Race for a Cure and other summery stuff

 

 Well I lost my camera for a week or two so I have very few pictures to share this week and on top of that life has been more than a little crazy- more about that later. 

We went to race for a cure with my mom for what is probably the 12 or 14th year in a row- it is such a great day and so very inspiring to see all of these strong women banding together. We also like to spoil Mooze a little and have some fuN!! 

 Here she is with her support team laughing at grand-dan of course! 

Jackson also celebrated his 2nd birthday that day, so our day just continued with more fun. AFter that busy weekend I stayed in Baraboo to help Bluffview out with immersion. We camped at Devil's Lake and of course it rained! Petey stayed on his first overnight without mom or dad and loved it!

After all of this life started to get crazy. Garrick was on the roof of our new little shed in the backyard- remember the concrete? and slipped and fell. No big deal right? He is on ladders all of the time for work- well this time was his bad luck, he cut his left hand pretty badly on some sharp flashing on the way down and cut through the tendon on one of his fingers... this means he had surgery, a month of taking it VERY easy and no biking... I think that and the fact that he can't change Pete's dipes very well are 2 of the hardest things for him. He is so tough though- we were at the hospital all day today and he had the nurses laughing at him and loving him- my dad came to watch pete- it was so nice to not worry about what he was up to and to know he was having fun! Garrick says that he will take a picture of his finger on Monday at his check-up for all of you to see!

Memorial Weekend

We started out by taking 4 kids under the age of 3 out on the river to splash, grill out and ski- well they didn't ski but we did!! It was so fun!

 Then we had a super fun visit from Ms. Kim Piehl! She riled Petey up before bed, gave him bathes, played in the pool with him and took him to the rock at SMU. We know how to have a good and BUSY time!

Then we had MORE visitors! Garrick's parents and their friends Bill and Jean came to bike and hike! It was a little hot for all of that, but they are tough!

Finally, we got to hang out with one of our favorite almost one year olds for the afternoon! Oscar had fun Incrediblocking and scooting along our windows and Petey liked showing him his toys.


Exhausted yet? I was!

Concrete, Trucks and Tantrums

We poured our pad for the garden shed this weekend. We had some great friends come to help us out and got the job done pretty fast!

Petey liked watching the trucks and wheelbarrows all over the place!

And got to make his hand prints in the cement. (Payton did too, but we undid hers!)

Afterwards, we took a mountain bike ride, went to the playground and got ice cream with Grand-dan and Mooze. We are pretty sure that Peter's ice cream intake was bigger than Garrick's taking into account his size.

Garrick found a bunch of little boards and made a road/obstacle course for Pete to drive his trucks around in. As you can see it takes a lot of concentration!

We were at Target last night looking for porch furniture. We rolled past the ball pen and Pete of course saw it and started to say ball, ball. I of course said yeah, look at them all! As we continued our way down the aisle he started to look around me and was saying, mama, mama, mo-, mo- (more, more) ball, ball, mo-, mo-. Until we turned the corner and they were out of sight... but not out of mind- the tears started and Garrick and I felt like pretty much the meanest parents in the entire world- I mean- who denies their kid a ball? Peter did NOT get a new ball last night... Poor kid.

Finally, this morning I was in a meeting for school and Pete was just walking around playing and reading books by himself. All of the sudden I hear a sucking sound in the kitchen. I go to see what he's doing and he is here:

Sitting on the table sticking his hand in the cereal bowl drinking the milk out of it. All of our chairs are now against the wall away from the table.


I hope you are all staying cool this week! It is 9:00 and 86*... whew.

Summer is BACK

Garrick's sister and family were in town from California- the ones that we went to see last year- and so we voyaged up to his mom's house to get together with everyone. We played with toys, blew bubbles and ate  a lot of food. Peter had so much fun watch Ben and I think he learned a few tricks from him!

It has been 80* (up to 90 this weekend) so I'd say that after a few cold weeks summer is totally back! Kelly and I took the kids to the river to try splashing in the water- Finn was a little smarter than Pete and didn't want to get wet *cold* but Petey spent a lot of time splashing in the shallow water, watching the trucks on the highway bridge and playing in the sand.




Then to end the night we went out to what used to be called Smith Farms- it has a new name- with Lindsay, Chris and Oscar for homemade fire baked pizza. It is only about 20 minutes away from our house and is OH SO DELICIOUS. They only bake on Thursday nights so it is a little crazy there. The farm is also a CSA and they have chickens, cows, a few sheep and alpacas running around. Pete loved watching the animals and did many loops checking them out. The chickens were his fav though. Garrick saw me checking everything out and got the message... this is something that I could do and be very happy. My goal for this summer: To be a mini-CSA for some of our friends in Winona!! *You guys better get your requests in now!*

Spelunking

We went out to WHitewater State Park for a hike yesterday since for the first time in over 2 weeks I had a day off!!! It was so nice and relaxing to just get some yard work done, go for a longer run and to spend time with my 3 favorite guys (Garrick, Petey and Scout)!

We ended our hike at Chimney Rock which is somewhere we don't get to go too often since it is "the destination" at Whitewater and it is so busy in the summer. But it is a big rock that the entire bottom is tunneled out. We spent some time playing in there!

Pete thought it was so funny to crawl around- and stand up!

It was just like mother's day a week late but I'll take it!

Things are growin' around here!

My little munch is starting to grow up so big! He is saying "more" "cat" "dog" "dada" "mama" and something that is a new sound that sounds like "chicken" and is pointing at everything- once in a while he will point out something that we ask him to show us. He climbs on everything, loves to open the oven door- we are working on stopping that-, gives kisses when he feels like it and loves to read books and play farm. (and NO I don't give him pop to drink- he just likes to carry around the cans from the back porch)

Speaking of the chickens- they are also growing so fast! I am glad we got them when they were so little- they are so cute though and are getting most of their feathers in which is nice so we don't have to worry about them at night anymore! Pete and I like to dig up worms in the garden and feed the chickens them out of our hands- the big black one in the front's name is Pepper- we haven't officially named any of the others yet- she is the troubbbble maker and the cheese.

Raspberries are growing, strawberries are growing, I have broccoli, beans and lettuce planted outside. I am just getting so excited for the summer to come and to spend Petey's nap times out there working!

These are some of the tomato plants that I have inside that are waiting for it to get really warm outside that I grew from a seed- I think that is just amazing still...

Most of the tulips are done growing, but the iris's and some other bulbs are starting! Later this week I am going out to a friend's farm to get a truck load of rocks to edge out the gardens- can't wait!

I guess that one last thing to mention to watch for growth is ME! We are going to have another little member of our family joining us in November which puts me at just over 13 weeks preggo! Since we already have a Peter Pan at our house, we are calling this little one Captain Hook. I am already starting to pop out a little bit- I know that with #2 you show a lot sooner so we'll have to see how that works out. I am feeling pretty good- just tired mostly- I'm done a pretty good job this time of running through the first trimester- last time I didn't do a good job at all- and have only had a couple of really bad days. I am still deciding about what/if any races that I am going to do for fun this summer and we are planning a couple of family/ Garrick&Erin trips too! Hope you are excited as we are about watching our little family grow!

PeeWee's (Pewit's) nest

We went to Madison for the weekend to visit Matt and Lara, to go to a family friend's wedding- dad and her dad have skied together for a LONG time, and then then next morning we went for a little hike at PeeWee's Nest to see the river, the rocks and plants. My mom was at work so she missed out on not having fun with us... we took some pictures so that she could live vicariously through them at least. We can't wait to go back and go swimming this summer and then to take Petey when  he is a little older to jump off of the high low rocks into some of the swimming holes.