One of the BEST weekends!

Sam and I had a great weekend! Before I brief on that, here are a few random pictures...

Thor riding his bike...

The terror of Beech Ct. Sam has no fear when it comes to vehicles. He will get in this little car and let it roll down the driveway. He also loves to do backward donuts. Mommy says that when he is 16, he will be walking and not driving!

This is from last week when we went to Bouncy Town. Sam wasn't a fan of the inflatables, but he loved this little house!

I, on the other hand, loved the inflatables. It was hard for Mommy to get an unblurry picture of me!

This was Sam's other favorite part, the "roller coaster". I had to try it out too.

This past week, I had Bible School. This was the first year I could go, and I had a great time!

Mommy caught this picture while they were in the car. Too bad there is no audio/video. I was strutting

and just jabbering away!

Friday was Daddy's birthday so we went to the park that night. Sam wants to do whatever I do...but he's just a little too small sometimes.

He does like to figure a situation out on his own though!

I had a great time trying out everything and running around.

Saturday, Mommy, Uncle Jay and Aunt Amanda took us boys to the farmers' market in Madison. We did great (as long as Mommy was carrying Sam and I was in Sam's stroller).

Here we are taking a lunch break on the lawn of the Capitol....Ian's Pizza, yum!

We went to the splash park after the farmers' market. Again, Sam had to do what I did!

Uncle Jay was nice and pushed us!

I got pretty wet at the splash park this time. Sam still wasn't interested. Sam + cold water does not mix!

Saturday night I got to try out my new pool. It's great!

Sam had fun playing from the side!

Sam is Daddy's little helper. Any project Daddy has, Sam wants to help!

Sunday we got to go to a waterpark in Milwaukee. G&G Hyland stayed there and gave us their wristbands. We had SO MUCH FUN! The water in this pool was like bath water. This is where Sam preferred to spend his time. He was back to his normal self in this water and not the crying little boy he is in cold swim lessons.

Daddy and I rode the slide with the "canoe".

I went down a super fast slide. I turned myself around at the end so that I wouldn't get my face wet. I still don't like that!

I went down this slide a lot of times!

Afterward, we had to go to Noodles to eat lunch. We were STARVING!

On the way back home, I was in charge of the GPS.

Sam couldn't take it and had to catch a nap!

Belle came over Sunday night to see our house. I got to hold her. She was a little scared, but she was also very excited!

What a great week/weekend!

Swimming and New Puppy!

Sam and I have been taking swimming lessons for the past 2 weeks. I really like it...Sam, not so much! It hasn't helped that the weather has been in the low to mid 70's. It's a little chilly to go swimming.

Here I am with my class (4 kids)...

This is Sam's face for much of the lesson, unless they are jumping off the wall (he really likes that).

Swimming...

 Grandma and Grandpa Rikli got a new puppy! Sam LOVES her. Her name is Belle.

Isn't she tiny?!

 Saturday we had a busy day! I had tennis lessons and then we went to G&G Hyland's house to get ready to go to a party at cousin Liz's house. I had a great time playing. Here we are doing Duck, Duck, Goose. Then we had to come back to Sun Prairie for the library pool party. I had fun playing in the water with Daddy. Sam wasn't having anything to do with the pool (he kept trying to make a run for the locker room to leave) so Mommy took him in the sand/play area they have at the pool, and he would have stayed there for hours!

Weekly Recap

Here is the recap of last week. On Wednesday I had T-ball, and Mommy was off work so she got to come see and take some pictures. T-ball is definitely the class this summer that I don't enjoy as much as the others. There is just a lot of waiting involved.

Here I am manning 3rd base. Kind of like tennis, I am a little (or a lot) too rigid on staying on the dots that they lay on the field. It takes a lot of coaxing for me to move from said dots!

This inning I played 1st base!

Getting ready to hit the ball.

Saturday, we went to Olbrich Gardens for Blooming Butterflies with Sophie and Natalie. We had a great time!

I think I liked the outdoor gardens even more. There was so much to explore (and less people too).

This was a really neat spot. Sam, however, was not impressed.

I had to play the piano the other night. I asked Mommy to get me "those notes" and then I played a scary sound since there were so many notes on the page :)

Sunday night, Mommy mowed the front lawn with Sam in the backpack (wish we had pictures of that). He was pretty much in heaven! I cleaned out the back of Daddy's truck with my broom. Then we all had to get in the back. Sam insisted that Daddy get up there and sit.

 Allie and Matthew are becoming like siblings to me and Sam. We have so much fun together!

Gymnastics, Dane County Fair and Sick!

Here are some pictures from my gymnastics class. The parents (and siblings) have to sit in the hallway, but they can peek through the doorway (taking turns) so Mommy got a couple pictures. Here I am before doing a  backward somersault!

Sam, ever so "patiently" waiting. It can be a LONG 45 minutes for someone who wants to be out on the  gymnastics floor with his brother!

Walking the balance beam "by myself"!

Last Sunday we went to the Dane County Fair. I had a great time (we all did), until it started raining...no, make that POURING! I told Mommy and G&G Hyland that next time before we go to the fair someone needs to check the weather!

This was one of my favorite things. They had this obstacle course/slide set up in the exhibition hall and I went through it at least 5 times...and would have kept going!

Sam looks like he is sitting still, but he was just back in the stroller from running around and trying to find an opening to get into the inflatable with Joey. Despite having an ear infection, he was in a pretty good mood (until the rain!).

I really enjoyed getting up close to some baby animals. Here I am talking to the goats.

I got to hold a baby duck? all by myself. I tried not to squeeze it too much!

Sam got to pet a baby chick.

Here I am with some piglets...

This was the last thing I got to do before the rain came. I had a blast on this! I was  a little tentative at first since you could go pretty high, but I started to get into it.

Look how high I am now!!

The fair was definitely the highlight of our weekend. Daddy was sick from Tuesday through Thursday, Mommy got it Friday and Saturday, Sam had the ear infection which we had to go to Urgent Care for on Sunday morning and then I got sick Sunday night and had to miss gymnastics on Monday :(  I think we are all recovered now so hopefully we had our fill of sickness for a few months!

In a quick Sam update, he now says ball really clearly and baby. Mommy has to get a video of him saying baby because he makes his voice a little higher and says it. :)

Mount Olympus and Grandma's Birthday!

This past weekend we got to go to Mt Olympus in the Dells! Mommy got the free tickets from the radio station like she did last year so we were off! Uncle Jay and Aunt Amanda came with us and Sam stayed with Grandma and Grandpa Hyland (we thought Sam would get tired too quickly, and when he is tired and wants to leave, he lets you know).

I started out a little leery (and it was a tad chilly even though it was 80 degrees outside), but I quickly got over it.

I liked the indoor waterpark a lot.

Waiting my turn...

At the bottom with a smile on my face!

This was Mommy's favorite part. The lazy river. Daddy, Mommy and I all rode together on a raft.

I had a lot of fun with Aunt Amanda in the wave pool. She pushed me around on an intertube and held on to me in the intertube when the waves came. What a great Aunt!

Relaxing...waiting for the wave to come.

The only bummer was that Aunt Amanda sprained her ankle right before we left. If we had left 5 minutes earlier, she wouldn't have! We hope Aunt Amanda and Uncle Jay will still come with us again next year! I am already talking about it.

Back home, Sam was happy to see us. Uncle Jay had his shoe talking to Sam and he was enthralled.

This was after blowing out the candles. Sam and I helped. Grandma is laughing because Sam's way of helping was almost drooling on the cake!

Present time...Sam trying to claim one.

Checking everything out...

And...Sam lost interest already. I, however, helped Grandma open everything and then would ask, who brought this present and the person would need to raise their hand.

Grandpa got that one! ...and I guess Sam did too. You can see his hand at the bottom of the picture :)

Sam says he got that one!

Mommy missed the best photo opportunity. Sam was sitting next to Grandpa and had his arms (just like Grandpa) and legs crossed. This was after he refused to cooperate and put them back for a picture.