Girly Girls

Around age 1, Karsten became flat-out obsessed with Frozen.  We have just about every Frozen paraphernalia that's even made- dresses, shirts, shoes, stuffed animals, microphones, dolls, etc.  You name it, we've got it.  While Karsten likes Elsa, she surprisingly is biased toward Anna more.  Maybe it's the whole younger sister thing. Who knows. 

I'll sometimes put her hair in 2 puffs on her head, but she almost always asks me for Anna braids.  You know, like this...

The problem is, I don't really know how to french braid.  I can do normal braids fine, but never really learned how to do french braids.  I attempted it a few times when Kate was little but her hair quickly grew to be more than I can even hold in my hands, so I basically gave up.  After Karsten's continued begging, I figured I better try again...

Can you tell she loves it? Hopefully my next attempt turns out at least as good as this one. 

Pretty sure until the Frozen phase passes on through our house, the Anna braids might be a frequent reoccurrence.  

By now I know better than to do something for one kid and not the other, because later that evening, Kate was wanting to have "special hair" too.  We rolled her hair in curlers, she slept in them overnight, and then she woke up like this. 

I LOVE her hair like this. So fun! She even dressed herself and picked out a headband to match her fancy hair.

My girls clearly love the "girly" side of their personalities - fancy hair, dresses, bows, etc!  I love having girls and getting to do these fun things with them.

Backflips Coming Soon!

Kate has done gymnastics for about a year and found a sport that she really loves. Not that she has tried all kind of sports, but at age 4, soccer was not her thing. Maybe it will be later, but not so much right now. Dance was just okay, but once she tried gymnastics, she fell in love. 

Tuesday nights have been gymnastics nights for about a year, and Karsten often accompanies us to practice.  I've learned to take coloring books and the iPad, which entertains Karsten for the hour that we wait and watch.  However, Karsten would MUCH rather be out there with big sis than sitting in the observation area. 

Well, last week, her dreams came true. 

I didn't tell her about starting gymnastics until the night before because, well, if you've ever had a 2 year old, you know that they don't handle waiting very well, nor do they understand timelines (i.e. - what next week means).  Needless to say, she was pretty pumped.  I asked her what she was going to learn on her first day of gymnastics.  

Me: "Are you going to learn how to do the splits?"

Karsten: "Nope. I'm gonna do a backflip."

Guess I can't say she doesn't set high goals for herself!   

Kate was pretty excited for gymnastics too.  We'd taken the month of June off, due to vacation and other things going on, so she was ready to get back in the gym.

In the spring semester last year, I asked to bump Kate up to an older class. She's only 5 so technically she could still be in the 3-5 year old class, but she started going to a 6 and up class just because there were a lot of really younger kids with her group.  We've switched days and times for the summer so it worked out to have her back in the 3-5 year class for the next few months, which puts them in the same class.  And as it turns out, on our first day back, my two girls were not just the only ones in their class, they were the only kids in the entire gym.  Apparently this was a popular vacation week for many! Lucky us, because it turned out to be a perfect "first day" for Karsten.

Check out Kate's bridge!

Karsten was actually pretty impressive with her balance and coordination. Pretty sure all of the things Kate has been "teaching" her on our living room rug are paying off!

This swing right here was probably the MAIN thing she was looking forward to.  You can barely see it in the picture, but this is the very spot that we sat in almost every Tuesday evening to watch Kate at her practice. The fence/gate in the bottom section of the picture is where Karsten would press her head up against and watch all of the bigger kids get to do the rope swing.  Man, was she jealous.  So THIS was exactly what she wanted to do, and of course ended up being her favorite part of the day.

I'm thinking this will be a fun year, and I can't wait to see what both of my girls learn.  If Karsten ends up having as much fun as Kate, it will definitely be a successful adventure for them.

Fourth Fun

So first off, my blog is fixed. YAY! I know nothing about coding and html and all of that stuff, so thankfully I was able to get someone to fix it for me. :)  Now I am back in business. 

I'm late catching up, as always, but here goes!  Originally we were going to be home for the 4th of July, but my parents ended up being at the lake and we made a last minute decision to drive down for the day.  Spending the 4th of July on the water never disappoints.  

Please note that unless she is in the water, Karsten has food in her hand or in her mouth in every single picture.  We get on the boat and she turns into a bottomless pit! 

One of THE best things we have done is signed the girls up for swim lessons each year.  We don't live in a neighborhood, or have a pool, so the kids don't swim all the time. However, since we're at the lake so much, we wanted them to learn water safety and we didn't want them to be afraid of the water.  One thing is for sure, they LOVE to swim and play. 

This summer, Kate has conquered her fear of jumping off of the dock.  She started by jumping off of a smaller part of our dock and then worked her way up to the high dock. 

I sure am proud of this girl! Last summer, it took her the WHOLE summer to work herself up to jumping off of the side of a pool. Now look at her! 

Love this family of mine and I thank God for them daily.  Yet another 4th of July that I will always remember! 

Blog Update

So .... I know my blog is messed up. :(  I'm working on it.

Apparently you can't use images hosted from PhotoBucket on Blogger anymore (or something like that), so that's why the background and other images are showing up as "Please Update Your Account for 3rd Party Hosting".

And since I'm not sure how to update all this stuff myself, I've enlisted help. Thanks for bearing with me!

Kelley