WI State Fair

Last Sunday, we went to the WI State Fair.

We had the obligatory WI Cream Puff...

YUMMY!

MMMMM!

Max thoroughly enjoyed seeing all the animals. He gets such a kick out of them!! As we walked through the Dairy barns, he kept yelling "MOO MOO MOO!" as if we didn't know that was the sound a cow made, and he had to make sure that we knew it. And that we saw them (there were hundreds of cows). He didn't get cow-licked this year...

Again with the horses, Max very loudly repeated NEIGH NEIGH NEIGH over and over. I don't know what it is about horses and kids, but all the horses at the Fair LOVE the kids. They could be standing at the very back of their stall and as soon as you walk up with a little one, they come right up to have their nose petted. Max was loving it until one horse decided to playfully NEIGH at him -- that kinda scared him a little bit. Another horse was so tall, he could stretch his neck OVER the front gate. He was having fun snorting on all the people underneath him. It made Max giggle! Just for size scale, see how big this Clydesdale was???

Things we didn't do at the fair this year: chocolate covered bacon (umm..yeah), deep fried peanut butter and jelly, funnel cakes, corn on the cob (no one had corn ready when we were there in the AM). We did try: pork burger (my fave), cheese curds, grilled cheese, bison stick, and cream puffs. YUM YUM.

Oh yeah...mom moment of the day? We got all the way to the Fair and realized that we had forgotten to put shoes on lil Max. NICE. Luckily, he was content sitting in his stroller or being held. WHEW. Crisis averted....

Meet me in St. Louis

Two weekends ago, I drove to St. Louis to spend time with these ladies -- most of whom I had never met before in my life, other than online.

My grandmother told me to bring mace with me (a lot of it). My mom worried.

And I had a BLAST!!

11 women -- with one thing in common -- all of us had babies born in November 2007. Two of us had babies born on the same day (maybe more...). Each of us have a love for life, cupcakes, crafting and fun.

Much of the weekend was spent getting to know each other. There was a lot of talking, a lot of giggling, a lot of late night coffee drinking. Perhaps not as much crafting as we had originally intended or wished for.

I spent the weekend with this wonderful machine:

The Cricut... a dangerously wonderful machine that I may have to put on my Christmas wish list for this year....

All in all, in was a wonderful weekend. Much too short -- next time, I'll be sure to work in a long weekend so I can enjoy more time with the ladies!!

Thanks for the great time, and to Emily for opening up her home and her city for us!

Chocolate Face

Max got a treat after dinner tonight.

He only KINDA enjoyed it... :)

While Mom's away...the boys will play

This is what daddy and Max do while mommy is away.





Flowers courtesy Grandma Jan

Photo-RRIFIC!

This post has been a LLLLOOOONNNGG time in coming. My apologies that it took me so long!

Back in May, two mommy friends I met through BabyCenter came to visit us in WI. It was a long weekend of hanging out, and we got the added perk of getting some family photos taken by Emily!

Remember when I posted about her sneak peaks??

I am embarrassed to say that my dear friend Emily Southerland finished the HUGE task of processing the rest of that massive pile of photos back in June, and posted them on her website. (Go to Clients and use the password WISCONSIN)...and I am finally blogging about it NOW. Boo on me.

Our photos are mixed in with all of Mel's family's photos, and there are close to 300 of them!! I adore every one in a special way. They are truly AMAZING, but if you're too time crunched to go through them all, here are a few of my favorites:






This first series of photos in the grass just makes me so happy. I love them all.




I asked Amanda to come over so I could get a few photos with her. She is such an awesome friend and truly my soul sister.

Poor monkey was feeling a little under the weather, but Em managed to still capture some wonderful shots of him!


Amanda and Max go for a walk up the hill. He loves his Auntie Amanda!!


Friends for life (just not right now). :)


The colors in the door series knocks my socks off. I posted others from the door series in my sneak peak post, so check them out there, or on Em's blog!

Auntie Amanda can coax a smile out of lil Max when no one else can!

I included this one for fun, but it is one of my favorite photos from the shoot! I have a little version of this photo taped to my monitor at work!

Mel and I...mustache pals!




The three amigas...

Hopefully this will tease you into looking at the rest. . . Emily is a genius and her work should be viewed at every opportunity. :) She's also posted a great post on her blog with more pictures (so you can see a few great ones of Mel's family too)

Thank you, Em, for a WONDERFUL photo taking experience!!! The biggest challenge is now to narrow it down to only a few!!!

July Fitness Challenge

July was a busy month again, and I struggled for most of it to fit in my fitness challenge. Some of the exercises were easy to fit in during my normal routine -- others were more difficult -- like pushups. Sounds familiar, eh?

Overall, I met all of my goals for the month, and even exceeded some. Except for those darn pushups -- I was 100 short! (beats the 150 short from June though!)

Here is the summary:

Situps: 1600 (1550 goal) = 103%
Pushups: 830 (930 goal) = 89%
Squats: 1475 (1550 goal) = 95%
Lunges: 1550 (1550 goal) - 100%
Miles (walk or run): 93 miles -- which breaks down to 3 miles a day.

Not bad.....and, oh yeah, did I mention -- I ran my first 5k!!! Read about it here!

Goals will stay the same for next month, I'm not going to add any new activities, except a concerted effort to do more yoga -- I find I am losing the flexibility I once had! But, that is just a personal goal, I am not going to track that on here...

So: August's Fitness Goals
Situps = 1550
Pushups = 930
Squats (with shoulder press) = 1550
Lunges (with bicep curl) = 1550
Plank Jacks = 930

Wish me luck!

Photos rediscovered

My parents uploaded a bunch of pictures onto my memory stick the last time we were over for dinner. I just wanted the pictures they had taken from the 5K. Turns out, they had more pictures that I didn't even know existed!!!

These ones are from when we were away in Paris. It's amazing to me how much he's grown and changed even since then -- and it was only a little over a month ago!

I'll add some video they sent me too in a later post -- once I get them edited. So keep your eyes peeled!

I did IT!!

On Thursday, I ran my first 5k -- the St. Ben's Run for the Hungry -- an event which kicked off GermanFest in Milwaukee.

And, I am proud to say.....I DID IT!!!

It definitely wasn't easy, but when all was said and done, it was fun. I ran it with the Maxes and my parents. Big Max and my mom took off running at the get-go, determined to come in with a competitive time. Big Max finished in 27 something. My mom finished in 29 something! Way to go!

As for me, my time goal was to finish in under 40 mins. My dad offered to run with me (and push the stroller) to keep me company and motivate me. Well, he motivated me enough to run a 9:48 mile for the first mile! (It kicked my butt though). After that, he was defintiely more annoying than motivating. But, I made it across the finish line, so I guess he did his job!

So, I bet you're waiting to hear what time I finished in....



34:28!!!


Not bad for my first 5K -- it averages out to ~10.8 min miles. I'm pretty proud of it, and it leaves me a lot of room for improvement if I do it again.

That's a big if....

I'm just happy it's over! MAYBE I'll sign up for another one....MAYBE.....

Here are some photos of the big event!


Grumps and Max right before the run


YAH! It's done! Max was pretty worn out too! :)




There's nothing more motivating than a cold beer right across the finish line...

Randomness

A few random photos of our life lately...

4th of July fun