Grandpa Jim joined us this past weekend for some Henry and Lucas time. We took Lucas on his first trip to the St. Paul farmers market to pick out a pumpkin and enjoyed some sweet and savory pastries at The Heartland. Grandma and Grandpa returned home to Michigan on Monday, bringing out 5 weeks of live-in help to an end. We owe our entire family a huge thank you for their time and generosity!

With the extra help, dad was able to get a lot of work around the house done including picking up the first layer of leaves and cleaning out the gutters. Henry enjoyed helping dad with the yard work, by repeatedly jumping into his piles of leaves. 

Lucas seems to be changing daily and is growing and growing. He's gifting us with more and more smiles, as well as more sleep at night!

Birthday party fun

Henry's dreams came true this past weekend at his friend's 3rd birthday party. Not only did Henry get to go to a fire station and see and sit in fire trucks, he even got to meet Elmo!

Family visit & Go get 'em Tigers!

We were lucky to be able to visit with cousin Salim earlier this week while he was in town for a very brief business trip. He so kindly gifted us with even more gear from the wrong University, that is his beloved Duke University. Hopefully Lucas doesn't like his Duke outfit as much as Henry likes his Duke bear (which has somehow made it into the "top three" of Henry's stuffed animals).  

We are also very excited to cheer on the Detroit Tigers in the World Series! Henry especially enjoys running around with the foam tiger claw and roaring at everyone. 

Dad's first out of town work trip since Lucas' birth coincided with Henry's daycare being closed, so I was very thankful to have Grandma here to help. Entertaining a 2.5yr old for a 4 day weekend at home, while caring for an infant, preparing food, trying to keep up with laundry and dishes and attempting to take showers proved to  be challenging and exhausting for the two of us, but we did it!

And "monster Henry" was very excited when "monster dad" came back home!!

3 weeks old

Its hard to believe that 3 weeks have passed since Lucas was born. Lucas continues to be a very easy baby that cries infrequently and eats and sleeps a lot. As of 2 weeks, he had gained 1 pound from his birth weight and was up to 8 lbs, 12 oz! The 2 kids have kept us (3 adults, including Oma) very busy. We've tried to maintain normal activity, especially on the weekends, for Henry with many trips out of the house to the duck pond, Como Zoo, Choo Choo Bob's and even the rides at the MOA. Henry also enjoys playing with the older kids in our neighborhood that are so kind to include him when they are outside. 

  We were sad to say goodbye to "Uma" this past weekend after her 3 week "vacation" here to help us. But I am also proud to report that we have survived the last 48 hours by ourselves (in part due to our refrigerator full of prepared food that Oma left for us). That said, we are also looking forward to Grandma arriving this evening for an additional 2 weeks of help!

Bath time for baby Lucas

Opa visits & marathon weekend

Opa visited this past weekend to meet his 4th grandson, Lucas, and play with Henry. Lucas was soothed by the "baby whisperer" just like his brother was as a baby, and Henry was overjoyed to join Opa and Oma on a bus and light rail train ride to downtown Minneapolis and back.

We were also very proud to cheer on dad in the Twin Cities marathon (his 4th marathon). Lucas slept through the spectator cheers, horns and bell ringing. After being told that we were going to watch dad's race, Henry thought that we were going to watch dad drive a race car. He was luckily not disappointed and was instead very excited to see dad running up to us, but was then very concerned when he kept on running away down the street! Henry asked the question "daddy go?" at least 20 times before dad finally came home.