Colton's first swimming lesson (and other fun and learning)

Colton has sat through many months of watching his sister take swimming lessons, and today it was his turn to join her in the pool!  We take lessons through Swim Wise, where kids start taking lessons on their own at age 3.  However, after watching the fear of deep water Summer had to already overcome at age 3, combined with the fact that Colton was just sitting and watching Summer take her lesson when he could be in the water too, Paul and I decided to enroll Colton earlier than we did Summer, and so we started him in the parent-child class.  So for the next several months Colton (+ baby and me ;)) will take swimming lessons at the same time as Summer's lesson, on Tuesday mornings. Colton was pretty excited to be able to take swimming lessons just like his big sister, and despite a few weak protests at wearing his goggles and getting his head wet, did everything asked of him (including jumping in and getting his ears and chin wet) and smiled almost the whole time!

Colton ready to take lessons with Big Sister

Here we go!

LOVE this little guy :)

 Besides learning to swim, we have been learning some new things in Tot School/Preschool this week.

Summer has been loving her workbooks, and will do page after page until I change the activity

She is getting so much better at counting accurately.  Here she is working on a sea shell bar graph.

I was pleasantly surprised that Colton was able to complete this color sorting activity mostly on his own, while I worked with Summer.  My friend LaDonna suggested this activity, and actually saved her caps from her kids' apple sauce pouches for me.  Thanks, LaDonna, it was quite the successful activity! 

 This next video shows how Colton enjoyed "throwing" the correct color into the correct dish....still completing the activity, but in a very "Colton"/"all-boy" way.  I love it!:



I found a car number matching activity here via Pinterest and immediately thought of Colton!  I shared it with Paul one night, and he thought I was talking about counting the cars verses matching their numbers.  I actually thought that his idea was a better one, so here is what I ended up making...

Colton's Number Parking Ramp

Already this activity is LOVED by both kids, and is also a great learning tool!  There are so many teachable moments.  As I had envisioned, it provides many learning moments as we talk about when "the '5' lot" is full (and count the cars together).  I hadn't anticipated the color practice, but Colton right away started talking about parking the cars in "the blue lot" and enjoyed matching the cars to their lots...putting the blue cars in the blue lot, the red cars in the red lot, etc.  I ended up later adding paper towel and wrapping paper tubes as "curbs" on the outside of the parking ramp, because the cars rolled off when the kids crawled over it to drive their cars on the road, but after that addition it really has been a fun, repeat, educational activity.

 I teach the kiddos their numbers and colors, but Paul teaches them the important things...like how to identify types of fish when fishing....

Naming fish...

 When the weather is 30's and sunny, we take advantage of it and get out for a lap around the neighborhood...

A few days ago I found Colton the exact same stroller as Summer (but in boy colors) on Craig's List for $10 and Colton loves pushing around his taxi, soccer ball, or some other random car or truck.  Summer was great about letting him push hers, but its nice he can have his own now!

Summer from an early age has enjoyed putting the miles on this little pink stroller and not only has she put the miles on it around our neighborhood, our zoo, and our mall, but it has crossed several state lines as she pushes her doll "Berry" all over.  Colton is continuing in his sisters' footsteps both kids brought their strollers to the zoo this past Saturday.  For the first time, Paul and I were stroller free and bag free, as the kids pushed our picnic lunch and their own jackets in their strollers :)

Family Day at the Zoo

I normally video the kids' verse of the week on Tuesdays (as we get our new verse of the week on Wednesdays at BSF) but on Saturday morning, Paul captured some funny videos of the kids practicing their verse and singing it to their own little tunes.  So this week I will include these videos of them saying their verse because I think they are a lot more interesting than the ones I got this morning!

Summer (Matthew 22:37)



Colton (Matthew 22:37)



 Paul and I got out for a date night Saturday night!  Auntie Sarah and Uncle Ty came and played with our kiddos while we got out for a kid free meal, great adult conversation, and then to our church's annual Hoe Down and pie night.  They had a caller, photo booth, competitions, and lots of pie!  Here is a picture of the picture we got to take home with us.  We don't get too many pics of just the two of us, so I decided to include it :)

At our Church Hoe Down

At our house Paul and I get to watch many "shows" put on by our budding actress and actor.  This particular evening Paul videoed part of one of the "shows" we watched, which often include some sort of dancing/singing/music followed by a dramatic reading of a book. 



That's all for now!