Sorry...

One of my favorite pictures...I've been waiting for this day for a long time! Rachel was reading this to Amanda and Amanda was snuggling close to Rachel.

I feel sad that I have not been blogging lately...it's supposed to be my "scrapbook" for the girls when they are grown and for us to remember these young days. I find that our days are so full everyday that it's hard to find time to blog.

Rachel is now in school everyday and is always brimming with news about the latest happenings at school. Her latest challenge is learning how to propel herself up onto the parallel bars and sit on there. Randy has observed her friends trying to push her and pull her and propel her up there...good for them. She has a posse(sp?) of three other friends that do everything together. She still loves to draw and color and her latest obsession is writing her name in cursive. She has a self mandated school uniform everyday....shirt, sweater and jeans. Won't...can't ...refuses to deviate from that. So I've purchased five pairs of jeans to cover all the days of the school week!

Amanda is a little less busy but nonetheless nonstop moving! The girl can't sit still...not even for a millisecond. She loves her gym class on Fridays and asks everyday if it's the day for gym class. However, once in class, she refuses to sit down during circle time and climbs all over the equipment. Wednesdays we have BSF. She went through a period of crying that usually started in the hallway of the church...not so much crying as yelling, "I don't want to go.....I don't want to go to BF(she can't say BSF) class!" A couple of weeks ago, I thought in my head, "Good thing she's saying this outside the class and not in front of her teacher." To my horror, as we entered, her teacher said, "Amanda, you were so loud I heard you all the way from inside the building!" However, last week and this week she annouced to me in the hallway, "Mom(she rarely calls me Mommy anymore-just copies Rachel and says 'Mom')...I will not cry today!" And she kept her promise! At Costco the other day, I was struggling with Amanda because she insisted on putting the bag of avocadoes on the conveyor belt but it was so heavy, she kept dropping them. I finally hoisted her entire body on the belt! The man behind me says, "I had one of those(pointing to Amanda) that is now 17. Enjoy her while you can!" I needed that reminder.

Me??...oh what's that! Actually, I should not say that because I have been in the last couple of months, able to claim some activities of my own. I've taken to reading again, which is great! BSF I look forward to every week and I've also started attending a discipleship class where I'm gaining so much knowledge. I am thankful for all of these times that I can just call my own. I've also been exercising regularly on the treadmill and also have been able to have more times to get away...just to walk the mall...have dinner/dessert with friends and just feel like I'm not so tied to home.