so......

I don't even know where to start. I think I'll just separate by girl, and we'll start with the oldest.

Amya:
Amya had her seventh birthday almost two weeks ago. It seems like I say this all the time, but I just can't believe how fast she is growing up. She got a new bike from us for her birthday and, though she didn't want us to, we got her a big one with no training wheels and different speeds and all that stuff. She was very apprehensive about riding it. She wanted us to buy training wheels to put on it until she could get used to it. But Keith said we should just get it and teach her to ride it without the training wheels. We got home and tried it out. She wanted me to help her, not Keith, because she was afraid Keith would let her fall. So I ran alongside her while she pedaled. She thought I was holding on to the back of her seat, but I had let go almost as soon as she had taken off. She rode that thing the very first time she got on! I was so excited - I was having to hold in the shouts of congratulations so that she wouldn't realize I wasn't holding on. She didn't even know until we got to the end of the road and I told her she had ridden the whole way by herself. After that, she rode up and down the road all by herself. She's still having a little bit of a hard time turning, and starting, but she'll get it. We are just so proud of her!

Elena:
Elena's fourth birthday is this coming Wednesday. Again, how did she get so big? We bought a new bike for her birthday present as well, and she is so excited about it. She picked out a pretty princess bike with streamers and a backpack and then insisted on getting a princess helmet to go with it. She is our little princess girl. It's amazing how much of a girly girl she is, while still being a tomboy. She'll be out playing in the mud while wearing a princess costume. But she has a lot of fun riding on her bike and trying to keep up with Amya.


Tea:
Tea has had a bike since her second birthday. We got her this little tiny tricycle that we thought she would be able to ride. She has never actually ridden it. She would sit on the bike and push her feet along the road to go. She never pedaled. The day we brought home Amya and Elena's new bikes and were encouraging them to ride and helping them with their bikes, she finally decided to ride. It was like one second she couldn't ride, and the next second she could. And that little girl can go fast on her bike. It's so cute to see her pedaling her little feet and trying to keep up with her big sisters. Tea has also started to really love coloring. It used to be that she would grab a crayon and just scribble all over anything in front of her. Now she's coloring in actual coloring books and trying hard to stay inside the lines. She's so cute when she comes to show us the new page she's colored. You can see how proud she is of herself and how happy it makes her when we make a big deal out of it.


Maricela:
I think Maricela is the one we've seen the most growth in during the last month. But then again, she's a growing baby who's learning new things every day. The most exciting thing is that she's walking! It has taken her what seems like such a long time to get to this point. She started taking just little baby steps (baby steps down the hall, baby steps onto the elevator...) and now she's walking around the house. She's been trying for about a month now. Like I said, it started with just one little step here and there. Then she was taking two steps, falling down, and crawling the rest of the way. Then it was like five steps before she would fall, and then crawl. Now she's walking everywhere, and if she falls, she gets right back up and walks some more. She doesn't want to crawl at all anymore. She's so cute! I'm having a hard time finding clothes for her though. You'd think having three girls before her would give me plenty of things to choose from. I don't know where things have gone, but I can't find enough clothes in my stockpile to keep her clothed. And the scary thing is that she's wearing basically the same size clothes as Tea! Tea is so tiny, and Maricela is so big, that they can basically share clothes! And we finally found some tennies that fit her....her feet were so fat that they wouldn't fit into any shoes we tried on her. She could wear sandals that would velcro over, but we could not find tennis shoes that her feet would fit into. I was getting scared because it's getting colder here, and she needed some shoes to protect her feet. Thankfully, we found some and she loves them! When she sees me coming towards her with the shoes, she starts laughing and wiggling her feet. She's such a fun little baby! Oh yeah, she also has four molars now! And I didn't even know they had come in. I was tickling her one day, and she was throwing her head back to laugh, and I saw something in her mouth. I tipped her back to inspect, and there were four molars in there! She hadn't had a fever, hadn't complained, nothing. Such an easy baby!

Well, I've got all the typing done, now I need to add some pictures. I'll have to go upstairs for that (I am loving our new wireless - I can get on the internet from my school laptop downstairs and still be with the kids!). So hopefully during naps today I can get upstairs to upload some pictures. I also have video of the girls on their bikes and Maricela walking. So if you read this and there aren't any pictures yet, come back later to see those.