The Tommerdahls: Fall in Full Swing - School, Swimming, BSF, etc

All of our fall activities are now in full swing. Tutoring for me has started back up two evenings a week, swimming lessons are in full swing, the weather is cooler, and we had our first BSF last Wednesday!

We took some pictures on the first day of BSF...

Larkyn stayed with me, and our small group had 2 other small babies too which was fun!

Lol, I think Colt looks like a stud in this pic...he wasn't quite ready for the picture!

This is Colton's new "ready for a picture" face ;) What a difference from last year...C walked right into his room ready to go - no tears, and no looking back!

Love these two!

My 3 favorite kiddos...

Summer was so excited for BSF, and gets to have Ms. Kathryne, who was my small group leader last year!

It was a great first morning and I am super excited to be back in the routine. I haven't been the best at daily Bible reading since Larkyn was born, so its nice to have the accountability of daily lessons to complete. Morning has been my best time lately, after L's feeding, but we haven't fallen into a complete routine yet. L fell asleep one morning while we were reading together....

We got our first verse of the week (Deuteronomy 7:9) from BSF this week...here is the kids' video:

Here is another video...this one has Summer making Larkyn smile. The kids are quite competitive about who can make her smile the most.

Colton is officially in the pool on his own with Ms. Sandy and two other classmates for his swimming lessons. He did AWESOME and was obedient and did what Ms. Sandy asked. He is technically not old enough to be in this class, but he held is own!

Here are two videos of C's lesson and two of S's lesson...Amazing to compare S to what she was a year ago...wouldn't even get her eyes wet or jump in the pool and now she is swimming on her own and diving for rings!

With the colder weather we are stocking up for fall! I love to hit up the consignment sales in both fall and spring and get all the gently used clothes/coats/boots/snowpants/etc the kids need for fall at low prices for name brand items (and this year I am consigning for first time - been busy cleaning out closets lately!). I will admit I was a little nervous at how it would go bringing all 3 kids with me to the sale for some intense shopping, but thanks to a portable DVD and the fact that L loves the Baby Bjorn we had no tears and did great!

The weather hasn't been the greatest lately...so one day (per Summer's - my little artist - request, we pulled out the paints.)

One of S's creations - The brown and blue spots were "unwanted help" from her little bro ;)

One of Colt's creations

This morning ... this was the weather...so we pulled out a bit of school!

At this website you can print out handwriting worksheets with ANY words - so here Colton is tracing his name. In all honesty it only held his attention for about 60 seconds, so I tucked it back in his folder for another day :)

Now THIS activity held his attention for a VERY long time! I had a bunch of sports ball stickers and he had a blast taking them off the pad and sticking them on his "O" in his notebook. He even asked to do a "C" when he was done!

Colton's completed "O"

Summer worked on a vowel activity I found here. First, she colored in the pictures of various items (most could be spelled with 3 letters, consonant, vowel, consonant (like net, bug, etc) but all had a short vowel sound.

Then she cut them out.

Larkyn watched from the bumbo...for a few minutes anyway, until she wanted to be held again :)

I taped the 5 vowels onto paper cups.

Then we practiced the sounds that each vowel makes. Here is a video...

Finally, we took the pictures she colored and cut out, she said what they were, listened for the vowel sound, and put the picture in the correct cup. She got all but one on either the 1st or 2nd try. Here is a video...

I thought is was a perfect activity - fun, had multiple facets (she didn't get bored), and a good repeatable activity (there are several more pages she can color and cut out in addition to these on another day). I feel like this activity helps both with spelling and reading, and it was the perfect level for where she is at. We both loved it! Yay.

With winter coming, as well as the fact that while the kids are eating breakfast or lunch is my best time to prep dinner, we have been doing tons of crockpot meals lately. This was my view while I searched for recipes this morning and made my grocery list. I truly enjoyed the quiet time with us all busy ;).

Here are a few of the crockpot recipes in the last week or so that Paul and I have voted are good ones...

Chicken Philly Sandwiches

The kids have been increasingly helpful with grocery trips lately, which I appreciate!

Both kids unloaded the cart completely on their own this last trip!

And they both love to help carry in the bags and put stuff away. Colton does the cereal and bread (yes sometimes it is squished!) and Summer does the fridge (she knows where everything goes!) and lower cabinets while I do the upper cabinets. We really get the car unloaded in record time now!

While I do miss summer weather, I'm so thankful that its not really cold yet! We can still go outside without freezing ;).