It's hard to believe how quickly the fall is passing. With Thanksgiving next week, it almost signals the end of fall and start of winter. The girls have been having a good fall so far. It's been an adjustment for all of us to have such shorter day light time and not as much time to play outside. We used to love spending the afternoons and late evenings after dinner playing outside, but that's not the case so much now, so we're trying to expend as much energy indoors as we can when necessary.
Nina has still been enjoying preschool and enjoying the social scene it provides. When we're at home, she loves to dance, draw or color, and imagine play. She also still loves running and being active. Mark has been teaching her how to play tennis by using training balls and the wall in our basement. She's doing quite well. I also took her over to the indoor pool this past week to get a little pool time. She made such huge progress with swimming at the middle to end of the summer, I didn't want to see her forget it all. She picked up right where she left off for the most part, so that was encouraging.
Lyla is still the little comic of the house. She's starting to be much more of "herself" when we're around others, and she's not nearly as shy as she used to be. She adores her sister still, and anything Nina does, Lyla still wants to do too. She's still a predominant lefty, so I'm sure now that it will stick. She loves to ride her scooter outside, and when we're inside, she likes to play with all of Nina's little princess dolls. She loves being "nakey friends" with her sister. She and Nina run around in their underwear before bed time, and it's one of Lyla's favorite things to do. She runs, squeels, laughs, and has so much fun. When nakey time is over, there are generally tears and toddler attitude. She also sleeps with a zillion "sleeping friends" and if she wakes up in the middle of the night and can't find one, a scream startles us awake, and one of us goes running in there only to find that she can't locate a stuffed animal in her bed.
Both girls have days when we feel like they're growing up way too fast. Other days feel like we'll be stuck in toddler world forever, but we're very thankful for both of them and they joy they bring us.
Also, both girls LOVE wrestle time with Mark. They've always both loved rough playing with him, and he loves it too!
Also, both girls LOVE wrestle time with Mark. They've always both loved rough playing with him, and he loves it too!
Lyla wanted to wear his glasses...
...and get in some quality time with Uncle Bo.
They looked at some of their old pictures on the computer with Mousey...
...then we called it a night. Happy Birthday, Poppy!
So, instead of taking pictures of trees with beautiful leaves, I ended up liking some interesting trees with no leaves at all. Funny how that works...
Nina wasn't feeling too photogenic tonight, so she didn't want to be in the picture when Mark took one of me and Lyla. I was told when we came in that I really wasn't supposed to take pictures during the show, but since we got a bum deal with our seats and ended up in the balcony, I figured I'd take the pictures anyway. :)
P.S. Those of you who have followed our blog for awhile might recognize one of these pictures. We had Nina try to find the place on the fish eye wall where she posed when she was two. She found it and posed again - so funny that it's the exact same pose. We didn't tell her to stand like that. You can click on the hyperlink in the above text to see the picture from when she was two.
I must speak truthfully and admit his plan worked perfectly (even though I was completely convinced he was crazy). He used some attachment on his drill, stuck it down into the peanut butter jar, and before we knew it, perfectly smooth peanut butter.
Mission accomplished!
