Bike riding

A few shots from a recent bike riding outing. Makena literally begs me to bring her bike to the bus stop every day or, at the very least, to go into the cul-de-sac behind our house and ride around. This particular day went like this:
Makena rode and rode and rode her two-wheeler. Reese rode (still on training wheels) until she discovered a green bead lying in the street.The bead discovery led to a treasure hunt- no self respecting treasure hunter goes down the (concrete) trail without a set of walking sticks pilfered from the neighbor's yard. The treasure hunt concluded with two beads, a length of weed-eater wire and a corncob (??). Oh the fun you can have and the things you can find if you just look with the eyes of a 4-year-old!

Reese

Reese...well...she is still a funny little bear. Santa brought her a doll house for Christmas and she will spend hours producing very detailed plays with every little creature and character she can dig up. Noah's Ark animals are frequently at a dinner party with Barbie; Snow White can often be found hanging out with Gumby and Pokey; and she has an army of Squishies (Squinkies) that I swear are plotting to take over the world back there. Then, there's this creature. She spent well over 15 minutes standing in front of the Michael's $1 crap-made-in-China bins one day trying to decide what little gem to get for a friend's birthday. The friend got a bizarro octopus and Reese got...Reese's September birthday just misses the age cutoff for Kindergarten. It used to upset me that she wouldn't be starting school with many of the friends she has grown up with but now I am learning to enjoy the idea that she has one more year to be a kid. I'm not pushing her reading, not worrying about her letters...I really am trying to chill out and let her be who she wants to be before the school system gets hold of her. She'll have enough years ahead of her where she will have to be somewhat conformist. Right now, she's just a free-spirited, imaginative redhead with crazy hair.

Makena

Makena is now well on her way to being six...teen. Since December, she has lost two teeth, learned to ride a two-wheeler and developed a love of Taylor Swift (she will sit with her CD player and listen to the same two TS songs over.and.over.and.over). She is reading like a champ- she literally burried her nose in a chapter book yesterday when she got home from school, read it the entire way to and from gymnastics and did not put it down until our friends arrived for dinner. We have switched her soccer league to an all-girls' league. She's having fun, but the jury's still out on how long-term a sport it will be for her. She is MOST excited about mastering her two-wheeler. The cul-de-sac behind our house has become the meeting place for neighborhood bike rallies. She goes and goes and goes...
At the beginning of this month, she had her first Father-Daughter dance at school. We went shopping to pick out a dress- I'm in trouble because she wanted to try on almost every dress we saw- I think we took 11 to the dressing room and actually tried on 8.
A few pictures...I don't have any bike-riding pictures- that would have required entirely too much effort.
The evening of the first lost toothBefore the big danceA few soccer pictures

Soooo....

I'm lazy. No beating around the bush here. I have to open my computer to blog (and my fun new iPad is much more fun to play on); I have to open a cabinet to get to my camera; really?? the effort is clearly just too huge!
I'm going to give each girl her own catch-up post in a few minutes but, right now I want to take a minute to put to words some of the things I have been feeling lately so I can look back on these words and remember. I am thankful for what God has given our family. The daily trials and tribulations of my days are minor in light of some of the struggles happening just outside our door. We are not rich (by America's warped standards), we do not live in a lavish house, our marriage is far from perfect, our children are people and people are flawed but, none the less, Brett has a job that he enjoys, we are surrounded by a supportive community of church and neighborhood friends, our families are nearby (and sane!), and our kids are thriving.