Wisconsin

We took our first family trip to Wisconsin last weekend for a 3 day camping trip. In hindsight, we should have paid more attention to the forecast, which called for thunderstorms on Friday night and all day Saturday. At about 2 am on Friday night we woke up to the sounds of thunder in the distance and crazy lightning and it came right to us. Imagine the craziest thunderstorm you have ever seen, and then imagine being outside in it inside a tent with your kids. It was nuts, and I was definitely a little scared. The boys, however, were un-phased. Charlie slept through the whole thing and it woke Alec up, but after laying with us to watch it for about 2 minutes, he asked when he could go back to bed, and then passed right back out. Anyway, it ended up raining ALL day on Saturday and we had to move campsites b/c our first site was submerged in mud, but the sun finally showed up on Sunday and we made the most of it. Alec had a ball playing with Hayden (they didn't mind the rain at all), he learned to ride a bike, and Charlie was a trooper as always. On Sunday night Charlie slept through the night for the first time, 9:30pm-7am. Of course it was in a pack n play inside a tent in the cold, and of course he has yet to repeat the performance since we've been home and in his bed, but he did it nonetheless. Here are some pics from the weekend, and hopefully I'll get around to another post this afternoon since it sweet Charlie's 1/2 year birthday!

tent olympics - otherwise known as trying to entertain ourselves while staying dry.

Brody somehow found a bush full of burs on Sat morning and was covered in them from head to toe. We couldn't do anything to get them out, and he was fairly uncomfortable until Monday when we took him to the groomer, who had to completely shave him, to get them off. Charlie's face sums up how we all felt about the dirty dweezle all weekend.

After hours of playing with Hayden in the rain

Smore sticks

Piper and Charlie

Bike riding buddies

Piper was hilarious, she would b-line for Charlie every time we put them close together and completely tackle him. He knows she's coming.

Swimming in the lake, it was a little chilly.


The boys did tons of bike riding - we hardly saw them all weekend.

Seriously, could this baby be any cuter?



Conclusion, Wisconsin is gorgeous and a great place to camp, but, any rain the forecast next time and we are out.

No training wheels!

It's official, Alec can ride a bike. We went camping with the Hoeltings over Labor Day weekend and we let Alec ride on Hayden's bike (which is a few inches smaller than his own) and he took off, sans the training wheels. No falls, no nerves, he just rode. Awesome way to end his 3rd year!

Jump!

My brother-in-law Ross rocks and made this awesome video for us. I sent him about 30 clips of Alec going off the diving board and asked for his help, and this is what he put together. We LOVE it. As you can see, Alec completely mastered the diving board by the end of the season. Nice work Alec, and thanks a million Ross!

Oh Charlie

Sweet little Charlie has decided that he is no longer happy with sitting still:) In the last 2 days, against all of Mommy and Daddy's attempts to stop him, he has started crawling. 5 1/2 months seems insanely early to me for a baby to crawl, but he has always spent so much time on his tummy that I suppose it was inevitable. His crawl isn't pretty, he gets up on all fours and then lunges himself forward (he kind of hops) and then does it again, but it is a crawl nonetheless, and he can move pretty far pretty fast. I think within a week or two he will have really mastered it and have it down. I've tried to get a few videos, but he of course won't cooperate when I get out the camera, so for now here are some pics. He was loving crawling around in the freshly cut lawn last night. While I'm proud of his new accomplishment, I'm also really sad about it. Why is my baby growing up so fast?

I think this one is hilarious, can you tell how proud of himself he is?



Excuse the grass on his face that is in all of these pics




He's also figuring out how to go from all fours to a sitting position



and sampling some of the lawn in the meantime.

Random

Just a few random pics from the last week. We've been enjoying the wonderful weather, yes, I did say wonderful weather in reference to Illinois in August:) It's been low 80's for the last few weeks, so we've been enjoying spending a lot of time outside, and just hanging around. Alec has gotten so good at riding his bike and I love all the freedom the new skill gives us. We ride all over the place; to the store, the library, to lunch. It's a great activity for all of us, Charlie also loves to ride behind me in the Chariot, and it helps to use up some of the insane amounts of energy that Alec has every day.

Charlie idolizing Alec

Practicing sitting up

Alec is no longer satisfied with just pushing his own mower behind Matt, now he gets to help push the big mower when they do the front yard.



We had painters here to do some touch-up work and Alec was fascinated. He kept opening the door to tell them things, and then he would run up to me and say things like, "Wow Mom, those painters are sure nice."

Videos

Just a few cute videos. Alec made amazing progress swimming this summer, and since Sunday was the last day that the pool by our house was open, we decided to let him try the diving board, which he has had his eye on all summer. We weren't allowed to be in the water, or to help catch him at all, so he had to be able to swim to the side from the deep end all on his own. Matt was a little hesitant, but after seeing Alec in the water all summer long, I knew he could do it. We let him try, and he did AWESOME! He swam better than he ever has and he had no fear on the diving board what so ever. He was running off, doing cannon balls - it was hilarious, and by the end he had an audience b/c everyone around us was so impressed with how small he was. Only bad thing about it was that I didn't have my camera or video camera with me. The big pool that's a few miles away was open yesterday and is open for the next 2 weekends, so we are determined to get some video before pool season is officially over. Of course, the diving board was closed yesterday, so I didn't get any video then, but I did manage to get a video of Alec practicing his diving board jumps off the side of the pool. You can see what a great little swimmer he's become. We're both so proud of how determined and athletic he is.

Just a funny video I found when uploading . Love the little voice, and Retta, the fake laugh at the end is just for you:)


Not to be forgotten, here is little Charlie following in his big brother's footsteps. This was at the good old Meadowglen pool while we were back in CO.

The Market

Kids are so funny...this morning Alec and I were up together eating breakfast and I asked him if he wanted to walk down to the Saturday market. He looked at me very seriously and said, "No mom, Daddy told me the market crashed." :)