Fourth of July

Well it was kind of fun having the Fourth of July on a Sunday this year! We got to coordinate our clothes as a family (dorky?) and celebrate the freedoms God has given our country through the men who fought for us in the past and those who are in the present. Here are a few pictures we managed to get before church. {Thankfully we only had a 10:30 service or you people would probably not be seeing a single shot. :) }

Then I tried to get one of just the girls and here’s how they turned out: If you have little ones, I’m sure you can relate. :)

Curriculum Delivery!

Most of you know that we have chosen to home school our girls.  It is a very scary but exciting thought.  So far that’s all it has been…thoughts…until now!  This fall Avery would be attending Pre-Kindergarten in a public school if that’s where I was sending her.  So instead we are beginning her schooling here at home!  We decided to go with Sonlight’s curriculum.  It’s a wonderful Christian literature-based curriculum from what I can tell.  I have read a lot about it and after many hours pouring over the website and catalog, I made my selections for Avery and a few days later, the box was on the porch!  I am so excited to see what God has in store for our family through homeschooling.  I hope we are a closer family because of it!  Here are a few pics of the girls already enjoying their curriculum…well the box!  And we hadn’t even cut off the tape yet! :)

Avery really is always sweet to share her snacks with Bailey :)

Gymnastics Watch Day

Once a month on the 4th lesson of gymnastics, parents are allowed to stay in the gym and watch what the girls have learned during the month’s lessons. Avery was the only girl in her class the whole month so it was fun to watch her show all her new skills and getting all of the attention. This month 3 other girls have joined so she is excited to have friends but I was kind of hoping for private lessons again. :) Oh well.

Here are some pictures from the watch day:

The balance beam (one of her favorites). She was doing hops on this thing, dips, high kicks, and even a forward roll! (with help)

The high bar

The uneven bars

Learning hand-stands

The parallel bars

The rings

At the end the teacher lets her go into the big gym (where the older girls do gymnastics) and she gets to jump on the large trampoline. That’s one of her favorites as well!

Shake It...

Yesterday I put on the girls' pettiskirts to make sure they still fit and they had so much fun spinning around and shaking the ruffles side to side! Avery started it and of course Bailey copied her and did the same. They played in them for a long time! In fact, Bailey hollered when I tried to take hers off because she wanted to keep it on! (Shocker, I know.)

Swimming

On Memorial Day weekend we went to Craig’s aunt and uncle’s pool.  They have an awesome backyard and pool/deck area and they are so nice to always allow us to come and swim whenever we want.  Bailey had gotten in the big pool last summer for a little bit but of course she doesn’t remember.  She LOVED the water just like I knew she would.  She didn’t want to sit in the floatie and she did not want me to hold her!  Of course I did because she would’ve totally drowned!  But she didn’t know that and wanted to swim around all by herself!  Avery is doing really well learning how to swim but this day she just wanted to be free to go wherever she wanted so we had her wear a lifejacket instead of floaties.  She loved it and was able to jump off of the board and do anything all on her own.  Both of the girls are not afraid of water at all and absolutely love to swim.  (So far I haven’t found anything of this nature that they aren’t afraid of!)

Gymnastics Girl

Avery just started gymnastics this week and I had to take her picture before we left.  She looked so grown up to me and cute in her leotard and shorts.  She was the only one who signed up for this session so far so she was the only girl in the class!  A 45 minute private lesson!  I kind of hope it stays this way!  She could learn a lot with private lessons!  I am so mad at myself for forgetting to take pictures of her on the equipment, but when you have a wild 1 year old you forget these things!  Plus Bailey and I had to wait in the parents waiting area and we watched Avery on a little monitor.  So we were only in there at pickup time.  The coach said she did awesome and was a fast learner.  I wanted to say, “I know.”  :)

Silly Girl

The other day Bailey pulled out this big tupperware bowl and put it on her head while she ran around and played.  She did this for like 15 minutes!  Avery thought it looked like fun so she tried to take it off and take a turn for herself, but Bailey was having none of it.  She hollered loudly (what’s new?) and got it back, plopped it back on her head and continued playing.  I was cracking up!  Whatever entertains them, right??

Reading Together

One of the great benefits in the 3 year age difference in the girls is that now Avery can read to Bailey!  A couple of months ago Bailey suddenly became obsessed with books when before she couldn’t have cared less about them!  She would never let me read to her, at least no more than like one page.  But now she constantly wants me to read to her and since all of her books are very simple baby books, Avery can read a bunch of them to her!  I try to stop and read to her when she asks but if I just can’t right then, I’ll say, “Take it to Avery,” and Avery will happily read to her!  I love how she plops down in Avery’s lap just like she does to Craig and me.  I hope they both are obsessed with reading their whole lives just like I am!  :)  (Don’t roll your eyes, Staci!)

Workin’ at the Car Wash…

A few weeks ago the girls got their swimsuits on for an afternoon of washing the cars with Daddy! They had a blast! Bailey especially loves to play in water so she was in heaven. She kept trying to get in the bucket of soapy water, so at the end Craig finally let her! She did not want to get out!! I told him forget a pool, we just need to get some 5 gallon buckets and let the girls each have their own to swim in! That’s what my sisters and I always swam in at Mimi and Paw-Paw’s when we were kids and we thought it was great! We didn’t know any different, right? Of course Avery had to have her turn in the bucket, too, and Bailey was not happy about sharing her bucket! We are working on training this girl right…we really are! She just has a little extra learning to do than Avery did I think. :)

Anyway, here are some shots of the cuties in their bubbles and suits.

Seriously…

 

I mean, seriously, do I really need to type anything?  These are the cutest kids in the world!  :)  We love them so much.

This one I love.  It so greatly captures Bailey’s orneriness with that mischievous little smile.  I am LOVING her in piggie tails these days.  It also greatly captures Avery in a stage where she loves to make silly poses for the camera.  Some members of my family say that I did this a lot around this age.  Hopefully no one will scrounge up any old pictures from the ‘80’s.  That could be scary.  :)