gifts from grandparents

This year for all the winter Christmas and New Year's presents, Josh's parents decided to give us a wad of cash to buy gifts here.  They've shipped enough boxes in their life to decide that they'd rather the shipping money go to gifts instead of to the Post Office.  

So, Pappy and Gigi - here is a your first glimpse of one of the gifts you gave to your granddaughters!

Scooters!!!

The girls had been wanting them for some time.  They're now known all over our apartment complex for their speed, bravado, and consistency in being outside (every single day) on the scooters.

As would be expected, Samantha is the Speed Queen.  No path too bumpy, no sidewalk too slippery, no speed too fast for her to try.

 Emma takes her scooter-riding at more of a relaxed pace, unless of course, the neighborhood "Bossy Boys" (as the girls call them) are chasing them on their rollerblades through the complex.  Yes, this has been known to happen.

 It was hard getting them to slow down so I could get a good picture!

When I asked Emma to slow down, she immediately posed.  She can be such a girly girl.

When the big sisters are outside playing on scooters, Abby gets to play with the Dora tricycle that my parents brought over years ago.  She LOVES it and gets lots of hurt feelings if ANYONE tries to play with it.  This can get to be a sticky issue, because no one here has seen anything as cool as the Dora bike for young children, so naturally everyone loves it.  We're working on showing God's love through the concept of sharing, but it's slow going right now for her.

When Abby's not playing on the Dora bike, she's exploring elsewhere - like finding this big leaf (and then demanding that Silas share her enthusiasm for it!).

Every now and then, Silas will summon up his courage to try to take the bike from Abby and give it a go.

The scooters have multiplied our downstairs play-time tenfold, and the girls have had SO much fun with them!  Thank you, Pappy & Gigi!!