A Picnic & The Little Zoo

Saturday morning, we packed up and headed to Byron for Oxbow Park and Zollman Zoo (a.k.a, The Little Zoo).

We started off with some play time and a picnic at one of the many picnic areas in the park. We found some walking trails near the picnic area that we'll have to explore on another visit -- Saturday, our mission was to see the animals.

The zoo was great! Our last visit was just over a year ago. We had a similar outing a week or two after Maren was born last year. It was a little easier this time!

What a fun day! We were all tired out on the way home. Maren was asleep before we were out of the park. Cale made it most of the way home but gave in near the end of our ride, too. Once we got home, we all had a long nap - too long! We're looking forward to our next trip back to Oxbow.

Pictures!

You're One!

Happy Birthday, Sweet, Baby Girl!

We Love You!

It was an absolute perfect day!

Pictures coming....

Mama

:) Our sweet, baby girl is saying "Mama". I confirmed with Ryan to make sure I'm not just imagining it. HA! She's also currently cutting 3, if not 4, teeth - They come in bunches!

A first for Cale, too. He told me his first joke:
Why did the chicken cross the road?
Because it did.
Ha-Ha-Ha!

Can we go inside?

Ryan took Cale to the cemetary last weekend to visit Grandma Eastvold's grave. I asked about the pretty flowers and Cale said there were a lot, a lot and they were huge! :)

We took a scenic drive home yesterday afternoon and went by the cemetary:

Cale: There's the cemetary. Can we go see Great Grandma Eastvold?
Me: We'll go sometime soon when Daddy can go with us.
Cale: Can we go inside? (Apparently he asked this while he was there with Ryan, too)
Me: Thinking - wow - how do I explain this one? I tried, and I think I failed miserably.

Childhood innocence.

Happy Mother's Day!

Maren has started to give big, sloppy kisses - notice the drool.

She loves her big brother!

It's been a great day, despite the weather, so far! This morning we went to Grandma and Grandpa Wehrenberg's house and found Jay there... Kelly, Grace, Kaden, and Shana were on their way, too! :) We stayed for lunch and we're now home for naps before we head to Grandma and Grandpa Olson's house for supper.

We had a pretty good week. Monday was beautiful, so we spent the entire evening outside - we even ordered pizza so we could stay out. The Olsons and Grandpa joined us, too. We had a few other nice days, but the weekend has been cold.

The kids are doing well, but Maren is teething. While I was giving her orajel Thursday night, I found a tooth we didn't know about. She's up to 7 - she got 6 all in the month of December. We'll probably get another mouthful this time around. She's fussy but not too unbearable. Thursday night has been our only tough one so far, but it sounds like she had a couple of rough days at Nessa's last week. Cale is great. He loves to be outside. For Mother's Day he colored both Grandmas a picture for our card. We've been working on writing letters lately so he did the H for Happy, M for Mother's, D for Day on the card. He was so proud!

Happy Mother's Day! We hope you're having an enjoyable day!

Eleven!

Maren is 11 months old today! Where did the time go?!

She's a busy one, and she's fast! She's crawling everywhere, pulling up, and walking around furniture. She has started standing on her own for a few seconds, too.

She's doing great with food and has been on table food for a couple of months now. Nessa started giving her only a cup at daycare this week, and she's doing great with that - down to one bottle before bed. Soon we'll also be making the switch to whole milk.

Woo-Hoo, extra gas $$$!!

She loves playing with Cale, and her favorite place to be is in his room. So far, he's ok with that - most of the time. :)

Her absolute favorite thing to play with right now is... socks! As long as she has a sock near by, she's happy! Of course, she loves to play with whatever Cale is playing with, too!

Maren with her socks:

She really is a sweetheart!
We're so blessed to have such happy, healthy children.