Linnea got her first experience of one of mom's favorite places! A winery! We went to Alexis Bailey Winery on Sunday to celebrate my uncle and cousins birthday. It was kind of a cold day but we were bundled up and had a great time. We were inside for a little while where there was a band playing and Linnea seemed to like that.
A few weeks ago Gabe, Courtney and their almost 2 year old Caleb came to visit! We went to the Como Zoo together and sadly didn't take any pictures but we did take a few at the BBQ we had at grandmas. It was a beautiful day!
This past weekend Linnea got to meet five more family members! Owen, Kathy, Kim, Ben and their almost one year old Eoin drove from Colorado to visit. It was so fun to see the big boys play together and watch Linnea roll on the floor and look at them. We are looking forward to seeing the "Owens" again in July and introduce Linnea to the rest of the family living in Colorado.
This picture above is Linnea happily playing on the floor!
This picture above is Courtney holding the kiddoes at the BBQ at grandmas. Caleb wasnt so sure about mom holding Linnea, but once he got up there too he was better! SO cute!
On Memorial Day my parents came over and we did some landscaping and gardening for 8 hours!! It was a beautiful day for it and Linnea was out helping us from her little chair!
She insisted grandma take a break and read this very good book with her! Grandma didn't mind at all!
She also needed to be held by daddy and grandpa! I don't think they minded the break either!
Dad worked very hard in our backyard using the wooden planks we had to create a garden. We LOVE it and are anxiously waiting the arrival of all our veggies! We planted cucumbers, zucchini, green and yellow beans, snap peas, some peppers and of course tomatoes! We had some berries already there so we will see how they do.
I also planted some flowers in this little patch just outside our side door.
This is the beautiful retaining wall in our front yard...here is to hoping it looks better than last year!! Thankfully we had some experienced green thumbs helping us this year.
We are very excited about our garden and hope Mother Nature can keep giving us some rain mixed in with the summer sunshine!
Well since I'm a little over 5 months old now and seem to be having a bigger appetite my mommy and daddy thought it would be fun to try even more foods beyond the rice cereal. So here I am having some squash in my cute shirt from Florida (thanks Melissa!)!! It looked weird but tasted pretty good. Mommy mixed it with some rice cereal so it would be a little easier for me. Such a nice lady. 
Open wide! Here it comes! I have also tried banana oatmeal and rice cereal with applesauce. I wasnt so sure about that!
I'm way bigger than that elephant now!!
Okay so it happened again...I wanted these pictures in a different order, pretty much the opposite of what they are now but oh well...you can just read the captions and figure out the order of events! As you may have read in a previous post I took a long weekend trip to support two of the girls I cared for in Girls Hope New Orleans graduate. It was so much fun too see them again and see how far they have come from the little 6th graders we knew them as. It was also nice to see their parents and be remembered by them too. Both girls are headed to college in the fall which is so amazing and wonderful. That is a huge goal of the program and they both reached it with flying colors! yay! I am so proud of them! 
Here are a drenched Julie and Amy on the streetcar. We had big plans for Sunday. We wanted to walk to the streetcar, ride it to our favorite park to go for a walk, go out for lunch and then ride the streetcar back to our hotel and get ready for the girls graduation party. Well, those plans got interrupted by New Orleans rainy weather! We made it to the streetcar and lunch but skipped the walk. We got wet enough walking to the streetcar so we skipped another rainy walk. As you can see we are wearing Bourbon Street ponchos...talk about touristy! Oh well! We had fun!
This is the Courtyard of our Best Western French Quarter Hotel. We enjoyed breakfast here every morning. There was a pool but we sadly we didnt have time to use it.
Just me being silly by my favorite street sign!
Jackson Square
Yummy breakfast of Cafe Au Lait and Beignets at Cafe Du Monde on our last day in the Big Easy.
The original Girls Hope New Orleans family minus one of the houseparents. The woman on the far left graduated when we were there and the next two are the proud graduates this year!
Us enjoying the Cats Meow on Bourbon Street saturday night. We only made it out Saturday night since Friday we got to have dinner and play Clue with our girls at their house and Sunday we were celebrating their graduation.
A picture of us during our day in the French Quarter. We just love it!
The Girls Hope house and the family there now plus Julie and I! This was before the delicious dinner they made for us. 
My first Mother's Day was wonderful! It started the Thursday before by going to grandmas with my mom, aunt, cousin and of course Linnea. We enjoyed some dessert, punch and listening to a harpist. Cheryl and Laura even won some flowers!
Here we are!
This is in Woodbury at my parents house on actual Mother's Day. Linnea looks so cute in her bonnet from grandma!
All the mommies with the baby!
The Meyers family of three! Thanks for a fun Mother's Day! I loved the pancakes made by my hubby and daughter and of course the gift certificate to a spa. Cant wait to use it! And the plant we got from my parents looks great in our garden.
Hi everyone! It's Linnea here! I just wanted to show you how strong I'm getting! I can stay on my tummy much longer and am starting to push myself up. It's very hard work but it's getting easier with all this practice mommy and daddy are making me do. Here are some pictures to prove it:
I'm not quite big enough for this exersaucer you can me in below but I wanted to try it out for a few minutes anyways. Grandma and Grandpa found this one for $3 at a garage sale. And then this weekend mommy found one for our house at a garage sale also for $3. What a steal! I can't wait to use it! Uncle Brian's friend Megan is letting me borrow her jumperoo which I am WAY EXCITED to get jumping in! Hopefully mommy sets it up today so I can try it out! Thanks guys!
I really like these rings!
