This Weekend

We had a fun visit from our friend Nicole, who lives in Portland Or. We had a bbq with Jen, matt, niki and all of the kids before Piper and Atticus headed out to grandmas for movies and time on the 4 wheeler and car. Mazie is really trying hard to walk. Now she is crawling to the couch, pulling herself up and starting to cruise around while holding onto the couch. This is all she wants to do now. If you try to hold her she squirms and wants to get down. I am still holding onto hope that she will take her time with walking though. I hoping for a few months of just cruising without letting go so that she continues to be somewhat contained.

Joan sent me some of the pictures she took while we were in La Crosse. Mazie has a new trick...she is getting to a sitted position from her belly. She worked on this all last night, practicing so that today she is quite good at it as well as quick. She grins each time from ear to ear and seems to be searching for something to hold onto so that she can stand. That girl wants to WALK!!! Luckily, we dont have many objects for her to pull up on, sorry Maze!

La Crosse

We had a little mini road trip to La Crosse this weekend. Chris had his annual golf tournament for charity that he participates in every July with his friends from high school. Me and the kids traveled along for a visit with the grandparents. Friday, we went to the Childrens Museum, where I got some great shots of the kids. Really, really great pics. That noone will ever see except for the black river. The museum was great, very open and pretty empty so the kids had full reign. Atticus could have spent hours playing on the firetruck while Piper enjoyed the water table the most. They also had the standard grocery store and weather station. Very fun. We plan on going back in September so that Piper can climb the climbing wall (she will be 5 then). Later Friday we headed back to Al and Joans for a pizza party and movies. Saturday, they walked the kids over to the park for an outing. Chris and I brought the kids to "rail days" where we walked through an old Burlington train and rail station. That night we grilled burgers. Sunday, we spent the day with the Taylors. We all went out on the boat where one of our beautiful children accidently dropped the camera while trying to take a picture of chris, atticus and me on the hot dog. Both kids loved riding on the hot dog behind the boat. I am very sad to not have pictures to share as sun, boat and sand = beautiful kid pics. But as Chris said, it is less loss and more opportunity to not have a camera......right.

The new (old) deck.

We finally have a destination out the patio door! Dallas and Chris took down a transported a friends deck to our lovely "green" home. We are minus railing at the moment but Chris has been excitedly planning for step 2. We are loving sitting on our deck drinking coffee and enjoying the extension of our dining room.

Maple Grove Days

We checked out Maple Grove Days today with Grandma while Chris and Dallas built our NEW (but old) Deck!!! We are building an earth friendly recycled deck!

Swenson Boys

We had the pleasure of having the Swenson boys for a day. The boys wrestled and played in our makeshift waterpark that aunt Amy came and helped me set up. The kids had a ton of fun. The swenson boys love Mazie, they give her oodles of attention. The kids have been getting to know each other well during our Monday/Tuesday morning running swaps.

Friends

I have to say that we have been truly enjoying summer. I did not sign the kids up for any activity so we have been free for non stop socializing. It has been lovely. We have started a playdate swap with some neighbors that also attend Mayflower preschool who live a couple blocks down the street. They have a daughter and son that are Piper and Atticus' age so 1x/week they play together and are starting to become pretty good buds. The 4th of July was spent with the Ahalts, we also enjoyed some fireworks.

Arianna is 5

 

 

Which means Pipers b-day is just around the corner... We had a blast at the park today for a little celebration. Atticus enjoyed playing good/bad guys with the kids and using his super powers. Atticus is able to make the Target Doors open with his powers, however, when I asked him to open the house door with his powers he replied " No, that has one of these" and pointed to the door handle.