A Lovely Afternoon

I'm just sitting here, watching Mary Poppins with McKenna. Kyla is napping, the house is clean, I'm caught up on the majority of my emails and PMs. I do have 2 large projects to take care of but today, I'm just enjoying a leisurely day. We have had the most horribly hot weather - 90 and dry heat. Today is a nice, clear day - 74 and sunny.

Here are a few updates on each of the girls:

McKenna is doing especially well with memorizing and applying her Bible verses for school. Every school day she comes home with a stamp on her hand which means she remembered her Bible verse when she was quizzed on it. The verses themselves are easy but remembering the book and verse number can be difficult for a 3-year old so I'm proud of her for practicing them and even more proud that she is applying them. This month, the verse is "Share with others - Hebrews 13:16". McKenna has always been good at sharing UNTIL the past few months when she started to get really territorial over her things. But since November started and she's been practicing this verse, she is working really hard at sharing. I think that must be a big part of their lessons and activities at school because it's obvious that she's being taught the skills of sharing. Usually if Kyla tries to take something from her, McKenna will yell frantically and start to cry. But the past couple of days she's held onto whatever it was Kyla wanted to take and said "Kyla, please give that back to me. Please give it back. Kyla, please give it back." She's been trying to remain calm until either she gets it back or until I intervene. Or if Kyla is trying to take something off her plate, instead of screaming and crying she will hand some of her food to Kyla and share it with her. Luke and Gavin were here last night and Luke wanted to take a ball from McKenna's hand and I heard her say "Lukey, share with others." LOL! So she's getting it and also trying to teach it. Another milestone for her was that they had Farm Animal day at school. They bring in a petting zoo so that the kids can learn first-hand about all the farm animals. She was so excited for this big day which I found interesting because the kid HATES petting zoos. I have never seen her lay a hand on a farm animal even once. But she actually did this time - she pet the bunny, goat and horse. I was really proud of her for that. Of course if you ask her if it was fun, she says yes. If you ask her if she wants to do it again she says no.

Kyla has a couple new things - she says "hi" to everyone and she says it in the softest, sweetest voice. Today she said her own name (which she pronounced Dyla) and the other night we were reading The Story of Easter (McKenna likes to read that all year long) and I said "Can you say Jesus?" and Kyla said "Geezits". I gave her encouragement and cheers and kept reading and the next time I read the name Jesus she said it again, "Geezits". She had her one-year appointment just a little late. She's 30 inches (80th percentile) and 22 lbs., 4.5 oz. (70th percentile). So she'll most likely be taller then her big sister. The good news about that is that the clothes McKenna is finally outgrowing now are able to go right into Kyla's drawers. The focus of Kyla's appointment was her eczema. It is really difficult to control. It's really bad on top of her feet and ankles and behind her right knee. So he put her on a new steroid cream which is helping immensely. She takes a baby oil bath every other night (no soap, just a nice oily bath on the skin to help restore moisture) and then we put on the cream and lots of lotion. There is a HUGE difference and her skin is the softest skin ever now. LOL!

Both girls are already making it clear what they want for Christmas so shopping should be easy this year. We've been working on wish lists at Amazon just so Santa doesn't forget what they want because you know....Santa is old and busy and he forgets things if he doesn't make lists. LOL! I'm most concerned about our tree though. So far we've been lucky with the girls always being at ages where they wouldn't really mess with the tree. But this year, Kyla is WAY WAY mischievous and loves to get into everything, climb on everything and pull everything off of shelves. So I can just see what will happen to our tree! I need to figure out where to put that thing so she can't get to it!

But before we get into Christmas I really should finally share these Halloween photos! It is soooo nice to have my computer back now! I wasn't able to upload these without my laptop so now that it's back, here ya go.

McKenna's Halloween Parade and Bieger Family Halloween 2006