Summer is here!

I love summertime! I love the sunshine, warm weather, playing outside, trying to get our yard looking nice, lazier days, going out for ice cream, play dates at the park, and all the birds coming to our yard. We put up some bird feeders in our front yard hoping the birds would come to the front and not just the back yard. They love our jungle of a back yard but we can't enjoy them as easily back there. Jay and Carter got me a hummingbird feeder for Mother's Day and we love watching the hummingbirds come around. We also planted our garden so hopefully we will get to enjoy fresh, home grown veggies in a couple of months. Jay started building our fence in the back yard. We always said we needed a fence before we could ever buy a dog, but now I just want a fence to contain our one year old so that we can actually play outside. Our front yard has the steep driveway right next to it, which of course Carter goes straight for every time we try to play out there. Our backyard has no fence, which of course, Carter tries to escape from all the time. It is fun watching Jay start a project and see the progress each week. It will be slow going since we don't have hundreds of dollars to just put into a fence all at once.

I feel like I have been away from blogging world for quite a while because I just haven't felt like I had much to blog about. That is sad though so I decided to just get on here and catch up on our summer so far. I finished home schooling two weeks ago and love having some time off. A few days after we were done with school though, Jay and I took Naomi to Fort Vancouver and the McLoughlin House for our field trip. We studied Oregon's history all year so that was a perfect place to take her. We really enjoyed it and will definitely take our kids when they are older. I have been enjoying having play dates at different parks in the mornings. Carter loves playing at parks and I love having some social interaction with adults. :) Not that Carter isn't a great communicator. ;)

Jay and I took Carter over to a new park in South Salem to check it out last night. It was neat but they definitely had some interesting toys. I didn't get any pictures of the strange toys but Carter loved the slides.

I started my master's program through Corban University about two weeks ago and am hanging in there so far. School is not my thing in the least but I am surviving the first two classes so far. It is all online so I can do everything when I have the time throughout the week. The sad thing is that now nap times really aren't for cleaning the house or resting anymore. Now I get to read or do grad assignments during those precious quite moments. A lot of people have asked me why I decided to go back to get my masters. I have one, not so eloquent answer...because I have to. Yes, in Oregon, we have to get our master's or we will lose our teaching license after a certain amount of years. I think I have about four years left before I have to have grad school done. If I could keep my teaching license without getting my masters, I absolutely would not go back to school. Feel free to pray for me anytime you think about it. :)

Carter loves carrying our shoes around on his arms. Cracks me up. Especially when he has Jay's shoes on since they are so huge. He also loves playing with and wearing my necklaces. This is not one of Jay's favorite things right now. ;) Some of Carter's newest things are...

Everytime he hears an ambulance, he stops whatever he is doing, listens really carefully, gets really excited, and even says "dadadada." I love it! He totally knows that Jay works on the ambulance since they come and visit us at home sometimes when they are in the area.

When Carter runs, he swings his left arm back and forth real hard. So cute!

It looks like we are transitioning to one nap a day. I was not wanting to give up his morning nap but he is really fighting me on it. That must be my clue that he is ready to skip it. He did sleep in until 9:15 this morning so maybe, just maybe, I'll get a little more sleep in the morning.

He started saying "bu bye" this last week and seems so close to saying other things too. He also started to be a little less picky with food. We finally got him to eat blueberries again after a few months of hating them. He is eating a lot more new things than he used to and I couldn't be happier. It is so frustrating when he wouldn't even try something!

Well, that's our summer so far, all two weeks of it. And a little catch up on the little man. I hope the rest of you are having a great beginning to your summer too.