Fun Summer Days!

We've been pretty busy lately which means I'm behind on my blogging! In the last week and a half we have been to another twins game, visited the zoo, got a new swing set in our yard, celebrated Jeff's Birthday and attended the Air Show. Wheww!

Two Fridays ago we enjoyed our second Twins game of the year with our friends Jenn and Paul who were visiting from Grand Forks. Ben and Hallie both got new t-shirts for the occasion. Ben is a Joe Mauer fan so I had to get him a Mauer shirt and Hallie got a Morneau one since he's our other favorite player. Hallie once again slept through some of the game but Ben had a total blast. Katie and Chris joined us as well so Ben was back and forth through the seats sitting by Katie, sitting by Paul, pretty much sitting anywhere but by Jeff and I! :) We skipped the popcorn this time but I couldn't deny Ben his mini-dougnuts and Jenn was nice enough to share her snow cone with him which he LOVED.

A few days after the Twins game Jeff and I decided to take the kids to the zoo. We have been trying to wait for a day that wasn't rainy but wasn't super hot. Of course they day we finally did go ended up being hotter than expected so we struck out there! It was still a good time and Ben was even more interested in the animals this year than he was last summer. He liked the monkeys and the dolphins best and got a kick out of the zebras. He called them all "Marty" like the Zebra from the movie Madagascar. :) Hallie is still a little bit too young to really appreciate the zoo, but I think she had fun seeing all the new stuff and she got a good little snooze in too! Here are some pics of the zoo and also a video of Ben checking out the dolphins - its not that cool but its super short so I thought I'd post it anyway. Sorry for the video overload lately, but I've got them so I might as well share them!



Two days after our zoo trip Ben had another pretty exciting day. We had gone on Saturday to pick out a new swing set with Grandma Janet and it was delivered on Tuesday. It was raining lightly when the guys came to set it up but Ben insisted on going down the slide as least a few times until his bottom was nice and wet. He has gone down about a million times since then and is getting a little better on the swings too. Hallie has even tried out the swing and seemed to like it, at least for a little while. A million thank yous to Janet and Art for the swing set! I know the kids will be enjoying it for years and years to come!!

Last Thursday was Jeff's 29th Birthday - one more year until the big 3-0! We celebrated by going to the new Harry Potter movie at the cinema grill with Katie, Chris and Brad. It ended up being a really good, low key way to celebrate and Jeff and I have been excited to see the movie for a long time. After the movie we headed home to relieve our babysitters (Grandma & Grandpa) and then had a little cheesecake. Jeff didn't want me to take a picture but I did anyway!

We did his birthday dinner with his family last night and enjoyed a YUMMY dinner of surf & turf with carrot cake for desert. I think Jeff has picked surf & turf as his birthday meal for at least the last three years and every single year we all eat waaay too much! :)

One last event and I'm all caught up. Sunday afternoon we took the kids to the Air Show in Eden Prairie. We didn't get out there until 3:00 so we had missed some of the cool stuff earlier in the day but we still were able to see some of the planes fly including a bunch of Navy planes that flew in formation. They were making smoke trails while they flew over which Ben called "making rainbows!". Too cute. In addition to all the airplanes , there were a bunch of bouncy houses set up at the airshow and I kind of thought Ben would be too scared/too little to go in them but he sure proved me wrong! He even scaled a giant wall in there and went down a super tall (and super fast) slide. He seemed scared but he must have liked it because he did it twice. I took a video of him on his second time down and he has watched that video about 40 times since yesterday. I'll post it below so you can see it too. And here is a collage of pics from the day:

And here is the slide video. I can't imagine how high up that seemed to 2 year old. Even I would have been a little scared to go down!



Now that I'm done with all the event updates I realized I have a few Hallie updates to share as well! Hallie finally started rolling from back to front on Saturday. Until then, she only ever went front to back. Of course this means trouble because I can already see that it won't be long until she is on the move! She is dying to keep up with her big brother! She also started babbling "mama" this last week. I'm not sure if it officially counts as her first word but at least we're on the way. Ben said "dada" first so I'm glad I get a chance at being the first word this time around! In addition to rolling and "talking", she has also become a pro at sitting up since I last posted. She can sit by herself now and only falls over when she's reaching too far for a toy or waving one too wildly. She has moved out of her infant carseat and into her big girl one so she is now in shopping carts and high chairs when we go out. That has taken a little adjusting (she def. sleeps less when we're on the go) but she seems to be liking it more and more each time. The pic on the right is of her and Grandma Janet last week. Look at those arm rolls on miss Hallie! I'm not sure how big she is right now but she was almost 19 pounds at her six month checkup earlier this month! Wow! And I know you can't tell in the picture but I swear her hair is starting to come in a little bit. Maybe I'll be able to put a barrette in it by the time her first birthday rolls around. :)