Super Fantastic Summer

It finally feels like summer, so here's picture story of our summer adventures so far.

Ansel really loves Azzy... and Azzy allows Ansel to poke and prod him a whole lot more than he ever has for Amita.  This is Ansel giving him kisses!

And Ansel loves using his walker.  He's getting much more steady on his feet.

I made Amita a special octopus hot dog (on an ocean themed plate no less!).  It was very popular!

Here's Ansel chilling out and enjoying a delicious pretzel rod.

We decided to have a family movie night (after Ansel went to bed on Saturday... sorry bud!) and we made popcorn and watched Curious George (perfect for 3-year-olds!).

As a special treat, we also had strawberry shortcake as part of our movie night.  Amita helped me get the berries from the U-Pick farm down the road.

Ansel loves dressing himself and others in sunglasses and playing "peek" to see who is behind the glasses!

Another view of Ansel taking off.  He really likes being more mobile and it's so great to see him start to get moving.

Amita was very excited to wear a "tank tok" (which cracks me up every time she says it) and have braids in her hair.

Amita was helping me cook the other night... and Ansel was helping himself to everything he could reach!

Very messy indeed!

Gymnastics

We decided to sign Amita up for a 6-week summer gymnastics program through a parks and rec department.  It's for 3-year-olds and is designed to help them build balance and have fun (not olympic prep or anything!).  We were a bit nervous taking Amita there, since she's not always keen on trying new activities... but she did great!  She loved trying the apparatus at each station and was smiling and waving at us the whole time.  When it was time to go, she didn't want to put her shoes on and come home!

Here she is showing off her landing.

She liked climbing onto the vault.

But bouncing on the trampoline was way more fun!  You can see the balance beam off to the right of this picture... none of the pics I took of her on it turned out, but she liked that one too.

Amita really liked "swinging like a monkey" on the bars!  They had a short and a tall bar and she loved both.

Father Knows Best

We had a great Father's Day weekend.  On Saturday, we got a babysitter (for the kids, not us!) and went out to dinner with some good friends of ours.  We were at a fun supper club and I insisted that Aaron pose with the ceramic deer head before we could leave!

For Father's Day, we went to church (all clad in flip flops!) and showered Daddy with love, attention, and gifts!  We had a lot of fun reminding Aaron how special he is to all of us.

Here's the boys with their matching flops.

Amita was super excited to show Daddy the surprise card that we made for him.  The biggest surprise was that she didn't spill the beans before Father's Day!!

The kids were also thrilled to help Daddy open his gifts.

And here's the gang posing after our celebration was complete.  Ansel was too busy eating his crackers to look at the camera.

Parks and Books

We finally decided it was time to seek out a library since Amita loves books and even with me finding "new" ones at rummage sales, we were all getting tired of the same old reads.  So I did some googling and found that there's a library about 10 minutes from our house.  We headed over there to check it out as a family... and it turns out there is a park there as well (they share the same parking lot!).  So we have been making the most of this find and checking out books and playing on the fun playground equipment.  In addition to books, the library has games, a camping area (since it's summer), a magical place called The Engineering Room (where you can build stuff, play games, make robots, even play video games!), a train table, and all sorts of other cool things.  Both kids seem to really like it there, so I think we're going to become regulars!

At the library, Amita was amazed at a flower that was taller than she was!

I mean, she was really excited!  These were the only two photos I got where she wasn't blurry from dancing around with the giant flower!

Here's Amita climbing the ladder at the playground.

Ansel loves the swing.

A lot!!

But he also likes exploring and pulling himself up on some of the equipment.

He's getting to be very good at cruising around, even on the uneven surfaces of the playground.  I think he'll be walking on his own soon!

Progress

We had Ansel's 18 month checkup yesterday and we have been anxiously awaiting the visit to see how the doctor thinks things are going.  In 3 months, Ansel has gone from only scooting on his bottom to crawling, pulling up to standing, and scooting with lightning speed.  And in the past week, he's also started walking by holding on to hands.  The doctor said it was great progress and that he's not worried about a delay any longer!  It's clear he is continuing to get where he needs to be developmentally, just on his own timeframe.

Ansel also managed to pack on 3 pounds in 3 months!  His height was pretty steady and his ever expanding vocabulary is amazing.  He's got more than 60 words he knows and is starting to narrate the day, much like Amita.  We're blessed to have such good news on his health and we are (hopefully!) going to worry a little less now.  Here's some pictures of Ansel's latest escapades!

He wasn't sure if he loved or hated this giant box.  The only thing that was certain was that the cats were sad it wasn't them!

Ansel decided he was hungry one morning and helped himself to the animal crackers.  It's amazing how much destruction can happen in such short amounts of time with a toddler!

And here's the big guy (and the bigger guy!) practicing walking.  Amita has been trying to help with his walking too, but since she only weighs 1 pound more than he does, she isn't able to offer the same level of support!  Let's just say it usually is a less successful practice session in those instances!!

Pike Lake Hike

With nice weather on Saturday, it was finally time to get our state park sticker, so we headed to Pike Lake for a morning hike.  It was surprisingly warm and even Ansel was asking for his water (even though he was the only one of us not hiking!!), but we had a great time hiking out to the lookout tower.  Amita did the whole trip by herself (~2 miles roundtrip!) and she still managed to talk most of the way. She even spotted some deer on the trail up ahead of us, so I guess we weren't that noisy!

Here's the guys at the top of the tower.  It was a lot easier to climb without the baby carrier backpack.

I gave Amita a piggy back ride to the top of the tower (mostly to speed up our progress!) and she really enjoyed that.

Amita wanted her picture taken by the rock because she had seen a group of big girls do the same thing!

We took a few minutes to play at the playground at the park before we headed home.  Ansel's favorite was the swing!

I thought Amita would want to just sit in a swing after all that hiking, but she climbed all over the playground.  She did sleep well that night though!