Mustache and Bow Tie

Liam turned 9-months old on Halloween! He is getting old, so we thought it was appropriate that he wear a bow tie and grow a mustache for the occasion. Any guesses on what this dashing boy was for Halloween?

Nope, he wasn't a conductor, the villain from Bullwinkle or the peanut guy... he was the Monopoly Man! See the resemblance?

Ok he may not have had the top hat or the cane, but we thought he was handsome as ever! And it gave him another chance to wear his tux before he grows out of it.

Homework

Last week I spent a few hours at the Stone Arch Bridge in Minneapolis doing some "homework" for a photography class I'm taking. Here are my best shots:

Busy, busy

Liam is in constant motion, crawling from room to room all day long. Here are some cute videos:

Autumn Leaves

He's mobile

... and trying to "leave the nest" already. This darling boy is growing up too fast!

33:58

Last weekend I ran my first 5K around Lake Harriet. I've never been a great runner, and actually hated it up until recently (which I'm blaming entirely on a South Davis Jr. High gym class, but that is another story).

But despite my junior high flashbacks,  I conquered my first race, finishing 6 minutes faster than my goal! My official time was 33:58. Don caught a video of me crossing the finish line.

Too bad that chick showed me up at the end...  she came out of no where! I was pretty excited about my finish time and definitely plan to run more races in the future.

A beautiful night for a walk

Tonight we took advantage of a beautiful, warm fall evening by walking around Lake Calhoun. 

Liam eating fall foliage with Lake Calhoun and Minneapolis city scape in the background.

007

Thanks to Kristen for Liam's dashing attire. He wore it out on the town (aka church) on Sunday morning  for the first time.

Two years later ...

Below are the guesses on what I did this weekend as the ULTIMATE Minnesotan thing-to-do:

1. SPAM Museum
2. World's Largest Ball of Twine
3. Polar Swim

Well none of these are correct because:

1. Does SPAM really need, or for that matter, deserve its own museum?
2. I didn't even know Minnesota was home to the largest ball of twine.
3. It is too early for the Polar Swim ... and I'm definitely not die-hard enough to give that a try! :)

Well after those exciting guesses, my ULTIMATE Minnesota thing-to-do may be a little on the boring side. BUT, none the less I'm super stoked about it! Here is a little background ...

I hate the cold more than anything. So when Don got a job in Minneapolis, I told him I'd only move there if I could get any coat I wanted. Well two winters came and went without a good winter coat in -20 degree weather. Brrrrrr!!!!

But this weekend I finally found my dream coat!

Now don't you think the ULTIMATE thing to do in Minnesota is to gear up for winter? Bring on the snow!

Duck-Duck-DULUTH!

This weekend we've been checking things off our "things we want to do in Minnesota" list. Today we did a quick trip to Duluth. We enjoyed walking the Lake Walk, Canal Park, shopping, and of course, good food.

AND we did one more thing today that is the ULTIMATE in things to do in Minnesota ... but you'll have to stay tuned for that post. Any guesses?

Minnesotans-on-a-stick

Today is the day we became true Minnesotans. And it's all because we went to the state fair (aka the great Minnesota get-together)! So what did we do at the fair, you ask? Well ...

Liam enjoyed a lemon italian ice.

We enjoyed people watching.

... and more people watching.

Then there was the large assortment of food at the fair. We tried fried cheese curds (delicious!), falafel-on-a-stick, gyros, luigi fries (aka breadsticks), walleye cakes, salad-on-a-stick, fudge-puppies-on-a-stick (waffles), fried pickles ... and a whole bucket of Sweet Martha's cookies (don't worry, we could hardly even eat any and took them home for the weekend)!

And if that weren't enough, we had to top off the day with some malts and sundaes from the Dairy Building.

Even Liam got a taste!

All in all, it was a fun-filled, fattening, fried day. Don't know if we'll go back any time soon, but definitely something to check off our bucket lists and get us into the Minnesotan club.

The many faces of Liam

For a 6-month old, Liam has quite the personality. He is in constant motion and never stops. We were lucky enough to capture some decent pictures last night without any motion in them.

Happy

Determined

Thoughtful

Curious

Playful

Lately

Just a few pictures to sum up the last week. I've been changing a never-ending amount of these lately.

Liam hasn't been sleeping well, trying to adjust from our vacation to Utah over the 4th of July and battling a cold. He's also figured out it is more fun to play with his socks than to sleep. Who knew? Look at this happy kid!

He tried rice cereal for the first time this week. He doesn't seem to like it and just spits it back out.

That's about it!

He's Real!

And I'm not talking about Santa. Remember my last post about Mr. Little Guy? Well Liam got a little (literally) response from him:

Mr. Little Guy

Tonight we took Liam to visit Mr. Little Guy--the elf that lives near our house in a hollowed tree at Lake Harriet. We left a note for him, which is a local custom for children.The legend says he responds to every  letter he receives.

I guess we'll see if Mr. Little Guy responds ... how could you not respond to this ADORABLE boy?

Our first harvest!

Our garden is growing and we have TONS of cilantro. We celebrated our first harvest by making guacamole last night. DELICIOUS!

Show and tell

You may have noticed from reading our blog that Don is a crafty man, often having to finish projects for me (see here if you can't remember). Well I'd like to share a craft I did entirely on my own ... with only a tiny bit of help from Don. Check out my centerpiece.... TADA!

I found the ceiling tile at a Good Will ($5) and spraypainted it aqua ($3.95) with a tiny bit of Don's help, but not much. Then I sanded the edges to give a vintage feel. I then found the candle ($2.99), plate ($7) and random decor ($4.95) at Ikea. Total price = $23.89.

FINALLY, I finished a craft!

Yard work, shmard-work

Remember what our house looked like when we bought it back in January 2010? I didn't think so ... here is a little refresher. Notice the massive bushes and lovely chain link fence.

Before - house with fence and bushes

Well after all the snow melted, this is what we found everywhere ... overgrown weeds!

Before side yard with overgrown weeds

More before side yard with overgrown weeds

Well something had to be done about this! So we (aka Don) made some beautiful planter boxes for a garden instead.

Our garden

This is our first garden and kind of an experiment. We are growing cilantro, green onions, basil, carrots, zuchini, cucumbers, summer squash, peas and pumpkins. So far our pumpkins are doing the best and growing like crazy.

Pumpkins!

We also finally added some flowers to our planter boxes under the windows.

Beautiful flowers!

Our yard work seemed to be going smoothly, until we (aka Don) used the wrong weed spray on the rest of the yard and ended up killing our lawn instead. Woops! You win some, you loose some.

Before - dead front lawn April 2011

So we (aka Don) set out to do something about this mess and spent a very long, rainy weekend re-sodding our front lawn.

Before

After - no fence, no bushes, new lawn, planter boxes, flowers and tree!

And to top off all of our planting, we added a delicious apple tree to the yard.

Honeycrisp Apple Tree

I think we are done with yard work for a while!