Harrington Beach State Park

On Aug 12th we took a trip up to Harrington Beach State park with the Lindners and the Pitts. It was a great day to enjoy some sand, sun and sticks.

Jack, Lucy and Nolan had a great time gathering wood for the campfire (that was never started), and playing catch with their Dads in the freezing cold water (by Dads I mean Andy Lindner, he was the only one in the water-Kenny and Todd where happy to play beach patrol).

As for the little girls, Cassie loved the sand so much she probably ate several mouthfuls, Malia loved the safety of her parent's beach towels and had no interest in putting one toe on that gritty business, and Audrey was quite content taking little snoozes in her car seat and on a beach towel in that shade of the nearby strollers.

The parents had a good time too, it's always fun to get together and watch the reasons that we are parents explore the beach and share some funny stories about our lives.

Party time & Potty time

Happy 28th Birthday to Kenny! OK so he still spent his whole day in labor and delivery at the hospital, but at least he wasn't moving us in to a new apartment or roofing his in-law's cabin this year. He did get his mandatory strawberry trifle cake, and really that's all that matters to him!

Now on to potty time. We're potty training in the Merrell household, and Nolan is doing pretty good at it too. We've had a little help from the "Potty Watch" that Grandma Whittaker gave him, it plays a little song to remind him to head to the potty. He's also learned that wet Lightning McQueen underpants don't feel very nice and prefers to keep them dry. So hooray-we're on our way! I'm not expecting this to be the quickest transition ever, but hey at least he's interested and knows when he needs to go and what he needs to do.

This is the last time Kenny is allowed to do her hair!

Play time!

Nolan sometimes asks if he can hold Audrey. We usually do it on the couch with pillows, but I thought he would be able to hold her up for a quick photo. Thankfully it worked. She looks SO big here! Her thighs are as big as her brothers!! Ha ha!

He's also very enthusiastic about sharing toys with her-I'll sometimes find her buried under a pile of them, but this time they were playing "baby jaguars".

This is how I found Nolan, admiring his handy work with his little sister.
She didn't seem to mind...

I wish I could add a sound bite to this picture. Audrey loves to talk and squeal-sometimes she gets so high-pitched that it actually hurts your ears! She's also copy you if you stick your tongue out at her, and she'll ALWAYS smile back if you smile at her-we love it. 

Mmm...chocolate Nutella toast! Kinda makes him look like the Joker don't you think?

"Tomorrow we'll go to the fair..."

I have this great album of lullaby's that I've played for Nolan during bedtime for quite some time, and one of the songs talks about how "The sooner you sleep, the sooner you wake, and tomorrow we'll go to the fair." Well, this last Thursday I finally made that come true for Nolan & Audrey. The WI STATE FAIR began and we were lucky enough to have Katie Lindner and her 3 kids invite us to join them. Turns out her husband loves big crowded public events as much as mine does so we were a perfect match to go together. It also helps that Nolan LOVES to play with Jack and Lucy, and Audrey and Cassie are pretty civil to each other so far too. Katie is also pretty great herself-she was one of my first friends out here in Milwaukee. 

So after the mile or so walk from our minivans, we finally got in to the fairgrounds and entered a world of livestock, food on a stick, and all things Wisconsin. Oh yeah, and did I mention ALL OF THE PEOPLE!! We strong-armed our double strollers (oh and Katie also had a backpack with Cassidy in it-what a Supermom) in and out of the animal exhibits, between the lines of people waiting for their WI grilled cheese sandwiches, $0.25 cup of flavored milk, roasted corn on the cob and chocolate covered bacon on a stick...mmm sounds yummy right? But the best line of all to wait in was for the GIANT CREAM PUFFS! It actually went pretty fast for as many switchbacks as it had and soon enough we were finding a nice spot on the curb to enjoy the cream puffiness. A photographer from the West Allis newspaper apparently spotted us told us to "pretend I'm not here" and began clicking away with his fancy camera. Nolan was all too happy to oblige, Jack and Lucy however wanted to keep their cream covered faces reserved to just their Mommy's camera. The photographer took our names, told us what paper he was with and then told us to check online for the pictures. Sure enough we've made it onto the newspapers slideshow of opening fair photos. Yipee! You can check them out here. I love that I have more cream on my face than Nolan does in the picture...geez what a dweeb.

I didn't dig out my camera at all so here are a couple of photos that Katie took. We had a fun time, and we're glad that we can check that off of the list of things that we must do while in Milwaukee. Now I just need to figure out a way to let Nolan ride one of those cows that he keeps asking about...hmm maybe next year. 

Nolan got a little cream on his face too.

Lucy and Nolan are 1 day apart in age, and this is one of many photos that I have of the two of them sharing a special little moment together. Ahh sigh, maybe someday we'll put this in their wedding video!  He, he:)

Our Green Bay Staycation

Last week I surprised Kenny with a quick trip up to Green Bay to celebrate his upcoming birthday and just give us a fun new place to go explore. I got a great deal at a hotel in Green Bay and when he got home from taking his test from the psych rotation we headed out. It's a pretty quick trip about 2 hrs, or one Disney movie for Nolan. We had a GREAT time! We headed to Bay Beach Amusement Park and bought $7.50 in tickets (at $0.25 a ticket that's a lot of rides!) and were excited to give Nolan his first taste of amusement park rides. He started off with the helicopters with Kenny, then we made the mistake of putting him on the airplanes that make the great gun fire noises which he loved, until it started going up and down and kind of jerked him a little bit and totally freaked him out. After that he wouldn't go an any more of the little kids rides by himself...bummer.

 Kenny and I both took a swing in the Yo-Yo, and then Nolan saw the giant slide. I told him that I could go with him so off we went, up a TON of stairs where we just kept getting higher and higher. I thought for sure he would freak out on me and we'd be headed back down in a matter of minutes. But to my surprise he was jumping and laughing and trying to push in front of the teenagers in front of us to get to the top. The first drop got his tummy (as well as mine) and he held his breath for each bump, but by the end he was laughing hysterically and jumped right up ran over to Dad to slap him a five and we were headed back up for a second ride. It was great. Audrey was a great little spectator-she's pretty easy going and up for anything really. We spent as much time as we dared on Friday night and then had to go back Saturday morning to use up our tickets.  It was a great trip, if anyone around here is looking for something to do before the end of summer, we'd highly recommend it. 

Oh yeah, we also saw Lambeau field from the car....uhh go Packers. 

"Ohmmm..."

I've told lots of people how much I loved doing prenatal yoga while I was pregnant with Audrey-it just made me feel so much better when those aches and pains would set in. Well apparently there were other benefits that passed through the amniotic barrier! You'll find my sweet baby girl doing this several times a day, but this time she was supposed to be snoozing in her swing. I guess she was discovering her "centering position". Pretty talented eh?

Milwaukee Air show

Last weekend we took a ride after church like we usually do, but this time we had a definite purpose. We wanted to check out the Milwaukee Air show since we'd been hearing about it on the news and listening to the jets practicing for a few days before. It was down at the lake front, but between the air show and another festival, getting down to the beach area was not going to be a real possibility. So we found a park nearby that a few thousand other people had also discovered and Kenny stayed in the car with Audrey while Nolan and I ventured out to watch for the airplanes. Boy was it amazing! I was glad to have Nolan with me so that I could act as giddy and excited as I actually was and not just look like a weirdo. I love airplanes and flying and I wish I was still able to fly them occasionally, maybe someday I'll convince Kenny to buy me one of those fancy planes!

 The US Air force Thunder birds performed an amazing show-I've never seen or felt or heard anything like it. They flew so close and so low to the ground that the noise was almost painful. I was probably quite the show myself, desperately trying to use my meager photography skills while Nolan was clinging to my legs or waist crying and saying that it was "TOO LOUD MOMMY", while also answering my cell phone every couple of minutes from Kenny asking "did you get that last one?"but I was pleasantly surprised that a few actually turned out-thanks to my camera and our telephoto lens. I am happy to say that by the end of the show Nolan finally said "Ja see that Mom? It was awesome!" Yep-it definitely was a good way for him to learn the definition of awesome. I'm already planning on going again next year.

First Giggles!!

There has been a little competition in our household for the past month or so regarding who would be the first one to elicit giggles out of our little Audrey. Kenny assumed it would be him since he was the first one to get Nolan to laugh. I thought it actually might be Nolan, since Audrey seems to be quite entertained by him lately. But to my wonderful surprise it was I who coaxed the first giggles out of my little girl! YAY! I even got it on camera, despite the battery being dead and the hard drive full! She was gracious enough to stay in a laughing mood while I cleared up space on the video camera and plugged it in. On a side note, Kenny had taken Nolan with him on a home teaching appointment so it was just the two of us, and thankfully I had the video camera close because Kenny would have been even more disappointed that he didn't get to see them...it was hard enough for him to accept that I'm the funnier one...for now! :)