Our Little Pirate goes to the State Fair

Sorry we've been absent for a few weeks...The Preacher and the Preacher's wife spent a goodly portion of August in Scandinavia! We had a great vacation with Granny and Gramps (and my Uncle Ken & Aunt Ann) but we missed our little peanut terribly!

We have done lots of snuggling upon our return and made it to the State Fair...an annual tradition in our house. So I'm posting a few of our favorites from that outing (the bus ride, petting the lamby, riding the rides).

A fun update on our girl...her imagination is really taking off. We find ourselves in the middle of daily melodramas ("quick mama, use your umbrella" as she hands me a drum mallet) and laugh at all the stories she cooks up in her head. One of our recent favorites is Greta the fearsome pirate. Greta loves to play pirates now and thinks the play equipment in the backyard makes an excellent ship. So we go on daily treasure hunts in the ship, get stuck in the sand, row our way to the special island....you know, pirate stuff. Yesterday when the Preacher was playing with Boo they made pirate flags. One now flies above the play equipment (I'm posting a photo) and one is carried by Pirate Greta.

Daddy has capitalized on this little game by inventing "the pirate kiss." It consists of the following parts: Daddy screams out "Pirate Kiss" then the 2 pirates run and face each other, say "arrrrrgh" and then smooch. It has solved the problem of the Daddy kiss drought faster than a scurvy pirate can walk the plank.



Enjoy a few photos of our own little scurvy peanut pirate! Happy fall!

August is bringing garden goodies!

The garden goodies are really starting to come in at our house. Early summer we had lettuce and spinach which were fabulous. Today when we checked our garden we had: cucumbers, green beans, squash, onions and one ripe cherry tomato. YUM. We also have beautiful sunflowers popping up too. My Grandma Damsgard loved sunflowers...a good ol' Kansas girl....and so seeing these beauts bloom in the backyard give my spirit an extra lift. Here are a few pics of our garden and our girl!

Bye bye July...

We've had a busy couple a weeks. Day Camp and funerals...ahh the life at church! The week where both mommy and daddy were working full time hours was hard on Greta and we're wrestling with a resurgence of Greta's Two-ness (oh man, she is strong willed). In between those busy moments we've had some fun. It seems these days Greta is trying out all her funny faces. She's also still attached to her dear lamby...see the picture above as proof...note that she is still holding lamby's hand in her sleep. We've had a few funny conversations of late. Here's a sampling of some of the funnier exchanges.

"No no mommy. Do not pinch my bottom. My bottom is not a toy." (After I playfully gave her a pinch on the rear)

"Daddy...a synagogue is a church for too much people. We can not climb on the synagoge." (The synagogue in question has a large sloping metal roof that bears a resemblance to a monster slide. Also "too much" is how she heard Jewish)

"Let's snuggle noses." (eskimo kiss...forgive my lack of p.c.-ness with the term)

Daddy: "You are my G-booey" Greta: "No Daddy, I am not your Gbooey, I am your peanut."

Hope you are all enjoying the summer as much as we are. I can't believe it is almost Aug. Don't remind me.

Waterpark with Grandpa Jay

The title says it all...we cooled off today in a local waterpark (St Louis Park- kudos on a fun and FREE water park for tots!). A few pics of Gboo, Grandpa, Kelly & Kelly's 2 grandkids Brooke and Evan. How fun!

Friday Friends Fun-day!

We had another fun Friday morning with some of our friends from church. The throng of girlies played great together in Greta's room (there were surprisingly few squaks given the small space for 5 toddlers/preK kiddos!) and then they moved outside to the pool, swingset & lunch. We made some summery cupcakes for dessert...beach themed. I may have loved them more than the girls. I think Jersey loved them more than all of us combined (aka stealthy cleanup crew). Enjoy a few pictures from our morning. As they were pulling out, Greta asked, "when can Z, I, J & C come back and play....tomorrow?" It has been great watching her develop friends and I about die every evening when she includes them in their prayers. That's right, they make it more regularly than me, the woman who carried that child for eternity. But truth be told, I love how attached she is to these girls and the momma time is 2nd to none. A great way to kick off the weekend! Have a good one!

Just when I think I know my kiddo...

she goes and changes things up!

So we conquered slides. I wouldn't say we were fearless...but they were definitely in our toddler reportoire. Recently we've regressed and slides have been our ultimate nemesis. That is until today. You can imagine my surprise when my child begged to go down this slide:

I of course spent 30 minutes trying to talk her out of this insanity. I did not want to be that parent who makes her kid go down the slide kicking and screaming once she's at the top and changes her mind. Luckily that's why God made Daddy's. The Preacher agreed to take her down and........she loved it. Well, she loved it the 2nd time. The first time, Daddy asked "Greta are you having fun" as they slid down the blue flume. Greta's response: "No, it is not fun" (in complete sentence form which cracked us up even more). But once at the bottom she told me, "that was fun. Mommy's turn!" There were 5 more turns after that. Go figure.

Happy Fourth of July!

We had a great weekend. Shew we're tired! Friends from Chicago (now Santiago, Chile) came up for a visit. They brought with them their little guy who is just a hair younger than Greta so you can imagine what it was like in our house....absolute mayhem! G & R played like fools in the backyard all weekend. The freezing baby pool, the Dora tent, the sandbox, the bathtub...serious fun was had by both.

We polished the weekend off with a family cook out with Grandpa Jay and Kelly in the park. Greta loves being with Kelly's grandkids and her aunts and uncle! Enjoy some fun shots from our great weekend.