Summer on St. Patrick's Day

It's been awhile since I've blogged, but I figured an almost 70 degree day in the middle of March is worth getting started again for! I have a lot of posts to catch up on after this one (and will - soon) but I wanted to get this one posted because we had such an awesome day. It started out last night actually with Andy going to bed at 6:30 and Jack at 7:30, with both sleeping until 8:15 this morning! This nice weather tired them out yesterday since we have spent the last couple of days running around at parks. We got up and went to Menard's where we bought a bigger swimming pool and some seeds & planting supplies. The swimming pool was an adventure for the boys since a forklift driver had to get the pool down from the top shelf of the warehouse area, which they thought was cool. For the seeds, the boys picked Tomato, Sunflower, Cucumber, and Watermelon. We'll see if they grow! After the trip to the store, we met Chris at a park and played over lunch.
Jack was then ready for his nap, so we went home. Andy and I planted our seeds into seedling trays and then we filled up the pool - partially with the hose, part with hot water from the sink. Since it was a nice warm temperature, Andy swam for over an hour :) Once Jack got up from his nap he played outside with the sand table and then the boys had a snack at their picnic table. Then we went for an hour long walk in the jogger outside with Bailey. All in all we spent the whole day outside and had a blast. What a great St. Patrick's Day! Like I said, more posts to come - of the circus, 2 zoos, visits to grandparents' houses, and of course our new addition coming to the family at the end of August :)

Christmas 2009 - Delafield

Around mid-day on Christmas, we drove to Delafield to celebrate with my side of the family. We had a nice Christmas lunch with the extended Dickson family, and the boys especially had fun playing with Kailey and Kendall. Then, afterwards, we opened up some more presents and hung out with my parents and Brad & Karissa. Andy had more fun with his bow and arrow - especially with Grandpa and Aunt Karissa. Later that night, Ryan, Marianne, and Ben arrived. The next couple of days we all had fun hanging out together. We went sledding outside with the kids, played some Beatles Rock Band, watched movies, and played with the kids. Andy and Jack (and Chris & I) had so much fun with their gifts and seeing everyone! We also got a chance to go out to lunch with friends from out of town a couple of times while the boys stayed home with Grandma and Grandpa. It was a wonderfully relaxing Christmas vacation. It took us the month of January to really get organized at home - taking down decorations, putting away new toys, etc! Here are the pictures...

Christmas 2009 - Neenah

After not blogging at all in January, I'm ready to get back to it in full-swing! I honestly just wasn't on the computer that much - mostly just playing inside with the boys. All of the toys from Christmas are keeping us busy... Anyways, we had a great Christmas! The next couple of posts will show that.

We celebrated Christmas Eve and Christmas morning here in Neenah at our house for the first time ever. We wanted the boys to get to come down to the tree and see the cool toys that Santa had brought them, since they had been so good this year. We were so lucky that Grandma Reinsel and Aunt Sarah were able to come to our house to celebrate with us! We had fun hanging out, watching movies, decorating Christmas cookies, playing cards, and eating lots of food, of course. Unfortunately, Sarah had some travel issues and her luggage was delayed in getting here by a couple of days :( But other than that, everything was perfect! We were all healthy (unlike last year when we had the flu) and Andy especially was SO excited for Christmas this year.

After the boys went to bed on Christmas Eve, Santa and his helpers had some work to do in assembling the train table and getting all of the presents in front of the tree. They looked awesome! On Christmas morning, the boys were still groggy when they came downstairs (I had to wake them up - they had stayed up a bit too late the night before) We probably made the wrong choice by letting Andy open up his Bow and Arrow from Santa first, because he did not want to open up anything else after that! He just wanted to play... and Jack was happy playing with his train table, not opening any toys either. Well, the adults got to open theirs, which was fun, and then we convinced the boys to open some more! It was great to celebrate with Aunt Sarah and Grandma Reinsel... Pictures below!

Weekend of Lisa and Joe's wedding

Last weekend we went down to Delafield because my cousin Lisa was getting married. Congrats to Lisa and Joe - their wedding was beautiful! And it was nice that it was at her dad's house - the boys got to play in a kids' playroom which made it a little easier. We visited with family and Andy had a great time dancing with Kailey and Kendall. The boys were exhausted by 8:00 of course! Also that weekend, Andy had an awesome time going sledding down my parents' front yard. Aunt Karissa was his sled partner of choice - he didn't want to sled with me or Chris at all. And although he covered his eyes while moving, he had a fun time and ran up the hill each time when he was done. Jack had fun all weekend playing with cars - matchbox cars and bigger model cars. He was in a snuggly mood on Sunday after a busy Saturday, and I loved it.