Delzers Pumpkin Farm

Mario was gone this weekend, so I took Audrey to meet some friends (Dawn and her daughter, Kaitlyn) out at Delzer's Pumpkin Farm near Oconto Falls. We had a great time.

Audrey was soo proud of her first face painting - a kitty!

CHEESE! or should we say "Pumpkin"

Here is a little kids corn maze that Audrey and Kaitlyn ran through probably close to 40 times. It was non-stop giggles.

We got to see a puppet show and then put our faces behind this fun sign.

Audrey picked out all of our pumpkins. A momma pumpkin, a daddy pumpkin and an Audrey pumpkin.

We also went to the petting zoo they had. It was a really cute & neat place!

More Summer Pictures

We went to my cousin, Jason's, wedding this summer in Milwaukee. It was a kid friendly wedding so it was so fun to see all of my cousins' little ones. Audrey's leading the bunny hop at the wedding.

While in Milwaukee, we took a family trip to the zoo there. Audrey got a lot of close looks at the tiger.. she was unfazed at his circling the cage and staring her down.
Here she is showing Owen where the bears are.

Here, Daddy is helping her get a closer look. Uncle Ryan and Grandpa Donnie & Owen are also checking out those bears.

We got to see Maddie and Jessica and spend the day at the Resch Aquatic Center. The girls had so much fun playing & swimming there. They're pretty adorable together.

The friend pool keeps expanding... we got the chance go get the girls and kids together. Below is Maddie (Jessica's - 2.5 years), Jack (Kristin's-2 weeks), Braylon (Sara's-4 months), and Audrey (3 years). This was taken the last weekend in July.

Another thing that's kept me very busy in Spring and summer is the Humana Associate Garden I helped start at my work. It consists of 18 plots that are each 18' by 5'. One plot is produce all donated to a local charity. It's been a lot of fun, a lot of work but very rewarding in terms of produce and donating to people in need.

We also took a lot of trips to Bay Beach this summer. Audrey's starting to love all of the rides and seems to have the best times when she gets to go with friends. Below are some of the girls from my friends at work.

RRrraaaaaarrrrrr....

I had put a mask on this night.... Audrey saw it and said "Mommy, I want my face to be a monster too". So we put a monster face on her & she ran around the house trying to scare her Daddy.

Audrey's Birthday...3 years old!

This year we decided to have a smaller birthday with family and a few friends for Audrey. We intended to take her and Owen to Bay Beach, but due to rain, we made a plan B of going to Sir Bounce a Lot, which worked out well. We all had a lot of fun there. Audrey's favorite part was the carousel ride. We played games, rode on rides and did a lot of bouncing / sliding down their big slides. The big kids played some games too. We even bounced in the bouncy houses (Grandpa Pat joined in too). : )

Audrey and Owen liked it when the machines dispensed tickets. : )

Owen was a good sport too and he rode along with Audrey.

Audrey wanted a "purple birthday" as she would say. She picked out the fabric for her shirt and flower I made for her special day. This was the best close-up I could get of it.

One of Audrey's favorite parts of the day was her purple birthday cake, and especially when we sang Happy Birthday to her. She was saying up until the time we sang to her, "It's NOT my birthday"... but when the cake came out she screamed "IT'S MY BIRTHDAY!!"

Salmon Fishing...

On 4th of July Monday, it was perfectly calm - no wind, which is rare here, so Mario thought it would be a perfect opportunity to take us out Salmon fishing on Lake Michigan (so we would not get sea sick). Turned out to be a beautiful day... a little slower than his previous trips of catching 12 -15 per trip, as we caught just 3). Here are the fish we caught & Audrey would point out the one in the middle and tell you she caught that one, which is true. I held the pole and she helped reel it all the way in. She was sooo excited when she saw it was the biggest fish.

This is the fish cleaning station, and when Audrey saw what people did here, she was not so happy. "Leave my fish together", she said. I then distracted her.

Strawberry Picking...

We brought Audrey strawberry picking for the first time this year... We thought we were being so smart when we dressed her in red for the insane amount of strawberries she would eat and cover herself in. Turned out she would only pick the green ones and white ones to eat. Funny girl.

I love America

On Saturday morning, while Mario was working, we went to JoAnn Crafts. While there, Audrey picks up this pack of red, white and blue headbands and puts one on, and then grabs these two flags and starts waving them all around. People walking past had to stop and admire this very patriotic little girl. : )

I wanted to capture the moment, but didn't have the camera so here she is when we got home. Proud to be an American... and very proud of her Grandpas who are all Veterans (Grandpa David, Grandpa Donnie and Grandpa Pat).

Happy 4th of July. We love you all.

Johnsons Cottage

Mario had to work 4th of July Saturday so we went to Tim and Julie's cottage in Sagola, Michigan with them the weekend before...and had an awesome time. We enjoyed some blue gill fishing and lots of relaxing and lounging in the water and on the beach.

Below is Audrey catching a fish with Tim. She wanted to touch, hug and kiss every single fish that came in the boat. She even touched the worms this trip.

She reeled in as many as we would let her.

This is the beach we played and lounged at - Audrey loved the water again even though it was extremely cold. This is her walking with Julie.

She didn't take a nap at all this day...just played and played. She and Julie built a lot of sand castles and were busy finding feathers to put on the top of them. At one point she layed down in the sand. As soon as I grabbed the camera, SMILES... : ) Such a poser.

Bellin Run 2011

Another successful and exciting Bellin run this year...

Originally I was not able to do the run, as we had a wedding to attend that Mario was standing up for in Chicago. I was supposed to leave at about 8am that day, but we (my good friend, Sara and I) decided to change plans to leave at 11:45 which would still give us enough time to make the wedding. After deciding this officially the week of the Bellin, I registered for the Bellin on Wednesday (and withheld that from my dad so I could surprise him Saturday morning).

Ben was also not going to be able to run this year due to his work schedule, but ended up calling me at 7:30 on Friday night asking what time he could register until and still run on Saturday. I looked it up and it turned out to be 8pm... Since he was still working and online registration was closed, I darted across town to Astor park and got him registered for Saturday's run with about 5 min to spare!

Erin & Ryan (and Owen) came up to stay with us Friday night and also to join in the running festivities. So, Saturday morning, we surprised our Dad with the news that both Ben and I were actually running the Bellin. : ) He was pretty excited to have his 3 kids running with him.

We all ran a great race. I was just glad to finish - after fighting off a side stitch the entire race. Thankfully I was able to keep up with Ben (or he slowed down to my level: either one), but we finished the race together at 52.39. One minute slower than last year, but I was still happy with it.

This is an after race picture. BIG Thank you to Lynn, Ben's girlfriend, who watched Audrey and Owen during the run for us. She's a keeper.

P.S. Your monitor is not dirty; this picture is blurry. Our camera does this every so often and with no rhyme or reason. We'll be investing in a new camera very soon.

After the Bellin, it was shower, pack, and off to Chicago to see our friend, Jason Nault, get married. Mario went with our good friend, Jed on Friday night and Sara & I drove down on Saturday. We had a GREAT time, but drank a bit too much wine. Wine hangovers are not fun.

Breakfast on the farm...

Last week Sunday we went to our first Breakfast on the Farm. - I had heard about it through a coworker, and decided it might be fun to take Audrey to. We went right away in the morning and were shocked to see what a HUGE event it was! There were probably 3000 people there.

This is not a normal type of event us Nannas would attend, but we were really impressed. We ate an AMAZINGly huge breakfast with phenomenal food, then got to see about 30+ tractors that Audrey could climb on and some she could ride on, saw and toured about 5 fire trucks, played kid games, jumped in bouncy houses, went through a petting zoo (our favorite part), enjoyed ice cream sundaes, and got a horse led wagon ride around the farm. We were amazed at the organization of the event and had a great time.

Below is Audrey petting a horse.

Here she is with a little 5 week old puppy. We both loved the puppies, and she loved holding him. Maybe someday... but after Baxter, we could use a little more time.
We also got to pet bunnies, a calf, horses, and some ducklings.


Here's Audrey on one of the bigger tractors. She was excited to be able to climb up there on her own. (Mario is spotting her so she didn't fall).

Hug, Kiss and a High Five...

Audrey's got this ritual she does with us every night before bed, when we say good-bye when we drop her off for daycare or for anything: hug, kiss and a high five.... and always in that order.

It's just so cute and makes me smile every time to add a high five after every hug/kiss combo. : )

Thankful for summer...

Last weekend we took my brother, Ben, out fishing to see if we could get him his first muskie. It was a slower day as the weather warmed up and so had the water temperature, and we caught just one - Ben had a great time reeling in his 44" first muskie.

May

We had a crazy busy, yet very fun May. We had two baby showers: Beth Jones & Kristin Laursen's. Both of them are due on July 4th, and we're looking forward to meeting their new little ones. We celebrated a few birthdays (Ben's & mine) and had a fantastic Mother's Day. I've been busy with planting / working Humana's associate garden I helped start, and have enjoyed being able to get out on the boat with Audrey and doing some fishing. Memorial Day weekend was the opening of muskie season & Audrey & I went with Mario on Monday...I caught a gigantic 50" muskie, and was pretty ecstatic about it. This is my first time holding a fish this big. : ) This definitely makes you want to stay out of the Fox River/Bay. : ) I also caught a 42" that day.

Here are some cute pictures of Audrey & Daddy out on the boat.

The pictures below are from our friend, Beth's shower. Audrey and our friend Tony & Kristen's daughter, Harper, and they found more little girls to play with. (Sara & Jed's little guy, Braylon, was there too, but he wasn't ready to get out and play yet - he was just 8 weeks at the time). The girls had so much fun playing with the balloons. The theme of the shower was ice cream. Yum!