Surprise visit

Last week my Dad sent Wyatt, Sadie and Blake an email saying that he was going to be in town working his company's building at the state fair just for one day and wanted to know if we could meet him for lunch and possibly some mini-donuts. The kids were so excited to go to the fair and see Pops. I did, however, have to tell them that we wouldn't be doing much other than lunch with Pops because we were planning on going as a family over the weekend. But a little time is better than none!

Wyatt's comfort level with rides is right here....

but Sadie has a bit of a different sense of adventure (or should I say she actually has a sense of adventure?!)

I was amazed at the rides she wanted to go on, despite knowing that she'd be going alone. She didn't care a bit and took her tickets right up to the ride attendants and walked right on the rides, much to the astonishment of her big brother.

(I love this picture...you can tell she knows she is doing something her big brother wouldn't do and she thinks she's pretty brave--which she is!! But you can also see that this ride is a 2-person motorcycle ride and of course she was the only one on it and didn't mind a bit!)

She wanted to go on the slide alone as well, but I kinda felt bad for her and told her I would go on this with her 1st.

Then she went right up all on her own..

Blake and Pops

Sadie was able to convince Wyatt to go on the little swings with her....she had a few other rides she wanted to do, but I told her she could only do one more and she picked one that Wyatt agreed to join her on...notice the different expressions.

...hanging on to his sister...

And what trip to the fair would be complete without some mini-donuts?

Those things are a small slice of heaven right there....

..enjoying his first taste of a mini-donut...

We had a great time with my Dad and thankfully, the rain held off while we were there. We only spent about an hour there, but it was great to see my Dad and for the kids to go on a few rides. We went back on Sunday as a family.....many more pictures to come!!

Boys Not Allowed

On Saturday, my good friend Jen and I took our daughters Sadie and Ellison to the American Girl Bistro for lunch. We had such a great time with just the girls (Jen and I both have 5 yr. old sons as well as sons under 1 yr). We rarely have anytime where its strictly girls and this lunch was so much fun for that reason alone. Plus, we were at the American Girl store, where everything is very 'girly' and caters to the girls' tastes. So they loved the attention and being treated like 'big girls'.

I will let the pictures speak for themselves...the waitress brought tea and dessert for the babies as well and the girls loved it!

We had such a great time and were able to squeeze in a bit of shopping as well. Can't wait to do more of these 'girl times' in the future!

Blake--9 mos. old

This month has been filled with change for Blake...probably more than any other month of his life! He is still a very happy baby, smiling almost all the time.

But as you can tell from this picture, he was just itchin' to get moving.

...sleeping...

He has mastered the 'SO BIG' move....so much so that people are always asking him to do it and I think he may be getting sick of elementary requests.

"Something more difficult please, people"

Had to include this picture of Blake and his big brother....neither look too happy with their mother's relentless camera work

MOVING!! Yes, Blake officially became a 'crawler' this month

..and loves playing peek-a-boo with the drapes

and has two teeth! If you look closely, you can see them on the bottom

..and within just about a week and a half of crawling, he began pulling himself up to everything....not wasting anytime

He is constantly impressing us but I think he's not nearly as surprised by his new accomplishments as we are. In addition to the crawling, he has also learned to say 'Da-da' and wave goodbye.

And despite having battling a double ear infection for the last week and a cold on top of it, he's still quite happy!

Learning experience

Last weekend we had our good friends, Erik and Angie Kuch, over for the day to help us build some shelves in our garage. (Well, Erik and Matt built the shelves and Angie and I hung out with the kids.) The guys had talked about the shelves a bit prior to Saturday and Matt and I had drawn out 'plans' for the dimensions. Matt made a trip to Home Depot that morning to pick up all the lumber (as well as a few new essentials he would need, like a circular saw...which he was so excited about!) The Kuchs got here and about the first hour was spent like this......

Then they moved on to the ladder and began measuring a few things.....

(using Erik's chalk line....a highlight of the various tools they had!)

They then took a break for lunch as we realized we didn't have the correct drill bit for the screws Matt got. So after borrowing one from a neighbor and making sure they had everything they would need, they went to work. Ang and I were inside while the little ones slept (Wy and Sades were up north with in my in-laws for the weekend).

After an hour or so, we came out to see this.....

Ang and I, as well as Erik and Matt, were very impressed with their work. But of course, what would a project like this be with Erik and Matt together without a bit of this...

We laughed a lot and joked a lot, but the guys did such a great job.

A few questionable moments between the two....

Impressive work!!!

After it was all done and they were cleaning up the garage, we came out to admire their work and Coby jumped right in to help the guys out...you know, playing with sawdust...

Coby and Blake had a great time together as well.....it was fun just having the two of them for the day and Ang and I got to do a little shopping together as well.

The shelving turned out amazing, we had a great time, the guys worked hard, sweated, and laughed a lot!! We are so thankful for such great friends and look forward to the next project....probably at their house next time!