Summertime Girls

Ah, Summer! Finally hot enough to get in the pool, and then, in a matter of two days, it was almost too hot to do anything else! Thankfully, the temps have moderated a bit (not hitting 100deg), but there still must be water involved if I'm going to be hanging out in the great out doors.

Mom came for a visit & that coincided with Rachel's first time in the pool. She LOVES it. But, she isn't really into any supports except for mom or dad's arms. Those baby floats just don't allow her to experience the water as she'd like -- up close & personal. Really, I think she just wants to drink it (eww!). Kate is still remembering how brave she can be the pool. Feeling it out, as it were. So, lots of paddling about in her floaties, but certainly no jumping or dunking.

When mom visited, she spent several afternoons with her paints out & Kate loved sitting at the dining table & doing "art" with Grandma's brushes and special paper. I even joined in one afternoon and it was fun. Grandma finished a watercolor of the Rachel, Kate, and Lydia while she was here & it's currently hanging in Kate's room. This sort of inspired me to take Kate's drawing & writing skills a bit more seriously as I have noticed that she's regressed in her letter drawing skills. She no longer wants to make any attempts at K (unfortunate that this letter is in her name, huh?). So, I have bought some "school" books & many mornings while Rachel takes her nap we are found at the dining table with our writing, drawing, and Bible stories. It has been a lot of fun. We started with a Kumon workbook on Tracing. It starts of with straight lines, then moves to zig zags and then curvy lines, gradually increasing the difficulties of these zigs, zags, and curves. She LOVES to do it, and if I let her, we'd finish the book in one day. She's so great at drawing straight lines, and she's made a vast improvement on the others as well. We have been using a Bible Story series my parents got for our family and we've just made it through the Resurrection. Lots of good & fruitful conversations through that, too.

Rachel has been making some advances as well. Just this morning she said her own name, "Ray Ray." Very cute! This is added to a limited use vocabulary of: mama, da-dee, ba-ba (bye bye), bah (ball), ah-ba (all done), ta-too (for thank you), and her favorite is Uh-oh! The funniest is that she "grunts" the first syllable UH, and then says the latter one in a speaking voice. She still doesn't use them very often, unless prompted. But, of all the ones she uses contextually withOUT prompting, mommy, daddy, ta-too & uh-oh are it. And, though she hasn't learned to say no, she does a very cute shake of her head -- side to side. This gets used for "no, I don't think so," and also "the music is playing and I'm dancing," or just "you're so funny, mom & I'm so silly!" Frequently, this gets pulled out when I try to get her to stand up. I stand her up, and say Stand up, Rachel, and let go. Then, she plops down & starts shaking her head. However, the last few days she's been standing up some more, and today took a teeeeensy little step towards me before she catapulted to the ground.

It seems that every week, the girls find & make up new games to play. Latest game is a version of Peek-a-boo in Rachel's crib. If Kate goes to "get Rachel up," Rachel sticks her face in between the "lines" (according to Kate) and squints her eyes. Kate puts her face up close to Rachel's and they have a little moment. Then Rachel laughs really hard & picks a new spot to peek through. She loves to give kisses, too, although most of the time they are open mouthed. Mmm... And she makes a face that looks like a kissy face, a true pursing of the lips.

The four girls have a great time playing with each other. The two cousins sure love Rachel and really think she's quite special. Lydia is especially attentive to her, and will frequently sit and play with her even when the others have gone on. The girls are coming over later today & Lydia will spend the night so I'm getting ready for some more summertime fun!