Kylie can officially ride her bike WITHOUT training wheels!

This is one happy Mom and Dad reporting!! We have been waiting for this day and thought it would never come.

We have been practicing with Kylie on her "little bike" in the grass the last week and she's done well. Last night, she was at friend house (about 5 houses down) and Dave picked her up and brought the bike with and she rode it home!! I was able to witness it and couldn't believe my eyes! I was the giddiest Mommy in town -- I was SOO excited! My little girl can officially ride her bike without training wheels! It was soo exciting!!

We were able to get it on video as well as a few pictures! In this video -- towards the end, she puts her feet up on the middle bar of the bike -- trying to get fancy ;)

GREAT JOB KYLIE -- Mommy and Daddy are SOO proud of you!!

Fun, busy, but somewhat laid back weekend!

On Friday, Kylie had her friend Madison sleep over and we took the kids to A&W for dinner...which we've never been and it was actually very good! :)

On Saturday, Dave was planning on bringing his bike into the shop to get repaired, unfortunately, it wouldn't start :( That was not a good start to his day! Hopefully, we can get it into the shop this week to get it fixed, so I have my husband back...this broken bike thing isn't going so well at our household.

We went to Anoka to pick-up my ring at Gould's (which BTW, it's beautiful!!), soo happy, I'm finally married again and then we noticed Anoka was having their Riverfest, so we spent some time down there and walked around to all the little booths. It was fun!

Downtown Anoka -- getting her face painted

Dave then dropped me off at my aunt Terri's house and my cousin Rhonda and I went to lunch with Auntie Terri at the Olive Garden. It took us three times to figure out where we wanted to eat!!! It was hilarious and we had a blast!!! Then I came home that afternoon, we set up the pool for the kids and the neighbor boys came over and played with Kylie for a bit. That evening, we had dinner and a bonfire with the neighbors, Brad and Mindy, at their house. It was fun -- we haven't done that in quite some time and we had a good time! :)

Those sparklers let off a lot of smoke!

Dave blowing smoke out of his ear (as always, hehe!) :)

Caden and Kylie (and you can kindof see Declan on the left there)

Then on Sunday, we were L-A-Z-Y and Dawson wasn't feeling well (sick with his nasty cold) and could have probably slept all day. We woke him up around 10 a.m.

Kylie though, that girl is up at 6:30 everyday, no matter what! We went to Walmart to get groceries and Target to get diapers, and DOH! the parade was going on in Monti AND I94 was shut down due to the gas tanker turned over, so traffic was herrendous!! But we managed to get it all complete. We came home, ate lunch and then decided to go to Grandma and Grandpa's for a bit...Grandma took Dawson while we took Kylie to see the new Ice Age movie. She loved it -- what a cute movie! It would have been great to see it in 3D, but we weren't sure how Kylie would do with that and the glasses for an hour and a half. My little big brother finally decided to move out of Mom and Dad's, so we got to witness his "goodbyes" to Mom and Dad...I bawled my eyes out! I'm so happy for him though :)

Overall it was a good weekend -- we didn't get the lawn mowed and we didn't get the house clean, but what's new... :)

Dawson's First Corn on the Cob

He was getting so excited to eat it -- it was so cute! He wasn't sure how to do it at first as he just tried to bite into it on his plate and then we had to show him that he can pick it up :)

Dawson really likes sitting on his potty -- he hasn't gone potty yet, but likes to sit on it. So, he was sitting on it last night and kept getting up and running around with no diaper on, etc. I told him he was done and I brought him into his room to put a diaper on and he freaked out (he's becomming an old fan of diapers) and tried squirming away. I told him he then needed to go sit on the potty and not get up. So, the little stinker, sits on the potty and puts his shorts on...probably thinking if he puts his shorts on, he doesn't need to put a diaper on....hmm...sorry, not the case. But it was worth a shot on his behalf :)

4th of July Weekend

We had a great 4th! On Friday, we got up and went to the strawberry patch for the first time in my life. It was awesome and a really good experience. We did catch the last day of strawberry picking at this patch. :) I think Kylie ate more strawberries than she picked and Dawson, not a fan quite yet. He didn't want to pick and just wanted to get out of there...lol. He was willing to "try" a strawberry, but it was very sweet and he threw it onto the ground. But we got our ten pounds of strawberries, went home and I actually made jam -- and it's REALLY good! :) We had a bonfire on Friday night (woke Kylie out of her bed and she did some sparklers and ate some smores).

On Saturday we got up and went to Avon, MN. My friend Alicia's dad lives on Upper Spunk lake in Avon and we were invited to attend their tradition of going to "Dad's" house! :) We had an absolute blast and the kids did too. They were able to just run, jump, play in the water and just have fun! We learned that Dawson loves fishing. He did not want to get off the dock -- we finally had to tell him the fishing pole was broken so we (Dave) could have a break.

Then on Sunday, we just hung out most of the day. Went to Cabela's in the a.m. to get my cousin's baby a cute little camo outfit and hat and later in the day I went up to Princeton to visit Sara and Den's little guy, Clayton! What a handsome little man! :)

Dawson's Hair

Take a look at our little man's hair -- it is absolutely crazy! This was purposly done to stick straight up, but normally his hair is so curly and crazy anyways, we just had to enhance it a little bit!

Father's Day 2009

We had plans to meet Dave's friend Kevin and his wife Val and their son Tyson at the Minnesota Zoo on Father's Day. Unfortunately, our little man was sick and had quite the fever! He was by no means himself and of course, our first instinct was strep since this is what I had last week. We did manage to go to Russell's for brunch, which was FABULOUS, the kids never eat much, but we sure did enjoy it and they have LOTS of choices to choose from. We then headed home and later in the day we had a chance to stop at my parents house to wish my Dad a Happy Father's Day and had dinner there. The kids, especially Dawson, from not feeling well, were exhausted and tired. It was super hot outside, so that definitely added to that fact. If we knew Dawson was going to hold up throughout the day, we would have went to the Zoo. We miss our friends (but will be able to see them this weekend when we travel to Albert Lea)!

When Dave was opening his Father's Day gift, it was in a Spiderman bag (the best part) and Kylie was like, you're going to love it, and as Dave was taking out the tissue paper, she's like, "its a Harley Davidson jacket"...lol. No surprises in our house! :) It was a "windbreaker/rain coat" in which I thought would have been a good coat to run around town with. Well we ended up taking it back and exchanging it for a different coat, which in turn, I really do like better and definitely know that Dave likes it better too :) So it all worked out perfectly!

I hope all of you Father's out there had a fabulous Father's Day :)

Kylie's first time in swimming lessons

This has been the best $32 I've spent in a long time. She absolutely LOVES swimming lessons. The first time in the water was a bit scary and she wasn't sure how to get into the pool by herself, wasn't confident enough to hang onto the side of the pool or anything. But she's come a long ways in the week and a half she's been doing it. By the end of last week (3-4 days after being in lessons, she was jumping off the side of the pool) and as of yesterday, she got to jump off the diving board (with a life jacket on of course)! But she's doing great and I'm so very proud of her :)

Mickey Mouse Clubhouse

Dawson loves this show!! Kylie was outside playing with her friends and Dawson was bored (they have learned to entertain themselves quite well)...so we read some books and let him watch Mickey Mouse Clubhouse on the computer. It was just too cute and he got a huge kick out of it!

YeeeeHaa!

Lately, Dawson has been obsessed with the broom. So more or less the kids thought it was fun to use it as a horse! :)

A great weekend!

Friday night, Kylie had a sleepover at our house with her friend Kristen. They were so darn cute, it took awhile for them to fall asleep, and then about 1/2 hour later, I could hear Kristen on the monitor saying, "Kylie, wake up, wake up!"...LOL! It was quite hilarious, but Kylie doesn't just wake up and unfortunately, I don't think Kristen had any luck waking her up.

Saturday, was yet, another busy day! Dave went down to my parents house right away in the a.m. and then the kids and I headed down there around 10:30 a.m. Dave had to cut down trees for my Dad and Grandma wanted Kylie to come over and help plant flowers and she did just that :)

Of course, Kylie and Grandma couldn't do it alone :)

Later in the day, we had an unexpected visit from Jamie and Lydia -- it was soo nice to see little Lydia -- she is growing :) She's soo darn cute and happy!!

Then after nap time for Dawson, we went to our friends house, Mike and Jodi's, for a BBQ. It was a ton of fun -- the kids were totally worn out when we left there. Here's a slideshow of the kids -- they are all so darn cute!