The Zoo

Hiya - we found ourselves with a Saturday that was unplanned so we took the girls to the MN Zoo in Apple Valley over the weekend. We all had fun! Unfortunately, the camera ran out of batteries about 30 mins after we got to the zoo... :-( So we only got a few pictures. I think we might have to buy a season pass next year, the girls had a lot of fun and there was a lot to see and do. They had a really cool water feature that the kids could run through which was perfect for such a hot day. We found that about 3 o'clock when we were all hot, tired and thirsty so it was at the right time for us!

We also had a pool party on Sunday for our neighbors from the old house, we had about 30 people including kids so it was a fun time. The clouds parted and the sun came out about 20 minutes before everyone got there so people were able to use the pool. By the looks of the kids with blue lips when they got out, it must not have been too warm though! It was fun to see the neighbors that we hadn't seen in awhile though and the kids had a blast.

The house is coming along, they have all the walls up, windows and doors in and they're putting the shingles on now. We are planning to be able to do our wiring this weekend for cable, phone, ethernet and speaker. So that'll be a big job for David and Jade as I'm pretty much tied up with the munkins...I'm not sure who has the tougher job for that weekend though...

We bought a Wii a couple of weekends ago and so we've been playing that - Lily can even play it. She likes the Ski Jump game and the fishing game. Although she does call it the 'Wee Wee' instead of the Wii...we keep trying to correct her but she doesn't really notice.

Bridget hasn't checked out the Wii yet but she's busy learning things and getting into things. She says a few words now - Hi, DaDa, THIS!!! - and she does signs for a few more - More, All Done, Light, Bye Bye, Kiss. She has gotten so she likes to pull hair and especially if someone has something that she wants to take...naughty! Lily is often on the receiving end of that...

Lily and I had a great time back in ND for the 4th of July. She 'helped' Grandpa Glenn play his guitar for awhile and we all enjoyed a little concert. Lily fell right back into her G&G routine when we got there - complete with taking off all her clothes outside all the time. I'd come around the corner, and there she'd be - not a stitch on...we did have to explain to her that you can do that in the country where no one can see you but not back home in Shakopee!! If she lives in a nudist colony when she gets older, I'll know where it started...

The house is progressing, they have the first floor and garage all framed up now and are working on the second floor. We go out there every few days and check out the progress although it's tough to do sometimes with the girls. Especially Bridget - she insists on walking herself but of course there are open stairways and things like that so one person is assigned full-time to shadowing her and making sure she doesn't get into trouble. Lily is pretty good now to be more careful. She is patiently waiting for the house to be done so she can get all her toys out of storage!

We went to Brainerd last weekend to get together with Dave's group of friends that he graduated in Engineering from NDSU. It's an annual event and it's gotten to be more kids than adults lately! Actually, I think we were 8 kids, 8 adults this year so evened out. This was the first year that we didn't have any kids under 1 so we're turning the corner on the baby-stage at that event! It was fun to see everyone and the kids had a blast running around and playing and we all stayed up too late! We took a 2 hour nap when we came home last Sunday.

Bridget finally has her 4 molars in so she's been not crabby the last few days which has been great. Now we're waiting on the eye teeth and then hopefully we're done with teeth for a little bit! She's gotten to be a fast walker now and she likes to play chase - with you chasing her! Then she laughs and laughs when you finally catch her. This is fun only when you're not also trying to carry groceries and computer bags and purses... ;-) She says a few words now and does the sign for some others but she's not the talker that Lily was at that age. Which might be a good thing, I don't think Lily stopped talking for more than 1 minute in a row when we drove up to Brainerd last weekend....Anyway, she loves to say 'Hi Da!' the most and she's definitely more of a daddy's girl than Lily was.

One year pics

Here's a picture from Bridget's One Year pictures that we finally got taken a few weeks ago - they turned out really cute!! As you can see, she's getting lots of teeth! She has her middle 4 on top, middle 4 on bottom and then she's skipped her eye teeth and she's in the process of getting the first molars. The molars on bottom are through now and the top ones are most of the way through as well. Chomp chomp!! She has been one crabby kid for the last few weeks while those have been making their way through.

Lily is back from G&G Wollan's now - she had a lot of fun but we were happy to get her back home again. She was very excited to see her sister and Bridget was just grinning from ear to ear when she laid eyes on her big sister! It was fun to watch them greet each other. They've never been apart for long so I'm sure they missed each other.

Still waiting patiently on the house stuff. They did deliver some wood yesterday so I'm hoping that they start framing sometime this week. Cross your fingers...

For the 4th of July holiday, Lily and I are going to drive back to Bismarck and Bridget and Daddy are staying in Minneapolis. David is too busy at work to take the time off and I'm not brave enough to take Bridget on a long car ride again by myself. Last time, she screamed from Fargo to Shakopee - which is about 4 hours... So she and Daddy will have some quality time together over the long weekend and Lily and I will get some time together too.