duluth

joel's parents came out for a visit around the end of june. during their stay decided to head up to duluth, mn for a few days. duluth is a beautiful historic town located on lake superior. it is a major shipping town so there are numerous large ships that come through daily. duluth also has really neat lighthouses and amazing architecture. we stayed pretty busy exploring the city, swimming, visiting museums, bike riding (i'm sure we were quite a sight) watching the ships, shopping, enjoying the local restaurants, and venturing outside the town to take in some of the area's natural beauty. we all had a great time, but were exhausted by the time we got home. i hope we are able to go again soon!

goose berry falls

fore!

yesterday we all went to visit barry, bridget and their kids. we were very excited to meet baby dylan for the first time. and what a sweet little guy he is! of course joel and barry wanted to do some golfing, and since they offered to take the two oldest kids with them, bridget and i decided they could go. :) it was a beautiful day and i heard they all had a wonderful time. joel always tells me what a great teacher barry is (he must be a patient one too!). isaac is a natural on the course as you can see by his impressive stance. it's was lauren's first time golfing and joel said she loved it. once they returned home, we were treated to a delicious dinner! thank you bridget and barry for all your hospitality!

new camera

two nights ago i bought a new camera. i am so excited to finally have my own small one and not have to rely on joel's huge, expensive one. so i have had lots of fun these past few days taking lots of pictures. my subjects may not be quite as enthused with my new purchase, but they all have been good sports. so here's what we've been up to these past few days.....

fun at the park

ryan has 5 teeth that have broken through, yay!

making a garden. ryan ingested a bit of sand on this outing.

at home

so cute, even with some chocolate pudding on her face! :)


story time with dad


breakfast in the backyard


johnny-jump-up

snack/play time

ryan apparently likes the big kid cheetos and not the baby ones!


bath time

daddy time

someone was suddenly very interested in and had a lot of questions about mechanical limbs. anything to prolong going to bed!

10 months old!

ryan is 10 months old now. so hard to believe he is going on one year old. he has been such a sweet little boy. very smiley and happy. he loves being held and isn't too interested in crawling or getting around on his own. lauren was just the opposite. the two of them are playing together more and more, which is very cute to watch. she comes up with very creative nicknames for him such as "bunky" and "qugi the monster".

he is getting sick of baby food (i can't blame him) and enjoys eating regular food more and more. he has a very hearty appetite, yet you wouldn't know it by his size. he's tall but only in the 25 percentile for weight. he has two little teeth on the bottom and his top ones look like they are going to poke through any day. he loves taking baths (just like his mother) and would probably stay in there all day if he could. he does have a few quirks, one of them being his fear of elevators. ever since he was about 5 months old he gets very upset once inside an elevator. it doesn't matter if it's big or small, glass or enclosed he hates them.

so to commemorate his 10 month milestone we decided to have a little photo shoot last night. lauren hearing all the fun that was being had snuck out of bed and wanted to get her picture taken as well.