An Asher Post

Asher has been having a lot of fun this summer, as you can see! In the first photo, he's exploring the garden, which has grown by leaps and bounds in the recent warm, sunny weather we had. In the second photo, he's watching "Monsters Inc." (his new farvorite movie, which he asks for by name "Monsters! Monsters!") He always watches it with HIS monster....a floppy puppet with big teeth that he loves. In the last photo, he's pretending to play cowboy. He did this just yesterday, and I just HAD to take a photo. Too cute! His latest discovery has been the raspberry bushes out back, which are now in full bloom. He loves finding berries and munching on them whenever possible!

Fun in the Door

We spent all day Sunday with my family up in Door County. They rented a beautiful condo for this week, and unfortunately, we didn't have enough vacation time and/or weekend time (since I had to work Saturday, joy!) to spend more than a single day with them. But we managed to pack a lot of Door County favorites into one day.... shopping in Fish Creek, lunch at Wilson's Ice Cream Shop, a few hours at the beach where the water was PERFECT.... a family barbeque for dinner ... and then back to Wilson's for dessert and a relaxing sunset on Eagle Harbor. Then me and the boys reluctantly drove back to Sheboygan to let the rest of the family enjoy their week of solitude and relaxation. Sigh! We wish we could have stayed longer, but we are indeed thankful for the day we had!
In the photos: Nate and I outside of Wilson's .... Gret, Nate and I outside of Wilson's ... Gret and I pose in front of some flowers (our mom used to always make us do this when we lived at home, so we had fun giving her a hard time as we deliberately posed here in a sort of "mock" salute to bygone days! We love ya mom!) :)

Father's Day recap

This is just a quick post to recap our father's day. The first photo is a picture of my boys all piled together in bed on Sunday morning. They woke up their daddy -- not too bright and early, which was nice for Nathan. Then it was off to church, where Nate played in the praise band for two services. We bought Nathan a cool new shirt, new cologne, grill tools and of course, artwork courtesy of the boys. Gabe made a father's day cup for Nathan and both boys put their handprints on paper for their daddy. Gabriel also made a list of why he loves his daddy -- it was too cute! We finished the day by going camping at Kohler Andrae State Park -- the first time for Asher. I wish I could say it was a perfect experience, but Ash decided to wake up at 4 a.m. and that was that. He was up for the day! Ohhhhh....what a long day Monday was! But all in all, I think we had a rather nice Father's Day! We love you Nathan!

Gabe rides a 2-wheeler

Enjoy this short video of Gabriel learning to ride a bike without training wheels! We took him to the parking lot of the local high school on June 4, and 12 days later (and only one practice later) he was zipping up and down the street on his own. I have to say that this was an odd feeling as a mother -- letting go. I felt left behind for the first time! But he's doing awesome and loving every minute of it! (Note: The "blurry" quality in the beginning and end of the video is because I did a "vintage footage" effect, which looks great when the video isn't compressed for the web! Oh well!)

Pool play

Here are a couple shots of Gabriel enjoying his new pirate pool. His farvorite part is the cannon that actually shoots water, once you hook it up to the hose. It finally got really warm this weekend, so he's been outside playing in his pool every day!

Asher gets his ears cleaned

Check out this funny video of Asher getting his ears cleaned. Now, we are barely touching his ears with the Q-tip of course -- but ever since he was about 12 months old, whenever we would do this, he would utter a disgusted "ewwwwww!" We didn't teach him this, so I'm not sure how he picked up on it! Oh well! Too cute!

A possible addiction...

I've only known about the gender of baby-girl Harrmann for a matter of weeks now, but I'm already becoming addicted to the (girl) clothing sections in any store I happen to be in. My friend Heather started my addiction when she came to my house about two weeks ago and gave me two ADORABLE little dresses (with matching bloomers!!). Now, I can't seem to stop myself from finding the most adorable, and usually pink, outfits for our baby girl! To give myself credit, I haven't actually BOUGHT all that much yet, but it's not because I haven't been finding stuff! I've just been trying to show restraint!! So far, however, I've managed to find some cute stuff that she'll fit into next summer -- I just can't resist these girlie outfits with the cute little bows and detail stitching! TOO much fun!!!

Treasure Hunt & Last day of School

Lots of pictures today! Today was Gabriel's last day of school. (the first photo in the series.) We made it extra exciting by forgetting his and Asher's car seats in Nate's truck. So Nate went to work, and the boys and I realized, belatedly, that we had no way to get to school. So we started walkin'! Nate turned back around and made it back in time to pick us up about halfway there and drive us the rest of the way. So it was an adventurous morning! To keep up with that theme, while Gabe was in school, I drew up a detailed treasure map on a piece of paper, and went into the garden to mark the last spot on the map with a big X where I had buried a new toy I had bought for him as a "last day of school" treat. Then I placed the shovel in the dirt nearby. When he got home from school, he quickly dressed up in full pirate gear, and we followed the directions on the map....10 paces to the porch stairs, to the pirate "ship" (the hammock) where we had to sail 256 miles due Northwest to the deserted island. Then it was a trek through the jungle to the lookout tower (his playground...where I had already taped signs with skulls and crossbones that stated "PIRATES, YE BE WARNED!!!) to scan through our pirate looking glass and look for treasure ... then 10 paces due west, and .... the treasure! I can't even begin to explain to you how thrilled he was by this whole setup. He dug up his "treasure" all by himself and was sooooo excited by the Ninja Turtle action figure that was buried there. (He loves Ninja Turtles, especially Raphael, which was what this one was). His exact statement? "Maybe we can do this at the end of 5K (kindergarten) again mom!!!) The photos tell most of the story. But my little pirate king certainly had an afternoon to remember!