New Heights

Over the past few weeks, it seems like Sam and Maya have both grown up a ton.  It is amazing how at certain times you just notice that things click on inside a child's head and they just get stuff.  It has been so amazing to watch both Sam and Maya learn and grow is so many ways over the past few weeks.

What Sam is doing now:

Hitting home runs - literally.  Playing baseball in back yard has been a fun past time for Sam and I over the past year.  However, that may be coming to an end, at least for hitting.  Ever since Sam hit the baseball over Symeon's house in Denver, he has been a hitting machine (well, that may be an exageration, but he has improved).  Sam wants to practice hitting so much and he has been getting better and better.   I promised him if he hit the ball over the fence in our backyard, I'd get him an ice cream cone.  Yesterday, he hit the ball over the fence not once, but 6 times.  I guess it is time to start throwing over hand or move locations!

Swimming - Sam has always had a love for water and was never scared of it which we appreciated a lot.  Now that the summer heat is upon us, we have been going to the pool again.  Yesterday Sam completely surprised Katie and I by actually swimming for a little bit.  Legitimately swimming!  Now, it will be a long time before Sam starts swimming laps at the YMCA, but still the fact that everything just clicked in his body and he was able to figure it out was so awesome to watch.

Adding - Sam is super excited to be in the oldest class at pre-school this summer and next year.  He is taking it serious and he knows / expects to be able to read at the end of this year.  However, one thing that we stumbled upon in the last few days was Sam adding.  Being a lover of math myself, I can't believe that I didn't start this sooner, but Sam has really taken to want to learn and adding has been his thing of late.

Maya has also developed and picked things up a ton lately.

First off, her ridiculous potty training.  Katie and I knew she was getting close to potty training and had discussed training Maya during the two week break between school and when their summer camp started at the end of May.  However, when we were in PA visiting my family, Maya began to show signs that she was uber close to getting it.  I made a trip to Wal-Mart (yes, Jeff went to Wal-Mart) and picked up some pull-ups.  That next morning, we put her in pull ups to make it easier for her to go.  She went potty first thing in the morning and literrally has not looked back since.  Sure she has had her share of accidents.  But since that first potty run on that Monday morning at Mom-Mom's house, she has essentially been potty trained.

Maya has been a little reluctant in the water lately for reasons we cannot figure out.  The other day when we were going to the pool, she literally cried the entire 45 minutes from when I mentioned it until we got into the pool.  However, after she got over herself and decided to like the water, she really pushed herself.  We have always pushed Sam and Maya both to put their faces in the water to get used to it.  We figured it they were comfortable enough to put their faces in the water, that would help them learn how to swim when the time came.  Well, on this morning Maya decided that she could put her face in water.  Ever since the first time she did it, she has not looked back (seeing a theme in Maya's development here?) She was so excited and proud of herself when she did it.  It was amazing to watch!