My girls

Standley Idol

Aiana received a letter on Tuesday that (out of 45 students) she made the top 13 of Standley Idol! She had 1 ½ days to learn a song from the 50’s to perform. We went to her performance last night and she did awesome! She sang One Find Day by the Chiffons. Although she didn’t win, she performed like a winner! Most of the performers were 8th graders and the 1st – 3rd place winners were 8th graders. It was a fun show. Aiana had a good time and was happy to make some new friends.

3.8 GPA!

Aiana just brought home her 1st semester report card. She has a GPA of 3.8 with A’s in every class but one (in which she got a B)! The girl is amazing! In the midst of working so hard, she does manage to have lots of fun. She just tried out for Standley Idol, singing No One by Alicia Keys (I wish I could have been there!). She had to audition in front of one teacher and one student. She’s waiting for a call home to find out if she made it. Fingers crossed!

Caylin's 1st day of school

Will and I decided it would be a good idea for Caylin to start preschool. We felt it would give her some time to make new friends and have a break from Anika (or give mom a break) :) There was a spot open at the preschool where I use to teach and Aiana attended. That made things a lot easier for us! Today was Caylin’s first day. We were a little nervous, but Caylin was very excited. She had talked all weekend about going to “cool” on Monday. We even went shopping for a new lunch “peel”. Caylin was happy to see her class again (we went to visit last week). She started to get a little upset when she realized we were leaving, but luckily it was snack time and that diverted her attention. She didn’t even care that we were leaving after that. Whew, we felt a lot better :). I decided to pick her up right after lunch time, before nap, to see how her day went. When we walked in, she was walking down the hall with her little class in her socks getting ready for nap time. SO CUTE! She didn’t want to leave. I told her she could rest with her friends next time. She was so excited. When we got home she was singing new songs, and telling me about her day. She told me that “my friends have boogies, they have runny noses” and pointed to her nose. She also told me that teacher painted her hand and did like this (as she pressed her hand down…I guess they made hand prints) :). Caylin never napped today but she was in the best mood. She was in bed asleep by 7pm. Yay for “cool”!

6th grade camp

Aiana headed off to 6th grade camp today! I can’t believe my baby is already going to 6th grade camp. I was watching videos of her the other day, she was about 4 years old. It gave me some perspective on how fast time does go by! I wanted to reach into that video and hold my little girl again. She will be a teenager in less than 2 years! Even though there are times when I feel so stressed out, I want to savor each moment with my children and hug them whenever I think of it, even when they are being little stinkers. I also want to get out my video camera more often. It’s so much fun to hear their little voices and watch their actions. I wish I could send a video camera with Aiana to camp!

Sleep? What's sleep??

For the past couple weeks Caylin has been protesting sleep again. It has been painful! I don’t know for sure the cause of this change, but I think it’s a mixture of things. I think she is realizing that Anika is here to stay, plus she wants to sleep in her toddler bed, she also had a cold and was getting her back molars. The one thing I do know is that this needs to change! We are exhausted! First I was putting her in her crib, but now she can jump out of her crib. I now have to gate her in her room. When Caylin wakes, we put her back into bed. If she stays, we don’t put the gate up, but if she runs out…the gate goes up. We ran into a problem after a couple days…Caylin started jumping over the gate. So, we have to double gate her door. Before bed, we go over “Caylin’s sleep rules” and remind her about the “treat” she will get for “following the rules”. The crying time is decreasing, but she does wake at least once a night. I was feeling so horrible about this, but actually since we’ve been enforcing this gate thing, she’s been happier during the day!

On another note, we’ve been “potty experimenting” and Caylin now goes “pee pee in the potty” whenever I go. Which is huge!!! Caylin loves to do the “pee pee dance” when she’s done!! YAY!!! I cant wait to only buy diapers for 1 child!!! We still have a long way to go though.

Blooming Personality

Anika is now 2 months old and has such a sweet personality that is beginning to blossom. When she's not sleeping she's full of smiles. She loves to be sung to and tries to sing along. Last night was so cute when Aiana was holding her and singing, Anika was staring back at her singing along with her. I was really bummed when I found that we were out of video tapes! However, I dont think this is a one time thing. :)