Family Fun and Fall Pictures

This past weekend, we headed up to the Twin Cities for Kevin and Michelle's birthday party and to take family pictures to replace mom's picture collage from 10 or so years ago. Unfortunately, things didn't go as planned. Kevin was sick all weekend and couldn't come to the party. Our photographer was also sick, so we postponed the family pictures until later. We did, however, manage to get some great photos of the 3 of us down by the lake with the beautiful fall colors.

Here's how the weekend ended up...

We got up to mom and dad's house on Friday afternoon when I was post-call from the NICU. We went straight to Austin's appointment at the Kids' Hair place in Eden Prairie Center where he got his hair cut so wonderfully last time. Now, getting his hair cut is better and better every time. He still fussed some, but he did soooo much better and was entertained by Nemo on the little TV by the barber chair, the bubbles I was blowing, and the fish toy that flapped its tail when he pulled the worm on the string. He got a very handsome haircut and was ready to go for the pictures. He had fun playing with some new toys at Nanny's house after that (check out the "Stylin by Kids Hair" sticker - he was very proud of it).

"Cutting" toast after "cutting" a carrot, pear, apple, and tomato.

Saturday morning, since family pictures were postponed due to illness (Kev and our photographer), we took that opportunity to visit the Original Mattres Factory Store to get Austin his big boy bed. He took a header out of his crib last weekend, so we figured it was time to be done with the crib and move on to the big boy bed. We bought him a nice twin mattress and boxspring and ordered his bedding online (Target Tiddliwinks Travel Collection - very cute!).

Then it was time for Austin's nap and the Notre Dame football game. We'll skip right over the game...except to mention that at half time we took a walk down to the lake with Austin, Auntie Michelle, and Grandpa (aka "ba-pa") to throw rocks in the water (which Austin LOVES to do with Grandpa!).

Putting some rocks in the bucket to throw off the dock.

Good throw, Grandpa!

Dropping rocks off the dock...in the rain.

Then back to watch the rest of the game until more family arrived for the party. Kevin and Michelle's birthdays were on October 2. Kev turned the big 3-0 and Michelle (aka the Birthday Pooker Queen - no that's not a typo) turned 23. Yay for birthday buddies!

Kevin unfortunately was still sick. We missed him, but Alexis was happy to take his place to blow out the candles on the birthday cake...

Austin wearing Uncle Tim's glasses while he enjoys the chocolate cake.

More party pictures...

Alexis building a castle with Steve.

Mom (Austin's Nanny), Auntie Trish, Aunt Jeannie, and my Nanny (Austin's GiGi).

The boys - Steve, Tim, and Brian.

In the course of the party, I picked up the camera to go take pictures of Alexis and Austin being cute together, but the camera strap caught on the back of the chair and I dropped the camera on the floor and watched the lens snap in half with wires and broken plastic sticking out. Yikes! So on Sunday morning, we headed to the camera store to see what it would cost to replace the lens. We found it a lot cheaper online, and Jenna said we could borrow hers until the replacement lens came in the mail, so we stopped up at her house to pick up that lens. Since we didn't have our family pictures on Sunday morning due to poor Kev's persistent illness, we spent Sunday morning running those errands, which also included stopping off at Babies R Us to get bed rails and a toddler size memory foam pillow for Austin's big boy bed. He was pretty tuckered out after all the errands, so we went back to Nanny and Grandpa's for him to nap. While he was snoozing, mom and I went in search of cute sheets for his new bed. We didn't find what we were looking for exactly, but we did find some that should go with his new quilt set.

After Austin woke from his nap, we decided to head down to the lake to take pictures of the 3 of us, since the fall colors were spectacular and we didn't want to miss the beautiful scenery in our pictures. Using mom's camera with Jenna's camera lens attached, we walked down to the lake and took some fun photos. The only problems were that it was very windy and we had a very squirmy toddler who was not very interested in posing for photographs. Here are a few photos from that adventure...

Piggy back ride!

Airplane!!

Checking out the leaves...

If only he would have looked up for this picture...

That's about it for us. We realize now how difficult it may be to get Austin to cooperate for pictures of the whole family. We'll see how it goes. If everybody else is available, we're going to give it a shot again next weekend, when I have Sunday off.

I just love this time of year when the leaves are so beautiful and even a simple drive down the road is full of beautiful scenery. The strange part was when it was so warm this past weekend that it looked like fall, but felt like summer. I prefer the nice crisp weather to go with the nice crisp leaves! Ah, to live in Minnesota in the fall! (Just don't mention that it leads to Minnesota winter...I don't want to think about that yet.)

Stay tuned...

We may have more family pictures to share next weekend if we can arrange it. Also, the big boy bed is going up next week and Gramma and Grandpop visit at the end of the month over the Halloween weekend. Yay!

Megs said...

what great family pictures!! luke loved his gift from austin! what is austin intersted in for his 2nd bday- luke is wondering....:)

Tara said...

love the fall pictures, lisa! austin is growing so fast! :)