Old Man Walking

Thought you'd like to see the first steps...assisted at least. He totally looks like a little old man using a walker. Very cute. We'll be on vacation at
Lake Okoboji for the next week starting tomorrow, so probably no new posts until our return. Lots of pictures to come!

Jackson learned to wave!

New Toys

Nothing too exciting to report here in the OC, so this will probably be short but sweet. It's been hot and HUMID!! here the last couple days so we spent some time at the pool and stayed inside a bunch. But we just got some new toys yesterday so we had to take them for a little test drive. Todd and I finally got our bikes! We've talked about it for a while and then we've been meaning to do it all spring and we finally just bit the bullet and did it. We like them a lot. We both got the same bikes, Giant Sedona ST's. It was a little painful on the checkbook, but we figured it was an investment and we would probably use them more if we liked them and they were comfortable. We borrowed the bike trailer for Jackson from some friends for this summer and then we'll get our own for Christmas. Hopefully we'll take lots of fun rides this summer!

Wedding Bells...

...are in the air for my cute mom! She was engaged to her fiance, John Tock, on Friday and they are planning to basically elope sometime very soon. We are all very excited for her, but sad that she will be moving further away. But the move does pose some good points as they will live in Arizona and I will be happy to visit there in the dead of a Northwest Iowa winter! Congratulations Mom and John!

My sister cracks me up...

So I just wanted to share this e-mail from my sister with everyone because it made me laugh really hard.

hey. thanks so much for my picnic blanket. i have used it
literally every day since i got it!! turns out that kids really enjoy
picnics. you can even serve them something crappy and they will still be
excited because they are having a picnic. eva learned the word picnic
today from maren. then when john got home they both peed in their pants
practically simultaneously (neither wearing diapers, one on the couch, on on the
floor). this was also in conjunction with shepherd vomiting bananas all
over the floor and rolling around in it. john was sooooooooooo not excited
about any of these events, and i was cooking dinner, and it was making me
laugh. guess we shoulda had a picnic.

Pretty funny. Maren is her friend's daughter who is pretty close in age to Eva, and they are working on potty training. Apparently, neither of them quite have it yet. A day in the life of a Stay at home Mom!

Family Time

Todd and his Mom stayed the long weekend and then I stayed an extra week to spend more time with my family. My sister's birthday was June 3 and my mom's was June 6 so I was able to celebrate with them and my brother came from Atlanta for the weekend to celebrate also. Before Todd left, he got some brother bonding time (a.k.a.- golf) with his brother Tim and my brother-in-law John.

YaYa with her hands full,literally, with her three grandchildren: Eva, Shepherd, and Jackson.
John's (Lindsay's husband) latest toy is the Wii gaming system. Here, he and Jeremy are boxing against each other. It was quite hilarious to watch as there was much grunting and sweating.
YaYa and Eva were both tuckered out from all of the fun...naptime on the couch.
Lindsay, John, Shepherd, Jeremy, Eva, Jackson and I hanging out at the park.

Jackson's First Swim!

We took Jackson to the hotel pool that Grandma V was staying at (she was staying at the hotel not at the pool-I reread that sentence and it sounded a little funny so I figured I should clarify!) for his first swimming experience. He loves the bath so I hoped he would feel the same about the pool and he did! He really had a good time splashing and floating in his little floaty thingy. This is Jackson and Grandma V.
This is the floaty thingy we got at Target-very handy. It has a little sun canopy that attaches to it too for when we go to Lake Okoboji this summer.
Please focus mainly on the cute baby and not the large blue thing floating next to him- and I'm not talking about the floaty thingy.

Lilly Vogel's blog debut

This is the newest member of the extended Vogel family...no we did not have a baby-ARE YOU PEOPLE CRAZY??? But Tim and Lizzie did- that's Todd's middle brother and wife. Lilly was born on Mothers Day and we had to go meet her so that was a large part of the reason we went to St. Louis. She is cute as a button and very sweet and everyone is doing well.