Summer Days Part 1

Happy Summer! And it sure was summer last week with the temps in the 90's! Remind us of this when I'm shoveling in 6 months, but I always like winter to be "winter" and summer to be "summer"...if that makes any sense. The Germann's are enjoying their summer days around here...even with a sometimes "terrible" 2 year old. : ) Ayla definitely has taken another step in her individuality, but thankfully, she's still up for some good snuggying and is all around pretty sweet. However, Ayla's ever expanding word and sentence catalog has lately been centered around "no" and "I don't want to". We're also working on incorporating please and asking for things "nicely" rather than "I want, I want I want, I want..." And of course there is changing her mind every 2 minutes. Makes for some good times as you can imagine. Ruth and I just had a "re-assess" meeting to talk about our parenting approach with the new stage. If that makes it sound like we figured it out....hahaha. But, us staying on the same page helps keep it 2 against one at least!

Like I said though, we are enjoying our summer days! Ayla and Ruth are currently coloring on Ayla's chalkboard and singing songs about sitting the potty - our way of trying to encourage her. We haven't "officially" started potty training, but most mornings this week Ayla sits on the potty after she gets -up with 2 successful goings - amazing how big of a deal that is. You'd think we just won the lottery with the big deal we make out of it to encourage Ayla.

Ayla just requested Ruth to draw a snowman....and yesterday she kept bringing me Christmas books to read...go figure. Anyway, to leave those thoughts of winter.....we have been doing lots of playing outside and swimming. Some of our usual evening pursuits these days consist of bike rides to the park, watering flowers, swimming in the pool, playing in the "sandbox" (we filled her baby pool from last year with sand - Ayla REALLY likes digging in the dirt) and for the last few weeks swimming lessons. Ayla has taken to the water pretty well and it's been a pretty fun experience so far.

Otherwise, just pretty routine around here. Hanging out with friends and family, cooking out, eating ice cream and sitting outside on the deck. Ruth and I actually made a fire on Friday night - in our fire pit of course. : ) Oh, and a couple saturdays ago we went to the farmers market and up around the terrace by the lake which is always a good time! Ruth also joined a CSA which we end up with lots of vegetables every few weeks from a local farm. Last week I ate spinach in my dinner TWICE. The thing is, it was really good!

Ok, well, hope everyone else is having a good summer so far! Make sure to scroll down to see more pics in Part 2. I'll leave you with some other Ayla highlights as of late:

- while the 3 of us were laying on our bed after Ayla's nap yesterday she looks at Ruth and says "Mommy has a big head!"

- Ayla saw Ruth measuring our windows with the tape measure the other day and has taken to running around the house measuring anything she can

- I showed Ayla a DVD of my favorite band in concert and she went on to try and mimick the lead singers moves

- in swimming lessons she was learning how to bend her elbows to paddle and broke out into a dance routine instead

- like her daddy, Ayla really likes new, sharpened pencils (i know, don't run) of which she just filled her purse with 5 of them and walked off all grown up like muttering "i need a zipper"

- Ayla really likes helping Ruth water her flowers and plants and even has her own watering can (a present from papa dave and mana sue on her birthday)

- I turned a year older and went on my first "road" bike ride with Ruth last weekend - thanks dad! (Joe let me borrow his bike!)

ps - we don't just feed Ayla donuts and ice cream all the time : )