Kiddo Update - Kylie...

So what has Kylie been up to?

Ahhh…my little princess :) Not really a princess per se anymore…more of a little diva/super smart girl/crazy person/great big sister. She is at such an interesting age right now…it’s like she wants to be older, but sometimes slips into being a little kid – such an awkward age.

At home she’s a wonderful big sister and help to Ryan and Colton. I can ask her to watch Colton for me while I do other things (i.e. laundry!). She desperately wants Ryan to constantly give her hugs and hold her hand, but unfortunately, Ryan is just not that way with anyone but me, so she is always so disappointed and sad :( As far as being a good big sister to Josh, that would depend on the day…sometimes they play so great together, but other times she just picks and picks at him.

She loves to read! She got some new books for Christmas and had two of them read before she went back to school. She wakes up in the morning and reads in her room…she reminds me of myself when I was younger! She sometimes plays with her American Girl dolls and Monster High dolls – again, she’s at such an in-between age and she’s constantly worrying about what kids at school will say if they know she plays with certain things. I’ve told her over and over again that 1.) it doesn’t matter what the kids think and 2.) she can play with these things at home and no one ever has to know if she doesn’t want them to know.

At school she’s excelling more than I could have ever imagined! She is with the same kids and teacher as she was last year which is awesome because I really think she has formed a great bond with all of them. She did outstanding on all of her standardized tests so she is in the gifted program. She goes to the gifted class every day for math and let me tell you, when I help her with her homework I often have to read over and remind myself how to do the stuff! She’s learning geometry for goodness sakes! I learned that in 8th grade, and here she is in 3rd grade learning about acute angles, isosceles triangles, and parallelograms! Seriously! She always does so well on any project she has to do and she loves to write. She is so hard on herself all the time, which is normally a good thing, but it is also such a stressor for her. I was exactly like her when I was little, so I know exactly where she’s coming from.

In sports she continues to do gymnastics and she also is in basketball with Josh for a couple of months. I would love to see her participate in a school sport along with gymnastics…she has mentioned wanting to try volleyball next year (they start in 4th grade). As far as gymnastics goes, she’s in level 4 and has had two meets so far this year. She has done wonderfully at both of them…she’s working so hard at being “perfect” during her routines. She is so pretty and fun to watch! We upped her to two classes a week, so she goes Wednesday nights from 6:30 – 8:30 and Thursdays from 4:30 – 6:30. The Wednesday class has been hard on us because she never gets her homework done before she goes, so she has to come home and finish it and usually doesn’t get into bed until 9:30 or 10:00. But that class has one of the best teachers and it’s a small class, so she gets a lot of coach-time. She has talked about joining the competitive team, but so far it has only been talk (which I’m thankful for because the location she goes to doesn’t have competitive team, she would have to go to their bigger gym that’s about 20+ minutes away and there’s always a ton of traffic).

So that’s a quick recap of what my little sweetie is up to. I can’t believe that she’s 8 ½ already…she’s growing up to be such a sweet and special big girl!