Zongker Family Blog

Our sweet baby girl is such a little copycat lately!  Of course at this age, it’s to be expected, and it’s one of the best learning tools.  Aly loves to repeat words, even though she may or may not use them again, on her own, later.  She also enjoys mimicking our actions.  She’s really developing her personality & we love watching her pick up on these skills, as well.  She has been eating with a spoon for some time, but just recently, we’ve started giving her things that could potentially be really messy, such as cereal with milk & letting her eat them on her own.  She does really well, it’s just funny the things that she has picked up on, having been fed by us – for example, when a piece of food falls on her tray, she now tries to pick it up & throw it back on the spoon or in the bowl she’s eating from really quickly, so that she doesn’t waste it!  We’re proud of her for trying, though & can’t wait to see what new words & actions she will learn in the near future, as well!

Katrina is sooo ready for school to start!  Good thing her first day back is tomorrow!  She went with me last week to Wal-Mart to finish fulfilling her supply list.  We also got her a new backpack, new shoes & some new clothes.  She picked out some new headbands for her hair, as well.  All of this is really exciting to a 6-year-old, of course!  While finishing our shopping trip up, we bought groceries together.  This included “fun” things to put in her lunch pail, such as apple slices and Raspberry Zingers, too.  This weekend, we went to get a booster seat for her, because she’s outgrowing the 5-point harness carseat she was sitting in.  She got to pick it out & of course got a pink & purple one, with flowers all over it.  She’s been enjoying riding in it & can strap herself in with the seatbelt really well, already.  Today, we went to meet her new teacher & see where her first grade classroom is.  We’re excited for her, of course, but we also see our little girl growing up before our eyes & wonder just where the time went…  We look forward to the future adventures of our sweet first-grader, though!

Well, this week has been one of catching up for me, it seems. Last week, when I was sick, I couldn’t get a lot done around here, because I basically just felt like getting tons of rest, which is thankfully what my family let me do. Now, I have my voice back, so I’ve been able to return phone calls & to just be up & about, in general. And, I don’t know why we don’t appreciate those abilities more, to be honest. I think that maybe it takes something like an illness to help us realize how much we can actually do, on a regular, day-to-day basis, once we’re feeling “normal” again. I’m grateful that I’m over that head cold & able to get on with the simple, great things in life!

We don’t know exactly how bad the heat has been for everyone around the world this summer, but we’ve been experiencing pretty high temperatures, lately.  The past week or so, our local weather has been reporting highs of between 102 & 106 degrees Fahrenheit.  Although it’s really hot, we thankfully haven’t been affected too badly – no droughts, or anything like that.  We’ve just been staying indoors, for the most part; although our poor air conditioner has a hard time keeping up, sometimes, it’s still cooler than being out in the blistering sun!  We hope everyone else is able to keep cool & enjoy the last few remaining weeks of summer & that we get all get a break from these hot days, soon.

Alyssa loves her little voice!  It’s so cute & fun to hear her, too.  For the most part, she will just babble, chattering on & on, incoherently, with a few choice words that she actually knows, thrown in the mix.  She *does* have a good vocabulary for her age, but she doesn’t always choose to showcase it.  However, the other day, she got into a little pattern of words that she knows, along with some babbling in between.  She repeated the pattern quite a few times in the car & it really had us all giggling & grinning.  It basically began with her babbling a little bit, then saying, “BIG”, rather loudly, followed by more incomprehensible chatter, then the word, “COOL”, again with the babbles, then the word, “Wow!” in an almost awestruck whisper –  as though she was so amazed by herself!  We like to think that in her own little way, she was saying something like, “I am just so BIG, and that’s really COOL; it makes me say, ‘Wow!’” over & over again.  She really is getting to have such a fun, little personality!

Well, the Music Camp that Katrina was attending at our church is over with, but she had such a great time & she learned a lot, too.  We enjoyed watching her perform in the musical finale put on by all the kids, “The Slingshot Heard ‘Round the World”.  It was a story about David & Goliath.  It taught the kids how they can face giants in their own lives, through prayer.  Not only did Kat learn a lot of songs that week, but she also brought home some wonderful Biblical knowledge.  The day of the performance, I was telling her how proud I was that she had done such a good job practicing & I was encouraging her not to be nervous that evening.  She promptly told me, “Mom, I know you’re proud of me, but you should be glad for God, because this is a show about Him & it’s all for His glory”.  I told her I was & that I was happy she knew that, while holding back tears of joy.  We’re so grateful not only that Katrina had a wonderful experience, learning & playing in music camp this year, but that she brought back some truly great life lessons that we hope will remain with her for years to come!