Playgrounds and Pools!

Here is our happy little girl who is getting more and more independent and fun by the day!

She has found her own special "routes" at the playgrounds we go to that she has discovered she can do by herself so that is pretty exciting to see. A little nerve racking at times but I have to let her do it and she does great! IF she falls, that a different story but so far she has always been just fine. Just hurts her pride.

Scooting through this tunnel and running around to do it again was her fav route today.

And playing by these poles was also a hit...hmmm.

posing.

fun times in the tunnel!

And more fun by the pole. Peek a Boo!

Such a nice view at Lake Johanna!

We went to a baby shower on Sunday morning but apparently Linnea thought it was a baby bath. hahaha!

She saw the 9 month old who lives at the house hosting the shower and she immediately tried to take her dress off. It was pretty hot as so much of this summer has been, so Linnea won and got to swim naked with a little baby. We are ready for cooler fall weather.

Its not a party until someone takes of their clothes! This is not the first time she did this either! Oh well! Toddlers will be toddlers! Nudity is allowed!

Veggies and Flowers!

So a few months ago I posted pics of our before garden...here are finally some after pictures of the garden! It turned out pretty good but we still need to work on our green thumb or maybe get new soil. Either way, we ended up with enough veggies and pretty flowers!

I have made one batch of salsa and plan to make more. I'm also going to attempt spaghetti sauce and maybe some canning. Tonight I made stuffed tomatoes! We ate most of cukes plain or on sandwiches. YUM! I was hoping to make pickles with our own but I'm not sure any more will sprout so I will take some of my parents cukes off their hands and make some with theirs.

As for the zuchinni...well that grew great! I have made bread, cookies, added it to spaghetti sauce, made a chicken casserole with it have sauteed it and we still have three huge ones picked and more growing! Maybe a picture will come of that!

It has been fun trying to new recipes and I have many more I'm going to attempt. It's maybe more fun for me than Chris and Linnea though.

Oh well!

Our peppers. Kind of small but still quite tasty!

Our HUGE zuchinni!

lots of tomatoes and cucumbers and there were a few snap peas hiding in the back and we tried broccoli to the side but it didnt work.

lots of beans but lots of them got attacked by something so we didn't get to eat many.

and the pretty flowers!

4 Years!!!

4 years was ago was a special day in an apple orchard...we decided to celebrate it this year with our daughter at Izzy's Ice Cream in St. Paul after a pasta dinner at home. We had pasta at our wedding and love it so why not have it again! My wonderful husband also brought home a sweet card and roses! We have been so happy and having so much fun these last 4 years! Here are some pictures from our special day. Maybe for 5 years we will go on a trip! We have done plenty of traveling about this summer and having dates here and there so we had a low key but lovely anniversary!

Lorraine Park Splash Pool

The Meyers had a great weekend! Friday night started with me working at the Twins game and Linnea and Daddy having an evening together.

They had a blast and I have videos to prove it...those are coming soon.

Saturday started with a very foggy, hot and humid 10 mile run for me, the delivery of our new queen mattress and frame, cleaning and baking brownies and then off to the Twins game we went with Sarah and Allison who had never been to Target Field before.

Chris and I haven't been there without Linnea so that was fun for us! Linnea got to hang out with our friends the Wallins who also have a toddler so it worked out great.

The only thing not so good about the day was that the bedframe could not make it up our tight stairwell so for now we are sleeping on the mattress on the floor, but it is still worlds better than our old situation. We both were waking up sooooo incredibly sore which makes just makes your day not so fun.

Sunday we had a family fun day!

We went to South St. Paul's Splash Pool at Lorraine Park. It was so much fun! Chris hasn't been to one with us yet and since Sunday was this particular pool's last day for the summer we thought we better take advantage.

There was even a waterslide there so Linnea got to experience that for the first time! She went down with mommy a few times and daddy a few time. Maybe next year she will go alone! Here we are at the bottom.

And here we are playing by the steps. This splash park is basically a playground in the water and it is awesome. Cant wait to go next year!

The rest of the day was napping, cleaning one of our cars, making homemade salsa from our garden veggies and grilling!

Jimmy Johns!

Someone is very happy to be eating Jimmy John's! I think Linnea likes sandwiches as much as her mommy. Good thing JJ's makes them so fast you'll freak because we were starving when we got here!

We had a lunch/playground playdate with Katie and Isabelle on Friday!

It was lots of fun!

Playtime!

Linnea has really been doing a good job of entertaining herself lately! She loves to rock and rock on this giraffe...well okay not for a super long time, but she rocks, climbs off, climbs on and repeats. Every now and then she stands on him and peers out the window which makes mommy and daddy slightly nervous.

We went to a new place on Wednesday morning and I know we will be going back! We went to the Java Train which is a very kid friendly coffee shop/ restaurant. So kid friendly that they had a musician there so we met some friends there and truly enjoyed it! We then headed to the dr because L has had a nagging cough but all we learned was that it was a cough. So we proceeded on to remeet our friends at a park and then lunch!

I just think this is a cute picture! I feel like she really looks like a little girl in this one. It;s so exciting to see her grow and learn new things! She catches on quicker and quicker to what mommy and daddy are doing and saying. We will catch her doing something and realize she is doing it because she saw us do it. What a cute copycat!

And here she is wearing one of my tank tops. She found it and was adamant about putting it on! so we did. And boy was it long but she thought she was something in it. You cant tell but she is helping daddy with something that was very annoying this week. We have had road/yard work going on like all summer and thanks to that we had some furry four legged "friends" make their way in to our home. As Brian put it, our mouse hotel. Well thanks to Brian and Chris and Linnea as you can see here we put some traps up and havent seen them since. Linnea and I got quite startled two mornings this week though. Yuck.

Onto happier things...Linnea really figured out this teapot this week! She loved that she could push the button and make it sing to her! So we did that for a good 20 minutes one afternoon!

This week we also went to grandma's with Megan, Dylan and Ian. It was quite the lunch party for great grandma! She loved having a home cooked meal by Megan and 3 of her great grandkids visit. I think she enjoyed Megan and I too but her face lights up when she sees the lil ones!

Telescope

Hmmmm....this thing looks familiar and interesting...

I can push it in...

Oh that's right I got this at Toddler Tuesday during the scavenger hunt last week! She has hung on to this cute purple telescope for two weeks! We should let MOA know it was a hit!

Barney is a Dinosaur...

If you are wondering what this face is all about just see below...

Linnea was introduced to Barney on Monday August 16th. Barney was performing at the Minnesota Zoo for Sprout Day. The Zoo also put on a little scavenger hunt. The kids got a sticker in their Sprout book when they made it to about 5 different animals.

Now back to Barney, I'm not gonna lie Linnea has seen her fair share of new characters on tv but I have steered clear of the big purple dinosaur. Nothing against him or his fans, he just isn't my favorite. I watched a LOT of him back when I was a special ed aide. Sometimes you can just take so much Barney. Anyways...despite this face she did enjoy the show! It was really quite cute! Lots of singing and dancing and actions she could do so that was exciting for her!

Before Barney we walked around with some friends of ours to get our stickers. But I did get a pic of Linnea walking like a big girl at the Zoo!

After the show we went to the Zoo's playroom where she found some books she had to run to show me...

She played with this maze/knob thing

and then was tired so took a rest on this neat chair and then we headed home!

A Day at Willow River

We had a wonderful day at Willow River State Park this past Saturday. We were hoping to give Linnea the full camping experience involving a tent and stay over with my parents, aunt and uncle and cousins on Friday night but the weather did not allow for that. And we couldn't stay Saturday night because I had to work Sunday at Target Field. We did still get together at Julie and Bob's on Friday tho and have hot dogs and corn on the cob. The same thing we would have had had we been camping!

Oh well, we still enjoyed our whole day at the campsite.

We got there around 10am and did not leave until about 8:30pm!

One of the first things we did was hit the beach! I had run earlier and was still hot from that! We also did a mini hike to meet up with Brian and Megan and their boys as they finished the long walk to and from the Willow Falls. Brian had to leave around 11am for softball so they did the hike earlier than we could get there. We are definitely not morning people.

Daddy and daughter!

Mom and Dad/ Grandma and Grandpa

After cooling off in the water and fueling up with lunch we made the trek down to the falls. And then the trek back up. And I'm not joking when I say back up. It is near a mile up!!!

Someone got tired on the way down to the falls so she missed them...we will bring you back squirt!

Linnea woke up shortly after getting back up from the falls and decided it was very important to water the campsite.

off she goes.

Watering gets very hot...so in the little "pool" she goes!

Standing in it is much easier.

Along with watering the weeds and splashing around Linnea did love running on the trail behind the campsite and playing in the tent once it cooled off. I think she will do just fine if we ever sleep in one.

After our dinner of taco salad which Erik, Lisa, Dylan and Jake attended we made pudgy pies! Julie found a recipe involving crescent rolls and chocolate chips which was delicious even tho they burned! Unfortunately I was quite busy entertaining the kids with grandpa that I didn't get any pics of Erik and the family :( So a picture of Jake will come another time. He is already one month old and doing well!

Mommy and Linnea nearing the end of the day.

Linnea's first campfire...I know it doesn't look like much of one. But that is because we needed ashes to do the pies!

Now it doesn't get much better than this. Bedtime stories with grandma by the fire.

Despite our efforts of giving her the okay to fall asleep on the way home by putting her jammies on and reading books she still stayed awake and jabbered the whole way! The girl falls asleep during the day in the car but apparently not at night anymore.

oh well! She still slept great and we are looking forward to an actual camping trip before the snow comes!