The Ribbon

 The girls have been doing gymnastics since the beginning of the year; Cailyn just recently graduated to the next class! I no longer follow her around helping her out, she does it all by herself.

She got a ribbon for graduating from the "Lil' Hopper" class, and is very proud of it. It's been hanging on our fridge ever since!

It sure has been fun to watch Cailyn's skills and confidence progress over the months! When we started, although she has always loved gymnastics, she was very clingy and nervous about some of the exercises, but now she does them all with a smile. The thing that I will always remember is how TERRIFIED she was of the ladder; it is triangle shaped (two ladders meeting at the top) and is probably about 5 feet tall The kids are supposed to climb up, over, and down. While doing the circuits if the ladder was coming up, she would start crying a few activities before she got there saying "I don't want to do the ladder!" I had to physically move her hands and feet to get her to do it. But she gradually became more and more confident and after a couple months she did it by herself like a pro! Learning to climb the ladder helped build her confidence at home with climbing down from beds, chairs, etc. She used to have a lot of anxiety about these things, but after she learned to do the ladder, we started telling her to climb down "just like the ladder at gymnastics." And every time she successfully got down from somewhere she would say in a super excited voice "I did it just like the ladder!"

I'm one proud mama!

Little Bugs

 Rylee began her second year of preschool a few weeks ago, and is loving it so far! We switched schools this year to Little Bugs Preschool. These are pictures from the first day. Rylee isn't normally into posing for pictures, but she sure was that day - all kinds of poses!

 With Pandy

Lainey switched preschools with Rylee - thank goodness, because I'm not sure I'd ever get Rylee there by 9am if Casey weren't running the morning leg of carpool!

Outside Ms. Paula's house

 Who needs a backpack for your cubby when you have Pandy?

 Jack has started kindergarten this year, but his class begins after preschool each day; he LOVES the train table!

 After the first day of class we ate Carls Jr.

 And apparently our first day of photoshoots wasn't enough, because Rylee wanted to take pictures before the second day too. She did, in fact, bring a backpack this time.

 I believe that this was the morning that Jack exclaimed as Rylee climbed into their car "Wow, Rylee, you look GOOD today!" Check her and her hot stuff out!

Quite the character, that Miss Rylee Skye.

Big Girl Bed

 We moved about a month ago, so life has been even more of a blur than normal...

The girls' bedroom at our last house was HUGE. Which meant that there was plenty of space for two beds. Which meant that I was in no rush to get Cailyn out of her crib.

Well, since we have now moved into a house with normal-sized bedrooms, I decided it was time to change the bed situation. We got the girls bunk beds, and Cailyn couldn't be happier about being in a big girl bed!

She's still a pretty squirmy sleeper, but I don't think she's fallen out of her bed a single time...although she's come close several times.

 (Yes, we also painted the walls PINK at the girls' request...the pink glow that you see in these pictures can also be seen spilling out into the hallway from down the hall.)

Earrings!

At the beginning of August, Rylee informed me one day that she wanted earrings.

To me, getting pierced ears has never been that big of a deal - my view is that whenever my girls want earrings, we'll pierce their ears. We didn't have much else planned that day, so on a whim we headed out for the mall. Rylee asked if it would hurt; I told her it would just feel like a little pinch for a minute and then be all better. Cailyn thought it sounded like a good idea, so I told her she could get earrings if she wanted as well.

Our first stop was, at Rylee's request, the pet store.

She LOVED this kitten.

 She named it "Little One." (She also named the other two kittens who were in the same cage "Mom One" and "Dad One." I didn't bother to tell her that they were probably siblings and not parents to Little One.)

 Then we headed over to the piercing booth. The girls chose their earrings - pink hearts for Rylee and purple flowers for Cailyn. 

Rylee was up first.

Contemplating a tongue piercing?

Making sure it's just right.

1...2...

3!

Let the crying commence...

 Apparently it hurt more than just a little pinch for Rylee! She wailed loudly and turned lots of heads. I had to hold her and calm her down. The only way that she was persuaded to let the lady pierce the other side was because I promised her that when she was done, I would take her to see Little One again. She decided that was worth it, so she snuggled up to me, and we got the other side finished. Of course, with more crying.

Cailyn watched the whole thing from the sidelines. As soon as Rylee started crying, she covered both ears with her hands. She kept them there the whole time. After the second punch, she started saying "I don't want to do it. I don't want to do it. I don't want to do it."

I assured her that she didn't have to.

I'll be curious to see how long it takes her to decide that she wants earrings after witnessing Rylee's trauma.

So, back to the pet store we went. Can you see the pink hearts?

 On the way out of the mall, Rylee found a kindred spirit - another little girl who gave kisses and hugs as freely as she does to new "best friends" who were complete strangers minutes before.

All in all, a successful trip.

Sunbeams and Quail

Today was the day. Rylee has left nursery and moved on to bigger and better things...she is now a Sunbeam!After church today our friends, the Barretts, who are in town for the holidays came over for lunch. (Ryan and I were good friends at BYU, and Debi's dad is our bishop here...small world!)

After we ate, we went over to Debi's grandparents' quail farm.

Rylee LOVED the quail!The eggs were very cool - all so unique!

But the highlight of the afternoon was seeing these little guys - about 8,000 3-day-old quail chicks!

Rylee was very interested in seeing everything.

Cailyn was a bit more hesitant.

And little Joshua was about as interested in them as you could expect for an almost-1-year-old.

Rylee loved catcing and holding the babies.

She kept making the funniest high-pitched giggle!

Cailyn never really wanted to hold one, but she did finally decide that she liked petting them.