It's been a while since I've updated, but if you need to know what's going on with our family, you can just listen to Gracie talking on her pretend phones. She has had conversations about "the tire that blew out on our exedition on I-25" and she's called looking "for a third row seat for our exedition." She is so quick to pick up on anything that is going on around her, especially emotions. Luckily the tire issue was quickly resolved, thanks to Coleton. And because I'm babysitting three kids on and off right now, we are in desperate need of a third row seat.

Because of Gracie's keen observations, I decided it would be best for her not to be in the room for my annual gyn. appt. I begged the nurse to take Gracie, Ryker, and Erika out of the room and, luckily, she was very sweet and helped me. (It truly is a miracle if you had seen how naughty they had behaved in the waiting room.) Can you imagine the stories and imitating Gracie would be doing?!? Even if she had stood at my head (which I considered for only a brief moment) she would have had lots and lots of questions.

Our summer is just flying by! We're having so much fun playing at parks and going swimming. Ryker is really getting so comfortable in the water. He jumps in and goes underwater with absolutely no fear! He also lays back to float on his back with complete trust. Gracie is another story. She is fearful and we are working on getting her more comfortable in the water. She used to be more like Ryker, but, obviously we haven't kept her in the water enough lately. So that's something Coleton and I really want to work on. We're looking for a recreation center that we would enjoy taking the kids swimming in and with a good workout room for this winter.

Gracie is about to start a big adventure in a couple weeks - preschool! She's super excited and I hope she really enjoys it. She'll only be going two afternoons/week, which I think will be perfect for now. We've gone to a nature center where they teach toddlers and then take them on a trail outside to observe and apply the lesson they've just learned. Gracie was such an obedient, observant student. She sat up so straight and just listened in complete awe. She raised her hand and volunteered. If only her entire school career could be this easy . . . Ryker followed her lead and actually listened quite well also. He sat as still as a 2-year-old can right next to his sister.

Two words that are used a lot in Gracie's vocabulary are well . . . and actually . . . She is quite dramatic and loves to tell stories. Ryker's vocabulary is really expanding and he is putting 3 and 4-word sentences together. Mostly, he yells what he wants to say. We're working on that.