Masher is 4

I can't believe it. He's four? Today is his fourth birthday. I just need to keep repeating it I guess since I can't seem to believe it.

When I found out I was pregnant with Andrew (AKA Masher)I was a little bit surprised. Cailin was only about 7 or 8 months old, so they were going to be, shall we say close in age? We knew we wanted more children, but this soon? We must be crazy.

Well, we are crazy, but for different reasons and that boy is an amazing gift.

I was HUGE and pregnant and we knew we were having a boy. I walked in the MS Walkathon just a few weeks before I was due. It was a beautiful day but I was HUGE. Really big.

see? really big....

I remember going to my OB appointment and telling the doctor, 'look here, see the outline of his foot?' as he was kicking my stomach, I outlined his foot - 'this babe is rather large and he doesn't seem to be making any moves to come out on his own, maybe he needs a little help?? please??"
So the doctor planned an induction and he was born.

June 29th at 2:12pm.

10 and a half pounds.

Wow.

"You're right, he is big" was what the doctor said. This was after his shoulders got stuck and they had to do some fast moving to get him unstuck so we didn't have to visit the OR. But alas, he was freed, and bruised (poor babe) but no permanent damage - Thank you GOD! And he was with us.

Andrew, meet daddy.

Andrew, meet mommy.

Andrew, sit there looking cute with your finger on your face like you're thinking.

Good boy.

He slept a lot in his swing. In fact I thought he'd never grow OUT of wanting to sleep in that swing. In my more desperate moments, I'd have images of him at five years old having that swing in his bed somehow.

Yes, that swing.
Well, now he's four and guess what? He doesn't sleep in that swing anymore. He grew out of it not long after that picture.

But here he is now, at four years old.

Here he was at one.

At two.

At three

And now my big four year old!


Awww, that smile, that look melts my heart (and I'm sure will melt the hearts of many girls when he hits high school... sigh)

Happy Birthday Masher! I love you lots and lots!

Bubbles

We were outside this past weekend playing and I pulled out the bubbles. The kids were having a blast. It was kind of funny because at first, Jake (our dog) was really scared of them. Not that bubbles would hurt him or anything, but he'd run away. Soon he realized that they were harmless though and decided to chase them. We all laughed and laughed.. Andrew would blow them right at him and when Jake would try to catch them in his mouth, Andrew would squeal. Bubbles, hours of entertainment for boys AND dogs. Who knew?

"You must be from outta town?!"

My brother John, his wife Melissa and their son (my nephew) (obviously) recently came for a visit. They live in DC and we don't get to see them very often, so it was really fun to be able to spend some time with them here.

We had a big picnic at our house and some friend of John and Melissa's came up. Linda and her two children, Aidan and Alish came for a visit. It was so fun to meet our new friends and have some time to play and visit together.

We spent time with them in the city for a few days and then we all packed up and headed south (and east) to my mom's place in Wisconsin.

The kids read stories with their Oma.

We traveled to the local lock and dam to watch the fisherman try their hand at fishing. There were also several boats traveling through the lock, so we got to see the water go up, then the water go down. Then the water go up, and down again - you get the picture.


In order to get to the lock, you park your car (obviously - again sorry), then head across the train tracks to the water's edge. The only thing is that they have a pedestrian bridge that goes OVER the train tracks. The big hope is to be ON the bridge when a train goes by. Last fall, we did this pilgrimage and we stood on top of the bridge for a long, long, long time. Well maybe it was only 15-20 minutes or so, but that felt like a lifetime to the kids. And alas, that time we saw no trains. Which is also amazing, because it seems like a train travels through that area about one every 5 seconds, but obviously that isn't really the case. So this time we got to SEE a train go underneath. The kids were a little excited.


Then we headed to Lark Toys in Kellogg. It is quite the place. I've shared about it before, but the kids LOVE going there. They have an awesome indoor carousel and of course we had to ride on it.

Andrew was trying to talk us into buying him an 'early birthday present' of the Thomas train "Hero" from the toy store. It was a no-go and there were some tears shed as we dashed out the door (to avoid a huge scene), but we did enjoy the trip (again) to Lark Toys none the less.

Andrew and his dad mowed Oma's lawn. Turns out Oma has a lot of lawn.. But Andrew didn't mind, he was happy to be perched on top of the lawn tractor for over an hour. The first thing he said when he got off the mower is "Oma has a lot of grass - I am REALLY thirsty!". Spoken like a true farmer!


The kids played very well together and really enjoyed the time together.

Jake found Oma's pond. He decided it was fun to swim in. Turns out that pond water was pretty stinky and so was Jake. Swell.
So we gave him a bath too. And he smelled considerably better!

And come to think of it, the adults had a really nice time together as well!

"Check this out, Jake took 4th in his class...."

This is the text I received from my husband this past week. I was in shock.

You see, Jake is our 8 month old golden retriever puppy, in case you are new to this blog. And you see, he's been kind of a handful shall we say (to put it nicely) since his arrival with our family.

Tuesday nights I usually take the kids to swimming at Foss Swim School, Mike takes the dog to obedience class. Needless to say Tuesdays are kind of a whirlwind in our house. So I'm at swimming and Cailin is just finishing up when I get that text.

I then said outloud 'what, he got 4th place out of 4 dogs??'. Ok, that wasn't nice, but then when Mike (and Jake) returned home, I found out that there are actually 12 dogs in the class.

Ok, so this is the same dog that in this week alone, has broken through the fence on the garden, eaten my brocoli, eaten any semi-ripe or fully ripe strawberries, destroyed my rhubard, shredded the kids' trampoline, ripped the cover off of our outdoor firepit and shredded, ripped the internet cable out of the ground and what else.....well that's probably enough for one week (hopefully). So I was a bit suprised to see that not only had he passed his class but actually received a ribbon for 4th place. wow -really?

And as it turns out, as annoying and destructive as that dog is, he's smart. He knows all of the commands and actually does them! So maybe someday he'll follow the commmand "DON'T DESTROY ANYTHING!" please? And maybe that destructive, annoying, puppy stuff WILL fade someday and I'll actually like him more?? well, we'll see about that one.

But otherwise he's doing well and for the dog lovers, of course we had to add the updated photos of him for you.

I tried

to get a cute shot of Cailin on the train. On our recent trip up north, we stopped at the Lake Superior Railroad Museum, which is a must-stop for our train-enthused family. I figured I'd post a few of these as my other post is a little longer.

It was funny because she was walking by this train at the museum and I thought - "Hey, that would be cute to have both kiddos posing on the steps" but Andrew would not have any part of it. He was too busy to stop playing to pose for some silly pictures.



So Cailin did pose for some. Then she got silly. Which is normal.


then we got the money shot, or at least a decent shot.


goof ball!

Planes, Trains and Automobiles and Kayaks??

Well, we maybe just trains and automobiles and kayaks. Don't let the title fool you, we didn't really go on any airplanes this time, but we did do the rest! Well, we didn't really 'do' the kayaks, but we saw some daring folks using them.

Recently, we headed up north and spent some time in the Duluth area. We camped at Jay Cooke State Park which was awesome!


The scenery was amazing!



Jay Cooke has the St. Louis River running through it and man, was it gorgeous!

The weather was perfect!

The kids had fun!

The adults had fun too (you'll have to imagine it, since we had the camera in our hands most of the time, of course we don't get too many shots of the adults in this family)


They have a suspension foot bridge that goes over the river and Andrew found that it was great fun to bounce on the bridge and jump

and jump

and jump some more.

While we were jumping, or rather, while Andrew was jumping we saw a group of Kayaks pass underneath us. It amazes me how these folks can maneuver around all the rocks safely, but I'll have to admit, it sure looked like fun.

We went to Duluth and checked out the Lake Superior Train Museum (we always have to stop there)


and the Aquarium.

We had a wonderful time, can't wait to go back!

Somewhere over the.....

Rainbow....



We had a very pretty sky not too long ago. I don't have a wide angle lens, but this was yet another moment I thought - "Gee, I'd really like to get me one of them wide angle lens thingys..." or something like that.