13 months old

As of Monday, Jenna is 13 months old. Here are a couple of pics of her from the 21st.

She loves to carry things down to the sandbox, and will usually make a few trips before she has everything she wants down there. Even if the sand toys are down there already she finds something to bring down.


After Bruce was done mowing the lawn the other night, he gave Jenna a quick ride. While Bruce and Jenna were on the lawnmower, Andrew decided he wanted to 'race' them on his 4-wheeler. It was pretty cute.



That's it for now. I hope that everyone has had a good week.

Out in the boat

We took the kids & Sadie out in the boat on Saturday morning....it was a blast. We weren't sure how Jenna would do with wearing a life jacket, or being confined to a boat, but she did awesome. I think having a big brother and puppy who were both ecstatic to be in the boat helped. She was very interested in fishing, and seemed to think she needed to hold the pole, so next time we'll bring her pole with us (since it floats!). We went out on Lake Elmo, and Andrew couldn't wait to get his life jacket on, and have the boat in the water. He fished for a while (even caught a bass), and then he and Jenna snacked for while. Jenna was pretty tuckered out, and ended up falling asleep on the way home. She slept thru putting the boat back in the garage, and unloading the Tahoe!

On Sunday Bruce's parents came up for the afternoon. We all enjoyed playing with the kids in the sandbox, and watching Andrew swim with the neighbor boys in their pool. The 3 boys are just about inseparable, so it's nice that they live next door. ;)

Here are some pics from this weekend:

Getting ready to go

Nice fishy,fishy.....

Jenna & her fish

It's a whopper!

Jenna is starting to "dress up" already....here she is with her 'necklace' and 'microphone' - future rock star? We'll see!

And last but not least, here is why we need to take the batteries out of the power wheels when Andrew (& the neighbor boys) aren't using them!

Jenna's new trick

Jenna starting taking steps (3-5) at a time last week, but she really started walking more today. She still has a bit of a drunken look, which makes it cute to watch. She made it from the mud room all the way to the stairs tonight with out falling, and with out any help. Looks like we'll be seeing less and less of her bear crawl.

Professional Pictures

We attempted to have pictures taken of the kids yesterday (Andrew's 3 year, Jenna's 1 year). Let's just say they didn't go as we hoped. Bruce and I went into the studio thinking that Andrew was going to be the one we needed to worry about, turns out we were wrong - it was Jenna. Every time the photographer got anywhere near her, she'd start to cry! It was awful. Somehow the photographer did mange to get a few good shots of Jenna - I'm still not sure how :) Here's a few samples:

The 4th

We had a nice and relaxing 4th of July weekend, which is what we needed after the busy June we had. We started the weekend off with a bonfire Thursday night, and then on Friday Chad, Christy, Alex and Becca came up for a visit. The kids had fun playing all day (the F150, and 4-wheeler were the popular toys). They played in the pool, and sandbox, and were pretty tuckered out by the time they went to bed. Everyone (except Jenna) stayed up for fireworks, although Becca somehow managed to fall asleep while we were watching the neighborhood fireworks. We had S'mores with chocolate marshmallows which were really good (thanks for the suggestion Chad & Christy!), plus they are good to eat plain too, just ask Andrew & Becca.
Saturday and Sunday we ran errands, hung out at home, and just enjoyed not having to be anywhere or do anything. We were planning on taking the boat out on Sunday, but didn't end up getting out. We are hoping to take it out either one night this week, or next weekend.

Jenna's been working on walking, and will go 5-10 steps on her own before deciding that crawling is quicker....Andrew and the neighbor boys have been trying to encourage her to walk, which is really cute to see.
I hope that everyone had a good 4th of July weekend. Here are some pics from ours:

Andrew & Jenna enjoying the fire

Jenna on the 4th of JulyThe kids
Truck ride anyone?

Trying something new

I haven't been very good about sending out pics of the kids, and updating people on life in general so I thought I'd try a blog. A few of my friends have blogs, and it's fun to check out their blogs and see what going on in their lives....hopefully I'll be able to keep up with it.

This will also give me a place to post pics, and put the link to the Wal-mart site (once I get the birthday pics uploaded!). I always feel like I'm forgetting someone when I send it out via email. So here goes....wish me luck :)