My girls

I do wish I would keep up with my online diary more often. Truth be told though- I am enjoying living the little things in my life every day, and worrying less now about jotting everything down for safekeeping. Girlies are my everything. I enjoy my girls so much. They are truly wonderful people that amaze me everyday. It makes me smile to watch them grow, and turn into these beautiful girls. My heart does feel heavy a lot knowing that they are growing so quickly all of a sudden (or, at least it seems this way), but I am enjoying every second. Maddie never ceases to amaze me with how much she loves to read. She literally is Belle- her nose stuck in a book almost all the time. She walks to school like this everyday.. and I have found her countless nights reading in the dark because she just can't put down her book. Her current favorites are Harry Potter. She is midway through the 3rd and it has only been a little over a week since delving into the 1st book. She is hooked. I had never read the series (now I am loving reading the first one myself!) and now I can see how the whole wizarding realm is so enticing for her imagination. Maddie gets wrapped up entirely in whatever book she is reading. This summer she had started the 5th installment in The Little House books (On the Shores of Silver Lake) and was on the first page when she was shocked to find out that her beloved Mary had gone blind. (I had completely forgotten about this, so I had not prepared her!). Another chapter or so into the book, and she started crying "Jack (the bulldog who sheand Faith really liked) died... and Mary is blind... what's going on???" She cried and cried and never finished the book because of how much that upset her. Besides reading, Maddie's other passion continues to be running. She told us this summer she dreams of getting a gold medal in the Olympics for track. My little Faith-y is just as sweet as ever. She had a rough go at kindergarten (after an initial couple days of loving it) but is now back to where she just loves going. I go in for kid's writing every week, and she and I both love it so much. It's very strange still for me to think of her as "school" age, let alone actually SEE her there in school. Her reading and writing took off this summer, and she is fast becoming her big sister. Her kindergarten teacher is impressed with all that she knows; Dan and I are very proud. Faith is still the same ocean crazed, Jessie adoring, Snow White loving little girl that she's always been. It makes me laugh at how often SHE teaches Maddie how to do things at the playground : she raises Maddie's confidence at trying new things simply by showing her how she little she fears those same things. She is definitely our daredevil. She and Abrie are two peas in a pod. The bond between the three of them is so intense, and it's neat to see the different aspects that they each have together. Faith and Maddie have always been inseparable, and now Faith and Abrie are really turning into that as well. Abrie lets Faith do things that Maddie won't, which Faith loves about Abrie. They play "school" all the time, but their other favorite is always that Abrie is the patient/baby/or some other helpless thing. Faith likes to "check" her ears for ticks, bugs, etc, and surprisingly Abrie loves it (Abrie doesn't have a tolerance for people poking her usually!). And, my Abrie... she is absolutely hilarious these days. Dan and I were watching home videos a couple weeks ago, and came to the conclusion that 3 years old is really when they must grow into their humor. We were watching Maddie at age 3 telling knock knock jokes with her harmonica-- that is one of Abrie's favorite pasttimes recently. She LOVES learning knock knock jokes, and coming up with new ones. In fact, once she finds out of anything that makes us laugh, she will learn it to a 'T' so that she can re-enact it. I was telling Dan one morning about how I had watched an episode of "Friends" and was re-enacting to him something that Chandler had said that made me laugh. Well, wouldn't you know.. that is one of Abrie's favorite things to re-enact. It is hilarious. She really makes us laugh all the time. 3 years old has always been the age when I have started to work with each of my girls too with learning activities, etc. 3 seems to be the age with my girls that they all of a sudden have such a curiosity about everything, and truly want to learn everything. I think Abrie is at the same point that her sisters were at 3 years, 5 months of age-- if not, past. She just LOVES doing her "activities" with me. She takes such pride in what she calls "my learning station" where she likes to keep everything in her organized fashion. I love seeing how much she enjoys it.