This summer we put Kelsey in cheerleading and she’s loving it!! I can’t believe how much she has improved too!! Her cartwheels were horrible before, but now they are PERFECT!! She can even do a backbend over on her own!! The other day she came home (we run a carpool) and she told me she could do a bridge from standing up, I didn’t believe she could really do it, then sure enough she did it perfectly. I was shocked, proud, and impressed!! It’s fun for me to see her grow this way. It reminds me of when I was a child. I would do gymnastics all day every day—maybe she will be the same. The other night she was crying because her head her so bad from falling on her head too much from practicing her backbends—poor thing. IB Profen did the trick.
My favorite cheer she has learned is: “We’re number 1, we’re not number 2, we’re gonna beat the whospie out of you.” Mylee does it with her, it so adorable. Her teacher also taught her a cheer that used a word we don’t say in our home (stupid). After class that day Kelsey and I talked and Kelsey decided that next time they did that cheer she would raise her hand and ask her teacher if they could use a different word like silly. A couple of classes later they did that cheer (I wasn’t there that day) and she did just want she told me she was going to do. My friend Kristy who took her to class that day, told me she did it as though it wasn’t hard to do at all. Kelsey knew it was wrong and wasn’t afraid to stand up for what was right. I was a PROUD Momma!!
Blake is convinced that Lanaea is going to be his little athlete because she LOVES playing with balls. It’s the cutest thing!! It’s the one toy that she prefers over any others. The only other toy that can compete is her doll—which I think is a perfect combination!! She’s both feminine and athletic, qualities that I think suit a girl very well. I’m excited to see what happens with Lanaea as she grows older.
With my church responsibilities and a recent job I took on to transcribe a missionary journal of a relative from 1896, summer hasn’t been as uneventful as I would have hoped, but we have caught a few days of really good play. The girls LOVE to play in their pool. It’s even more of a treat when we get to go to a real swimming pool. It’s been fun that Blake has been able to join us this year—last year he couldn’t swim because he had just had surgery. It’s been fun to see Kelsey and Mylee play with one another. Mylee really missed Kelsey during the day when she was in school. It warms my heart to see my girls play with one another. Kelsey and Lanaea also have such a sweet relationship. Lanaea will often go up to her and give her loves and ask to be cuddled. It’s so precious!!
In June, we decided to make another trip to Palo Duro since we had such a good experience the first time. This time we had a working air conditioner and we came prepared with more water AND gatorade. The weather was actually perfect. The evening we arrived, Blake took a quick bike ride, finding a large horny toad along the way. He brought it back to show the girls and we kept it for a while until some campers near us informed our girls that they were endangered and that we should tell our parents to let it go. We didn’t want to cause problems and were not aware of them being endangered (we found out later that they used to be endangered, they are a protected species now) so we let it go. That night our girls took forever to get relaxed and go to sleep. We made the mistake of not bringing Lanaea’s port-a-crib because it took up so much space. We had to let her fall asleep in her car seat to get her to sleep. When Blake and I went to bed we moved her to the tent. I spent a lot of the night moving Lanaea back into her bed we had made her on the floor. She wasn’t used to sleeping unrestricted.
