a few new photos

Finally! I few new photos from the month of May. One of our current favorite activities is eating smores around an evening bonfire either at home in our backyard or up at the cabin. The days have been nice and we are enjoying being outside as much as possible.

Here is a great shot of grady. He now gets around pretty darn fast by doing the army crawl. He especially loves doors and playing hide and seek behind them.
Zoey with some epic bed head.
The other day I was busy putting stuff away in grady's room and Zoey walked in looking like this. She loves dress up and playing wedding. She told our neighbor Parker the other day that he could be the groom. He agreed to play along but only if they could play when "nobody was looking".
Zoey, her teacher, and two classmates on her last day of preschool.

Grady and Boone

this video cracks us up every time.  


Photo Sharing - Video Sharing - Photo Printing

The cousin egg hunt

Greta found the final egg!  For full photo coverage check out our dropshots link.

Easter with the Peters

On Saturday we went to Medford, WI to celebrate Easter 

with the Peter's extended family. We had such a nice time 

visiting, eating, playing and hunting for eggs.  

Dave's cousin Annika with Zoey and her cousins, Graham and Ellie.
Greta trying to get into the story line.


Dave's cousing Laura was trying to show me how to use my camera, pulling out colors etc.

I thought these photos of our nieces Ava and Greta turned out pretty cool.

The neighborhood egg hunt

Our neighbors, Mary and John, graciously hosted a Saturday morning egg hunt for the kids.  It was lots of fun.  Zoey was thrilled to be wearing a dress.  As I look at these photos now, I can't believe how much more color has arrived in one week.  Easter brought the Spring this year and life is coming back.  We all feel stronger and thankful for rebirth.




Pennies and jelly beans were a fun find in the eggs.  Later, Zoey had me help her count her money.  She had dumped it all together with plastic coins and pesos.  She could not understand why "all" the money could not help her buy a changing table for her baby.
Dave has been looking for some ink on this blog.  He really is a very present dad and a great one at that.  I thought this was a great photo of dave and a funny one of Zoey.  We will most likely find the same expression on Zoey's face in a photo with her dad in 10 years.

Easter Preparations

                                              Dying easter eggs.
Spring on a plate.  
                 Frosting cookies intently.

I thought rolling out dough and cutting cookies would be an engaging activity for Zoey and the neighbor boys, Parker and Jack.  A few minutes in, Parker said, "when can we be done and go play?"  But, as you can see by the previous photo, Zoey took her job very seriously.

E-Trade look alike

             "Check it.  You just saw me buy stock."

     Really.  We could make a million or at least pay for college.

                                       

Eating Cheerios

Grady thinks he is the big diapers now that he has joined the ranks of babies that eat cheerios.  However, he thought the bowl unnecessary and discarded it quickly.  You might also notice Zoey's white dress... she LOVES dressing up in this "wedding" dress and would like to marry her brother someday.

Sitting on Hands

We went to the Eau Claire Children's Museum a week ago.  Zoey did not really want to leave and this was her last ditch stall attempt.  "Mommy, take a photo of us on the hands!"  

sunny California

                                              

                                                       "the bruiser"
After starting this blog - I had to abandon ship for a few weeks.  We are back.  We took a trip to California last week to visit my parents.  The kids did great on the plane and we had a really fun time re acquainting ourselves with the sunshine and soaking in the vitamin D.  My eyes seriously had to adjust to the lush green colors.  We went on a great hike, played at lots of parks, and spent time with family and friends.  We all seemed to come back to life.  Grady was called a "bruiser" on several occasions.  He could not really hide all his roles under winter gear in California.  As soon as we arrived Zoey kicked off her shoes and said, "Mama, it is SO nice here you could go running everyday!"  I guess she knows what her mamma likes.  We are now back, refreshed and ready to enjoy the spring.  Although the grass is not green yet, hope is in the air.  

back to the park

I just learned that if you want a photo to be first on your blog you have to add the photos in reverse order.  I wanted this one to be first.  Oh well.  After our walk in rain boots we put Zoey's snow clothes on and headed back to the park.  Yes, Grady is really a big boy for 5 months - but it doesn't help that I was holding the camera up and he was closest.  The park was fun and it gave me hope that Spring might come again....

40 degrees

Here is Zoey yesterday.  We went for a walk and she came out with her rain boots instead of snow boots.  It was a good choice due to the melting snow.  However, we went around the block one time and had to change into snow clothes to go back to the park.

Feeling a little crazy

So, I think we are starting to feel a little crazy here at 510 Gilbert Ave.  I am ready to get outside again.  However, the good news is, the winter has driven me to start a blog.  I need some kind of an outlet, so I thought I would try to learn the art of blogging...

Rice cereal or winter?

if someone was 

spoon feeding me 

winter today, this 

is how i would look.