tales of parenthood

summer backyard fun

The kids sure enjoyed our backyard this summer, at least when we were home. They spent a lot of time out there and Stella's has tan lines to prove it, despite me heavily applying sunscreen on each of the kids.

One afternoon, Stella was so tuckered out she fell asleep on Vinny!

Enjoying the kiddie pool!

Miss Sass!

The kids sure had a great summer playing in the backyard!! Stella has changed so much this summer, she's turning into a little kid an not really a baby anymore! I'm not ready for her to grow up yet!!

Zoo day... {05.12}

Kevin's mom and I have made it a tradition the last to years to go to the Minnesota Zoo the Friday after school gets out. This year was even more fun, because Stella as bigger and could actually enjoy the zoo. Addie, our little dinosaur lover and budding paleontologist really loved the dinosaur exhibit. The weather was perfect, it was warm, but not too hot. Which was a change from other times we've been to the zoo. We packed a picnic lunch and ate that about half way through our visit. The kids think it's fun to have a picnic at the zoo.

The best part about the day was Adeline identifying all of the dinosaurs for us at the zoo. Thanks Dino Dan! She could pronounce them correctly and everything. i was trying to read it off the signs for the dinos and she just spit it out like it was no big deal. I love that girl!!

Dinosaurs!

We had big plans to make it back to the zoo this summer so that Kevin could see the dinosaur exhibit too, but summer got away from us and I think this past weekend was the last weekend for the dinosaurs. We also need to renew our membership, it expired at the end of July and this was the first time in 3 years we didn't renew it. Maybe one we get a little more time, we'll get it renewed! It definitely pays for us to do the membership, considering what it costs to get in, plus parking. With having to pay for 5 of the 6 of us to get in, it's definitely worth it. I'd like to look into possibly getting a membership to the Science Museum, since Amelia and Paul are getting older and it might be something fun for the two of them. If you're a family of 4+ it's definitely worth getting a zoo membership. We always got a lot of use out of ours!

Last Day of School {May 2012}

Now that school starts again tomorrow, I suppose I better get these pictures up of the last day of school this past spring! I did a side-by-side comparison, it was fun to see how much Amelia had change in 9 months. Also it was sheer coincidence that she wore the same thing on the first day of school and the last day of school, but it sure shows how much she grew this past year!

These are the teacher gifts I made for Amelia's teacher and for the para in her classroom. I found the idea on Pinterest and printed out the tags and filled the cups with Crystal Light packets. Kind of a fun, easy gift for her teachers. I had also done them for Paul's preschool teachers.

Can't believe it's time for the kids to start school again tomorrow, the summer flew right by!

Graduation Weekend. {05.12}

I'm still sooooooo far behind on my blogging, it's not even funny. The kids start school tomorrow and I made a promise to myself that I need to get caught up so I can post first day of school pictures tomorrow. I had uploaded a lot of our pictures to our blog back at the end of July when we went on vacation with the intention of getting the blog updated while we were at the cabin, well the weather was gorgeous the entire time and in the evenings we visited with my grandparents or my cousins were hanging out at the cabin so I didn't get much of a chance at our blog. So the time is now and I need to get it caught up!!

Memorial weekend we spent the weekend at my grandparents house for my cousin Courtney's graduation. It was also the last weekend I got to spend with my sister and niece before they moved to Montana. Since it was a while ago, I don't remember a lot of the highlights from the weekend, but I do know that we did enjoy ourselves and that the guys did get the docks in at the cabin. I did get quite a few pictures that weekend. I still remember the day Courtney was born, I'm still having a hard time believe she graduated and that she just started college last week. She shouldn't be that old already! I'm eleven years older than Courtney and Courtney is eleven years older than Amelia. I think it's kind of cool.

Courtney waiting for the ceremony to start.

HHS Class of 2012

The choir teacher invited all the of alumni that were in choir to come participate in the ceremony and sing with the choir. My dad and uncle went up to sing with everyone, kind of neat for Courtney to have her dad, uncles and brothers participating in her ceremony.