This is been an insanely busy summer but the kids have still managed to accomplish several new things. We're so proud of them!
Hailey:
She learned how to do some gymnastics. Grammy and Grampy paid for summer lessons for her birthday and this kid is a natural! Never afraid to try anything and sometimes freaking out the instructors (who like to be standing closer when kids jump on the rope to swing), she absolutely loved it and spent all summer asking if it was Thursday.
She learned to paddle around in her swim ring by herself. Since she was still clinging to me desperately at the end of last summer, this seemed like a nice accomplishment. I didn't let her far out of my reach, but she did like to try to swim around with Hannah. She was not okay putting her face under the water but she did put her face in the water a few times to blow bubbles and she would jump if you were holding her hands.
She night time potty-trained. I was hesitant to try, only because she wasn't really showing any signs of readiness, but she's been daytime trained for a year now so I figured the worst thing that could happen is that we could end up back in overnight diapers. However, she did great! An accident the first few nights and then once a week for a few weeks and now we're done. And our house is done with diapers. Yay!
Hannah:
She learned to swim. She was paddling around a bit at the end of last summer but this summer she really took off. She can do the front crawl, the doggy paddle, and swim underwater. She jumps in the deep end and swims from one side to the other without help. We still stayed close by but she is doing great. Hopefully we'll get her in some lessons this winter to really learn the strokes.
She learned volleyball. She begged to be allowed to do one sport camp from her school and this is the one she chose. She was the youngest kid in the class but she did really well. She showed us several of the moves and hits and really enjoyed herself. Intramural volleyball doesn't start until 3rd grade around here but I imagine when she is old enough, she will want to play. This could end up being a very good choice if she does end up being as tall as they predict. Ha!
She read 100 books. I don't even know where to begin with this one. The library had a summer book program. If you read 10 books, you got a few prizes and got to go to the party at the end of the summer. I mentioned it to Hannah and she asked me what the top number of books you could read was. I shrugged and said something like "well you put your name in a fishbowl to possibly be drawn for a prize at 25, 50, 75, and 100 so I guess the top is 100 books" not thinking for a minute that she'd have time to read anywhere near the "top." She immediately insisted that she was going to read 100 books this summer. Then she did. Not only did she earn the prize for reading the most books at her grade-level but her name was also one of the three that got drawn out of the 100 books fishbowl (her odds were pretty good - there were probably only 6-8 names in there). Wow, way to go!
