Big man Luke is my excuse for not posting more. At his two month appointment he weighed 14 pounds, 4 ounces. That is an 100 ounce weight gain from when he was discharged from the hospital. If you do the math that is a weight gain of 1.79 ounces per DAY. I don't have time to blog because I am NURSING! I just wish it was warmer weather so I could dress him in little tee shirts and look at his glorious rolls. Love that roly poly boy!
Today we celebrated Papa Bryant's 70th birthday. We hope for many more great birthdays with you. We love you and love being with you.
The boys enjoyed their last baseball game at the metrodome. The new Twins stadium opens six months from today. Today we take on the Tigers in a single game tie breaker. The winner advances to the playoffs. Go TWINKIES!
Allie will not be left in anyone's dust. This week she climbed up on this two wheeler and took off. She loves to pedal down the slope to the corner yelling faster! faster! while I run/waddle to keep up. (Don't worry, she wears her princess helmet!) She hasn't figured out braking so she makes corners at top speed. And she sometimes gets distracted and starts to look around then veers off the sidewalk. She has no fear!
After having our fill of zucchini we decided to let the remaining zuccs grow to see how big they would get. We checked out prize winners at the state fair and think we may have come close. Especially since we ate all those from earlier in the season. Had we let those grow they would be larger than our van! We enjoyed using our muscles yesterday to heft them. Especially Allie who pronounced each one, "heby!"
The harvest has begun. Our garden was planted in late April and early May. Our first success was our wild patch of strawberries. The birds wreaked havok until I rigged a mesh screen to cover the patch. We were picking and eating fresh strawberries throughout June. We also had several heads of broccoli. Now we are seeing peas, zucchini, and carrots. Our corn and tomatoes are coming along nicely. We have a few raspberries though the majority of our tasting goes on at our neighbor Andy's house. I think he plants raspberries just to keep the neighbors visiting!
7 years today. How things change, and how they stay the same. We were musing yesterday about how different our life is now, with three and a half kids, one great Target job, a house with a yard, an inability to stay up too late... 7 years ago we had a two bedroom apartment, two so-so jobs at Toys and Babies "R" Us (I still work there but it almost doesn't count because my real job, M-F plus Sat and Sun and all day and all night kind of takes center stage,) a habit of going to the midnight showings of various movies... Little did I know back then that I wouldn't miss any of that. We must have been so bored! In love, yes, and delighted by our new found status as "married" but really, what did we actually do? Derek has become more and more the excellent husband. I could extol his many virtues but he might be embarrassed. I can and will say with all due fanfare that he is the best father ever! I knew he liked kids, liked to play, was sometimes a kid himself but I had no idea!!! A most excellent father and excellent parenting partner to this stay at home mom. Ready to jump in and play so I can have a break, rescuing me when the midnight wakefulness of the kids is ready to send me over the edge, exhibiting mucho coolness in showing our children all the adventures this world has waiting for us to embark upon... I could go on... Thanks, D, for seven remarkable years. I am so blessed that you chose me! Love-Wife 
We have a treasure under our deck. A robin has made it's nest and laid one little blue egg. We are having fun checking the egg by pressing our eyeballs up to the crack in the deck floor. We've been noticing how the egg gets pushed around the nest by the mama bird. Hopefully we will have a little baby bird soon!
See how my adorable children love playing together! Aren't they precious. Notice Tyler hanging the underpants in Danny's face. There is nothing like a brother!
Papa Harold came over and picked up a load of sand to top off the sandbox. We asked him because he "is a truck driver" (Danny), that is he has a pickup. The boys took a ride in Papa's truck and watched the backhoe dump a ton, literally, of sand into the bed of the truck. What a thrill! Then they jumped up in the back and started dumping sand into the wheelbarrow. There was much discussion about which way to stand so they weren't bonking their brother with the long handle end. It was very fun to watch. So the sandbox is full to the top. Anybody wanna come play?
T-ball (Tyler) and softball (Derek) are in full swing. It is fun watching Tyler play t-ball and learn how to scoop the ball up and stand with skateboard feet to throw. We practice in the backyard as well as at Derek's games. Allie is SMVC's number one fan. She cheers like the good cheerleader she is alternating from RUN, RUN to GO, GO to DADDY, DADDY! as she tries to sneak away and run onto the infield. 
