Labor Day Weekend

I truly cannot believe that Labor Day Weekend is here. Usually, Labor Day weekend means back to school, grill-outs, or camping. This year, none of those things apply to us.

We didn't make any huge plans for Labor Day weekend. Once upon a time, we were going to do a few things with John's parents, but with all the grandparent issues going on lately, that was a no-go. So, we made do with our own plans.

This weekend has been kind of a bummer because it has been really rainy and Emma is battling one heck of a cold. She has been spiking temps off and on again, and we have had her on a steady regimen on Tylenol and Ibuprofen. She's doing ok, but definitely not her usual, chipper self.

On Saturday, it was cloudy and kinda crummy out, so we spent the morning at home medicating Emma to help her feel a little better. In the afternoon, we headed to Brookings to go to the South Dakota Children's Museum. We had been talking about going for a long time, and we finally made the trip.

It was really fun! Emma had a blast and was just a busy little beaver the whole time. They had a water table room, fishing, outdoor activities, books, building stations, music, a large light-bright, and many, many more activities. It was a fun afternoon had by all.

After the Children's Museum, we headed to the Brookings Hospital to visit John's Grandma. Emma slept during most of our visit, which was kinda nice since it gave up the time to actually be able to sit and visit with Erma.

Finally, we went to the SDSU campus to eat some supper and just walk around and see all the changes that have occurred since we were students there. It was a really fun Saturday, and we were happy to make the trip to Brookings.

Today, it was sunny and nice enough to do some swimming. We had some Wild Water West tickets that expired tomorrow, so we thought today would be a great day to go. Emma wasn't feeling a 100%, but she did ok, and we had a nice time.

Once again though, it clouded up, got breezy, and cooled off once we were there a little while. I think that waterpark hates us. We ended our trip to the waterpark with some Mini-Golf which was kinda a disaster with a 2 year old, but we all had fun :)

Now, everyone is settling down for the evening. We are all kinda pooped from a busy evening. I can't believe summer is basically over. Tomorrow is September already!!!

Hope everyone had a great summer and Happy Labor Day! :)

"Catching" Fish

The dinosaur- kinda scared Emma

Water table room

Light-Bright Room

Playing the drums 

Mini-gold at Wild Water West-too hard to take pictures at a Waterpark..

Summer is wrapping up...

Wow, this week has flown by in a hurry! My weekend of nights was horrible, I think we put in about 30 hours over the weekend, and that was just on nights! Also thrown into the mix was the fact that Percy, John's grandpa fell and broke his hip on Saturday. And both of John's grandmas have been in the hospital this week too, so it's been a little bit intense of a week.

Percy is still at Avera, and having some hard times. The surgery was tough on him and made him confused, and now they think that there may be some sort of infection going on. So, we are not sure when he will get to head back to Brookings again. I have been trying to check in on him during my down times at work to make sure he is doing ok.

Monday, was my day off after my hell-ish weekend, and I spent most of it catching up on sleep. However, the evening was gorgeous, and we took Emma to the park to have a photo shoot and then to play and enjoy the weather. Her pictures turned out so good, I can't wait to post them on here! But we are printing off some pics for the Grandparents for Grandparent's Day, so we don't wanna ruin the surprise just yet...

Tuesday was also a really nice day. So after work John, Emma, and I headed to McKennan Park to enjoy the beautiful weather. She had such a fun time just running around on the playground set. She finally is getting to the point where she can go up and down the slides on her own, and it is wonderful :)

The rest of the week has been pretty low-key. It has rained pretty much every day since Tuesday, so our evenings were spent in the house playing away.

I have today off, and also the next three. I am so excited to have a long labor day weekend! We may go to Brookings one day to go to the Children's Museum that is there. Otherwise, not a whole lot planned for the long weekend.

I cannot believe it is Labor Day already! Out with summer, in with fall I guess. Good thing I really, really, really like Fall, I'm just not a big fan of what comes after fall. But at least this year, I have a little bundle of joy to look forward to come December.

Hope everyone had an excellent summer-And Happy Fall!!!

Playing on the playground at McKennan Hospital

Peek

Playground Fun :)

Riding the horse at Hy-Vee

Shriner's Parade

The rest of the week has sure flown by in a hurry. We are still working on Emma's bedtime routine. It's going pretty well. It takes longer than we would like for Emma to lay down and seriously consider going to sleep, but once she is down she sleeps all night, so things could be worse.

Yesterday evening, we all headed to Tea for the Shriner's Parade. Apparently, there was a Shriner's convention in town somewhere, so they had a big parade in Tea. It was pretty cool. It lasted 2 hours-so it got a little long. But all the kids thought it was great.

We also ate supper at Marie's house and then enjoy ice cream treats afterwards. It was a fun evening!

I work evenings/call all weekend. Boo. So, I have a very not exciting weekend coming up. But oh-well, best to just get it over with I guess.

Hope everybody has a great weekend :)

Walking with Emma into church on Sunday

Double spooning ice cream

Parade ready

Parade fun

All the girls coloring :)

Bath time

Auntie Rachel Comes to Visit...and other updates

Last week was a crazy, busy week. Between heading out to the fair a couple nights, and getting up early for work, I was pretty beat by the time the weekend rolled around.

Emma absolutely loved the fair, and we headed out again on Wednesday evening. She ate fair food like a champ, and just LOVED the fair rides again. On Wednesday evening, we let Barb and Jim take Emma for a while for John and I could just enjoy the fair on our own for a while. The weather was gorgeous and we had such a fun evening.

Rachel actually arrived on Thursday evening, just in time to put Emma to bed. Emma was super excited to see "cho-cho". Thursday was also our 4th Wedding Anniversary. We didn't really do anything super exciting because John had a photo shoot scheduled until like the day before, so we didn't have enough time to find a sitter and make plans. So, we are supper at Pizza Ranch with Emma, and then we shopped at the new Wal-mart that opened on our side of town. Pretty exciting huh?

I worked a 12 hour shift on Friday, so my day wasn't too exciting, but Rachel had Emma for the day and they went out to eat, and they went to the zoo. They had a really fun day together.

On Saturday, we started off our morning by doing some Garage Sales. We ended up in Brandon, so we ate at Tailgaters for lunch. After lunch, we went bed shopping for Emma and we bought her a twin bed. We went to Mattress Firm and we were very happy with the salespeople and the product-so we bought Emma's bed.

Emma is doing pretty well with her new bed. She was a little concerned when we started taking her crib apart, but then she was super excited when we got her bed completely set up. We also added a Minnie Mouse blanket on top, which sealed the deal for Emma. We had a little bit of a tough time getting her to go to sleep on Sunday night, but it's just a matter of establishing a new bedtime routine and figuring out what she wants. But so far, I am impressed with how the new bed is working out.

Saturday evening, we went to the pool because it was pretty hot and humid out. Emma loved it. It ended up getting a little chilly into the evening, so we couldn't stay a real long time, but it was still a lot of fun!

Sunday consisted of going to church, eating lunch at Pizza Inn, and then doing a little shopping. Rachel left late afternoon to go see some of her Sioux Falls friends, and John and I enjoyed some quiet time at home, which we hadn't had in a while! Bedtime was a struggle with Emma, but once she was down, she slept all night.

Yesterday brought the start to a new week. After work, John, Emma, and I headed out to Jim and Barb's for the evening. We ate supper, and then did some swimming in their pool they bought at the beginning of summer. It was a little chilly for a swim, so it was a quick one. But everyone had a good evening, and Emma passed out on the way home and then slept all night in her new bed again.

Right now, I am hanging out at the Avera Prairie Center. I am doing my glucose test this morning. So, I already have been drawn, and I drank the crappy, sugary drink, and now I am waiting to be re-drawn and I have an OB appointment at 9:00. It's kinda tough to sit in a cafeteria area surrounded by rolls and coffee and not be able to eat anything. But, I am surviving. Only 1.5 hours to go, and I can eat again.

Luckily, my pregnancy is going pretty well. My biggest complaints would be heartburn and just being really tired these past 2 weeks. I don't sleep super well anymore, and we have just been on the go so much lately, it's hard for this momma to keep up. Today is my day off, so after my appointments, I think I may go home and take a glorious nap because I work the next 5 days in a row-including some night call over the weekend.

Sorry for the super long post, I need to learn not to wait a week between blog posts. There is so much going on this summer-I can't keep up!!!

Hope everyone has a great week. Enjoy what's left of summer :D

Emma loving her fair rides

Tired after a long evening at the fair 

Coloring :D

Enjoying the new bed

Testing out the new bed

Swimming at Grandma and Grandpa's 

Checking out the big pool

Emma and Grandpa Jim

Turner County Fair

We made out annual trip to the Turner County Fair yesterday evening, and man was it a fun night. When we first got there, we met up with John's parents and found something to eat-which is never a difficult thing at the fair.

After stuffing ourselves with fair food, we walked around and looked at all the animals. Emma really enjoyed seeing and petting all the different animals at the fair.

Next, we took her on some fair rides. Emma has never really done any rides before, so we weren't sure exactly how this would go. But she LOVED it, and would cry when we had to take her off the rides. It was so much fun to see her excitement and just pure joy during the carnival rides.

Pure joy

Yep, she loved the rides

We went on rides until all the tickets were gone (which didn't take a super long time) and then poor Emma was a little dejected that ride time was over already. But, we distracted her by looking at campers and buying her a bunny Halloween costume-which she proceeded to wear around the fair for a good chunk of the evening. Totally adorable. 

After a little more roaming around, it was already 8:30pm, so we decided it was time to head home. Emma passed out before we even left Parker and slept all night without us hearing a peep out of her. I guess all the fun wore her out :)

It was a very successful fair trip, and everybody had a good time. Plus the weather was fantastic. We are actually planning on heading out to the fair again tomorrow night-should be a good time :D

Minnesota Memories

I haven't blogged in over a week, whoops! Really this past week hasn't been too exciting, we have just been keeping busy with the usual.

We did go to the Sioux Empire Fair on Sunday night, and that was pretty fun. Emma had fun looking at the animals and all the fair rides. We did not go on any rides because she was too little for a lot of them, and it was kind of expensive. We also enjoyed some wonderful fair food, and just enjoyed walking around the fair grounds looking at everything.

The rest of the week flew by in a blur, and then we headed out of town for the weekend. I somehow ended up with a 4 day weekend, so we headed to Minnesota in the early afternoon. Friday evening, we visited with Great-Grandma and Great-Grandpa Kiecker, Great-Aunt Janel, and cousin Jenna. It was really nice to visit with some extended family. We also brought Emma to a park in Fairfax, and then headed to my parent's house for the night.

Emma checking out the piggies at the Sioux Empire Fair

Having fun at the fair

Emma's piggie tattoo 

My loves

Jenna and Emma having fun :)

On Saturday, we headed up to the lake. It was a beautiful day, cloudy and in the 70s. So, it was too chilly to do anything in the water, but we still had a great day. Emma played with all sorts of toys mom found in the attic. She also enjoyed the playground and just running around in general. And of course, golf cart rides. 

We also went on a boat ride in the afternoon. Emma was a little behind on sleep, so it didn't take her long to pass out-and she took an hour-long nap on the boat, which was good news for everyone involved :)

Fun at the park with Grandma 

Not a huge fan of the lifejacket 

Passed out on the boat

We spent the evening playing some cards (31 and sheephead) with some of mom and dad's friends at the lake, and then called it a night. 

Sunday was a pretty rainy day, so we headed to Willmar for brunch and did a little shopping. After that we said goodbye to my parents and headed back to Sioux Falls. 

It was a really fun weekend, and Emma really enjoyed hanging out with "mama" and "papa". And my parents love spending time with Emma. 

Today, we are going to head to Parker to see the other grandparents and to enjoy the Turner County Fair. We plan for Emma to go on some rides-so I think she will have a blast! Also, there are plenty of animals to see and delicious fair food to eat, so Emma will be having a really fun afternoon. 

Also on the agenda for the week-we are going to go bed shopping for Emma. Baby #2 will be here in less than 4 months, so we need to get Emma into a twin bed before the next one needs the crib. I am both excited and nervous to see how Emma handles a big-girl bed. But, I am very excited to shop for one.

So, that was our weekend in a nutshell. Now, can someone please slow summer down? How is it the middle of August already??