Abby participated in musical theater camp for the second year in a row. It's a one week camp where they meet every afternoon for a few hours. It's run by Melanie Brown, a lady in our ward. She grew so much over the course of the year, and it was fun to see the difference in her attitude this year compared to last. She was so excited to go every day and just had a blast every time she went. She came home and sang the songs she was learning and showed me the choreography. It was so fun to watch her perform on Friday night!
She also tried out ballet. It was not her favorite, but I am so proud of her for pushing through. There were parts of it she really liked, but mostly she's just glad it's over. She told her teacher on the last day that she was "just done with ballet because [she] wants to be an astronaut when she grows up." I loved seeing her interact with the other kids, and even hold their hands!
We went to the zoo when Mimi came to visit. It was very hot and humid but we had a blast until around lunch time when the kids let us know they were done. I think our top favorites were the elephants, giraffes, zebras, the two active jaguars, the marmosets, and the hippos. My favorite was the capybaras.
This vulture was so close to us!
The capybaras were my favorites.
Calliope continues to be her usual hammy self. She has started trying to say more words lately. She loves to make us laugh and will do just about anything to make it happen. She loves climbing and flipping and playing.
One day we met up with Mason for lunch at the Red Barn. We looked forward to it the whole morning. We love seeing him during the day! It is such a treat.
We went to McCall!!!
Airport. Calliope skipped her nap but you can't even tell.
Mason and I got to go away on a long walk. It was so fun!
Playing with cousin Brasen.
Abby swam like a fish in her floaty. She probably spent at least 3 hours every day in the lake. It was so much fun! She also learned to kayak all by herself!
A date to ice cream alley, just the two of us. Abby dropped her ice cream into the rocks almost immediately. We picked it up and picked out the rocks and she gobbled the rest up.
Catching a fish! This thing was over a foot long. Jess's fiance Austin helped a little.
Feeling silly with cousin McKinley
A flower from Charlie's Gardens, the most beautiful place on Earth.
Lots of Magic Treehouse reading time
Humming a swimming tune
Mason and I got up early one day to go get breakfast sandwiches for like $2 each from a mean guy at a gas station. Then we went frisbee golfing. I wore this hoody the whole time and never got hot!
Paddleboating with Abby
Mason, Abby, and Calliope kayaking
Watching the bike race (probably?) with Papa
Giant dandelions
Mason made me take this picture.
Calliope helped call the numbers out for bingo
This was when we were leaving. We headed back to the Boise airport at the crack of dawn. Abby was SO SAD TO LEAVE. She cried and cried tears of pure sorrow.
Mason was also sad to leave. His sorrow manifested in a different way.
Abby was a fantastic helper at the airport, and Calliope did great too. She enjoyed running at full speed in any direction except the one we needed to go, so she stayed strapped in the stroller for a lot of the time.
Abby is currently 3, going on 4. She is very excited for her birthday, even though it is very far away. She's also excited for Callie to be 12 months, because then it will be her birthday. Just wait til she finds out Mason's is just a few weeks away. She'll be over the moon!
Abby loves to learn and has a knack for memorizing facts about anything and everything. She's also great and remembering songs.
She's started getting herself dressed the last few months, and I love seeing what she puts together. She likes to wear her shirts backwards, and I gotta say she pulls it off great.
She loves going to baby story time with Calliope. All the moms sit in a semi-circle with their babies on their laps, and Abby usually sits next to me for the first minute and then runs around behind us and dances and sings her heart out to all the songs. It is very entertaining.
She's pretty shy around other kids. I think it comes from hanging out frequently with one kid who can be not so nice to her. But we've had lots of talks and read lots of books about being brave, and ignoring mean kids. I think it may be starting to sink in. I'm excited to see her grow in her confidence, but I love her where she is right now too.
She is the snuggliest girl in the world, and loves to sit on and be wrapped in blankets, wear soft hats, mittens, fuzzy socks, and wrapped up in big hugs.
She loves movie night because it means she gets a special drink (lemonade or chocolate milk). She loves dancing during the credits. She keeps saying she wants to watch Tarzan but we always have to turn it off during the leopard scene at the beginning. Currently her favorite movie is Tangled and her favorite shows are Bluey, Mickey Mouse Clubhouse, and Bear in the Big Blue House.
Her favorite color changes very frequently. When she was little, she liked purple and yellow the best. Now in the last few weeks she's told me her favorite colors are green, yellow, white, and now I think they are red and blue.
She LOVES riding her bike, and we ride it to and from the library at least once a week. It's 0.6 miles each way! She just learned to ride off the curb and she takes it very slowly and cautiously.
She loves music and dancing. Her favorite song is Trust Fall by Pink, but she loves all music. She's memorized a million primary songs that they sing in nursery and hums to herself whenever she gets in the zone.
She likes me to fix her hair in low ponytails, so that she can wear her helmet. When I would put it in two buns, she used to call it "Nellie Ears" (after Gramps and Grammie's dog).
We've done a lot of hiking this summer, and she's grown in her confidence on the trails. She now LOVES to get completely soaked in her clothes, but she makes sure I have dry ones with me for her to change into before she gets totally wet.
She doesn't really like coloring, but she likes to practice letters and do her preschool workbook.
She is left-handed and has recently learned how to hold her pencil like a big girl (pincer grasp).
I think her favorite activity in the world is reading. She's always asking to go to the library.
She likes to swim, and we got her some sweet goggles. She always talks about being very excited about putting her face in the water but I think she's only done it twice.
She likes talking to grown ups, and is hesitant to engage with other kids on the playground.
She loves fruit, ice cream, and pigs in a blanket. She lives for eating fruit snacks during sacrament meeting. She does not really like rice, spaghetti/lasagna, or macaroni and cheese. Also I'm pretty sure she's never actually eaten a hamburger in her whole life.
She got pretty good at one section of the rock wall at the playground, and it was awesome to see her feeling so strong and empowered. She went up and down the same section 10+ times in a row one day.
She thinks it is so funny to take off ALL of her clothes and just be naked. She likes to run around without a shirt on whenever I'll allow it.
She's very excited to be pregnant one day. She says when she's a grown up, I'll be her grandma.
She tried soccer in the spring. None of use were fans. Now she's in tumbling and is THRIVING. She learned to do a somersault all by herself. She can now be found watching TV doing a headstand leaning on the couch and trying to figure out backward somersaults.
She did two seperate theater camps over the summer with Melanie Brown, who is in our ward and also in charge of Auburn Community Theater. She was the youngest in her classes and thoroughly exhausted on the last day of each, but I am SO proud of her for completing them! She learned all about puppets, learned several different songs with choreography, and survived to tell the tale. They were each a week long for 3-4 hours every afternoon. It was a lot but she did it!
She loves jumping off high things on to lower things. Like jumping off the bed onto the floor, or off the top of her slide to the ground. She likes to see how far she can go.
She likes taking pictures on our phones, and has figured out how to open the camera app. So we have LOTS of pictures taken by her.
She comes to choir practice with me every Sunday. She plays while we sing.
She has grown leaps and bounds in her role as a big sister. She used to cry whenever Calliope cried, just because it was so loud. Now she's learned some coping mechanisms, like leaving the room or covering her ears, but mostly she can just ride it out without getting too agitated. They are sharing a room now and she usually sleeps through Callie's noises, which is a big improvement. When Callie was a newborn, Abby woke us up more in the night crying than Callie would!
She LOVES making Callie laugh, and I think Callie likes her more than almost anyone in the world. Abby uses a funny voice and makes Callie "say" different things, and it is usually hilarious. I am very much looking forward to the day Callie can really speak to her. I think Abby is too. She also loves feeding Callie and is very vigilant about not letting her have chokies.
All in all, she's simply the greatest 3 year old that ever was. I love her more than I can express, and I'm so grateful and honored that she's my girl.
.heic)
