Evers Family: November 2014

Sisters

I know I've posted a lot about Logan over the past 9 months, so this post is for Makayla and Lydia! It's been very entertaining watching Makayla and Lydia grow and develop their own distinct personalities. It seems like Lydia's personality has really started to shine through over the past few months. I've been piecing this post together as I've been observing them over the past few moths! I love watching how similar the girls are and also how extremely opposites they are! It's amazing how we are raising them very similarly, but they still are so unique...although I really shouldn't be surprised by this! What a beautiful gift to be able to watch them grown up and develop their personalities! And what a blessing for them to have each other! Here are some examples, in no particular order, of their personalities at age 6 (Makayla) and age 4 (Lydia).

Makayla likes her bed sheets tucked in nicely and folded back so that she can pull them up when she is cold. Her favorite stuffed animal lies on a neat little nest of blankets on the floor next to her bed. Lydia likes her bed sheets un-tucked and she likes all of her blankets haphazardly scattered in the bed with her. She also has several stuffed animals and toys stashed in her bed too. She has purposely un-tucked the sheets from the end of the bed after I make her bed!

When the girls eat meals, Lydia likes her food separated so that nothing is touching. Segmented plates work great for her as well as a few separate small bowls to hold everything separately. If the food touches or gets into the wrong spot, she needs her plate wiped clean with a clean napkin. Often, she needs a separate fork or spoon for each item that she is eating. She is pretty neat when she eats and goes through several napkins. Many times she won't use a napkin for more than one wipe....so she might go through 6 napkins during 1 meal! Makayla doesn't care how her food is piled on her plate and she digs right in, usually with her fingers. There is usually a bigger mess under Makayla's chair when the girls are done eating.

Lydia is our picky eater and refuses most fruits and veggies as well as many of the main dishes I make. She loves sweets and crackers and anything processed and unhealthy. I usually have to bribe and coerce her to eat her healthy food. She would happily eat snacks, goldfish, and treats all day if I let her! Lydia is totally our sweet-tooth! She's also has problems with constipation, go figure! Makayla will try almost anything and loves fruits and veggies! She doesn't have much of a sweet tooth and doesn't like chocolate much (whoa, is this my daughter?!?!) She will make good food choices on her own, without me even reminding her!

Makayla is super picky about her clothes while Lydia could care less what she wears (although this may be changing). Makayla has very sensitive skin and everything seems to tickle her, itch her, squeeze her, or bother her! I have even gone through dozens of socks with her because they don't feel right!!! (I have also concluded that perhaps when her toenails start to grow, they dig into her feet when she's wearing socks, so I've been keeping her toenails extra short!) I have given up buying her much from rummage sales because most of the time she finds fault with it...mostly because of how it feels. I also can't do much buying ahead because by the time she grows into something and decides she doesn't like it, it's too late to return it! I've started buying Makayla a lot LESS clothing since I have to buy it new and I have to make sure it's all comfy before we cut any tags off. Lydia is happy to get Makayla's hand-me-downs and pretty much grabs something out of her drawer and wears it! She's just starting to be a bit more picky, but I think it's only because she's watched Makayla...not because she really cares that much!

Lydia is much better at independent play than Makayla is. Lydia will happily go downstairs to the playroom and play with her toys while I stay upstairs tending to Logan. Makayla is afraid to be in the basement by herself and she does not like to play alone. If Lydia isn't around, Makayla gets very bored, very quickly! Lydia, on the other hand, is used to having Makayla gone at school in the afternoons and plays well independently.

Makayla has a lot of separation anxiety, especially at the start of the school year! Lydia wasn't super excited about school, but grudgingly went without many complaints. Once past the separation however, Makayla is more outgoing at school and Lydia is very shy at school.

Makayla is a perfectionist and spends a lot of time trying to "do her best" on her homework. She's had tears when she doesn't do it as perfect as she wants. Lydia has more of a "get 'er done" kind of mentality...she doesn't care if it's perfect, she just gets her homework done so she can go do something more fun!

We like to say that Lydia is our child who "stops to smell the roses"! She doesn't have a sense of urgency and takes her time when she's enjoying herself!

Makayla keeps her stuff fairly neat and orderly and doesn't always like to open new things right away...instead, she'll happily use Lydia's stuff because Lydia will happily tear into anything new and enjoy it as much as possible until it's gone or destroyed! Lydia doesn't like things orderly. I once went through her dresser and sorted and folded everything nicely. Within a day, she had unfolded everything and made a jumbled mess in each drawer...she told me that's how she likes it! Makayla likes to follow rules and is very orderly and by-the-book. Lydia doesn't really care for rules and being orderly.

Makayla loves cuddles and snuggles and hugs. Lydia is not nearly as snugly. Makayla is more of an emotional child and wears her emotions more openly.

Makayla needs much more sleep than Lydia or she's totally ornery.

Makayla gets into very mean and ornery spells. Lydia rarely does this and I'm hoping she stays that way!

Lydia hates bad smells and dirty or messy things (note that this is distinctly different from disorganized things).

Makayla enjoys telling me about her school day and Lydia doesn't enjoy talking about school as much, although this is changing as the school year goes on.

Makayla is very competitive and enjoys sports and "winning". Lydia is much less competitive and would rather just go play for fun than be on an organized team or in an organized class.

With all of their differences, the girls both LOVE to dance and they love pretend play. They are together and playing almost constantly other than when they are at school! The have a love-hate relationship. Most of the time they love each other and love playing together. But in an instant, they can become very angry at each other. After a brief time out and/or separation from each other (usually 5 minutes or so) they are back to playing happily together! They are so lucky to have each other as sisters and hopefully they will be life-long best friends to each other! And we are so lucky as parents to be able to watch them grow! Sniff, sniff...time to publish this, I'm getting a little teary-eyed! ;)

Logan Walking in Mid November

Here's a link to a video of Logan walking in mid November. He's getting much better at stringing several steps together!

http://youtu.be/07F6aK6k3oY

Halloween 2014

In early October we went to the Zoo Boo with our friends Louise, Jim, Ella, Jayden, Blake, and their nephew, Brady. Makayla wore her witch costume since it was fairly warm that day...at least compared to trick-or-treating on Halloween night! Lydia squeezed into her favorite butterfly costume...it's a size 2T/3T so I think next year she's gonna have to wear a different costume, lol! Logan has a spider costume on and he's not too excited about the hat on the costume!

The swamp creature next to the penguin exhibit!

Another swamp creature...

Here are some photos on Halloween morning. You can see how cooperative my three children were for photo taking...and this was BEFORE any sugar was consumed!!! :)

Here's Makayla's cute hair-do. She couldn't dress up for Halloween and she has to wear a uniform to school, so we did something fun to her hair!

Logan in his cute Halloween sleeper!

Here was my attempt at getting all three kids to smile nicely...

Lydia wearing her cute outfit to school...no costumes for her either, but she doesn't have to wear the uniform, so she could dress in a Halloween shirt!

I kind of lost control after this, lol!

Here are a few photos of the kids in their costumes that they went trick-or-treating in. My Dad took these photos! The girls wore warm costumes since I think it was in the 20's for trick-or-treating! Logan did not go out because it was too cold and he had a cold!

October Potpourri

Well, I realized how to make my blog updating go faster...don't take so many photos, lol! Not sure what happened to my photo taking this month, but I don't have that many photos. The girls have been busy with school and dance, I've been going to a bible study at church on Sunday nights helping with the church's fall Harvest bazaar, and Chad has been busy building another 28 storage sheds (photos in November). My parents also visited and somehow I didn't take any photos while they were here...total miss on my part!! :( My mom helped a ton with the kids while I was at church working on the gift baskets for the bazaar. Here's a few photos that didn't fit with Halloween or my Logan post!

The girls continue to LOVE to play school whenever they aren't doing something essential like eating, sleeping, showering, or going to actual school! Here's one of their play sessions...each student has a paper that they are working on! They played school pretty much every day in September and October. They took a break from it in early November, but got right back at it before November was over!

One day Lydia prepared a picnic snack and the kids enjoyed it when Makayla got home from school. Even Logan got to join in! :) I have no idea why Makayla is wearing shorts in this photo...it was not that warm in October!

The art board...

A project that was too messy to hang on the art board....

Logan in October

Watch out big sisters, we have a walker! Logan took his first 3 steps the day after he turned 9 months old (10-22-14). Three days later he was stringing together 6 or 7 steps (10-23 and 10-24)! Pretty soon he's gonna be running all over the place! He even stood up without pulling up on anything on the morning of 10-24-14.

We noticed Logan's 3rd tooth in mid October. It's his upper left-left front tooth. His upper right was near cutting through on 10/24/14 and cut through a week or two after that.

At his 9 month checkup he was:

around 6% for height

mid 20% for weight

mid 50% for head

Logan loves finger foods and trying new things. He's not a big fan of being spoon fed.

I didn't take nearly as many photos of Logan during the month of October. Here are a few that I took and there are more in my Halloween post!

Lydia wanted to hold Logan...he doesn't like to be held much these days, but I thought this was a cute moment that I was able to capture on camera!

Logan getting the remote...he loves to get into anything that is NOT a toy!

Escaping with his loot (the remote)...taking a few steps!

And he's off and running with that remote!

Here's Logan getting into a cupboard in the basement...this one is a toy cupboard, but it probably had something stashed in it that the girls didn't want him to have!