I am so proud!

(she got into my lipstick in this picture!)
My sweet Lauryn said her nighttime prayers all on her own last night. I was so proud and it was the cutest thing I've ever heard!

Lauryn: "Dear Heav'ly Fader, dank dee for home, church, "chew-boy," and baby Machew. The End."

She is SO cute, I could just eat her up!

And within the past week, she has become quite the dare devil at swimming. It makes me SO nervous! She stands on the side of the pool and says, "Do by self! 7, 8, 9 GO!" and she jumps in whether or not I am ready. She does really well, but I have to help her a lot still. I can't wait to see how much she has progressed at the end of the summer!

Jacob has grown in swimming this week as well. He has gone from holding onto the wall with fright, to doing the "froggie" (breaststroke) all on his own. I showed him how a couple of days ago and he picked it up really fast! The only thing is that he keeps his head under the whole time, instead of coming up for air after each stroke, but he doesn't care, he is SO excited that he can swim! He can also hold his arms out and kick really hard to get from one place to another. I'm so proud of him! I hope that by the time he turns 5, he can be on the swim team!

Spencer is another story. He is my difficult, hard-headed, stubborn, and insecure child. I really hope it's just the age and he'll grow out of it. With anything new that he tries, he wants to do it perfectly RIGHT NOW. He has no patience to just learn and grow slowly. At the YMCA pool, the lifeguards give the kids a swim test to see what level of swimming they are at, and then they receive a colored necklace according to what level they are on. Red is for beginner, Yellow is intermediate, and Green is advanced. Spencer has been really embarrassed to have a RED necklace. He compares himself to kids his age or older. When he sees that they've got green necklaces on, it makes him very jealous. I tried to explain to him that he needed to try harder to improve and then when he felt ready he could test again. Well the other day after swimming for a while, he said, "I feel confident. I'm going to test again." So he got the lifeguard and started the test. He was suppose to swim halfway across the pool without stopping. He tried really hard, but he hasn't learned that he can just lift his head to take a breath and then put his head back down and keep swimming. He just stands up in the pool when he needs to take a breath. The lifeguard gave him about 3 tries, but he couldn't do it. He was SO upset!!!!! He was crying and punching the lawn chairs. I hugged him and gave him a long pep talk about not giving up and to be patient, but I don't think it helped.

Today, I invited some friends to come swim with us to see if it would motivate Spencer, and think it did a little. When his friend took the test and got a GREEN necklace, he was pretty jealous. But after a while, he got over it and they had fun together. He kept telling me that he wanted to get a yellow necklace REALLY bad! So I told him that he would have to swim halfway across the pool for me first and THEN he could get tested again. He said, "OK." So, we'll see when that will be. I hope soon, so he can be happy and confident in himself.