Little Bits

There are a few things I want to document about lately...

Colton: 
--He now says MOMMA!!!!!!!!  Seriously, he has learned every word from soccer ball to hexagon, but finally last week (word #75 in his vocabulary?) he started calling me Momma (instead of Daddy)....and I LOVE it!
--He is officially done with his morning nap, and now takes just one a day around 1 or 2 pm.
--He is pretty good at his animal sounds and body parts, so now we are working on shapes and colors.
--This month he started testing to see what would happen if he disobeyed.  He has had several timeouts in the last week, and he is a quick learner.  His "disobedient" phase at 16 months lasted only about a week and he is now pretty obedient most of the time :-). 
--He is such a sweetheart, giggly, smiley, talkative, and so much fun to be with!

Summer:
Summer continues to make me laugh with her ways of looking at life and expressing herself.

Summer playing wedding...
Summer: "I'm going to walk down the aisle"
Me: Where is your groom?
Summer: "Oh, he's home with the kids"

The world thru summer's eyes...
"Mommy? When I cough my body bounces."

Her first kid's sermon at church...
 Summer went up front two Sundays ago at church for her very first "kid's sermon"...she looked so big up there with all the other kids...After the pastor asked the group of kids, "What would you like to do for God?", she seriously announced to the church that, "I love my puppy." (She thought he was asking what she was thankful for like they do in Sunday School). I burst out laughing along with the rest of the church...

Summer has also been taking spiritual conversations to a new level and I am loving having conversations with her.

A few days ago at breakfast Summer asked if God was in the clouds...
Summer: Is God in the clouds?
Me: Nope, he is in heaven.
Summer: Where is heaven?
Me: I don't know, I've never been there!  But if you love Jesus you go there after you die.
Summer: There must be a lot of crosses in heaven.
Me: Not everyone dies on a cross, just Jesus!
(Her only experience with the word "die" has been in conjunction with the words "on the cross"!)

Today in the car our conversations went as follows:
Summer: Where is God?
Me: In heaven, but he is also with you all the time!
Summer: Is he with everyone?
Me: He is with everyone that asks him to be with them.
Summer: God, please be with me.  Mommy, is he in my tummy?  *Giggle*

Tonight at dinner our conversation was about Jonah from the Bible and how he had to have a really long time out because said "no" to God.  His timeout was three days long... 3 breakfasts, lunches and dinners.  After he got out of his timeout in the whale then he obeyed God.  We talked about how Mommy and Daddy are teaching Summer obedience now so that when she gets bigger she will be obedient and not have big punishments like Jonah did.  She went on about how when she meets Jonah she will tell him about how he should be obedient.  I told her that Jonah lived a long time ago and wasn't around anymore.  She asked "Why not?"  I told her that people live as a baby, as Summer's age, as a Mommy, as a Grandma, and as a GeeGee and an older person but then, if they love God and ask him to forgive their sins and ask him to live in them, then they get to go to heaven and live with God.  She got a huge smile on her face and said, "God please live in me."  Sweetest thing ever!!!

* I have been praying that Summer would come to know the Lord at an early age ever since before she was conceived. I pray that the seeds of faith that are sprouting would continue to grow and flourish. Amen!

Colton Talking

Since 15 months, Colton has been learning at least a word a day, and talking a ton!  It has been really fun watching him mimic words and be able to communicate so much.  Two days ago I started keeping a list of the words he is saying and its over 50....:)  (Granted, most people would probably not understand him unless context was given!!) Here are some of the words he has said in the last two days:
hat
laptop
park
house
car
water
up
daddy
thank you
please
tucker
shoes
socks
head
broom
moo
vroom
soccerball
basketball
all done
deer
colors
popsicle
cracker
cookie
hexagon
string cheese
milk 
Rylan (friend)
airplane
trucks
tractor
digger
boom
go go
elmo
hungry
thirsty
clock
chair
hop hop
uh oh
ice
bubles
ta da
Bible
hot
banana
siren
breakfast
diaper
honeycombs
raisens
all gone
buckle
phone

As I was looking back at videos I took of Summer when she was his age, one of my favorite things was hearing her talk and how she pronounced words.  So I took 5 minutes and videoed as many words I could that he said just to remember how his little voice sounded at 16 months :-).  Here it is...

Summer writing

Summer is getting better and better at writing, even though her letters are not always completely legible to a casual observer :-).  Today I videoed our "school" session.  We worked on writing our neighbor friends' names, Noelle and Faith, as well as Colton's.  (Summer still has trouble with her name, because the letters "S", "M", and "R" are very tricky for her!)  Here are a few pictures of the names she wrote as well as a video of her writing each name.

Writing "Faith":

Video of Writing "Faith":

Writing Noelle:

Video of Writing "Noelle"

Writing "Colton"

Video of Writing "Colton"

This week....

We've been enjoying summer here in Apple Valley--it is finally starting to get hot now that we are almost done with August!!  Here are a few pics from this week...

Chick-fil-A had a free "Taste of Chick-fil-A" event in Apple Valley as they are starting up food chains in 4 suburbs of the twin cities.  We enjoyed their sandwiches, watching the hula hoop contest, and the big hot hair balloon.

Daddy and Summer

We went to Emma's third birthday party.  Here is our little "king and queen" at the princess party!

Sidewalk chalk fun with this little cutie

Our newest zoo photographer...

Summer and friend Adry were so excited for their first monorail ride at the zoo!!

Colton got to pet the goats at the zoo with daddy!

This was Summer's favorite part of the zoo when she was his age!

Love my boys!

Random Fun

We went to Eli's dinosaur birthday party last week...seriously the cutest theme party EVER!

Activities included coloring a giant dinosaur, making fossils with plastic dinosaurs and clay, digging dinosaurs out of homemade mud/sand/flour eggs, dinosaur puzzles, etc!

Adorable food table with dinosaur shaped sandwhiches, fruit-filled watermelon cut out to look like a dinosaur, dino fruit snacks, bone shaped crackers, and an adorable dinosaur cake!

The kids were THRILLED that the "car cart" at the grocery store was available!

Oh how I love these two faces!

Summer had a birthday gift card to Target and picked out a Barbie hot pink convertible car :-)  Fun to watch to see what she would pick out!

The kids (especially Summer) LOVE cranes.  We finally saw one in action, raising the walls for our new Chick-Fil-A.  It was fun for all of us to watch!

Love this kiddo!

Weekend at the Kirkwood Cabin

We went up to my parents cabin this past weekend and had a blast hanging out with Grandma and Grandpa Kirkwood, Auntie Kristin and Uncle Eric.   It was cool the first few days which made it perfect weather for playing tennis and going for the beautiful 9 mile run around the lake.  When it warmed up we enjoyed tubing and skiing.  Evenings were filled with Dominoes and bonfires after the kids went to bed.  We are so blessed to have such a wonderful family!  Here are some pictures I stole from my mom :).

Paul was the rib chef :)

Colton enjoyed Auntie Kristin's birthday chocolate cheesecake :)

Summer is getting better at her writing.  She wrote Colton's name all by herself (except I helped her a little with the "N" by using my finger to point to where she should draw).

The kids LOVED jumping off of this stump!

Well, Colton needed a little help, but he loved it!

Both Paul and Summer caught quite a few fish!

Summer and Daddy fishing

Colton LOVED driving the boat!

Eric barefooted (skiied without skis!)

Playing in the sand

Frisbee

Random position for a nap...

Summer was too scared to go on the tube last month, but braved it this time....

and she LOVED it!

Me skiing

Paul skiiing

Grandpa skiing

Auntie Kristin skiing

Uncle Eric (the pro!) skiing

Summer loved Grandma and Grandpa's little moose

 Thanks for an awesome weekend Grandma and Grandpa!

Doctor Appointments- Summer 3 year Check-Up, Colton 15 month Check-Up

This morning we went to the doctor for check-ups.  Summer LOVES the doctor, which makes it quite fun to go!  Because she went with me each month for my check-up when I was pregnant with Colton, she associates the Dr. with friendly people to talk to, a fish tank to look at, new books to read, and to top it off, a sticker at the end of the visit!

I like to schedule an early appointment because then there is less time for them to get off schedule...(some appointments we have had to wait up to 45 minutes to be seen), so today we scheduled it right when they woke up and I packed them breakfast to eat while we waited....food is great for keeping kids entertained and quiet at the doctor!

Waiting for the doctor

Summer now is taller than a yard stick!  Wow, my baby is growing :-).  She is 37 inches tall (42nd percentile)

She weighs 32 pounds (64th percentile)

She also got her blood pressure taken for the first time, but she didn't need any shots.  She did awesome and talked the doctor's ear off.  The very first thing she told Dr. Parkos that she was 3 now, and that 2 + 1 = 3...which made my "math-y" self laugh!

Colton does not care for the doctor quite as much as his sister....but we made it through!
He now weighs 25 lbs (75th percentile) and is 30.5 inches tall (82nd percentile).

In reality, he really only cried when he was weighed and during his shots...the rest of the time he was perfectly happy!  At least he is still cute when he cries....!

Pictures

When we went to Fergus Falls to the whole Tommerdahl clan in July, a friend of the family took our pictures!  Here are a few of my favorites...

Summer's Camera

Summer has been enjoying taking pictures with the little kid's camera she got for her birthday.  It even can take video too!  I thought I would share a few because I think it is fun seeing the world through her perspective!  Most of her pictures were random shots of a lamp, floor, person's leg, etc but a few turned out fun because you can tell a short person was taking the picture!!!

Here is one of the first video's she took all by herself:

After she took it, she climbed up in Colton's rocking chair to read him a Bible story, so I caught this one on her camera.  It makes me laugh listening to her randition of Adam and Eve!