A Day in Edina

I've decided I need to document more photos and outings with my friends.

These girls are like my home away from home, and I will love to look back at these posts when we all have to move next year (boohoo).

Anyway,

My friends Stephanie, Jaewon, and I had been planning a girls day for quite a while.  

We hang out all the time at night when our husbands are studying and Carson's down for the night.

But we decided a real girls day out was in order.

We drove down to Edina, a city near Minneapolis that is quite a bit nicer.

We stopped for brunch at The Lynn on Bryant and ordered all sorts of fun food.

We ordered three things (chickpea fries, a delicious omelet, and blueberry German pancakes) to share.

After brunch, we headed over to a local thrift store, Hunt and Gather.

It is more of a museum of fun artifacts than a usual thrift store.

We had fun roaming through the gigantic store and ended up buying a few old maps of places we or our husbands have lived.

After the thrift store, we hit up 50th and France, a street with lots of cute shops.

We had such a fun time, and I can't wait for our next girls day out!

 

Thanks for the pics Steph!

Punkin Patch

Fall is such a fun season.

I feel like our little family only got to enjoy it for one day this year though.

Steve has been so busy with school and job applications that we haven't been able to do much as a family.

Also, it doesn't help that Minneapolis' fall is basically over and the weather is in the 40's now.

But last Saturday we made the best of our blustery fall day and went out to Afton Apple Orchard with some friends in the ward.

First we checked out the petting zoo.

And had fun walking around the grounds.

Then we picked our pumpkins.

And we all became expert apple pickers.

We had a blast with these two little munchkins and their family.

 

Aren't they cute?  I love watching Carson make friends with kids his age.

And of course, we couldn't resist this photo op.

 

 Well, it was fun fall! I guess we will have to welcome winter here soon!

Carson--15 months!

It seems like after Carson turned one, the months flew by!

The older he gets, the faster time goes.

I am loving this stage of his life right now.

He seems to learn something new every day.

Carson weighs 24 lb. 10 oz (50%) and is 33 inches tall (90%). He is in 18 and 24 month clothes and size 4 diapers. He has 9 teeth and probably has a couple more molars just itching to get out.

I love this pic so much.  If you know Carson, this face basically sums him up.

His new tricks include:

--Folding his arms to pray with us

--Dancing!  He is a dancin boy and always does when there is music on

--Kicking his ball

--Shooting his ball in his basketball hoop

(I would not be surprised if this kid is a professional athlete one day.  His ball skills seriously amaze me.  And he kicks and throws with his left foot/hand, which is apparently good in the world of sports??)

--Turning on my iPhone and swiping to the home screen (sadly enough)

--Posing for my camera when I get my phone out.  It's not quite a smile, but it sure is cute so I'll take it.

--Building blocks and stacking rings.

--Giving hugs on command

--He is trying to use a spoon.  I finally let him try a few weeks ago and he loves trying, but I am not loving how messy this process is.

--He loves his stuffed animals.  I can name random animals in our apartment and he will go over and get them and start kissing them

--Carson is starting to actually obey us when we say "no".

--He is so friendly to strangers.  I can't go to Target without him yelling out "hi!" to almost everyone he sees.

His list of words to date are:

mama, dada, hi!, hey!, wow, woah, yay, yeah, dog, owl, ow,  ball, "doe" for "no", and I'm pretty sure I heard him say "go" tonight when we were running all over our apartment.

 

This is such a fun age but it sure is frustrating for him.  He understands so much more than he can say and gets frustrated very easily.  He loves to hit us and say "ow!" when he's mad and if we aren't close enough to hit, he hits himself.  Isn't that strange?  I have heard it's normal though.  I feel as though he is already starting the "terrible two's".  Good thing he has such a sweet side most of the time to make up for it!

Thanks again, Stephanie, for capturing these moments.  I will cherish these photos and funny faces of Carson forever!

Family Pictures!

We just got our family pictures back and I am sooo happy with them.

Stephanie Hyde took them and I was so impressed with how comfortable she made us feel.

It felt more like hanging out than having our pictures taken.

Here are some of my favorites.

 

 

 

 

 

Didn't she do an amazing job?  I seriously can't decide which ones to frame.  Good thing it is so easy to upload so many to social media.  

There are plenty more cute ones of Carson too, but I am saving them for my next blog post:)