'll get an hour and a half of instruction in a smaller group setting. I figure we might as well try it and if she doesn't like it, we can always drop back down to the less intensive class. But I think she's just going to love it! I'm also debating signing her up for a second gymnastics class at the YMCA...mostly to give her more practice time.
Both girls enjoy playing dolls and princesses and they play a lot of gymnastics too! We've had less time outdoors with the weather, so it's been fun for them to get back into playing with their indoor toys. We also do a lot of running to and from activities...almost too much. I'm looking at trying to consolidate the number of times I drive into town for activities...hopefully I can clump a few things together with the next YMCA session.
Anyways, that's a quick summary of the kids....now, on to the photos! The rest of this post shows some of the fun things that we've done over the past month!
Rice Krispie Ice Cream Cones! Yummy!
Sharing a chocolate kale smoothie! (One of the sneaky ways I get Lydia to eat veggies)
Makayla made several picnic lunches and the 4 of us sat down to a pretend picnic lunch!
Can't remember what they were playing here....
Makayla fell asleep on our bed while watching afternoon TV (while I was trying to put Lydia down for a nap). This is how I found her sleeping!!
We had a little bit of whip cream left in a can in the fridge and Makayla has had her eye on it for a while. I finally let the kids eat it up during snack time...we had fun with it!
These balloon ball-shooters were a riot! I might have had more fun than the kids!! LOL!!
Here's our art table one day....
Makayla and Lydia had fun doing lots of cutting and I joined in. We cut all sorts of food for their kitchen....friends, elbow macaroni, hamburgers, oranges, soup, etc...
Here are the girls with their completed "flower" and their prizes! They earned a flower petal each day that they did not hit me or each other. This incentive was primarily targeted towards Makayla's poor behavior and hitting me, but Lydia enjoyed it too! It took at least 2 weeks to complete the 6 petals on the flower. It clearly made Makayla think though...sometimes she'd wind up to hit me and then she'd decide to bite me instead! Hmm...so maybe it wasn't a fool-proof incentive!
Here's Makayla playing gymnastics with her monkey. She would do this for hours!!
Here are all the students waiting for gymnastics class!
Lydia wandered off to play downstairs while Makayla was upstairs playing gymnastics. It was so quiet that I had to go see (and photograph) what the girls were doing! I also enjoyed a few minutes to clean up the kitchen and get the laundry sorted and into the washer!
Here's Makayla helping Lydia zip her fleece...and one of the few times Lydia accepted help!
One of our renters left this behind...Chad patched up a few holes, got the fan working, and cleaned it up for the kids!
