This Week: November 2nd- November 8th

On Saturday morning, I had a conference to attend to gain hours toward my teaching license renewal (I need to get 125 hours every 5 year period to keep an active teaching license).  Paul and the kids had fun going to see Choo-Choo Bob, story/songtime at a train store in St. Paul that has lots of fun trains to play with.

Then they went and parked near the airport and had fun watching the airplanes come in!  They look so big that way :).  Here are some videos Paul took...





After naps, we went hiking at Lebanon Hills , one of my all time favorite things to do.  Both kids hiked a long way on their little legs!  We walked for about an hour and half and Summer made it over an hour, and Colton about a half hour/45 minutes!    Both kids loved the little "bridges" we went over.  Here are a few pictures...

On Sunday we went visited Auntie Sarah and Uncle Ty's church and had lunch with them.  Fun to catch up!  That evening, Paul and I went to a Wild game with tickets he got through is work.  It was a fun date, and they won!

Mondays  are always are catch up on chores/errands day.  I love watching the kids play because they play so well together!  Today they read books, played cars, did puzzles, played in the laundry baskets, and helped me fold laundry/clean.   I snapped a few pics and videos of the kids...

For the longest time they read books on my bed...so I took a little video from behind the doorway...

"dusting" the floor (and walls, and carpet....)

puzzles

Here is a video of Summer...she is so excited she can "help" fold laundry now :)



Here is video of Colton...I heard him singing this song (to the best of his ability) while I was folding laundry, so I pulled on my phone to capture a video...




On Tuesday we went with friends Ms. Tara, Lilly, and Ameila to their library storytime in Richfield (they used to live in Apple Valley, but moved recently, and told us about the awesome play area in that library).  We all had a lot of fun!

Huge play area, and Summer's first choice was to sit and read ;)

Colton driving the "bus"

play area

Colton was fascinated by the gears

Each kid picked a carpet square with a letter or shape to sit on during story/songtime

Summer wrote her nametag all by herself

Colton spent a while playing with the big letters...and we talked about their names...

Then he put them down for "night-night"

We had a busy afternoon of baking, tutoring, gymnastics, and couples Bible study...one of the couples brought their baby along to Bible Study so we set up the pack n play for him to sleep in, so....

On Wednesday after BSF, the kids had so much fun playing in the pack n' play!  They brought their toys and blankies in, we put a blanket on top to make a fort, but the top game they both liked the most was when Summer (inside the pack n play) tried to toss beanie babies out, and Colton, on the outside, tried to toss them in.  Beanies were flying everywhere and the kids had a blast!

Playing in the Pack n Play

We had our first snow Tuesday night- Wednesday morning, and with the cold weather now, we have been enjoying more hot lunches (vs. cold sandwhiches in the summer).  Our favorite lately is making Panini's on our George Foreman grill...and dipping them in spaghetti or pizza sauce.  Its a winner with both kids and their Mommy :).

While we enjoyed our Panini's we started working on our new verse of the week we got that morning at BSF.  I'll post that one next week, but here is last weeks' verse....it was a long one, but we drew some pictures to illustrate it, which helped her the first few days, and then after saying for each meal thereafter, she had it down!

and Summer saying it from memory...



On Thursday, Summer had another "first" at swimming lessons...she jumped/swam all by her self to her teaching, including putting her head in by herself.  Each week she is progressing so much!  The kids had some fun Grandma K time after swimming while Tucker and I had an outdoor (chilly) running date :).  That evening we went to the opening night of Chik-fil-A!  We now have one in Apple Valley.  It was so busy, but we were quite impressed how they moved the crowd through.  We got lots of freebies, and also enjoyed playing in the playplace.



On Friday, we tried to tackle some of the leaves....we are blessed to have four large trees in our yard, but that also means a TON of raking in the fall.  We currently have piles without even needing to rake them (the leaves are so thick on the ground!) and not even half of our leaves have fallen yet!

Our yard...notice how many leaves are on the ground, AND how many are STILL up on our trees?!?

Our first pile

Gotta get one with Tucker in there too...

My little helpers

Sliding into the leaves

Colton's turn

Taking a break

We're getting close!

Summer loved getting buried, and it was pretty cute to watch Colton try to find her since he could hear her but not see her!  He would find her boot...and then her other boot...and grin the whole time looking for her!  Here they are both buried.

 After a chilly morning, it felt good to come inside and do some school.

Colton knows all of his shapes now....(see video)...we like to practice his shapes in a way that he can move...a lot...!



We are still working on his colors as you can tell from this video from breakfast...!




Summer worked on stencils while Colton and I practiced his shapes.

We also practiced writing her alphabet by herself (she needed help on K, V, X, and Z but did the rest by herself)...

 and matching capital letters to small letters.  She did all of them correctly (including the type written small "a") except for mixing up "b" and "d".

 That's all I have for this week!  Happy Weekend!