A Few Visitors

My sister Gretchen stopped by on her way up north the other day. Dan and Jean were tagging along and they all spent the night. Yay for us! We love to get visitors! It was really hot in our apartment so we had the grand idea to go to Lake Superior to swim. (It was only 70 out there at 8:00 but the water was pretty warm.) Since we had to take two vehicles and I wasn't ready to leave yet anyways, Jeff took Danny to his work before heading to the lake. The next morning (Jeff was working) Danny told me about 4 times, "Make sure you tell Jeff I said 'Thank-you' for taking me to his work. It was so cool, I could just stay in those airplanes forever! I could sleep in there!" He now has grand plans to move up north and work at the airport with Jeff. "I can work there and help Jeff. I can hand him his tools back. And then I can move in with you guys and live here." Yeah...about that...Needless to say, he thought it was pretty cool to check out all those planes.


I had a dentist appointment the next morning so the kids babysat Adrian. Boy was that nice! :) I had planned on bringing him to a friend's house but that was much easier to be able to walk out the door!



Thanks again for stopping by Gretchen, Jeanie and Danny! We LOVE when people stop in ESPECIALLY our family...nudge, nudge. ;)

(These pictures are from another evening swim in the 'The Lake' after one of Jeff's softball games.)

I must be crazy

But then, she is too. ;)

My friend Kate and I went blueberry picking this evening. With our boys. Yes, it probably would have been more ideal to go alone but our husbands went golfing and knowing how close we are to the end of the blueberries, we went anyways. The boys did fine for the most part, Kate's baby sat in his stroller (he's 7 months) and Adrian tromped along behind me. I brought a few sand toys for Adrian to play with but I think that lasted all of 23 seconds. He figured out pretty quickly that I was carrying around a bucket of blueberries. Adrian loves blueberries. He would stumble over, reach his grubby little hand in, pull out 17 berries, 2 of which would make it to his mouth. I ended up picking one-handed so I could hold out berries in my hand. I figured slower picking would still bring home more berries than if I let him self serve! After a mere 40 minutes, the mosquitoes chased us out of the woods. They were horrid! I think we'll try again in a couple days. Without the boys this time. And maybe with some bug repellent.

Apparently I still don't look my age...

I just had someone come to my door to sell me an area discount card benifiting the local high school football team. By a member of the team. As in, a boy in HIGH SCHOOL. He said, "Hi...is your mom or dad home?"
You should have seen the look on his face when I said I live here. Good thing I didn't tell him I was married with a kid...

His Latest

A's friend gave him this chair for his birthday. (Isn't it cute? It even has an umbrella with his name on it!) He loves to sit in it, althought I'm not sure if he's figured out how to get into it by himself without tipping it over.


He loves to sit in his chair and look at books.


And chew on books.


And throw books on the floor so he can pick them up again.

Yeah...

This looks pretty real to me,





What do you think?

Happy Birthday to My Boys!

Today is the day we celebrate the birthdays of 2/3 of this household. Our little Adrian was born on his Daddy's birthday on a very hot summer day one year ago, today. (Although, I didn't have a clue it was so hot, I was inside in the air conditioning shaking like a leaf for the first 3 or 4 hours. And not because of the cold.) Our little 'Stinkaroo' had his head nestled in my ribs for the last few months of pregnancy...and you know what that means! Adrian was born at a healthy 8 pounds, 5 ounces. I remember my Mom laughing saying that I had 'one big baby' considering I was a pretty small girl. Most new moms, upon holding their baby for the first time, can't believe that he once fit in her belly. I never felt like that with Adrian, he seemed so tiny to me even from the start. It's amazing to me, to look back at the pictures we took and the memories we have. Before he was born, I wondered how I would be as a mom, I felt completely clueless. Now, I know that that's normal and I, like every other new mom, would learn along the way. It wasn't very hard though, instinct took over, I blinked my eyes, and he's now a year old and as happy and healthy as can be! I always say that I'm lucky because he has always been a happy little guy. Not perfect, I can't say that, but a very happy boy with no serious illness or injury along the way!


We had a birthday party on Saturday night. I had planned to have it this weekend but I realized that it wouldn't work out, so the day before, I started planning it. Nothing crazy, just a few people at our apartment for cake and ice cream. Jeff and I had a good time catching up with friends that we haven't seen all summer and Adrian had a BLAST running around with the kids. He doesn't see other kids that often so he didn't quite know what to do. I can tell you one thing, he was pumped to see them! Plus, he had a HUGE piece of cake (obviously) so that may have been part of it. Once most everyone had left, he was still running around screeching, it was so funny and unlike him to be that wild! I just wish I had taken more pictures...or any pictures at all. Jeff took pictures of Adrian with cake but then I forgot about the camera completely after that.


We have plans to go out to eat tonight. (This is a treat for me too!) Other than that, I plan to enjoy my little One-year-old until my other guy gets home!

We're home for a while

Oh man, I have some serious catching up to do on here. At least I'm not the only one slacking with posting this summer, I've noticed a lot of other bloggers have taken some time off to enjoy the summer heat!


I feel like summer is FLYing by, we've been pretty busy with trips nearly every other weekend. If I'm not cleaning up from one trip, I'm getting ready for the next! Trying to do all the normal stuff in between feels like too much when I should be outside enjoying the lake! We did enjoy it for a short time this weekend when we were camping with my family. Adrian LOVES the water. Even before Lake Superior warmed up (and it's really warm this year!) he didn't mind the cold and loved to splash and throw rocks. And eat rocks. Whatever. He was a pretty good camper, I just wasn't a very good relaxer.


He's walking like crazy now and has gotten better even over the weekend, getting his balance on uneven ground, and figuring out how to squat down and pick things up and be able to stand up again. I have a hard time with camping and letting him get dirty. I should really get over it. The few times that I did were much more enjoyable. Adrian would walk around and fall down and crawl in the dust and he would be as happy as can be. And it all washes off in the end right?? That's what I keep telling myself anyways. Everyone keeps saying that this stage is the hardest, particularly when camping. I sure hope they're right! It's easier when he's walking more and not seeing every. single. rock. on the ground.


It was so nice to hang out with my family for a few days. I just wish everyone could have been there! (Two of my brothers and two of my sisters didn't make it.) I'm not sure if this will be an annual camping trip or not but I sure hope it happens more often than it has in the past!



I had a family picture to post but upon reviewing, I decided not to because of the other reason I haven't posted. The one weekend we were home, I had an abscessed tooth. It was a miserable few days. We still don't know for sure how it happened. It was my front tooth so the dentist thinks it was from some sort of trauma to that particular area. I did get bumped there by Adrian the day before it started to hurt but that may have only been the 'trigger' that set it off. It may have been caused by braces in the first place since teeth get shifted around and sometimes the root dies. So weird, that tooth may have been dead for years and I had no idea since it never turned grey. Until it started to hurt. And oh boy, does it hurt. I've heard people complain about abscessed teeth in the past but I had no idea what they were talking about. I was basically stuck on the couch for a few days because I was absolutely exhausted from the infection. My face swelled up like a balloon, I looked like I belonged in Whoville. Of course, I knew nothing about this sort of thing so by the time I realized what it was, the weekend had arrived so I waited until Monday to see a dentist. I was referred to a specialist and lucky for me, they were able to get me in for a root canal that afternoon. The first dentist thought I would have to wait weeks to get in. I'm so thankful it's all behind me now and I'm back to normal! So, going back to my first comment about the family picture, I still didn't have my normal smile back so I look kind of goofy.

Other than that, our other excitement is car trouble. We've been trying to sell our car as a step to getting out of debt (I'm pretty sure I've mentioned this before). We had a buyer, a very patient buyer at that, but we ran into a lot of problems trying to sell it. Looking back, I'm thankful that we weren't able to sell it so easily because Jeff's truck broke down. That would have been the only vehicle we owned for at least a few weeks. After a few trips back and forth from the Copper Country, the truck is finally back in our parking lot. What a pain that was considering it broke down at the camp and he only had a day or two each week to get up there and work on it.

In case you were wondering, I can run 6 miles! Woohoo! I never knew that was possible!

Enjoy the rest of this beautiful evening!