Gymnastics, Painting, Cousins, and More

A few snapshots of what we've been up to lately:

Almost two weeks ago now, I took the camera to Lizzie's gymnastics lesson. Only one of the pictures came out at all, so here it is. I got quite a few cute videos of her, but I still don't know how to put videos on here. I tried to do it through One True Media website a while back and was unsuccessful--maybe you could explain it to me one of these days Steph? I would love to be able to put up some videos from this lesson two weeks ago and some from her coming lesson this week. It has been incredible to see her progress in just that time.

A month ago when she started gym, she cried the first time the coach asked her to stand on the low beam without him holding her. In the videos from this lesson two weeks ago, she went from walking slowly, and only when he would stand right next to her, to walking confidently and quickly on her own. And on Thursday, she was pushing the coach's hands away saying, "I can do it myself!" as she walked confidently on the high beam (about 4 or 5 feet in the air), and learning to walk backwards on the low beam.

We took advantage of the tail end of summer weather to have some fun painting in the back yard. It was really the perfect setup: I just clipped the papers to the chain link fence at the back of our little yard with clothespins. This is over grass. So when the kids were done, I transferred the papers to the clothesline to dry and then just sprayed down the fence area with the hose. Easiest cleanup ever! And the kids had a great time. Especially Lizzie--she painted as many pictures as the other two kids put together.

Here you can see her with her new friends Hannah and Warren. Hannah is Lizzie's best friend here in Gold Beach, and we get together with them at least once a week. She is a very sweet girl.

Here are the girls, getting some cuddles and Daddy Time before he went on his trip to Salem for a week. They are so happy to have him back now.

I couldn't get Lizzie to fall asleep at naptime on General Conference Sunday. But when the conference ended and I went into the kitchen to wash some dishes, I turned back a moment later to find Lizzie like this. She actually slept this way for almost half an hour before I woke her so that she would go to bed at a reasonable hour that night.

A cute picture of the girls with their cousins Regina and Jennie. We were so excited to have them and their mom Jenette come to visit us for a few days while the daddies were on business trips!