Vacation Slideshow And All Its Details

As a family, we were at the Parker Compound in Hancock, Wisconsin.  Below are some pictures from our trip.  A few tips for the slideshow and my captions.  If you want the autoplay to stop, simply hit the pause button (of course), but as a heads up, the pause button comes and goes depending on where you place your mouse/cursor.

Secondly, if you want the captions feature off, click on the the little word bubble in the bottom left corner (again its presence or absence will depend on where you cursor is).

Finally, you can also watch the slideshow on Picassa. Click on the colorful Picassa rainbow circle at the bottom right of the slideshow AND THEN click on the hypertext that says "2014-7-21."  Clicking on that will take you to the Picassa site, which has a slideshow option that is much cleaner and easier to look at.  If I were, say, a grandparent, these extra steps may be worth the hassle since I don't get to see these kids much.  Sorry I cannot put the link in directly but I have to write this post in HTML mode and it has been too long since I shared a link posting this way and I have forgotten how to do it. I really wish this weren't so clunky, but for some reason Google, who owns both Blogger and Picassa, has chosen to make interfacing between Blogger and Picassa difficult. I think they want to steer everyone on Blogger to Google Plus, but that is just a guess.

Anyway, the trip itself was awesome.  Everyone had a lot of fun and I am sure it is fun for Emily to see her kids grow up with their (second) cousins making memories in the exact same place Emily did, with her own cousins, who are now moms with her.  I know I enjoyed watching my kids enjoy themselves.

Countdown to Happy

I have never been this pregnant before!  Actually, these pictures are from a few weeks ago when I was 34 weeks.  My brother-in-law, Ben,  was kind enough to take some pictures of us before we are four.  Plus, I really wanted my own baby bump shot like this one of my sister.  It was weird to think that by that time Charlotte was already born.  So, this is all new to me - I never outgrew maternity clothes before.  

Baby bump peek-a-boo

Charlotte running with her egg sandwich



Our little family.  People always ask if Charlotte is excited.  I think it's too abstract for a 2 1/2 year old.  Mike asked Charlotte what we should name the baby and she said, "Happy."  So, we've been talking about where Happy is going to sleep, and she says goodnight to Baby Happy at bedtime.  But, I'm sure it will be a big surprise for Charlotte.  She loves to play with diapers and wipes, so maybe she will like helping?  Charlotte herself is a very happy baby and she's pretty resilient.   I think she'll be a good big sister.

Two Generations of Parkers

My Uncle Dick turned 70 this weekend.  Some family came to town to celebrate the big birthday.  It is also the Art-A-Whirl and my aunt Mary Jo has a painting featured at Flow Art Space.  How cool.  I want to be like her when I grow up.  We still refer to the aunts and uncles as "the grown ups" even though us kids are all grown up too.  Eight of us cousins grew up together in Minnesota.  All girls.  Even though there are 16 years between the oldest (me) and youngest (Hannah), now that we are all grown up, it's kind of like we are the same age.  It is crazy to think that one day WE will be the grown ups.  For now, we just want to get a picture of all us with our babies.  Finally, today all the babies were awake at the same time so we could get a picture.  But one of the new grown ups is missing. Where is Hannah?

Hannah and Bailey

Baby Mae

Oscar and Liam

Spring Break!

For spring break, we drove from Minneapolis to San Antonio to visit Mike's family.  It's 20 hours of driving and we spread it out with 2 overnight stops.  The drive was actually pretty fun.  We stopped at children's museums, parks, and restaurants that have been featured on Diners, Drive ins, and Dives.  We really enjoyed the Wonderscope Children's Museum in Shawnee, Kansas  and the Ernie Miller Nature Park in Olathe, Kansas.   Charlotte, who normally goes to sleep without a peep, was totally out of sorts in the hotels.  We had a great time in San Antonio, where we got to eat at couple other restaurants featured on Diners, Drive ins, and Dives.  We spent a lot of time just hanging out outside or playing games at Suze's.   Spring in San Antonio is like summer in Minnesota - perfect weather.  All in all, it was a great trip.  We will definitely do the road trip again!  Here is a slideshow of some of the highlights of our trip:

Sorry if this is a redundant post for those of you who also read my sister's blog.... but I have to document the Nawrocki Carroll's visit on our blog too!  The other night we all had dinner at the Garvin's.  Last summer, Calvin asked me if Art was his cousin and I said not technically, but he is like an honorary cousin.

All the kids playing ball.

Charlotte and her Uncle Brian.

Baby Music

My sister, Jessica, teaches Music Together so we signed up for her class.  It's music class for babies and families.  Last night was the first class and Charlotte had the highest adult:child ratio (4:1).   My sister is a fabulous teacher and the class was a lot of fun.

My sister, Jessica, showing us how to make music.

Here we are singing a song with some eggs that you shake.

We're singing to Charlotte and shaking our eggs at her.

Now Jessie is shaking her egg at Charlotte.

A quiet song at the end of the class.