new toys & new tricks...

Jeff and I had the opportunity to go to NYC in mid April.  Jeff needed to head up there for work, so I decided to tag along with him.  Jeff's mom came down to stay with Deacon for our little getaway.  He's at the age now where he's too young and too old at the same time -- too young to listen, and too old to sit still.  :)

So we decided maybe we'd better leave him home this time.  We sure missed him, though!

We knew he was in good hands with his Grandma Sherry.  I think she had a ball with him all to herself.  :)  One of the things she told us before she got here is that she wanted to get him some kind of toy that he could play with outside.  Now that we have the backyard fenced in, he does need some things he can play with out there.

She settled on a little push lawnmower that (supposedly) blows bubbles as you push.  You know the one -- we had them when WE were kids...

A guy needs the right equipment for his yard, right?

Hard at work...seriously.

Pretty sure he got the whole yard.  :)

Thanks, Grandma Sherry!

In other news, Deacon has a new trick:

We have a monkey on our hands, for sure!  He will climb on anything -- couches, chairs, coffee table, upside down laundry basket, his push-behind racecar, his toy tool bench (found him on that today!) and yes, his picnic table outside.

We're gonna need good insurance on this one.  :)

1st trip to IL...

In my last post, I mentioned that we took a trip up to IL to visit with Jeff's family over the 4th of July weekend.  It was a great opportunity to introduce Deacon to a lot of his side of the family that hadn't met him yet.  Everyone fell in love with him, of course.

What's not to love about this??

We were up there for about 5 days so Grandpa Duane and Grandma Sherry got to spend some good quality time with him...

Grandma Sherry had some little toys and books pulled out for Deacon -- so sweet.  :)  He enjoyed playing and exploring those toys that he didn't have anything like at home...

Grandpa Duane & Great Grandpa Wenzel worked together to add a swing just for Deacon onto the swingset they have in their backyard -- he loved swinging!

[photo credit goes to my husband -- LOVE this shot!]

The main reason we took this trip is so we could be there to help celebrate Jeff's mom & dad's 40th wedding anniversary -- most definitely something to celebrate!  They had an open house of sorts to celebrate.  We had lots of yummy food and a great turnout of family & friends.  It was good to see a lot of Jeff's family there.  We took advantage of that to get some recent photos of the fam...

[Duane & Sherry with their grandkids]

[The Wenzels with their boys]

We had a lot going on that day, and Deacon met a lot of folks -- it eventually got the best of him...

One other thing we got to do is take Deacon to this AWESOME park they have up there, Krape Park.  I'm in love with this park, ya'll.  Everytime we go up to IL we try to fit a trip to the park in somewhere.  It's great in the winter because there is usually snow and there are lots of beautiful photo opps to take advantage of.  It's also great in the spring & summer because there are lots of playgrounds, trails to walk/hike, a pond with paddleboats and even a merry-go round!

So guess what we did?

Despite the intense expressions in some of these, I think he did like the carousel and swing.  :)  He got on the teeter-totter with Grandma Sherry and cousin Brittany and he also got to "drive" the old fashioned fire truck they have in the middle of the park for kids to play on.

I told you -- this park is awesome!

The rest of our time there was spent just relaxing at the house -- playing, eating, reading, sleeping.  Deacon didn't last long enough to go see fireworks with us -- he was sound asleep at home with Grandma Sherry while Jeff, Duane, Brittany and I went to find some locally.  He'll enjoy them much more in future years, I'm sure.  :)

We had a nice visit with everyone and we're glad that Jeff's family got to spend some time with our little guy.