Nearly Christmas

To start off, here are some summer pictures.

And also some soccer pictures. Here are Makayla and Hayden at their soccer jamboree in August 2009.





Makayla is now 4 1/2 years old, and as of this morning, she measures 44 inches tall and weighs nearly 38 lbs. She is as tall as some 5 year olds and frequently gets mistaken for being in kindergarten already. She will be starting school in September 2010. The district has a whole year of pre-K activities for the kids to get ready to go to school. Clay and I attended the parent's meeting at the beginning of November, and then Makayla and I both went to the introduction to the school at the end of November. She loved participating in all of the activities. I think she will do well in school since she just loves to learn. She is starting to sound out words which impressed one of the teachers at the school when she said: "You really know how to sound out your letters well." She can also do some basic math addition and subtraction. If I tell her how many more bites of supper to take, she will start eating them and then tell me how many more bites she has left to take (subtraction). It catches people off-guard when she does this because it's just not expected at her age.



Makayla dressed up as Violet from the Incredibles for Halloween this year. She had no desire to be a princess or anything girly. She said right from the start that she wanted to be a superhero.
Makayla is back in tap dancing this year. Megan is her teacher and there are no boys in her class this year. They are going to be dancing to "Disco Duck" and "Cowboy Joe" which she insists on calling "Cowboy Joke". I am interested to see what kind of costume they get that will go with a country tune AND a disco dance.

Makayla is also taking some swimming lessons. The class is "Preschool 1" and the goal of this class is mainly to get the kids to trust their lifejackets. Makayla has been very afraid in the water and doesn't want to be let go even with a lifejacket on, so I thought this class would be good for her. I never dreamed how brave she would be by the end of the class. Her last (8th) session is this Sunday, and for the last couple of classes, she has been venturing out in the water doing the doggie paddle with her lifejacket on all by herself. She never liked water in her face, and now you can splash her, and she doesn't even flinch. She will hold her breath and put her whole face in the water. I told her teacher Tristan how impressed I was at what he had been able to teach her in such a short period of time. I intend to sign her up for "Preschool 2" after Christmas because I don't want her to lose this momentum. By next summer, she will be having a blast in the campground pool.

Makayla is also attending preschool again this year. There are 7 kids who are going: Makayla, Sabrina, Hayden, Jenna, Sienna, Marley and Ashton. They have been practising for the Christmas concert which takes place next week.

This is the first day of preschool 2009.
Here is a picture that the preschool teacher took of the kids playing with the parachute. They were bouncing "Purple Teddy" on it. Makayla carried "Purple Teddy" around with her for several weeks and since he was a FREX toy, he couldn't withstand all the abuse that he was exposed to. I convinced her to exchange "Purple Teddy" for another one, which she named "Yellow Teddy", and she continued to carry this guy around for a few more weeks. We've finally weaned her off of carrying these teddies around at all.
This was a field trip that the kids took to the apple orchard to pick apples.

I'm thinking that Makayla will be a lot more outgoing this year at the concert. She has been showing a more outgoing side to her personality lately. This summer, we had somewhat overcome her fear of my leaving her, and tried to get her to be more independent. In October, she went back to crying if I was leaving her. She tried this out at Tobi's one Monday morning, again at tap dancing that night, and then continued with it on Tuesday at preschool. I really didn't want to go through that whole phase again since it was awful the first time around, so I tried to nip it in the bud quickly. I tried to appease her on Monday at Tobi's and after half an hour of sobbing, I just had to leave. (Tobi told me that she quickly stopped within minutes of my leaving.) On Monday night at tap dancing, I drug her back to the car when she wouldn't stay in class and she knew I wasn't happy. She quickly changed her mind and said she would stay in class and dance. So we went back in, and she did wonderfully. On Tuesday morning at preschool, she didn't want me to leave her, so I promptly told her that she had a choice: it was either preschool or Tobi's, but being with me wasn't one of the options since I had to work. She decided that once I put it that way, she would stay at preschool. I had a couple more times that I had to be harsh with her, but it seemed to work and now she runs off into tap dancing class or swimming lessons on her own and doesn't even look back for me. I have to admit that it's a bit sad that she doesn't need me as much, but independence is a personality trait that I definitely want her to have. At this past week's tap dancing class, the parents were invited in to watch what the kids had learned so far, and she was one of the most outgoing kids by answering the teacher's questions and even hamming it up a bit. I was really proud at how far she had come.

Christmas is coming in a couple of weeks. Makayla and I wrote up her letter to Santa together. She has been more influenced this year by the television commercials, so in her letter, she requested Hot Wheels, Twister Hopscotch, and a new DS game, along with some surprises. She is a huge fan of Spongebob Squarepants, so anything with him on it will be a hit. She helped me decorate our tree too. I have to say, it actually went quicker with the two of us working at it even though she can't reach any higher than 4 feet, and it was more fun than doing it alone.