3rd Birthday!

I know it's been a long time since Meredith's birthday - I know I've been slacking. But before it gets too late, I wanted to share some birthday pictures. Thanks to everyone who came to her birthday party. She had a wonderful time and it was so fun to see her that excited.

My favorite picture from the day - playing with Morneau. This picture just screams the idealistic childhood moment to me.

Dining on some Little Caesar's pizza and breadsticks. Yes, we're that classy!

This is what she does when I tell her I want to take a picture. She grits her teeth, forces a big smile and screams "CHEESE". I wanted a picture of her monkey birthday hat I made for her.

The monkey cake from Wuollet Bakery. I loved it!

Blowing out the candles.

On to presents...she loved that singing fish card.

Oh, and that monkey pillow pet too!

The rest are pictures of the party guests! Thanks again everyone!

September 2!

I just wanted to throw in a blog entry about her actual birthday. She brought Rice Krispy treats for all her friends at Preschool. She got to wear a special birthday crown too! We took her out for a special meal and let her choose where she wanted to go...she chose KFC. This is copy and pasted off her preschool log (it was so cute that I didn't want to forget about it):

2:01 P Nap Duration: Fell Asleep Notes: did end up falling asleep a little while ago. she was so excited it took her awhile. she was on her cot saying i wanna go to kfc over and over!

After KFC, we went home and Grandma and Grandpa Carlson brought her cupcakes and hair clips!

We opened a few gifts.

You can see her birthday crown here.

State Fair!!!

As many of you know, I look forward to the State Fair well...pretty much as soon as I get home from going. So needless to say, I was quite excited to make the annual trip up there. Meredith was excited too. As always, we wake up at the crack of dawn and head to the free park and ride.

Riding the bus

The first thing I did was head to the food building and get 81 fat grams of delicious cheese curds. Meredith wouldn't eat them so Greg headed over to the mini donut stand across the street to bring back 19 fat grams of delicious donuts. Meredith loved them.

While waiting for Daddy to get back with the mini donuts, I asked her to pose for a cute picture. This is what I get.

A few minutes later we were able to meet up with Juana (Grandma Schwake), my brother Chris and my sister Jennifer. Juana was greeted with a huge hug!

After eating our breakfast, we headed to the Miracle of Birth barn and checked out some baby animals with Chris.

The ducklings were oh-so-cute splashing around in their little pond. They looked like little wind-up toys.

After we saw the baby animals, we went to the DNR fish pond. Again, I asked her to pose for a cute photo and this is what I got. **sigh** I give up trying to get nice photos.
We made our way down to the giant slide. This year Greg rode down with Meredith.

I'm going to have to invest in a coupon book next year. Rides are expensive. A sheet of 30 tickets is $20 and each ride costs 4 tickets. I was lucky enough to have a kind stranger offer me their coupon for $6 off a sheet of 30 tickets because they were not going to use it.

Jennifer took in a ride with Meredith.

I love this picture. She went on the train all by herself and was SO excited! Look at her face :-)

I took her through the funhouse of mirrors. Since I have very few pictures of us, I thought I'd share.

She went on the swings all by herself too. She really like this ride a lot. A lot!

Grandma went on the roller coaster with her.

And my favorite picture from the day!

All in all, we had a great time. I don't have any pictures, but we got to meet up with my uncle Robin and my aunt Janis.

I didn't get to do a lot of stuff that I wanted to do though like go through the grandstand and some of the other buildings with vendors and displays. We didn't make it up to the bazaar. Bringing a kid to the fair is slow going. I want to go again without the child but I don't know if it's in the cards this year. We have a really busy Labor Day weekend planned. I guess I'm just going to have to eagerly anticipate the fair for 2011. And remind me that I have to block out two days to go to the fair. One with the child, and one without the child.

Twins Game

This past weekend we took Meredith to her first Twins game. The weather couldn't have been any nicer considering the hot, muggy weather we've been having lately. Temps in the 70's and low humidity felt wonderful for an outdoor game in the afternoon. It was the perfect afternoon for a game.

We kind of thought getting her to sit through a 3 hour game would be a little much. And it was. The only way to keep her to sit still ws to keep giving her food. Then go to the bathroom. Then giver her some more food. You get the picture.

The game was a no hitter until Slowey was pulled in the 7th inning...which is when we left. Mer had had enough and was too restless. But she had lots of fun. The next day at daycare, she proclaimed to everyone "I go to the Twins game"!

Some pictures of the beautiful stadium

No explanation necessary here.

Daddy and Mer enjoying the game

Gosh, I can't believe a whole month has gone by since I've done an update. I've really been slacking. You would think I would have tons to write about but I just don't. I spent a week in Baltimore in mid--July. They had record heat out there and temps were over 100 degrees. If you've ever been to Baltimore, you can also appreciate just how humid it was too. I managed to make it to Camden Yards to see the Twins play the Orioles. I've been to Camden Yards a number of times but never when the Twins happen to be in town. So that was fun. We whipped up a Circle Me Bert sign after we were done working just for the fun of it and I just so happen to have made it on Circle Me Bert! Man was it hot though - I left the game with a soaked butt. It looked like I peed my pants. But everyone else was a hot mess too so it didn't really matter.

Somehow we are just three weeks away from Meredith's 3rd birthday. It's really fun this year because she gets what it is and is super excited. She asked me to make her a party hat (she sees this on Elmo's World) so I made her a really cute monkey party hat that she will wear. She is SO EXCITED. And so am I!

Here are a few pictures from an outing with friends at Bryant Lake Park in Eden Prairie.

This is Mer playing with her friend Brody.

She is obsessed with her bucket and dumping water everywhere.

This is Mer's friend Ry-Guy

They went to the playground together and she kept chasing after him saying "Where is Ry-Guy?"

This is such a cute picture. Too bad Ryan is so dark. Too bad I don't know how to take good pictures.

This weekend Meredith will be attending her first Twins game so stay tuned for pictures of that.

4th of July

4th of July weekend was spent up at the Cabin. Meredith spent her first night away from BOTH mom and dad. Grandma Schwake took her up to the cabin on Friday night and Greg and I followed suit on Saturday. Usually when we go to the cabin, we just take day trips. The cabin isn't exactly 'luxury' or 'modern' nor does it offer a lot of space when there are 10 other people there. But it is a great spot on the lake!

I decided that it would be a great idea to set up a tent and stay overnight. In theory this would have been a great idea but the wind was blowing at hurricane strength and all we could hear all night long was the tent flapping in the wind. Then it started to rain and one of the walls kept blowing down. So at about 3:30 a.m. (no sleep at this point) we decided to vacate the tent and head inside. Greg slept on an air mattress on the floor and I slept on a couch that was far too small. I think I got about 1.5 hours of sleep that night.

But we had fun and it was great to see my family, cousins, aunts, and uncles. And Meredith had a blast.

Robin got a new toy that they took out on the choppy water. We decided to take Mer out the next day when it wasn't so windy.

We're all waving goodbye as they leave for their boat ride.

Mer played a bit in the water. See those waves?

This is what happens when I'm in charge of making sure no one cheats during a breath holding contest. Notice how one is in the water and one is out of the water???

Mer started having a meltdown at about 3:00 p.m. She fell asleep and took a nap!

Mer was fascinated with the dog leash. She spent a good part of the day insisting that it be tied around her waist and she ran around like a dog. Here she was actually walking the dog.