Time for a Nap

Amy's Bridal Shower

This past weekend I went to Appleton, WI with my mom and sisters for Amy's first bridal shower. Luke's family hosted the shower, and we had a wonderful time! It was nice to see where Luke grew up and get to know his family better too. Amy and Luke registered for Jr. Mints and happened to get four boxes of them!


Here are all the gals from our girls weekend - Mom and Candace in the top row, Amy and me in the middle row, and then Luke's sister, Angie, and his mom, Barb, in the bottom row.
While I was in Wisconsin, Peter took Sam up to visit Grandpa and Grandma for the weekend. I had the camera, so there aren't any pictures of his time up there, but here are a few from this past week. He knows where we keep his toothbrush and likes to pull it out and brush his teeth. He must get that from Auntie Robin and Uncle Jack!

Oops! I guess I left the baby wipe container within his reach.

Also, congratulations to Matt and Kelly! Little Charles William "Will" was born on August 2oth! Sam hopes to meet his new second cousin soon!

Awesome

Michael Phelps is AWESOME, however....

...this is even more AWESOME!!!

It's been awhile...

School has been incredibly busy for me this summer with four classes, but I am now done with two of them. My other two classes will end in the next week and a half. Whew! Then I get a huge five day break before fall classes start - but at least there are only two of them!

I have some catching up to do in the blog, so here we go...

Lots of little boys around!

Congratulations to Katy and John for welcoming little

Henry William into the world on August 1, 2008!

AND

Congratulations to Kim and Leo for welcoming little

Lucas Henry into the world on August 8, 2008!

AND

My cousin, Kelly, and her husband, Matt, are due with their little boy this week. We wish them the best for a smooth and safe delivery:-)

Just a few Sam pics

One of Sam's favorite things to do right now is to pull books off the book shelf. I don't quite know why this is so entertaining to him - maybe he just likes to see Mom have to pick them all up again.
We got Sam this activity table for his birthday. He definitely plays with it, and more recently, he has figured out how to CLIMB on it. Not exactly its intended purpose, but hey, it looks like fun.

He definitely is turning into quite the little climber. He can't quite get onto the couch by himself yet, but he sure tries. He says puppy now, and I think he says bubble when we are blowing bubbles outside, which by the way is one of his favorite activities. If I bring Oscar out with us to chase the bubbles and try to eat them, Sam laughs hysterically. It's great. He will also respond to "what does a puppy say" with a quiet little "arf, arf, arf". He, however, responds the same way to "what does a kitty say," so I guess we still need to work on that! He's not quite walking yet, but he's almost there. He walks with just one hand of support, and he can stand for up to 3-4 seconds now, which he wasn't doing just a week ago. So, he'll probably be running by crazy by the end of the summer!

More fun at the Zoo

We have definitely made good use of our MN Zoo season pass. My sister, Amy, got one too so she can join us from time to time. Last week, we went with Amy and my mom. Sam had a lot of fun down at the Family Farm, especially when he got to pet the baby chick.

hmm...

So, many of you probably have seen this picture before....
Now take a look at this....



Do you think our dog and our son are confused about their roles in our family?!

Aren't they cute?!

I have probably mentioned that Samuel will be the ringbearer in my sister's wedding in October. Well, a few weeks ago, he got to meet the little lady he will walk down the aisle with, the flowergirl, Kaelyn. They seemed very interested in each other - and they were pretty cute to watch. They will definitely be a hit at the wedding:-)

Sam visits his cousins

Back in July, we went up to visit Peter's parents and his sister, Robin, along with her two boys - Will and Wyatt. Great-Grandma Carlie was able to join us for a visit too. We tried several times over the weekend to get a cousin picture with the three boys (and with Grandma Carlie), but getting two one-year-olds and an almost three-year-old to all sit still at the same time is pretty much impossible.

At the park near Peter's parents' house,
Sam decided he loved going UP the slide.
Wyatt enjoying the swing.
Will enjoying the swing too!
Sam & Wyatt

We had a wonderful time up there, and it was fun for Sam to get to spend a larger chunk of time playing with his cousins (and all their toys!). While we were up, Peter also tracked down his old match box cars from when he was a kid, so now Sam has those here at home to play with - he loves them and even makes a "vroom, vroom" noise as he pushes them along. However, he also thinks it is very funny to throw them - hmm, we're working on fixing that one!