Summer

This summer has been the best.  We've been trying to do every summery thing we can think of before fall comes and we get to dive into that season.  Here's a little bit of what makes Lucia and her parents happy in the summer.

She LOVES the water, any way she can get it!  Lakes, pools, sprinklers.  Here we're just spraying the hose into the yard and she shrieks and runs into it.

She and I are outside a lot during the day, taking care of the plants and just playing.  Nearly everyday she says, "Mama, I water plants.  They thirsty."  And so we give the plants a lot of water.  Sometimes buckets full of water, sand, and rocks, which according to a 2 year old, are good nourishment for plants.

My parents have the best backyard, which I didn't really appreciate when I lived there.  But now, it's wonderful to see her running through the soft grass, swinging in the tree swing, and just loving being outside.  

We make the most of our backyard too, weeds and all.  Backyard lunch picnics or reading picnics are something she requests a lot.  The blanket never really lays flat because the grass is too long, but we just keep smoothing it out, righting our fallen over glasses, and get back to our picnic. :)

There used to be a little of this going on, to our delight.  But, it's stopped now.  We'll try again a little later and keep shelling out the diaper money in the meantime. 

And family.  We've seen so much of our family and we love it.  Great Grandma Kathryn and Great Grandpa John and cousin Micall came for a visit, and Lucia got to know them a little better after looking warily at Grandpa for the first moments.  Now she wants to look at pictures of "Grandpa John" all the time! 

Nature walks.  We take her wagon and some snacks and walk down by Minnehaha Creek to look for animals, throw rocks in the creek, and listen for birds.  She loves it.  The other day we took a nature walk with Nana around the Red Barn and Pleasant Lake.  

Raspberry picking.  We spent a recent Sunday morning picking juicy raspberries with our friends Mary & Emma. What a great day.  It's so fun to pick your own food!  Lucia got pretty good at picking the good ones, but they would usually end up in her mouth instead of our containers. I'm sure she ate a few bugs that day!  

And finally, a self-portrait of Lucia and I after we found out that I'm pregnant with her sister/brother.  This was before Mark got home from work, so we were the only two that knew, and I wanted to document the moment.  Baby is due March 26th and Lucia tells us everyday, "I be a sister!" We're thrilled and blessed. 

The Cabin

A Minnesota summer is not complete without some time spent at a lake cabin up north.  Last weekend we traveled to Detroit Lakes to a rented cabin on Cormorant Lake.  It was a beautiful place and we by no means were roughing it!  It was a great time,  thank you Nana and Papa for  this wonderful family weekend!

Lucia packed her Care Bears suitcase full of the weekend essentials (two dolls, her swimsuit, and a Dora book) and hauled it out to the car to help in the packing. The four hour trip was a breeze with Auntie Ri Ri entertaining her favorite niece in the backseat.

Birthday Girl

Most of you know that I just returned from a long-planned trip to Scandinavia with my immediate family.  It was a wonderful trip and I'm so glad I was able to go, but one of the sad parts for me was that I missed my girl's second birthday.  She turned two on June 16th and I was off traipsing through Europe without her!  Mama guilt.  But, I guess it's better that I missed an early birthday, like two, instead of the fifth birthday or something, when she really gets it.  And maybe she made out better because it seems like we've been celebrating her birthday for the whole month of June! A couple days before we left, we had a small family party for her and she was in heaven!  She's all about Dora the Explorer right now, so we Dorified the house, ate some brats, ate some ice cream cake, and opened presents.  She loved it! Her big present was a really cute play house that lives in our backyard.  She loves it and I love watching her love it.  Whenever we pass it on the way to the garage she says, "Hey, my house!"  like she just remembered that she has her very own house.   It makes her happy.  Thanks to everyone who helped us celebrate our girl this month!  It's pretty cool for a mama to watch her friends and family love her baby.  She's got good people. :)

The day of her party we went to the Splash Pad for our Wednesday playgroup.  Her friend Alex showed her the ropes, although she wasn't too sure about the big boys with the water guns.  I wasn't either.  Even though she isn't looking, I love this photo of the two of them.  Someday we'll get one of both of them smiling. 

The Blog: Take Two

Finally!  I've been wanting to get back to this for some time now and now I'm getting it done.  It's a good time to restart blogging about our little lives here in Minneapolis.  It's summer, we've just had some good family time, and I'm reminded more and more how I need to document these everyday, beautiful things that are happening in our family.  Lucia has just turned two and there are new things coming out of her mouth everyday.  Changes happening all the time.  I really thought I would be better as a baby book writer than I actually am.  So, we'll try a blog.  :)

We are blessed with such a big, loving family and many of them don't live in Minnesota. There are so many times when I wish I could share stories or pictures with them but it just isn't as easy when we're so far away from each other.  All these people who are so meaningful in our lives, and I want to share my daughter and my family with them.  So, we'll try a blog.

To all of my family and friends out there that we haven't seen lately, hello!  We miss you!  Please stop by here every so often to share in our life.  I'm hoping this will help maintain that wonderful family (and friend) connection across the miles.