Summer Updates

I was just filling out Summer's "April" calendar of important things she has done this month and thought I would share some of the things from this month.
 
**She can sit up in the front section of the grocery cart now!    She love to grip onto the cart and swing her feet and look around.  Yesterday when we went grocery shopping she enjoyed watching the sprayer spray the veggies in the produce aisle!

**She stands very firmly now.  She likes to hold onto her bottom dresser drawer with one hand and pull her clothes out with the other!  She can hold onto most anything to stand now, and is very solid on her feet.

**She pulled up for the first time this month.  A few weeks ago she was able to pull up from sitting on my lap to standing, and then this week she has been able to pull up from sitting on the floor to standing.  She is still getting used to it, and has only done it a few times, but she is definitely learning!

**She learned how to feed Tucker.  She giggles when he licks food out of her hand and she leans over the side of her high chair to give him some of her goodies.  Yes, the "no feeding Tucker from the table rule" will still be enforced at our house, but it was pretty cute the first time!

**She is eating all sorts of solid foods.  She is really enjoying string cheese!

**She learned how to clap.  When we say "Yay Summer!" she will often clap her hands together.

 

**Her favorite toy right now is a little plastic pig!

**She is so interested in everything and touching and reaching for everything, especially anything with a dangling string.  Here is a video of her playing with a balloon this morning
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**She is getting better at copying words and is still quite a talker!

 

**She is an excellent sleeper and goes down very well for her naps.  She usually sleeps from 7:30pm-6:45am, but will patiently wait in her crib talking and playing until I get her up around 7am.  She usually takes a morning nap around 9 or 10, and then goes down for an afternoon nap around 3. 

That's a little insight to where Summer is at these days!  She is napping now, and then after lunch we are going to the zoo with her friends Brandon and Adry and their mommies.  It is supposed to start getting warmer out again tomorrow, so hopefully we'll get out for some more park dates soon!

 

Happy Thursday to all! 

Happy Easter!

We had a great Easter weekend celebrating the fact that JESUS CHRIST IS RISEN!  HALLELUJAH!

The Good Friday service put us in the right frame of mind of what Jesus actually went through for us.  It is amazing how cliche "Jesus died on the cross" can get, but when we truly remember what he went through, it is so horrid what they did to him.  This year the biggest thing that hit me was Jesus' betrayal from his own disciples AND even God turned his back on Jesus because Jesus took our sins on him and God couldn't look on sin.  To have EVERYONE who loves you turn their backs on you would be, to me, almost worse that the flogging and other pain he went through.  And knowing that at any moment, he could have called down a legion of angels to save him....yet he didn't....

I found myself at the end of the service wanting to "rush ahead" to Easter Sunday when the good part came!  Yet, it made me remember that the people who actually witnessed Jesus' death had to wait the three days to see him again.  What an eternity that must have felt like!

I feel like it is impossible to truly praise the Lord for his resurrection without first realizing his pain.  As I was watching clips of his death from "The Passion", I found myself tearing up saying, "You shouldn't have done it, Jesus.  You didn't deserve this.  Why did you let yourself go through this?"  And then I remembered that if he didn't, I would have had to.....

Thank you my Jesus for taking MY punishment!

What an amazing gift to celebrate!  HE IS RISEN!

We celebrated in Apple Valley this year.  This is the first holiday we have celebrated with just our little family (usually we are with extended family) and it was fun to create our own traditions!

We colored Easter eggs on Saturday morning.

 

 

Then after church on Sunday, Paul "hid" some eggs for Summer.  Do you want to go on the Easter egg hunt with Summer?  Here are several clips from her "egg hunt"!

We started out with a very enthusiastic Tucker, who had to go into the house because he was "too helpful"!

 

Summer was more interested in the grass than the eggs at first!

 

Summer started to get the hang of it after a while...

She seemed to enjoy pulling the eggs out of the basket better than putting them into the basket!

"There are lots of eggs "hidden" in my basket mommy!"

 

She's got this egg-hunting thing down!

 

This is fun!

Summer enjoyed pulling stuff out of her Easter basket!

 

She wasn't sure what to think of the "crinkly paper Easter grass"!

 "This feels weird!"

 Paul cutting the ham,

Happy Easter!

ZOO day!

The Minnesota Zoo is right in Apple Valley.  I decided to get a membership this year and we have really enjoyed going for an hour or two in the morning or in the afternoon. There is inside stuff to do when it is not nice out, and outdoor trails to walk when it is nice outside.  Summer LOVES to look at everything and take it all in!  Today Summer and I went to the zoo with Sydney and her mommy.  We had so much fun!  Here are some pictures and video.

Here is a video of Summer in the stroller looking at everything!

Eating our picnic lunch in the food court!

Checking out the zoo!

Look at those animals!

Wow, that's incredible!

I gotta get a closer look at that!

Sydney and her mommy

Time to bundle up to go outside and look at the farm babies!

The Farm Babies are only here for another week.  A favorite was the baby goats.  One goat wanted to play with Summer's toys and eat her car seat!

April Snow Showers bring May Flowers?

Yes, even though my last post was about how NICE out it is getting, and going to the park, and such, we had snow this weekend, and are expecting more this week! UGH!  Anyway, I realized I hadn't updated our blog in a while, so here is what we have been up to recently, along with a few videos and pictures!

This past weekend we celebrated Mom/Grandma Kirkwood's 50th birthday!  We had a lot of fun, especially surprising her with a party (she had no clue!).  If you know her at all, you know that she is hard to surprise with anything, so we were pretty pumped!

 

Mom's friend Julie makes AMAZING desserts, so we asked her to make them.  They were so good!

 

 

Julie (on left) made all of the desserts! Thanks Julie!!!

Another fun part of the weekend was having mom's family from Chicago drive up to celebrate.

In other news, Summer is now 8 and half months old.  It is so crazy!  We have been having lots of fun with some friends we met through ECFE--park dates, playgroups, walks, runs (YES--runs!!!---I am so excited!!!---Adry's mom Rachael likes to run with Adry in her jogging stroller too!!!!---I am so pumped to have a running mommy friend!!!).

Summer LOVES picking up all toys, looking at everything, and playing hard core!  She is also quite the talker these days!  It has been fun to have her "copy" words that we are saying.  Here are a few videos.  The first one is her playing in her playpen.  If she has toys around her to play with, she is happy! The second video is her being a little chatter box.  :) 

Florida: Saturday

Well, my amazing trip to Florida unfortunately did have to come to an end.  But the last day was still lots of fun!  Before we had to go to the airport, we stopped at a park.  There I swung on the swing set for the first time and went down my first slide!

This is great!

Why have I not done this before?

Higher, Gpa, higher!

Hmm...what's the slide doing over there?

Oh, hi mommy!

Yay! Slides!

Can I swim in this fountain?

Well, they won't let me swim, but at least I'm having fun with Gma and Gpa!

Auntie Kristin is funny!

And now, I'll leave you with some videos from my last day in FL.  It was a great time and I hope to go back again some day! 

It's getting nice out!

Summer and I are having so much fun now that it is nice outside!  We took her princess bike outside to the sidewalk for the first time this week.

We have so many parks close by.  So far we have checked out two.  The first day we went on the swings and down the slides.

Today, Summer invited some friends over to play.  It was fun for the mommies too!  Here are some pictures.  From left to right is Brandon, Lily, Summer, Sidney, and Adry.