Milestones...

This is going to be a bit of a bittersweet post.  Our Nikki, who has been a loving friend to our girls for over 2 years is moving on and moving back to Seattle to refresh her cosmetology training.  She has watched them grow up, helped us become a family of 4 and it is so sad to see her go.  We are looking for a replacement but she has left very big shoes to fill.  I almost feel bad for whomever we hire.
So that's one milestone down; the loss of a caregiver.  I hope Elianna does alright.  My guess is she will.  She seems to be very resilient but I predict a lot of, "Is Nikki coming today?"in our future.

In other E news, she's graduated to the next level in gymnastics.  In this level, Mommy and Daddy are banished to the upstairs viewing area while she works with her class and coaches alone.  She's a bit young ( the cut off is 3 years) but so far she seems to be doing well.   She tends to wander off anytime there's a bar she can swing on ( the girl loves to be upside down) but with a bit of redirection, she's back in the game.
Also, this girl is a climber.  Anything with rungs or something similar means she's going to be up it on the quick.  She's very surefooted and keeps her head about her.  She has her father's genes in that department for sure.  We are going to be buying her a full body harness really soon so we can go to the climbing wall..just not sure if she's big enough for one.  I hope so because I think she's going to love it!

And Marielle.  For awhile, she seemed like she was a little to the left of the bell shaped curve; not behind by any stretch of the imagination but not a prodigy either.  She wasn't much of a talker,  took awhile to roll, let alone crawl and generally just seemed content to just hangout.

Man, the past few weeks have effected quite a change in our girl.  She 'talks' all the time, tries to imitate what we say (kkikkk kkiikkk is her word for tickle, I'm just sure of it), makes animal noises and has gone crazy mobile on us.  We cannot leave her alone or she's up the stairs, giggling and going faster when we try and stop her.  She's stood alone for brief seconds, pulls up on everything (and everyone), and hates, HATES sitting still.  Mike and I have a bet as to when she'll start walking.

So yes, bittersweet.  Our girls, our fabulous girls are growing up.  

Like I said, fabulous!