aryn's wedding

my cousin, aryn lyn, got married on july 13th, 2012; friday the 13th!!

it was a beautiful wedding and beautiful reception site.

her husband, tyler's son christain was a ring bearer/flower boy along with his niece & nephew. they were so cute! and christain did great. he even put his sunglasses on for the walk back down the aisle; one stylish little dude!! :)

 her dress was beautiful!

 the back was awesome!

 tyler's dad, grandpa playing toys with gunnar at the reception :)

 cousins! sara and molly!!

 beautiful bride!!

 brother and dad!

my brother was an usher.

 husband! who apparently still can't figure out how to take a decent picture with me :)

 love me some sara!!

 my "2" "little" brothers. ben and tyler

 mob, auntie cindy and aryn; all smiles!

summer's day

for summer's 7th birthday, i got a great idea from my great friend, amanda, to give her a day of just her and me time. summer and vanessa's day of fun! she chose to go to the mall of america and we had a blast!! we rode some rides, got her face painted, shopped, ate, played at a park, and got ice cream.

she got to choose everything and really she just proved to me how great of a kid she is! she wasn't greedy and she didn't take advantage of the offers.

this was the first ride she chose to go on. i was a little leery if she'd actually enjoy it or not since i had a traumatic experience taking my brother on a ride once when he was little and he hated it and freaked out, and i did not want her to do that. luckily, her mom had just told me that summer had joined her on the zipper (my favorite!!) and had enjoyed it. so we got in line and saddled up. it was such a fun ride, albeit short, but it was very good!! that's my girl!!

we also walked around legoland and oohed and aahed over the makings (mostly the star wars ones in which her knowledge of star wars characters and our shared love of r2d2 proved even further she's a girl after my heart!).

face painting with far too much glitter :)

i loved watching her pick out what she wanted; i had told her she could have 1 outfit and 1 toy during our endeavors. she found these glasses and tried them on and her face lit up. and i thought they were super cool too, so for the $5 they cost she got them. i love that she looks like a mini hipster :)

she picked out a "rock star" outfit (a shirt and skirt), got 2 pair of "heeled" flip flops (bogo), her glasses and 2 webkins (stuffed animals). she picked out a guinea pig one and then there were little baby hampsters that were so cute so she got to have one to match her big "mama."

we left the moa after lunch, when it started getting busy and headed back to my house. we hung out there a while where she played with her new toys and untagged all her new clothes. then we found a park to play at until the sun came out and it got real hot, real quick. so logically then we had to get ice cream. :)

it was a great day!! love that girl!!

lately :: july 2012

it's been a fast-paced, softball filled, hot n humid minnesota summer.
pretty typical round these parts.
here's just a little glimpse of what i've been up to lately.

spending some quality time with some of my favorite littles, the mini greeders.
they're getting so big and so old, but they're SO. MUCH. FUN!

 

they're kind of obsessed with phones these days,

so as a distraction, i decided to take silly photos with each of them on my phone.

here's the compilation of the best/funniest ones.

summer: age 7

skye & ty: age 3

i finally got up to one of my favorite places,

paul's cabin!

for a mini hackensack reunion

with some hauers, some dolans

and bryan!

we spent the day out on the pontoon 

(and i got to wakeboard behind it, my favorite!) 

and we figured out that these pretty girls and me have been cabin friends for 17 years. sarah and i have been friends our whole lives but i met courtney (and the rest of the hackensack crew) 17 years ago. crazy!!!

it's been a great summer and hope the rest of it can keep it up!