ABCs

We discovered while out for a walk last night that Stian knows his ABCs. We were pretty shocked. We were singing, like we often do on our walks, and we happend to be singing the ABCs. We paused, and he filled in what came next. We were floored, so we kept testing him, and he kept doing it right! How does he know this? Isn't he a tad young to know this? We tried to get it on video tonight, but of course it's never as good when you pull out the camera. And he was distracted at the end by... well, you'll see...

Hi!

Fiddlers

This weekend was the 37th Annual Indiana Fiddlers' Gathering. We've never made it to the gathering before, but we finally did this year. It's held at the Tippecanoe Battlefield, right in Battle Ground. We met up with our friends Kevin, Dawn and Quinn (we also ran into our friends Mike, Gary and Will). We found a nice shady spot off to the side of the stage where the kids could run around and be kids, and we could still enjoy the music. It was a really beautiful afternoon. It's been so hot, but today was perfect.

Father's Day

We went back down to the beach this morning. It was quiet at the beach - I suppose most people don't go to the beach at 8:30. It was a pretty morning though and Stian enjoyed himself. And Stian liked spending time with his Daddy (and Mommy) on Father's Day.

Weekend Getaway

Kris, Stian and I are in St. Joseph, MI for the weekend. The boys are both napping after a nice afternoon at the beach, so I thought I'd put up a few pictures. St. Joseph is only about 2 1/2 hours from our home in Battle Ground, and is a very nice little town - very cute. We have a great hotel suite that overlooks the beach and Lake Michigan. The suite is great so that we don't have to be quiet and sit in the dark while Stian is napping or asleep for the night.

We drove up yesterday and stopped at the incredible outlet mall in Michigan City. We didn't really spend that much money, but we could have! Then we got to St. Joseph in the afternoon and were able to get into our room around 3:00, so Stian could take a short nap before dinner. He wasn't too kean on napping yesterday, so it was just a quick one. Then we had a nice dinner in the hotel restaurant, which is rather swanky. We sat on the patio and Stian enjoying watching the vehicles and people go past.

We had quite the storm roll through last night. It was neat to watch it come in across the lake from our 6th story suite.

This morning was cool and very foggy, so we just wandered around town for a little while. Then we came back and all took a nap. Around noon the sun had come out so we got Stian up and headed to the beach, which is just a short walk down the hill from our hotel. The beach is very nice. The water is quite cold though! But Stian had such a blast playing in the sand and in the water. We'll have to see if we can get down to the beach again in the morning before we check out.

Thursday Evening

It's warm here this evening, so we got the pool out for Stian to play in. He was having a blast running around naked in the front yard playing in the water, and of course he needed to ride around on his bike naked too.





The raspberries are starting to get ripe - and Stian loves them!

a few more pictures

My mom sent me pictures off of her camera from their visit, so I thought I'd post a couple.

Stian is still talking about Grandma and Grandpa quite a bit. When I went to pick him up at school yesterday, Donna, the receptionist, told me she had just been back in Stian's room and Stian told her that his grandpa drives an SUV. She thought that was pretty funny.

Grandma and Grandpa come for a visit

My parents came down to visit this weekend. We had a very nice visit. My dad helped Kris get a bunch of stuff done around the house, and my mom helped me entertain Stian. It was great. Stian really seemed to love having them here too. It was hard to tell in the past, but now that he talks so much you could tell because he was always talking about them. For instance we'd be upstairs changing a diaper and he'd be saying "Grandma downstairs. Grandpa downstairs." And during one of his naps before he settled down and fell asleep I could hear him over the monitor saying "Good morning Grandpa!" over and over.

Circles

Stian was a tad wound up this evening after a busy and fun day. He was running circles around and around and around. He must have run this circle at least 30 times.

Swimming Lessons

Stian started swimming lessons at the Y this morning. He really did pretty well considering this was his first time in a real pool. But in the beginning, and really throughout the class, there was lots of this:



But obviously he did enough smiling and laughing too for me to get some pictures. He loves all things to do with water, so I suspect he'll like swimming once he gets a little more used to it. He often takes a little time to warm to new things.

Sentences

Stian is starting to put words together. He's been doing possessives - such as "Daddy's car" - for a little while now. And at school he's been saying "Daddy at work" and "Mommy at work" for a week or two. But yesterday he came up with two sentences that rather floored me - one was "Daddy's car in garage" and the other was "School bus downstairs." It's fun to see him putting it together.