At "The Mall" with Aunt Cheri and Cousins Kellen and Cody

Aunt Cheri, Cousin Kellen and Cousin Cody came all the way from Oregon to visit for a whole week!! We spent their second day here at the Mall of America. We saw lots of stores, went to the Underwater Adventures aquarium, ate at the Rainforest Cafe restaurant and had a ton of fun in the Nickelodeon Universe amusement park. It was a very fun day and one we'll remember forever! Memories of our day at The Mall...

Nickelodeon Universe Theme Park

Cousins Kellen and Cody were brave and rode the roller coaster in Nickelodeon Universe (look closely, they're in the second car). Then Aunt Cheri, Cody, Kellen and Mommy all rode the Log Chute water ride. I was too little for the big rides so I rode on the carousel with Mommy and Daddy instead. It was fun! Here's pictures of all of us "ride warriors"!

After all the excitement of Nickelodeon Universe, we had lunch at the Rainforest Cafe, a "wild" restaurant in the Mall of America that has a rainforest jungle theme. We sat in an area with animated gorillas that "came to life" every few minutes and there were even thunderstorms while we ate. Aunt Cheri bought me a stuffed baby gorilla and a tiger.

Rainforest Cafe

After lunch, we went to Underwater Adventures, an underground aquarium underneath the Mall of America. We got to see tons of fish, turtles, stingrays and sharks. They had a small pool where we all got to touch stingrays and sharks (well everyone except Miss Lily).

Underwater Adventures

Wow - what a busy day. After all the fun and excitement, I am exhausted. I am off to sleep, dreaming of my day at the Mall with Aunt Cheri, Cousin Kellen and Cousin Cody. I can't wait for all our adventures to come this week - we'll post more pictures of all the fun!

Say Goodbye to the Swing

Summer is here and the days are flying by. It's so hard to believe Lily is already 8 months old ... and has now outgrown her swing. The days of lazy swinging are over and are giving way to more exciting activities, new toys and interacting with EVERYTHING around her. When she began sitting forward in the swing and nearly tipping it over, we decided it was time to pack it away. So here's one last look at her last time in the swing - ahhh the memories...

Another first - Lily took a bath in the "big girl" bathtub instead of her baby tub. She loved playing and splashing in the water. She's experiencing so many new things as she grows so quickly. Crawling is just around the corner!

Since there can never be enough pictures of Lily, here are a few more... it's so nice to dress in short sleeved summer outfits - no more snowsuits, mittens, blankets and layers and layers of clothing.

Traveling Lily and her Ancestors

Miss Lillianna has sure been enjoying some traveling lately. We drove up to Pequot Lakes (where Joy's mom's family is originally from) for Memorial weekend to meet Joy's family and put flowers on the family graves. A few pictures (pardon the hair, it was VERY windy that day):

We also saw an old cabin on "Shawano Point" in Pequot. It's an amazing old cabin - Joy's great-grandfather did all the rockwork in the walls, steps and foundation of the cabin. He did a lot of rockwork in the Pequot area. We believe he may also have built the cabin as he was contractor on a lot of log buildings in the area.

The very next day we drove to a small town in Southern Minnesota called Stanton. We had done some genealogical research and discovered that many of Tom's ancestors were from Minnesota and are buried here. We found Stanton (a very, very small town) and amazingly after walking through the small town cemetery, we found the headstone of Tom's great-great-great-great-grandfather, Shedrick Crump. Wow!! It was really amazing!



And of course we celebrated Father's Day - Tommy's first Father's Day!!! We drove up to Duluth to spend the afternoon with Joy's family.

HAPPY FATHER'S DAY TO GRANDPA ARCHIBALD, GRANDPA ENGELKE and GRANDPA LAMOLLI!! Love, Lillianna

Look at me wearing Uncle Ryan's hat in the Duluth Mall on Father's Day

Daddy and Me

Of course, what would a blog post be without more pictures of Lillianna Mae? She's growing by leaps and bounds these days. Just today we discovered she has a second tooth! She is very close to crawling - it won't be long now! She can get up on her arms or pull up her knees and stick her butt in the air, but she hasn't quite figured out how to do both at the same time so she can actually move forward. We're sure she will have this figured out very soon, though!

Today the three of us hit the garage sales in our area. I think there was a sale on every street! Of course Miss Lily came home with more clothes, books, movies and toys - and Tom found some photography goodies. This is Mommy and Lily checking out a stuffed puppy dog for Miss Lily - of course the puppy came home with us!

All the Better to Bite You With!

Uh-oh, Miss Lily has a tooth! The doggies better watch out - she may be testing out her new "chompers" on them! Come to think of it, Mommy and Daddy better watch out, too.

Here's the first picture of the new little tooth just starting to poke through on the bottom.

As always, she's been SUCH a good girl about the whole teething thing. She hasn't really been very fussy at all. She's had a few moments when she will chew on anything she can get her hands on and whines a little, but all in all, teething has been another easy milestone for us. We are so blessed! Maybe she's just preparing us for the real trouble later on ... ("but I LOVE him!"... Lillianna at age 15?) :)