TIGF

I may be short on photo posts in a bit. I hope to post pics of the Animal Walk tomorrow, but after that it might be hit or miss. I'll still try to post though. On to our TIGF of the day. I'm thankful for the good neighbors we do have that make moving hard, but make the neighborhood memorable and happy for my kiddo and for us. We aren't close to a lot of our neighbors, but we have one family next door that we really like and their kids are great to Roo. Thanks guys!

Trying to Find Me?

If you need to reach me soon, call my cell or use text or e-mail. I won't be checking our home phone on a real regular basis. Josh and I are back and forth between there and my parents' place while we get the house ready to sell. EEEEK! Wish us luck. Hope this goes fast!

Fun at French Park

We had a play date with my friend Shannon and her nanny girls and Shan's cousin's wife and her kids...Gretchen also happens to be my AWESOME hair stylist, so it was fun to meet her kids and hang out at the park with everyone. After a picnic and a little more playing, we headed to DQ for a treat. FUN day!

Golf Tuesdays Are Back!

Starting this week, we're back on Tuesday kid duty while Katie and Mom are golfing...or while Katie is anyway...Mom is "on the bench" right now with a bad back/nerve thing. It was just Kiley and Zack and my kids this week while Meg and the girls are in AZ (Note: Macy was at Mom and Dad's this week too!), but coming soon we will have all 6 kids at G&Gs on Tuesdays. Kiley is quickly becoming a ham. I was trying to take pictures of all kinds of things (birds, frogs, etc.) but Kiley kept standing in front of the camera and saying "Monkey! Cheese!!" So how could I not take her picture:) And then of course there is the constant power struggle between Kiley and the big kids...poor thing!

Strange Sleeper

I think I have mentioned before, but Rowan falls asleep in the strangest positions. This was me holding him at the play date on Monday. I call this "The Thinker Meets the Chunk"...Look at those cheeks!

Random Kid Pics

Ok, I know it might seem like I'm taking more pics of Rowan than Roo lately, but he is just easier to get a picture of at this point. He doesn't move much. Anyway...here's one of Riley's fashion sense (Daddy helped with this one!) and one of our happy boy (my favorite pic of him to date!).

Bored to Busy

This week went from having just a few little things planned to having three play dates and two baby sitting adventures not to mention the weekend of fun packing and moving stuff we have coming up. Monday was an already scheduled play date with Jenny, Aimee and the kids at Aimee's place. It was such a nice day out we decided to play in the back yard...or more the girls decided and we came to supervise. Thanks Aimee, we had a great time. Riley told me she and Ava had made plans for lunch the next day...too bad that wasn't cleared with the moms first;) I didn't take enough pictures to do it justice.

TIGF

I am thankful for my little breaks here and there, when Josh takes Riley for some Daddy/Daughter time and I get a minute to relax. He often takes her out for a run with him (her riding in his running "buggy") or he takes her up to the park or to the store. Of course, I still normally have Rowan, since I have to feed him every couple of hours, but he's been a pretty good baby and he's smiling up a storm these days so it still feels like a break just to have one at a time.

Last weekend, Josh went for an "adventure" to find "lost park" while Rowan and I headed over to my parents to help get ready for the Baptism party. They were gone almost longer than I was because this park truly was kinda "lost". Josh had decided to go find the park at Elm Creek that we used to go to when we were kids. He had no idea where in the park it was located, based on where we access the park, so his adventure too them well over 3 hours. And when he got there, the park was under construction and they couldn't even play there! But they say a "garden" snake and some other animals along the way and stopped to kick the ball around for a while and she loved every minute of it!

P.S. Today I'm also thankful that this weekend is the Canterbury Arts and Crafts sale, but that's just a silly little thing that makes me way too happy:)

WOW! What a Day!

Rilet, Rowan and I set out on a great adventure this morning and spent a fantastic day at the MN Zoo with my college roomie, Jess, her two boys (Noah, age 2 and Finn, 1 month) and Meg and her two girls (Adie, age 2 and Brynn 3 months). If you did the math...that's 6 kids under 3 and a half...3 of them still bottle/mom fed. The day went something like this...

Visit animal place, find out of the way place to feed baby #1 and change diapers. Visit animal xyz because it is known to have a good place to nurse baby #2...etc. Break for lunch with the big kids. Repeat.

We did manage to see about half the zoo in 4.5 hours. Whew! Funny thing too...when we got home from the 45+ minute drive. Riley was asleep and Rowan was wide awake:)

Grandma's Pink Elephant

This post makes me both incredibly happy and very sad at the same time. This pink elephant lives at my parent's place and belonged to my mom's mom, my Grandma Edie. I miss them (Grandma and Grandpa Don) bunches and I know they would have been so proud to see all their great grandchildren sitting on the elephant we all had our pictures taken on when we were this age, many years ago. Grandma would have especially loved that Adrienne and Riley are wearing pink and purple and Kiley is in a navy sailor dress. She always thought navy blue was "sharp"! And she would have been tickled pink to see Zacky in his suit:) Sorry for the happy/sappy stuff, but my grandparents were pretty special and I love these pics!

More from Baptism

Here are more of the Baptism related pictures. In the Schuster Family picture, Josh's Aunt Pam, second from the left is one of Josh's Godparents, and the picture of Meg and I with Annie and Doug is in honor of our Godparents. It was such a special day and it meant a lot to us to have our Godparents there to celebrate along with the rest of our family!

Also, the blanket Rowan is laying on was Josh's when he was little, maybe even when he was baptized? Linda, can you post a comment about the history of the blanket please?

And P.S. NO the boys didn't all plan to dress in blue, but it was kinda cute, don't ya think?

I can't believe I forgot to post this too...I told everyone at the baptism, but I forget that other people besides my family read this;) The outfit Row was baptized in was first Mark's (Josh's dad) and then Josh's baptismal outfit. You can't see it in these pictures, but if you go back to the first baptism pictures you can see it better. That means Riley was baptized in my gown and Rowan in his grandfather/dad's outfit. A very nice tradition to hand down to our kids. And thankfully when Rowan decided to make a mess of his outfit, it was only the onesie that was the target! He went through 3 outfits on his baptism day. Yikes!

AHS Walk Reminder

I ran into one of my regular donors today and she mentioned she had not gotten my e-mails begging for the dogs. I think I have a wrong e-mail for her and perhaps I do for others too, so here is the link to the Animal Humane Society donations page

Or you can always visit the AHS web site and search for Molly Schuster to make a donation towards our $1500 goal. With just 18 days left we are a little over $1000 so we are within reach, but we need all the help we can get! Thanks in advance to all of you who have already donated. I know it's a tough economy right now and we really do appreciate every $5 we can get!

Rowan is 2 Months

Today we have Rowan's two-month appointment. I will update stats later, but here are the picture we took yesterday for his two-month birthday of sorts. It also happened to be the Twins Home Opener and first official Twins game at Target Field. Whew, what a day! Thanks to Stephie for the Twins outfit, Meg for the Twins bucket hat and Katie and Darin/Zack for the hand-me-down baseball shoes!

Weight: 12 lbs. 4 oz.
Height: 23.5 inches
Head Circumference: 16 1/4 inches
75 percentile on all of the above.