Pool time!

We decided to get a pool for baby Trevor (umm...make that Dada) so we could cool off in our backyard on those hot summer days. It's almost like our backyard was designed to have a 12' pool! We now call this our own backyard oasis!

We took a dip Friday night, Saturday afternoon, and Sunday afternoon. We've already gotten our moneys worth considering the deal we got on it! Trevor loves splish-splashing around and Mommy and Daddy enjoyed some cocktails in it when Trevor took a nap!

It's large enough for a lot of visitors. So anyone wanting to cool off on those hot summer days is more than welcome! It will be a salt water pool starting tonight!

Trevor had a wonderful weekend. He really enjoys crawling over Dada. He crawls over one way then turns around and goes back over. This can keep him entertained for a good 20 minutes plus!

(Had to post this pic with his mouth/jaw clenched...this is the way he looks when his teeth are bugging him...we'll always remember this look!)

One other highlight from the weekend was Trevor's first ice cream cone. No ice cream, just the cone but he thought it was a wonderful treat. He chowed down the whole thing. It must have felt good on his gums?!? The caption for this picture is "what? is there something on my lip?" It held there for a few minutes before Trevor got it off and devoured it. Yum! Just wait little buddy until you can have ice cream in it!

Mommy 'hearts' cowboys!

Sara and the girls went to the Tim McGraw concert at the MN State Fair grandstand on Saturday night. What a fun time!!! The weather was nice, the music was great, and the company was even better. It's always a good time when this bunch gets together.

And did we mention all of the cowboys? :) Yes, Sara is a country music fan which will surprise most of you (it did her brother-in-law Jeff) but she is a romantic and country music definitely has some romanticism about it. Now if she could only get Brian to go with her....and wear a cowboy hat. Well, the likelihood is about 0% on that so it's a good thing her cousins and sister-in-law like country! Can't wait for the next get together!

For those of you worried that Brian was left out of the fun, don't despair. He and his friend Brandon went to the pre-season Vikings game and those lucky ducks were upgraded to the Miller Lite End Zone party so they had all of the drinks and food they wanted. Not a bad Saturday night! Thanks Grandma Jeanne and Grandpa Steve for watching Trevor!

Even Randle knows it's football season! He went over to his toy bin and got his referee out to play with. Are you ready for some football? Watch out ref for when Randle doesn't like the call you make. He has some sharp teeth!

New Tricks

Trevor surprised us the other day by climbing up two stairs. He was crawling around and the next thing you know we went to find him and there he was on the stairs to upstairs. Guess we'll be needing a baby gate sooner rather than later!

And yep, he's working on more teeth. Looks like two more on the bottom. They always seem to come in pairs!

Also new this week is Trevor insisting that he can feed himself. Big boy literally grabbed the spoon and bowl and was determined to get the food to his mouth by himself. He did okay but did a lot of scooping the food out of the bowl with his fingers and bringing that to his mouth. He did get a little on the spoon and up to his mouth. He also has been intently watching Mommy and Daddy eat and even grabbing at our food so looks like he's ready for his own finger foods besides his baby crack.

We let Trevor watch his first Baby Einstein video and boy was he intrigued. He sat there mesmerized by the images and music. We don't see any harm in letting him watch once and a while because he seemed to like it. Plus it is an opportunity to tell him what is happening and learn some new words. Next he just needs to learn how to work the remote!

He's going up on all fours quite frequently, mostly to crawl over things.

Things like Randle!

9 Months Old!

Trevor turned 9 months this week, can you believe it? Before we know it he'll be having his first birthday party. Everyday Mommy says to Trevor 'can't you just stay small?' and then in the next breath says 'i can't wait to see what you are going to do next!' He's so much fun and continues to be such a good baby.

He loves to give high-fives and is an excellent army crawler. He often pulls himself up on furniture but has yet to learn to get down. In fact when we try to get him to bend his knees to go down he locks them upright. Guess he just wants to stand.

Everything goes in is mouth, including the grass from his outdoor picture. This was shot right after Mommy took grass out of his hands. He seems to be saying 'why did you take that Mommy, I was just looking at it.'

Leah's Baptism

On Sunday we attended Leah's Baptism in Westfield, MA (Dawn's hometown). It was great to see all of Brian's relatives who made the three and a half hour drive from Syracuse. Trevor got lots of attention from the ladies!


Leah's Baptism was held after mass and she slept through most of it. Not even the water woke her up.




The proud Grandparents with their grandchildren:


And of course the proud Godmother:

Family Time!

After leaving the Niagara Falls area we drove to Syracuse, NY where a lot of Brian's family lives. First stop was of course to see Brian's Grandma Hillins who is 101 years old and still reciting limerick's by heart. It was so neat to see Trevor with her. Matter of fact, when he first saw her he about crawled out of his stroller to get to her.




Soon after we got there Jeff, Dawn, and girls arrived so we had the opportunity to get a four generation picture!


After leaving Grandma Hillins' we headed over to Aunt Kathy's house. We appreciated them having dinner for the Hillins clan and it was so good to catch up with Aunt Kathy, Uncle Bob, cousins Emily and Sarah and Sarah's daughter Adeline who is 7 months old. Notice how Adeline is all into Trevor and he's totally checking out cousin Emily instead! Trevor prefers the "older ladies!"

Trevor and Adeline were great playmates. Er, Adeline was a great playmate for putting up with Trevor's stealing of all of her toys. One particular hot item was her Goodnight Moon book. So much so that they were going around and around in circles until Adeline wised up and got a different book. Such a smart girl!

On Saturday morning we visited Grandma Hillins for a few hours. Trevor slept most of the time but woke up and was able to play with Grandma Hillins for a while. He was showing her all of his tricks including climbing and crawling on the table.

After that we checked out an old Hillins stomping ground, Coleman's, which is an Irish pub. We didn't cheers over a Guinness but we did take time to get Trevor's picture in front of the little phone booth and the Leprechaun's entrance. He thought both were pretty neato!

After that we headed to cousin Wendy's house. Wendy is a big fan of Trevor's so it was nice to introduce the two to one another. We enjoyed a wonderful lunch at their home and got the chance to catch up with Wendy, Greg, and their four children including Brayden who was born around the same time as our niece Leah. We only wish we could have spent more time together, an hour or two was simply not enough time.

We also had the opportunity to visit Grandma Stepien's grave site. You may remember that she went to heaven around the same time that we found out we were pregnant. She even knew there was a pregnancy in the family and told Grandma Pauline but it wasn't until a few days later that we announced we were pregnant. It really is a circle of life and Sara was glad to be able to say hi to Grandma Stepien since she couldn't travel to her funeral.

Before heading out to Westfield, MA, the location of Leah's baptism, we stopped in for one last visit with Grandma Hillins. Trevor was giving her cuddles and you could tell both of them were having a conversation with their hearts. Such wonderful memories were created on this trip. This picture captures one of them :)

Niagara Falls

We just returned from a getaway with Grandma Pauline and Grandpa Hillins. We spent 4.5 days touring NY, Canada, and Massachusetts. Our main reason for the trip was our niece Leah's baptism but we decided if we were going all that way, why not spend some more time together so we first headed to Niagara Falls and a quaint little town in Canada called Niagara on the Lake.

We flew into Buffalo, NY late on Wednesday evening and drove to Niagara on the Lake, about an hour or so drive, especially when we breezed through customs. In the morning we headed over to Niagara Falls and took a ride on the Maid of the Mist. Wow - the falls were even bigger than we expected and very neat to see.

Here we are looking like smurfs in our blue rain gear. They even had a little jacket Trevor's size:

This picture was taken on the way to the horseshoe part of the falls on Maid of the Mist. Not sure how anyone in a barrel survived a ride over these falls. Look at those rocks. Ouch!

The boat goes really close to the falls and we all got pretty soaked. Even the rain jackets can't help when the wind picks up and blows the rain every which direction.

Trevor didn't really care to get wet so he and Daddy hung out in the dry section of the boat.

After the boat ride we dried off for a bit and Trevor got some good playtime in with Grandma Pauline and Grandpa John.

For lunch we headed back to Niagara on the Lake and one of its many vineyards. The food was yummy and the scenery was beautiful. Of course, we had to sample some wine and that hit the spot!

We did a wine tasting at one other winery before heading back to the hotel for the boys to do some swimming.

For dinner that night we headed into town. Beautiful flowers lined the streets so we had to take a picture in the flower cave as Brian called it.

On Thursday we crossed the border back to the US and saw the falls from the US side. Wow again. Very impressive from this vantage point too.

More smurf people out for a tour. The rainbow was too beautiful to not take a picture!

And more smurfs getting wet. Check out how close the boat gets to the falls. No wonder they call it Maid of the Mist!

We had a wonderful time with Grandma and Grandpa Hillins. We are always glad for the time we get to spend together because we don't live close to one another and it is important to us that Trevor really get to know them. It was clear from this trip that he does know who they are and loves them just as much as we do.

Big Boy

Trevor is growing so fast - too fast for Mommy and Daddy but it is exciting to see what he's going to do next. Last week he started pulling himself up onto things. Mommy first saw him pull himself up on his music table when she was in the kitchen. It's lucky she looked that way at the right time because she got to see him army crawl over to it, reach up with his arms, tuck in his legs, and pull himself up. He was on a mission and he did it! He looked over and smiled and looked to say 'hey did you see what i just did?' Yes, we did! Good job Trevor!

Trevor's 9 month photos

We had Trevor's 9 month photos taken last night and we just got a sneak peek from our photographer. So cute and we couldn't have asked for better weather!

Happy Birthday Sam!

Our nephew Sam turned one on Monday and he had his birthday party on Sunday. It was great to see everyone and watch little Sam tear into his smash cake made by Auntie Sara. He had no problem getting right down to business.

The theme of his first birthday party was 'wish upon a star' and everyone in attendance wrote down wishes that his Mommy will put in his scrapbook. What a cute idea!

Can he really be one? It doesn't seem that long ago that we got the call that Annie was going to the hospital with contractions and then us sitting at a restaurant getting the text that Samuel was born. Oh yikes that means Trevor will be one in about 3 months. Where does time go?

Jim and Annie have a great playset in their backyard and Trevor got his first swing ride. He didn't really care for it so it was a short ride.

Towards the end of the evening, towards the boys' bedtimes Grandma Jeanne was reading them a book. Sam then gave Trevor the heisman (arm straight out) which Trevor did not appreciate. Doesn't Trevor have the cutest sad face? :) And Sam is like, what?!?!? Did I do that???