Gymnastics, bike riding, and bye bye baby tooth

Reese has a love for gymnastics and fortunately we found a great place for her. She goes twice a week and is loving it. I don't have a ton of pictures because they don't like flash photography and they are usually a little too far away to get a good one. But I love watching her monkey around. Her favorite is the foam pit and bars. She also enjoys the balance beam and doesn't want her to teacher to help her across ha!

 This week we had two big milestones for Reese: bike riding and her first tooth came out!
She has been riding the balance bike for years and is fast on it. Well the other day she came to me and asked if I could put pedals on her balance bike. I said, "Well no, but you're describing a bike which we have for you." She said, "Ok, I want to try." And that was that, she got on and rode perfectly. She was timid with turning at first but after a few tries she totally nailed it and now wants to ride her bike all the time. She woke up at 7 am and wanted to ride before school.

Early morning riding...Daddy pumping up her tires

Proud girl

Then there's her tooth. She told us about a week ago that it was loose and Brian and I couldn't believe it. We weren't ready for her perfect little baby chiclet teeth to come out yet! But it's not up to us...and so her tooth continued to get looser and looser. It was so loose that we had no idea how it was even holding on. But I didn't want to push her so I told her to tell me when she was ready.
Well what do you know, I came to pick her from school and her teacher said she had something to show me, she held up a little bag with Reese's tooth!

It came out when she was eating snack. She was so excited and said it didn't hurt a bit!

This growing up stuff is no joke, my girls keep getting older and I continue to be speechless.

Martial Arts

Back in November we enrolled Bria in martial arts classes, to help with focus and confidence. She was excited and from the first class loved it.

She listens so well and is incredibly respectful.

Teacher Randall awarding Bria with a super stripe on her belt for leveling up at home.

She's on the left

 Brian and I can't say enough good things about this program and what it's doing for Bria. She is more confident, able to focus for longer periods of time, listens SO WELL. When I ask her to do something, she says, "Yes mom." It is incredible.
In February she belted up and received the orange belt. She was very proud, as were Brian and I.

Orange belt is placed in front of her

We love Teacher Randall!

Snow days for...days...and days and days

We had quite the winter this year. Typically we don't get much snow in the valley, parts of Oregon definitely get it but usually we get light dusting if we're lucky. Well this year we got DUMPED on. And at first it was very welcome and very exciting.

Look how peaceful and pretty our culdesac is?!

 The girls were of course thrilled and spent of their time outside. I would have to coax them in with hot chocolate and a movie as I was worried they would turn into icicles.

 Another reason I am over the moon with our location...the neighborhood kids. They all had so much fun and enjoyed impromptu snow ball fights, sledding, skiing, and snowman building. I was beaming, I love watching my girls experience childhood in all it's glory.

While the kids played...I worked. Very fashionably I might add.

Sledding fun

Aunt Heather getting in on the sledding hill fun

While the snow was a blast, it also meant there were a ton of no school days. I believe it ended up being 9 or 10? And although some of them were very warranted, at LEAST half of those days it wasn't snow. It was icey in some areas I guess, or warnings of freezing rain closed us down. Those day...those days I was very unhappy with the school district. If we have a snow day, there should be ample snow. So much snow that it's hard to walk in. Otherwise you force kids to stay home and go stir crazy right along side their parents!

But overall, the snow days were pretty fun. And I think the girls have some pretty awesome memories.