five...

A fabulous fifth birthday filled with mac'n'cheese, hot dogs, zucchini chocolate chip cake decorated herself, afternoon of play with cousins and friends, fantastic gifts (including a lot of tiny things which she has been asking for!), campfire with the neighbors, smores, and a special birthday show that G put on for us all at the end of the night.

What a great birthday for G!

(and don't tell that the rest of us had a lot of fun too! =)

4th annual trip to the state fair...

This is becoming one of my favorite family traditions. It was special this year too because it was our last big family hurrah before school starts for G.

Speaking of G...see how much she's grown?

quick trip before school started...

I was feeling a sense of urgency this August with the start of school looming ahead for G. Part of me felt like it was the end of freedom for her (and us), although I know it is most definitely not! Anyway, it made me think of all the things that I wanted to do before she started school. Two of them being making a trip to see my grandma, and also a visit to the farm. Being 4 hours away, it would not be an easy trip to make on a weekend, especially since G's school schedule is all day MWF. We decided to make it a trip with just the kids and I, and that way we could go for a longer period of time, also making visits to Brookings friends and S's folks in Willmar. It didn't end up being that long leisurely trip I was hoping for, but we did get to see everyone and had such a good time!

Kids reading books with Nana - thanks so much for coming out to the farm to see us, Gma! I really enjoyed our visit. Love you!

We always have a good time at the farm, one of my favorite places. Love you Mom and Dad!

Our time in Brookings was so short, I took hardly any pictures at all! But what a good time we had! Managed to fit in pizza, a garden party, ice cream, multiple drivebys to say hi to the big dinosaur, a sleepover, french toast, and magnet ladybug earrings all in less than 24 hours. Love you all!

Ah, and a quick lunch stop by Pappa and Aahma B. We are so sorry it did not work out to stay longer - the kids were all disappointed when we had to leave. Love you too!

Best of all, we got to come home to Dadda! Love love love love you!

test...

a pool party...

On the hottest day of the summer, S's sister M and her husband C invited us over after church for lunch and swimming in their pool. Mom and Dad B came as well and we had a lovely afternoon with taco salad, birthday gifts, cupcakes, LOTS of swimming, and plenty of water to drink out of 9 big Chanhassen Dinner Theater water bottles color coordinated by family. Thanks M & C for a nice afternoon!

fun week full of family...

At the beginning of July, we moved our office to the guest room, and planned to move our guest room down to the basement bedroom (NOT as scary as it sounds - it is really nice! Please, still come and visit us!). This required cleaning out the basement bedroom (used as a catch all before) and there was a lot of work to do, but we weren't getting guests until the end of them month so thought we had plenty of time. But, being procrastinators and all, we were of course working on it last minute. The evening before S asked if we could give my folks $60 and send them to a hotel. =) Later that night when we had more finished and all that needed to be done was move the bed, he asked if we could give my dad a hammer and my mom the sheets and tell them to move it themselves. =) But we finished the next morning, just in time!

husking sweetcorn with Boppa

Our week of R's started on our anniversary. My mom and dad drove all the way up to watch the kids (thank you!!!!) so S and I could have an anniversary date. We went out the day after our anniversary, and had a lovely time! We ate at a great steakhouse called Pittsburgh Blue, then strolled through the fancy shopping area, and ended the evening buying many bottles of wine at Trader Joe's (all things that we would NOT do with our children along!). Dad also installed a garage door opener for us while they were here (thank you!!!!) and Mom and Grace and I got out for a little shopping too. They left Saturday afternoon.


Sunday evening our second wave of R's arrived. My brother M and his lovely wife A came to spend a week with us! Monday and Tuesday we had a great time hanging out, playing with the kids, eating pizza, going to IKEA, and seeing some awesome double full rainbows (sorry no pics!).

My brother M is as big a Twins fan as S and I are, but unfortunately the Twins were on the road while they were here. So we did the next best thing - took a tour of the new Twins stadium on Wednesday morning. And now for a bajillion pictures of the fun!

family photo on Gold Glove statue out on the plaza while we waited for the tour to start

The stadium is fantastic and built with as many MN materials as possible so it is not just a baseball stadium, but a tribute to MN as well (and love that skyline!).

The stadium is also part Twins history museum as there are artifacts and photos and areas dedicated to all the great Twins' hall of fame players and also great moments in Twins' history. Many of these we would not have been able to see if we would have not taken the tour though, as there are a lot hung in areas you have to have big $$ tickets to be in.

Of course there were a lot of photo op's for M & A (including one of A by a picture of Safeco field - home to the Mariner's, her favorite team)...

...and us!

The kids were troopers, but by the end of the tour, their expressions in this picture say it all: "are we done yet?"

After one last picture in the Twins' dugout, we look on the field to see...

...Justin Morneau! He was hurt so not on the road with the Twins, but at home rehabbing. G had a good time telling Boppa and everyone else who we saw (even if she didn't really understand why it was a big deal =).

When the tour was finally done, we went into the Twins' store, squished a penny, and hugged the big stuffed bear to return smiles to the faces of the kids before we went home.

We drove around downtown for a bit, visiting the area where M lived for a summer, and then went home for naps for all. Wednesday evening our friends, M&A, watched the kids so that we could go out for supper (thank you!!!!) with just us big kids. I told S if he wasn't careful, I was going to start to get used to this going out to eat without the children thing (it does not happen very often)!

We found a great pub with awesome food and it was a beautiful night for sitting outside, too.

Thursday was a day for hanging out, playing Carcassone, hanging art, reading books to the kids, grilling brats and eating the fresh sweet corn and beans M&A brought with them, more Carcassone and ice cream. And staying up WAY too late talking!

M&A left on Friday morning. We made sure to get a few more photos in before they left. We had a great week with them (thank you!!!!)!

Oh, but the R fun didn't stop there! Friday evening we drove to the south side of the cities to visit my brother L and his fiancee J! Cargill, where L works, bussed the whole plant up to the cities for the weekend where they got to go to a Twins game and stay in a nice hotel. We of course took the opportunity to go and see them.

L & J were recently engaged, and we are so excited for the both of them (don't they look so happy?!!)! Even though it was a short visit, we had a good time and the kids especially enjoyed jumping all over their hotel room and Uncle L!

10 years...

happy anniversary, my dear!

S & C wedding, by c.e.b.
(this hung in their house for over a year while they waited for us to print them an actual wedding photo)

the big garden post...

Yep, this is a BIG garden post. I meant to chronicle this bit by bit...as you can see that didn't work for me. So here is everything garden-ness from our house so far this summer...

We love having a vegetable garden at our house. We have a nice spot behind our garage for one, and we have worked on it bit by bit over the 4 years in this house. When we moved in, there were little terraced beds between it and the backyard. They looked very nice, but were begging for small children to climb up them and escape. So in 2007, S took out those beds and used the landscaping bricks to build a small wall between the garden and the backyard instead. In 2008, G grew a little more so S added one more row to the retaining wall, and we also added a little more dirt. In 2009, we just concentrated on what was growing in the garden. But this year, with a beautiful early spring, S and I took a good look at it and decided to make some changes.

The plan (as of early April): Add another row of retaining bricks to the wall between the garden and backyard (last one, even though we know the kids will keep growing). Square off garden to the backyard gate (adding quite a bit to the size of the garden), continue retaining wall around the side of the garden to the garage. Figure out better composting plan. Redo and widen walkway by the garage to the spigot on the house. Add more dirt to make garden level. Be finished by Memorial Day, aka garden planting day.

Yeah, take 1 busy family, 3 small children, and a bunch of other goings-on and our garden looked like this on Memorial Day (really, we had worked on it and this was progress!):

But not to be discouraged, we kept working away when we had time. And when I say "we", I really mean S. I do believe if he had to quit pharmacy and take up another profession, it would be landscape architecture. And he would be good at it too!

Yes, this is S working on the walkway in the garden at about 10:30 at night. We got the kids down early one evening and he decided to go out to the garden to work, and when it got dark and I asked if he was going to quit an come in, he said "No, find me a light source." So an extension cord and the floor lamp it is! He worked diligently until midnight and finished the walkway and step. And our neighbors now officially think we are crazy.

See what an awesome job he did on the walkway?

Now onto extending the garden 2 feet into the side yard and building the retaining wall on the side. We had a slight change to the original plan. Instead of squaring off the garden completely, we decided to leave one of the small tiered beds next to the gate because of these:

These cone flowers were planted by the previous owners in the actual garden. We wanted it more for a vegetable garden, but loved the flowers, so we moved them next to the gate. They have been doing awful for the past 3 years so we were just going to call it quits and get rid of them. Then this year they go and do this on us. This meant more work on curvature for S, but we are happy we kept them!

S's Dad (Hi Papa B!) and Mom were here the weekend of VBS program and W's birthday, and Dad B helped S out on Saturday, which was MUCH appreciated!

They finished the wall on the side of the garden (nice and level!).

And they also used Dad B's pickup to haul in a load of dirt. We could probably use another, but we decided to go with it this year and see what compost we'll add for next year before getting another load.

We also purchased a tumbling compost bin from Costco in an attempt to make better compost (we are lazy composters and didn't turn or water our stationary bin, and then we had all sorts of chunks of leaves and sticks when we emptied it in the spring and fall). S filled the tumbler and we tumble it when we go out there every week or so, and we put all new compostable items in the black bin. Then hopefully when the compost in the tumbler is done, we will put what is in the black bin in the tumbler...and rinse and repeat...

In our heads, our second try at a goal for completion was getting everything finished by the end of June. Well, it is June 30 in this picture and we were ready for planting! Yay!

G loved helping plant the garden and is very excited about gardening in general. Nothing better than bare feet in dirt, too!

Garden planted - 5 hours before deadline. =)

Being that we planted the garden on June 30 (very late, even up here in the frozen tundra), our plant choices and hopes for success were a bit limited. We will see how our (clockwise from top left) 2 rows of green beans (Blue Lake Bush, one row organic heirloom seeds from Mom and Dad R's garden), 1 zucchini plant, 5 pepper plants (2 green and 3 red), 2 squash plants (Butter Bush - supposed to be a bush of squash rather than a vine), 1 row of sweet corn (leftover from a 10 cent packet from at least 4 years ago), and 3 tomato plants (one cherry, one roma, one Big Boy) do this year. Oops, I forgot a picture of G's carrots. She has 2 tiny rows of carrots (also very leftover seeds from previous years).

Week 3 - we are doing great! Beans are up, sweet corn is patchy, carrots are iffy, but weeds are at a minimum and the other plants are growing well.

Dad, don't look at the straightness of my corn row. Embarrassing for a farm girl...

Week 4 - OK, where did all those weeds come from? I swear they popped up overnight. Ah, I guess it is the curse of Original Sin we will never get away from...

happy moments...

We have been trying to slow down our computer usage lately so that we can focus more on the "life" happening around us. Not that it has made a huge difference in the normal ups and downs of the days, but it has helped us be a little more tuned in and focused. So I stop by quickly this evening to share some happy moments from this past week:

this day brought to you by...

My lovely birthday yesterday was brought to me by: hugs from my sweet children, being sung to multiple times, my birthday list (see below), special card from G, phone calls from family and friends, trip to the dr to check out W's foot (he jumped off the small picnic table - no break, just pulled ligament), lunch from Panera (yes G, on momma's birthday, we CAN go out to eat 2 times!), birthday cards in the mail, fun package from my mom and dad, hugs from my sweet nieces (thank you for the present and cards and raspberries!), Clifford and doghouse made out of Legos, kids helping pick up without fussing, S bringing home flowers and special birthday cake from Truffles and Tortes, family picture, supper at Noodles and co, walk around the pond to visit the ducks, then moose tracks ice cream and watching 24 in our jammies after kids were in bed.

my birthday list

G gets all excited about birthdays, so she asked me to make a list of all the things I wanted to do on my birthday. We do these lists with pictures for our "to-do list" for the day quite often, and then if there is a lull, all I have to do is say what's left on our list and the kids go running to check (we make sure to add fun things like reading books and going outside and making cookies along with the regular chores). This was really fun to do for a birthday though, and I think we may just have to start a tradition with it!