This morning we got ready for a kiddie Easter party at Ms. Jade's house. I had a lot of fun curling Summer's hair for the first time! I brought my curling iron down to the breakfast table and did her hair while she and Colton ate cereal and watched Phonics with the Funnies on my laptop.
My mini salon :-)
Ready for the Easter party!
I wish I took pictures at the Easter party but I didn't get a chance to, so I stole some of Jade's! We had fun eating snacks, listening to the Easter story, playing with balloons, and hanging out. I think there were about 20 kids/babies under 6 years old celebrating along with their Mom's, so it was definitely "crazy" fun! Thanks Ms Jade for getting us all together!
playing the mini guitar
Look at the cool balloon drop from the ceiling! After Jesus "rose from the dead" in the story, Ms. Jade let down the balloon drop for us to celebrate!
Colton will be 1 year old in 2 weeks! It seems like he has been growing up even in the last few weeks. He is now entirely on solids (goodbye mush food!). We just cut up whatever we are eating really small and he eats what we do. He is my little carnivore--he loves sloppy joe's, barbeque chicken sandwiches and cheeseburgers! He also loves all types of crackers and cookies. Grapes and bananas seem to be his two favorite fruits right now. He is not a super big veggie fan, but likes to play with his peas :-). The transition to whole milk went perfectly. His first taste of whole milk was a little over a week ago, and he downed 8 oz in the first sitting. He LOVES it. He has now figured out how to tip the sippy cup enough where he can get the milk out all by himself. This makes mealtime so much more relaxing, as he can completely feed himself and drink all by himself while I eat my meal (yay!).
He can understand a few words/phrases. The first word he recognized was "Tucker". Even as far back as a few months ago, if we would say "Tucker", he would look to find him! He says Da-Da to Paul a lot, so I think he might associate that word, but I can't be sure yet. He has said Ma-Ma a few times in context, but again, I am not sure. He uses "Ah-Da" a lot for "all done"--done eating, done vacuuming, etc. He will hold up different food items and look at me, as if to say, "What is this?", which is really fun to tell him what different things are. He gets really excited if I mention the word "Cheerios" or "upstairs"--(he loves to climb up the stairs).
He has been loving to push around his walker, crawl everywhere, open and close things, roll and chase balls, examine anything with wheels, turn pages in books, and clap his hands. Here is a little video of him playing with Summer's water bottle...he is starting to look more toddler and less baby! YIKES!
We went to the Mall of America today and had a lot of fun! The kids are so entertained by watching all the people and things around them. For the first time today, Summer got to ride two rides at Nickelodeon Universe--the school bus and the carousel! Colton loved the carousel too! Thank you to Ms. Rachael for capturing some pictures and sharing them with me. :-)
Summer is looking so old!
Summer and Adry on the School Bus ride
All done!
Colton's first ride--so fun to hear him giggle! You can see Summer's big smile on the right of the picture.
My friend Rachael told me about Macaroni Kid, an awesome e-newsletter for moms that has fun craft ideas for kids as well as a schedule of tons of fun kids stuff going on in the twin cities each week. One thing that caught our eye for this weekend was the Easter Eggstravaganza at a local church. We enjoyed an Easter Egg hunt, made an Easter lilly out of Summer's handprint, and walked through stations that told the Easter story.
We are trying to be really intentional this year about talking about the real reason for Easter with Summer---(This week we have read the story multiple times in various forms, talked through her Resurrection Eggs, went to our church's family night Journey to the Cross, etc). I like it, because the more intentional I am with Summer, the more I think about the reason we are celebrating Easter as well. It is so easy to get caught up in the business of life and planning for Easter that I don't spend enough time mediating on the sacrifice Christ made for us on the cross. I hope to change that now that I have little eyes watching me :-). Anyway, here are a few pictures Paul took from our Saturday at the Easter Eggstravaganza....
The past few weeks have been so cold that a 32 degree day today felt like heaven! After our grocery trip to Walmart, we enjoyed an outside walk. We walked to one of our favorite parks, looked over the 3 foot snow drifts, and excitedly anticipated seeing the grass again! For now, we will bask in the sunny day God blessed us with today, and enjoy the fact that we were walking outside without hats on :-).
We had a fun mother-daughter time picking out our "Funky $5" sunglasses at Walmart today :-)
Yes, we currently have 55 books checked out from the library.....! Pretty typically we have between 30-40 books checked out (this has been the case every since Summer was a few months old). We keep them separated from "our books" by keeping two baskets in our living room just for library books: one for Colton's board books and one for Summer's big girl books. We read so many books in day that it is fun for all of us to get new books every few weeks!
Colton enjoys board books that have a few words but are mostly contrasting pictures/shapes/colors and/or real babies.
Summer enjoys the Berenstein Bears and Clifford books as well as a lot of non-fiction about how our bodies work, the importance of sharing, how plants grow, etc (she is very curious!). Here are the kids today after our trip to the library....they entertained themselves for about 20 minutes!
Gee-Gee Sandy turned 70 last week! We drove up to Alexandria on Saturday morning for the big surprise party, stayed in a hotel on Saturday night, and drove home on Sunday. We loved getting to see so much family and celebrate with everyone!! The kids especially loved swimming in the pool on Saturday night. :-) Here are a few pictures I stole from Grandpa (thanks Grandpa!).
Making a birthday card with Grandma
Colton "helps" with the balloons :-)
Sheena does food and Paul taste-tests ;)
Javonte is getting so tall!
Surprise!!!!!
Summer ran to give Gee-Gee a birthday hug!
My buddy
Lots of people....
came to celebrate...
our awesome Gee-Gee Sandy's birthday...
while it snowed and snowed and snowed outside!
Summer!
Oh, Paul.....having "fun" with his good-natured sister ;)
