Standing on HER own two feet!

My baby girl turned 4 months old on Friday and decided she wants to start standing on her own two feet. She loves standing on our laps so today we set her up holding onto the couch and VERY CLOSELY supervised her but she absolutely loved standing there by herself for a couple of minutes. Thought she was hot stuff but it sure wore her out. She took a great long nap after that!

Hiking at Bong 2009

This was our 2nd official hike this year. Perfect weather, 1.9 miles and took us just about an hour with 3 little ones and baby Lilly in the front pack (which she seems to love). Just a great way to be active and spend time together as a family as well as being FREE once the state park sticker has been purchased for the year. Our hope is to hike at least once a week through spring, summer and fall and document each one...we will see what happens.

First Camping Trip 2009

We ventured out on our first camping trip of 2009. 4 kids, 1 tent and a van FULL of stuff later and we were off. We went to Devil's Lake state park in Baraboo, WI which is one of our all time favorites places to camp. We left on Thursday and planned to return home late Saturday afternoon. The weather was absolutely perfect reaching almost 70 on Thursday but Thursday night was unbelievably cold and dropped to about 36 degrees. Friday during the day we went for a hike and then decided to pack up and head home after enjoying a second campfire so we could sleep in our own WARM beds. We will definitely take our kids and our tent camping again but I think we will wait until the nights are a little warmer :-)

Easter 2009

What a beautiful, blessed, busy day we had. Lilly's first Easter and it was so much fun. Buying a dress for a little girl so different from picking out outfits for boys. We started the morning at my dad's house where the kids did an Easter egg hunt outside and ate plenty of junk food. Then late afternoon we headed to Aaron's parents house and ate again. By the time we got home we were all exhausted but so blessed to have family close by to spend holidays...and everyday with!!

My Baby Rolled Over...

This is too funny. With three older brothers Lilly doesn't get a whole lot of belly time but this morning we laid her on her tummy and she immediately rolled over onto her back. At first she was a bit startled but then when we clapped for her she got this HUGE smile on her face and wanted to do it again...you could just tell. In the following ten minutes she did it again 5 or 6 times. And she just thought she was HOT stuff!! TOO CUTE!! She is 3 months 13 days old.

~Walk To The Park~

It was finally nice enough for us to be able to get outside and go to the park which is about 3 blocks from our house. My grandma came over with two of my youngest brothers (Cameron who is 13 and Chandler who is 8 years) and we walked over to the park for the whole afternoon. It was so lovely to be able to get outside and enjoy some nice weather with a new baby. Winter can get so long...the kids LOVED the Merry Go Round, Lilly loved swinging in the baby swing and everybody got a kick out of climbing trees. They are now calling for another snow storm this weekend, ugh, will winter never end?? We have on the calendar camping the weekend after Easter so hopefully warm weather will be here to stay very shortly! Our list is long of fun things to do with our kids in the spring and summer...things that are cheap or FREE. During the winter the list is very short. What do you do with your kids in the winter that is fun and reasonable? How about the spring and summer? Last year we took up hiking with our little ones and it was such great family time. We went on our first hike of 2009 a couple of weeks ago and look forward to adding many, many, many more hikes this year. Will hopefully add pictures after each of our outings. Happy Friday Night!!